Some Guy's Blog

Texas Bar Sues Church: “

In a small Texas town, (Mt. Vernon) Drummond’s bar began construction on a new building to increase their business. The local Baptist church started a campaign to block the bar from opening with petitions and prayers. Work progressed right up till the week before opening when lightning struck the bar and it burned to the ground. 

The church folks were rather smug in their outlook after that, until the bar owner sued the church on the grounds that the church was ultimately responsible for the demise of his building, either through direct or indirect actions or means. The church vehemently denied all responsibility or any connection to the building’s demise in its reply to the court.

As the case made its way into court, the judge looked over the paperwork. At the hearing he commented, ‘I don’t know how I’m going to decide this, but as it appears from the paperwork, we have a bar owner who believes in the power of prayer, and an entire church congregation that does not.’

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I don’t know about you, but this was a much appreciated chuckle for me today – thanks Jim.

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(Via alexking.org.)

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Eight Steps: “

[Technorati tags: Cartoons, Chickens, Life, Death, How-to, Instructions]”

(Via Savage Chickens.)

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Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone: “

This is awesome, only because it’s so rare to see sanity in these matters:

Was I worried? Yes, a tinge. But it didn’t strike me as that daring, either. Isn’t New York as safe now as it was in 1963? It’s not like we’re living in downtown Baghdad.

Anyway, for weeks my boy had been begging for me to please leave him somewhere, anywhere, and let him try to figure out how to get home on his own. So on that sunny Sunday I gave him a subway map, a MetroCard, a $20 bill, and several quarters, just in case he had to make a call.

No, I did not give him a cell phone. Didn’t want to lose it. And no, I didn’t trail him, like a mommy private eye. I trusted him to figure out that he should take the Lexington Avenue subway down, and the 34th Street crosstown bus home. If he couldn’t do that, I trusted him to ask a stranger. And then I even trusted that stranger not to think, ‘Gee, I was about to catch my train home, but now I think I’ll abduct this adorable child instead.’

Long story short: My son got home, ecstatic with independence.

Long story longer, and analyzed, to boot: Half the people I’ve told this episode to now want to turn me in for child abuse. As if keeping kids under lock and key and helmet and cell phone and nanny and surveillance is the right way to rear kids. It’s not. It’s debilitating—for us and for them.

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(Via jwz.)

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From the “Totally Believable Department”

Iraq war plans are totally useless — otherwise our Determined Enemies might learn something from all the supposedly Top Secret documents just sitting on web servers that anybody can access.

If you want to know when and where the Army Corps of Engineers is building oil-pipeline stuff or security fences around U.S. bases or new torture prisons whatever, it’s all online! You don’t even need a password or anything.

To fuck with the military, Associated Press reporters are constantly downloading this stuff and then telling the Defense Department about the security problems. Then the Army guys scream and yell and demand that the AP reporters delete the secret plans and maps and whatever, but a week later it’s all back on the same computers again, ready for download.

The Pentagon is clearly trying to give this stuff away, but there just aren’t any takers.

Military files left unprotected online [AP/Yahoo]

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Wonkette.)

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Jeremy is winning! Who would have guessed?

Dept. Of National Disgrace: Majority of Americans Now UnAmerican; Nation Renamed UnAmerica: “

A shocking new survey proves that the majority of Americans are now, in fact, anti-American. According to the Pew Research people, only 49% of Americans now completely agree with the statement, ‘I am patriotic.’

The percentage of True Patriots hasn’t been so low since 1999, when the nation was wealthy and at peace.

Who Flies the Flag? Not Always Who You Might Think [Pew Research]

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(Via Wonkette.)

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