Get It Now For Christmas!

Talking Iraqi Dis-Information Minister This action figure of the "curiously absent" Iraqi Dis-Information Minister is 12" and he talks.

Why Lawyers Want to Work for the Raiders

The Raiders claim Tampa Bay's pirate logo is too similar to Oakland's. And the Raiders object to the Panthers' uniforms because two colors -- silver and black -- match those of the Raiders.

NFL spokesman Joe Browne said the issue is one of a handful that remain from a 1996 suit by the Raiders listing multiple grievances against the league. Some were transferred to courts in Los Angeles, where another Raider case against the league is being fought.

Possibly JPII's Last Encylical

Ecclesia de Eucharistia

A Significant Court Decision That Could Positively Effect Homeshoolers

In reading this press release note that here in California, legal homeschools are effectively considered to be private schools.

The [7th Circuit Court of Appeals] held that social workers violated the Fourth Amendment when they force their way into a private school, Greendale Baptist Academy, to interview students in a child abuse investigation involving no emergency. The court also held that the social workers violated the rights of parents when they threatened to remove the children from the home when they “had no reason whatsoever to suspect that Mr. and Mrs. Doe were abusing their children.”

The case arose when social workers, acting on stale information several months old, forced their way into a private Christian school without a warrant, over the objections of the school principal, seized a 10 year old boy with police assistance, and interviewed him about the school’s policy of administering a “swat” as discipline in certain cases. Parents of the students had given written approval of the disciplinary policy.

Can Jurors Use the Bible in Deciding Whether to Impose the Death Penalty?

A very interesting question that will be addressed by this case . (Note some of the names of the people who are involved -- Lord, Salter...)

UC Davis Students Challenge Anti-Conservative Discrimination

There were only about six of them, but hey, they got news coverage. If you can get that, even if it isn't necessarly favorable, then you've accomplished something significant.

Spend the Day with Jose

If you win, just don't ask him to drive you anywhere or mention his ex-wife Esther. A dangerous combination, if ever there was one.

Bishop Tells Daschle to Stop Identifying Himself as Catholic

Link via The Drudge Report

This isn't exactly excommunication--which is unnecessary, in any case, since Daschle made himself ineligible for communion almost 20 years ago with his divorce and remarriage to a Washington lobbyist. The directive from Sioux Falls' Bishop Robert Carlson is rather something less than excommunication--and, at the same time, something more: a declaration that Tom Daschle's religious identification constitutes, in technical Catholic vocabulary, a grave public scandal.

How the Networks Can Control America

Liz Cho could be doling out propaganda that would make Baghdad Bob proud, and I still probably wouldn't even notice.

How Protestants Are Like Bill Clinton

This report on Monica Lewinsky got me to thinking about Bill Clinton's infamous question about and difficulty with the definition of "is". Seems to me that most, if not all, Protestants (and probably quite a few poorly catechized Catholics) have a similar difficulty with the word in that they view Jesus' comment in Mt 26:26, "This is my body", as being a statement of symbolism rather than literal. Can you imagine what Jesus would have said had one of the Apostles asked Him for clarification on the meaning of "is"? "Truly, truly I say to you, thou art a blithering idiot. Get a clue."

Just War Evidence Keeps Mounting

American troops raided the home of the mastermind of Saddam Hussein's biological weapons lab on Wednesday and discovered a sprawling, recently abandoned terrorist training camp south of Baghdad as they dug for secrets from a dead regime.

I think Pres. Bush needs to seriously consider lifting the "no gloating zone" he imposed over the White House sometime soon.

Lamest Excuse I Ever Heard

A news item about people who engage in sadomasochism for the "exercise". Uh yeah, and men buy Playboy for the interesting articles.

Wealthy L.A. Suburb Repeals Anti-Adultery Law

Yeah it may be archaic and never enforced, but why not keep it on the books as an official gesture toward moral values and the sanctity of traditional marriage?

Mary Baker Eddy Would Probably Not Have Approved

The former treasurer of a New Hampshire church [of Christ Scientist] pleaded guilty to charges he stole $1.6 million from the church during a six-year period and left it with less than $100 in its accounts.

More Separation of Church and State Nonsense

The City of Ventura faces suit for having a Latin cross monumnet in a public park.

Stan Kohls, a resident of nearby Somis and another of the men complaining about the cross, said the symbol represents a dangerous intrusion of religion into public life.

"All you have to do is look at Israel or Northern Ireland to see how destructive religion can be when it is brought out in public," said the semiretired special education teacher. "A society that is democratic must be secular as well."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the two biggest mass murderers in history, the Soviet Union and Communist China, consider themselves to be democratic (they had popular elections) as well as officially secular?

Just Wait 'Til They Start Banning Cell Phones

A bouncer at a night club in New York was stabbed to death after he tried to enforce a city ban on smoking in restaurants and bars.

[The victim's] older brother, Tony Blake, said Sunday he blamed the death on the smoking ban. ''I'm very bitter,'' he said. ''It's a senseless murder because of this stupid cigarette law. That's the reason this guy was killed.''

Ichiban!

The masked (and Japanese) version of Jesse Ventura.