Once again, Islam (like all religions) has put a blight on our record as a human society. After a teacher, who let a students name a teddy bear Muhammed, was “only” sentenced to fifteen days in prison, Islamic godbags decided to stage a massive, violent, threatening “protest.” To highlight how stupid the whole incident is, one of the students who voted for the name Muhammed was naming the bear after himself, who was named…Muhammed. It’s just absolutely moronic. I’m sure some Christian godbags will be jumping up and down yelling “See, I told you so, they’re savages.”, as if Christianity has some pure history free of hate of stupidity. Anyone who’s read or even skimmed the bible know how much hatred and bigotry it’s filled with.

Unfortunately, due to my work load and my home life, I will not be able to finish the sequel to my short story, “The Gray”. I was hoping to have it finished for Thanksgiving, but it won’t be ready. However, it isn’t a story revolving around Thanksgiving so there is no problem releasing it later. In the meantime, I point people over to “The Gray” to read, seeing as I picked a bad day to actually put it out. People were busy on Halloween and then forgot about it. No problem.

There will be at least two more stories to be added to this series, and a slight chance for more. Enjoy!

Following his good pieces on traffic congestion and medical marijuana, Drew Carey follows those with a great piece on National City, CA taking away a youth center for condos.

This, of course, is a direct result of the Kelo decision a few years ago where the “Liberal” wing of the Supreme Court ruled that a city or state could take your land away and give it to a private developer because of the hope of some economic benefit. So, while I am not suggesting we all go out and demand more Clarence Thomas and Samula Alito type justices, no one should turn a blind eye to the damage “Liberal” justices can do. Kelo was one of the worst decision during my lifetime, and this piece only just brushes the surface of the future problems because of the decision.

Update: Kelly reminded me of the recent Supreme Court decision related to late term abortions, in which the Supreme Court decided it was a medical board dictating what procedures are legal for doctors to perform. I’ve updated to call Kelo “one of the worst” decisions, though outside of Kelo and the late term abortion Decision, I’m at a loss to think of any more that were so related directly to the concept of personal property and personal privacy.

I’ve hard Ron Paul described as many things. He’s a constitutionalist, he’s a libertarian who is in the Republican party just to get in the game, blah, blah, blah. Today, while driving past a billboard that used to have a Ron Paul ad on it, I heard my first Ron Paul radio commercial. The headline of the ad was loud and clear: Ron Paul is a real Republican. He’s out of the closet now! That’s how he himself is now portraying himself: the only real Republican choice. Finally, he has admitted what I’ve known to be true all along. After all, look at his positions on social issues:

* Against a woman’s right to choose at any point in the pregnancy
* Has been known to laugh at the concept of gay marriage (how respectful)
* Has tried his damnedest to use his *federal* power as Congressman to allow states to push religion into our daily lives
* Has a monthly newsletter bearing his name that has published quotes like “If you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be.”, “We don’t think a child of 13 should be held responsible as a man of 23. That’s true for most people, but black males age 13 who have been raised on the streets and who have joined criminal gangs are as big, strong, tough, scary and culpable as any adult and should be treated as such.”

Yep, definitely sounding like a Real (Southern) Republican now.

Update: As some Ron Paul-bots pointed out, Ron Paul has not been a senator. I wrote that when I meant Congressman. Post has been updated

This week, while violating the establishment clause of the United States Constitution, Governor Sonny Perdue decided to make a public spectacle of himself, praying to “God” for rain. You see, Georgia is suffering from a bad drought, and apparently, if I’m to understand ol’ Sonny, “God” won’t help you unless you get on your knees and whimper for relief. Some “God”, eh?

All snarkiness aside, why would prayer work? Does God not care about you unless you pray? Is there minimum level of prayer needed to effect change? What if people in other states decide to pray for Georgia to not have rain? Whose prayer wins out? Do you get brownie points for praying even if God ignores you? Is God up there laughing at the prospect of people in Georgia running out of water?

Now of course, at some point, it will rain in Georgia. It’s the law of averages, but there will be those who claim God’s intervention was the reason. I tend to think, though, it will just be a case of things returning to the mean. After an extended period of time without rain, people get desperate and start praying, rain dancing or maybe even giving themselves over to Satan. However, at some point, the end of the dry period and the period of panic overlap, leading some people to see a causal relationship between prayer and rain. I hope the majority of Georgian’s see how stupid praying for rain is, and maybe think about actual solutions a state could do to prevent shortages of water in the future.

Skeptics were kind of worried when the show “Phenomenon” was announced as collaboration between Criss Angel and Uri Gellar. Most people who know anything about Gellar know he’s an obvious fraud, and Angel has always been upfront about being only a magician. Were both NBC and Angel selling out for money. Well, the jury is still out for NBC, though it should be noted “Phenomenon” is billed as a search for a great mentalist. Mentalists freely admit what they do is a trick. Banachek is also involved, and he’s well known for being a great mentalist (I saw his act in Vegas and he is amazing at what he does.).

During the last episode, a guy named Jim Callahan who claims to be a “paranormalist” did his act to try to impress Gellar and Angel. You can see the whole act right here:

(link to it here: Awful Mentalism Act)

Now, I’m not expert on how to do a mentalism act, but I can tell you that Callahan’s performance was awful. It looked like a bad high school actor’s performance. It was the type of act you tell your kid a white lie about it being good. It wasn’t that good. Gellar, somehow, was impressed. I think (hope) people who see how incredulous Gellar is, will see how full of shit he is. How could the self-proclaimed greatest paranormalist in the world be taken in by such an awful act?

Angel, of course, calls both Gellar and Callahan out, by asking them to tell him what is inside his envelope. If they can tell him, Angel would give them a million dollars of his own money. They both, of course, ignore the challenge as is common when two bit hacks are challenged by a magician with greater skill. Angel knows they are both frauds, called them out on national television, and I think has pretty much ended any speculation (if there was any) that any of the contestants have real powers.

For some reason the incident is being reported as an altercation. I don’t think there was a chance at a physical altercation. I think Callahan stepped toward Angel for dramatic effect and Angel just got out his chair to meet him. I doubt any punches would be thrown. I think this incidence makes up for Angel working with Britney Spears (or nearly working with her) and now makes him a strong skeptic voice (though probably unintentionally so) with regards to psychics and paranormalists.

Shout out to the Skepchick blog for alerting me to this episode.