Considering the recent claims from the fundamentalist Christians over at Family Radio that the world is going to end, and the Rapture will occur, this coming weekend (May 21, 2011), I thought I'd take a look at how the world would be different if all the Christians were, in fact, Raptured.

While those who claim that the end is nigh will argue that anybody left behind is in for a world of misery, I thought I would lighten the load by offering the following Top 10 reasons why the Earth might be a better place after the Rapture:

Well, yesterday, Sony finally came out and admitted that the PlayStation Network (PSN) had been hacked. Apparently, it took them one or two whole days to find out themselves, and then another whole week before they told their customers. Well, I guess I can understand that they wouldn't want to tell anybody that the names, birth dates, email addresses, phone numbers, usernames, passwords, and possibly also credit card info, billing address, and the answers to security questions to all of their 77 million accounts were hacked.

I wouldn't want to admit to that either.

But as a customer, it sure would have been nice to have been notified earlier that I needed to start changing my passwords and security question answers to any other online services that I am a subscriber to. Or that I should start double checking my bank accounts and credit reports for possible fraud.

But these sorts of things happen. A data theft this bad has never happened before, but anytime you put any personal information in an online service, you are taking a risk. So I can't really be too mad that this happened.

What I can be mad about, however, is that Sony pretty much begged for this to happen.

Today marks the anniversary of quite a few historical events of significance.

Today, the American Civil War turns 150 years old, as we observe the anniversary of the April 12, 1861 attack by Confederate troops of Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina. Although a grim occasion on its own right, this attack does have some silver lining, as it began the conflict that would eventually set in motion this nation's steps towards racial equality.

50 years ago today, on April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human being to travel into space and orbit the Earth.

Today is also the 30th anniversary of the 1981 maiden voyage of the space shuttle Columbia, the world's first reusable spacecraft. It was a momentous and cheerful day for space exploration. The shuttle itself met a tragic end, when it disintegrated on re-entry during a mission, killing its seven crew and passengers over 20 years later. I'd like to take this moment to thank the brave men and women of NASA for the heroic work they do expanding the horizons of human knowledge and experience, and to offer my sincerest condolences to the friends and family of all such heroes who did not return.

Last Friday night (March 11th), the NFL Player's Association officially dissolved itself, pulling out of mediated discussions with the NFL over the expiration of the Collective Bargaining Agreement that has been a hot topic within the league for two years now. The dissolution of the NFLPA was quickly followed by the filing of a class-action anti-trust lawsuit against the NFL by a coallition of NFL players including Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, and Drew Brees in order to end the owner-initiated player lockout that began after the union's decertification.

Over the course of the past year, the NFL has made a slew of unpopular decisions including:

Yesterday, the space shuttle Discovery landed on Earth for the final time in its 27-year long career. On Monday, it has been reported that actor William Shatner gave the crew their final mission wake up call:

"These have been the voyages of the space shuttle Discovery, Her 30-year mission: To seek out new science. To build new outposts. To bring nations together on the final frontier. To boldly go, and do, what no spacecraft has done before."

Discovery, which has been taking astronauts into space since before I was even conceived, is expected to be donated to the Smithsonian Institute's National Air and Space Museum following a decontamination procedure. It will replace the space shuttle Enterprise, which will likely go on loan to other museums.