Weekly News

Here are some tidbits that I found a little odd this week:

1. NSA-Whistleblower Snowden is apparently in Russia, stuck like Tom Hanks in The Terminal, and trying to figure out where to go. Enter Russian spy Anna Chapman, who proposes via Twitter: “Snowden, will you marry me?”  No word on whether or not this would fix his asylum requests, but it sure does spice up the movie about this mess. Why Twitter? Well, if Snowden’s right, the governments of multiple countries are listening to your phone calls anyway…

2. Egypt overthrew their government just two years ago. At the time, many people were concerned that the chaos would lead to a semi-dictatorship at the hands of a hardline Islamic group. The Morsi government, backed by the Muslim Brotherhood, sure looked like that was the case, but we sent them weapons anyway. Now, guess what? They’ve overthrown the government for being a semi-dictatorship overly controlled by a hardline Islamic group.

That’s not the odd part. The odd part is this: FoxNews spells the now-former President of Egypt’s name as Morsi. CNN spells it Morsy. I’m not sure if it’s too right-wing to have the “I” or overly Communist to have the “y.” No real explanation on why MSNBC keeps referring to him as Jeb Bush’s lost brother.

3. Apparently, cast members of the TV show Big Brother were caught making racist comments. You mean self-promoting narcissists aren’t always nice people? Wow.

4. Someone is creating a digital comic book series based on Saved by the Bell and Airwolf. Here’s hoping they don’t make that a mashup and give Zach an almost indestructible combat helicopter.

5. In parts of NASCAR that I do not understand, why do they penalize teams for catching an illegal part in pre-race, pre-qualifying inspection? Isn’t taking the parts off the car and making you redo it enough? I understand zapping someone for cheating during the race, but before they do it? Imagine this in the NFL: “Alright, you will kickoff from your own end zone. We noticed that a few of your guys were across the line during warm-ups, so that’s an offside penalty.

6. I have a book to read next week called Good Ideas from Questionable Christians and Outright Pagans: An Introduction to Key Thinkers and Philosophies. Why? Because I think the truth of God is part of reality, and so is visible even in those who reject Him, so I want to learn.

7. I loved the story of the man who hogtied a burglar and left him in the yard for the police. How much you want to bet he’s going to get in trouble, though?

8. The State Department spent $630K on Facebook likes, and still people don’t like them. Facebook advertising may not be that great, folks.

9. First No-hitter of baseball this season was pitched by the guy who pitched the last one of last year. What’s he doing, monopolizing the stat?

10. Google Reader was retired this week, ending one of the ways in which I waste time. I will fill this void with more Twitter follows.