Bag of Randomness for Wednesday, December 16, 2015

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  • There wasn’t much on television last night, but I caught part one of the NFL Network ‘The Timeline’ which focused on the San Francisco and Dallas rivalry.
    • It had two narrators, Jeremy Renner and Sam Elliott.  Renner voiced all the San Francisco parts and Elliott did the ones for Dallas, as if they were having a conversation with each other but with some banter thrown in.
    • I never really thought how both cities boomed in pop-culture and in business when their teams were at the top of their games in each decade (Seventies for the Cowboys, Eighties for the Niners), and how downtrodden each city was when their teams were performing poor in those decades (Seventies for the Niners, Eighties for the Cowboys).
    • Eddie Debartolo stated after he bought the 49’ers he was trying to model them like the Cowboys.
    • Grant Hill stated that Roger Staubach was responsible for naming him.
    • Landry chose Doug Cosby in the draft over Joe Montana.
    • I never knew that after “The Catch”, Montana went up to Too Tall Jones and talked smack.  At the time, Staubach was on the opposite ten-yard line as a CBS correspondent.
    • Jerry Rice said he grew up a Cowboys fan and always wanted to play for the team, especially for Tom Landry.
    • There was an old Bill O’Reilly clip of when he was a local reporter and stated that at one home game, the Cowboys had 20,000 empty seats at the stadium.
    • I never put together that Bill Walsh and Tom Landry both coached their last NFL season at the same time.  Debartolo stated he talked to Jimmy Johnson about taking over for Walsh.
    • You get to see the inside of Jerry Jones’ house where he talks about his Norman Rockwell painting, The Toss.
    • Part 2 airs on Saturday.
  • I found out yesterday I haven’t used enough of my earned vacation time for the year. We are allowed to rollover 40 hours from one year to another, but even with my already scheduled vacation time for the end of the year, I’ve got 60 hours to burn.
  • If I read this Wired article correctly, the Omni in Fort Worth is going to show the new Star Wars movie in the IMAX domed theater, and I think their website confirms it, as I believe their only theater is the domed one.   That might just be a pretty cool experience.
  • There’s a $5 million dollar “European Castle” for sale in Southlake, and while the interior looks spiffy, I’m not that impressed from what I’ve seen of other houses in that area.
  • Remember when everyone pundit thought that Gov Chris Christie was going to the bully of the race?
  • Buzzfeed – A New Mom’s Fiancé And Mother Died In A Car Crash On The Way To The Hospital
  • Coming To Texas: Special-Ed Cams To Protect Students From Their Own Teachers – The Lone Star State passed a law in June that made it the first in the nation to make it mandatory for schools — if asked to do so — to videotape interactions between teachers and their special-needs students.
  • Creationists expanding institute to include the ‘Dallas Museum of Science and Earth History’ – The Institute for Creation Research, which teaches there’s scientific proof that God created the earth in six days, is ready to expand its headquarters in Northwest Dallas, adding a museum and “3D planetarium” to its existing facility at Royal Lane and Luna Road.
  • Castaway survives year at sea, sued for ‘eating colleague’
  • Reporters in Las Vegas Try to Crack Case of Who Owns Their Newspaper
  • If you are a big fan of statistics and data, you might appreciate this – A Day in the Life of Americans – This is how America runs.
  • Google Play Books Gets A Feature To Make It Easier To Read At Night
  • Linda Ellerbee on The End of ‘Nick News’
  • The Mysterious, Disputed Birth Of America’s Greatest Supercar – The Saleen S7 is a mystifying car, a $375,000 American mid-engine supercar that sprung up out of nowhere in the year 2000. 
  • The Ford GT’s windshield will be Gorilla Glass, just like your smartphone screen
  • Autotune is a by-product of the oil industry – The Inventor of Auto-Tune
Posted in Personal | 6 Comments

For God and country: more U.S. pastors seek political office in 2016

One Sunday two years ago, Pastor Rob McCoy, who believes in banning abortion and gay marriage and putting prayer back in schools, stood at the pulpit of his California mega church and announced he was endorsing a political candidate: himself.McCoy represents a tactical shift within a Christian far right seeking to regain its political influence after losing several big battles in the so-called culture wars, including the Supreme Court ruling this year allowing gay marriage. That shift is being brought into sharp focus as activists prepare the battleground for the 2016 general election.

McCoy represents a tactical shift within a Christian far right seeking to regain its political influence after losing several big battles in the so-called culture wars, including the Supreme Court ruling this year allowing gay marriage. That shift is being brought into sharp focus as activists prepare the battleground for the 2016 general election.

Aiming to motivate conservative Christians, they are focusing on smaller political races, local ballot initiatives and community voter registration drives.

At the center of the effort is the American Renewal Project, an umbrella group that says it has a network of 100,000 pastors. It is headed by evangelical Republican political operative David Lane, who wants to recruit 1,000 pastors to run for elected office in 2016.

So far, roughly 500 have committed to running, Lane told Reuters.

Full Article

Posted in Political, Spiritual | Comments Off on For God and country: more U.S. pastors seek political office in 2016