An Iraqi immigrant, 48-year-old Faleh Almaleki, has been arrested for punishing his daughter for becoming “too Westernized” according to this MSNBC article. Okay, maybe “punishing” wasn’t the most accurate word for me to use. Here’s what the article says. An Iraqi immigrant has been arrested in Georgia for allegedly running down his daughter because she …
Monthly Archives: October 2009
Hate Crime Legislation Updated
Existing hate crime legislation has been updated with the passing of a new federal law designed to include crimes based on gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability. The Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, named for a gay man who was murdered eleven years ago, expands the original list of criteria which includes race, …
Fascination with The Absurd
Although I never agreed with the beliefs of Christianity and all other theologies on the planet I atleast understood why they came into existence. My personal belief is that religions came into existence to explain the unexplainable. The things that as human beings scared us were explained by beliefs and supernatural beings. Earthquakes, vulcanic eruptions, tidal …
My daughter is awesome!
This evening, I was waiting for my new laptop to get through all its updates and my wife and I were watching NCIS while waiting, which allowed my eight-year-old daughter to stay up a little later than usual because… you know… we didn’t want to miss any of the NCIS episode to go tuck her …
Bush is now a motivational speaker
George W. Bush has started making the rounds as a motivational speaker and was given a warm welcome at a Texas event attended by around 15,000 people. He was speaking along with Colin Powell, Terry Bradshaw, and Rudy Giuliani among others. Bush was not the headliner of the event and only spoke for about thirty …
Director Paul Haggis quits Scientology
It’s a bad week for Scientology, it seems. Paul Haggis, the film director who directed the movie Crash (and won an Oscar for it) has quit the Church of Scientology after 35 years partly over the church’s position on gay marriage. According to the article… Haggis wrote a letter addressed to Tommy Davis, the head …
Tommy Davis can’t answer questions
Speaking of Scientology, Tommy Davis, one of Scientology’s most obnoxious spokespeople, was interviewed by Martin Bashir on Nightline in a segment about Scientology. Bashir asks him an entirely legitimate question about Xenu and Davis dances all around the question, feigning offense, and refuses to answer the question. When Bashir clarifies that he’s just doing his …
Scientology Convicted of Fraud in France
A Paris court has convicted the “Church” of Scientology of fraud and has fined it over half a million Euros, though the court didn’t go so far as to shut it down and ban it from operating in France. The case has been under investigation for more than a decade, it seems. Unlike the United …
Goodbye, Smallpox! Thanks, Science!
Today is the 32nd anniversary of the elimination of smallpox, according to Wikipedia. How was it eliminated? Vaccines. That’s medical science at its best… not “alternative” medicine, not homeopathy, not prayer, not the “Will of God.” Science. Real people doing real research to develop real solutions to real problems. Nothing works like science. Phil Plait …
Fun with church signs
Occasionally, I see a church sign that just begs to be addressed. A local church recently changed their sign to read: Time well spent is time spent in prayer. I know that the idea that a god listens to (and answers) prayers is something that is foundational to many peoples’ religious beliefs. Hearing the phrases …