Random

✽ 67% of Americans consider Easter to be a religious holiday only 42% understand that it is related to the resurrection of Jesus. ~ link

✽ Lectures vs laptops:

Lecturing professors nowadays face a room full of students paying full attention -- to their laptops. A lecture, by definition, is a method of teaching whereby a person talks and an audience pays attention. But a laptop is an interruption machine that fragments attention. Lectures and laptops are incompatible activities. Some professors have addressed the fundamental incompatibility of lectures and laptops by banning the laptops. But maybe it would be better to keep the laptops and ban the lectures. ~ Mike Elgan

✽ More starvation in the forecast for North Korea ~ link

✽ Basically, the court's logic has been that the phrases "In God we trust" and "under God" have no real impact anyway so you can't argue that it is a matter of establishing religion. That should tell us something about which hills to die on. ~ link

✽ It's hard to believe that Jerry Falwell, Jr has a BA in religious studies. Apparently his degree from Liberty University did not require course work in biblical studies, hermeneutics, or theology. Okay, maybe I'm too snarky but the stuff he is saying and the logic he is using really seems to be out there. ~ link

✽ Phonebooth is an impressive alternative to Google Voice. ~ link

✽ The fine people of Somerton, Arizona buried a time capsule capsule 25 years ago. When they dug it up on Saturday the bottle of brandy was missing. (Cue up Twilight Zone music) ~ link

✽ "The Robert E. Webber Institute for Worship Studies (IWS) here has been granted Accredited Status by the Commission on Accreditation of the Association for Biblical Higher Education (ABHE)." ~ link

✽ Presbyterians are different. ~ link

✽ Of course, the search engine companies are going to support "A broadband catapult for America." I suspect that it will be the Internet Service Providers who are going to feel cheated if the government pulls the rug out from under them. Those are the guys the FCC will have to get on board or their great low-cost high-bandwidth idea will become an entangled court case. We already knew what Google thought.