"The stage was set, the lights went down and in a suburban Japanese primary school everyone prepared to enjoy a performance of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The only snag was that the entire cast was playing the part of Snow White. For the audience of menacing mothers and feisty fathers, though, the sight of 25 Snow Whites, no dwarfs and no wicked witch was a triumph: a clear victory for Japan's emerging new class of “Monster Parents." For they had taken on the system and won. After a relentless campaign of bullying, hectoring and nuisance phone calls, the monster parents had cowed the teachers into submission, forcing the school to admit to the injustice of selecting just one girl to play the title role." (Source: Times of London) The reminds of a post I wrote a few years ago about teachers changing the ink color they use for corrections from red to purple.

"What the Media Didn’t Tell You About Friday’s Unemployment Spike" It wasn’t Bush, it wasn’t greedy corporations, or free trade, or history’s most over-predicted recession. It was not the oil companies, income inequality, or the excesses of cowboy capitalism. None of these things caused the unemployment rate to jump a half a percentage point in one month." Get the truth here.

Ever worry about what your friends and family will do without you after you're raptured (assuming they're not saved)? Wish you could leave them a personal message or other important documents? Worry no more! For $40 a year "You've Been Left Behind" will store those documents for you, and in event of a rapture, will send them to email addresses you provide. Ain't that handy?

Eckhart Tolle has been selling New Age teaching for years, but recently it really took off when Oprah gave him a huge spotlight. Millions have been buying into his teaching and not enough Christians have been saying something about it. Thankfully, Marica Montenegro has written a great article online explaining what Tolle is teaching and where it goes wrong: A New Earth, Ancient deception: An evaluation of Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose. I'll be interviewing Richard Abanes regarding his new book on Tolle in the next month or so.

A few months ago I thought to myself, "I wonder if there's ever been a switch-pitcher?" Switch-hitting is a useful talent- just imagine how great switch pitching would be! From what I could find out, there's only been one switch-pitcher to pitch in the major leagues, and it was only one game (I'm not sure why since it sounded like he did well). But yesterday, MLB.com posted a video of a guy currently in the minors: What happens when a switch-pitcher faces a switch-hitter? It'll sure be fun to see him in the majors some day!