Bag of Randomness

  • “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”- Wayne Gretzky
  • “We missed 81.2% of the shots we did take” – Butler University
  • What caught my attention more than anything during yesterday’s broadcast of the men’s title game was the cutting down of the nets and finding out that the ladders that were used was part of a marketing ploy.
  • In case you were ever interested in how the tradition of cutting down the basketball nets and ‘One Shining Moment’ started, here’s your answer.
  • I found an interesting nugget about the Texas Rangers that I had no idea about, and of all things, I found it in a football column:  Behind the Rangers’ dugout is a room with three video men and six stations where players can come in before, during and after games to see their at-bats, or to study the pitchers or hitters they’re about to face. Six. I always knew baseball teams did this stuff, but we were shown how hitters, in a matter of seconds, can find any at-bat they’ve had against any pitcher — from a variety of camera angles.
  • Speaking of the Rangers, I saw their AL Championship rings.  For coming in second place, those rings sure did look blinged out.
  • A character in this book was inspired by WifeGeeding’s father.
  • The discovery of the Air France wreckage two years after the crash sure does seem like a plot out of Lost.
  • I’m surprised of all the attention Pastor Terry Jones is getting for burning the Quran, especially since Westboro Baptist has already done that deed a while back.
  • Phil Collins’ daughter cast as Snow White, no word if Phil will play a dwarf.
  • Walter Cronkite delivering the news of MLK’s death
  • A crazy up-close look at Trumps crazy comb-over
  • America’s Fastest Dying Business
  • Homemade shotgun made from a stapler, some pike, and a few other odds and ends.
  • You can trick news anchors into doing almost anything
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Army atheists seek ‘faith’ privileges

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The cliche notwithstanding, there are atheists in foxholes. In fact, atheists, agnostics, humanists and other assorted skeptics from the Army’s Fort Bragg have formed an organization in a pioneering effort to win recognition and ensure fair treatment for nonbelievers in the overwhelmingly Christian U.S. military.

“We exist, we’re here, we’re normal,” said Sgt. Justin Griffith, chief organizer of Military Atheists and Secular Humanists, or MASH. “We’re also in foxholes. That’s a big one, right there.”

For now, the group meets regularly in homes and bars outside of Fort Bragg, one of the biggest military bases in the country. But it is going through the long bureaucratic process to win official recognition from the Army as a distinct “faith” group.

That would enable it to meet on base, advertise its gatherings and, members say, serve more effectively as a haven for like-minded soldiers.

“People look at you differently if you say you’re an atheist in the Army,” said Lt. Samantha Nicoll, a West Point graduate who in January attended her first meeting of MASH. “That’s extremely taboo. I get a lot of questions if I let it slip in conversation.”

Full Article

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Seattle Doctor Folds and Throws Paper Airplane Using da Vinci Robot

Dr. James Porter, medical director of robotic surgery at Swedish folds a small paper airplane with the da Vinci surgical robot to demonstrate how this device gives surgeons greater surgical precision and dexterity over existing approaches.

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