Freedom of Religion?
Permalink | March 7, 2008 by John in In the News, Religion
But not freedom from religion.
Atheist Soldier Says Army Punished Him (via Dvorak Uncensored):
TOPEKA, Kan. AP — A soldier claimed Wednesday that his promotion was blocked because he had claimed in a lawsuit that the Army was violating his right to be an atheist.
Attorneys for Spc. Jeremy Hall and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation refiled the federal lawsuit Wednesday in Kansas City, Kan., and added a complaint alleging that the blocked promotion was in response to the legal action.
The suit was filed in September but dropped last month so the new allegations could be included. Among the defendants are Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
Hall alleges he was denied his constitutional right to hold a meeting to discuss atheism while he was deployed in Iraq with his military police unit. He says in the new complaint that his promotion was blocked after the commander of the 1st Infantry Division and Fort Riley sent an e-mail post-wide saying Hall had sued.
A little further down…
Hall’s attorneys say Fort Riley has permitted a culture promoting Christianity and anti-Islamic sentiment, including posters quoting conservative columnist Ann Coulter and sale of a book, “A Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam,” at the post exchange.
It never fails to amaze/sadden me that so many look at the events of 9/11 and the attack on the U.S.S. Cole, et al, and conclude that only islam is the problem, not all religion. But to quote Christopher Hitchens, “Religion poisons everything.”
Justice
Permalink | March 6, 2008 by John in Dating/Relationships, In the News, Leykis
Man to get child support back (via The Tom Leykis Show)
Judge David Roper said he felt badly for Kenneth Samuels when he learned the child he had fathered for 11 years wasn’t his.
Justice was also shortchanged, the judge said, because Mr. Samuels had been paying child support all of those years.
Last month, Judge Roper ruled that Jamie Hope, the child’s mother, and Oba Wallace, the child’s biological father, would have to repay Mr. Samuels $14,460 in child support he had paid since 1997.
Such an order is unusual, but not unique.
I doubt this would’ve been the outcome had this taken place in California or if the Judge was female. All too often the poor schlub who got stuck paying for a kid that wasn’t his, either doesn’t get the money back or, far worse, the man has to keep paying even though the kid isn’t his.
Hopefully Samuels can collect.
The Ending I Wanted
Permalink | by John in Entertainment
The Original Ending To I AM LEGEND is online - and is vastly superior to the theatrical ending…
Over at FirstShowing.Net - they’ve gotten their hands on the original ending of I AM LEGEND. It is spectacular. It isn’t at all the ending of the novel, but it works, it has weight. I liked it a lot. And even though the animation is pretty damn great…. It’s still exactly that… it’s animation, and I want in a scene constructed like that to BELIEVE in what I’m seeing. This make sense to anyone?
Video and spoilers after the jump…
Germany or Florida?
Permalink | March 5, 2008 by John in Carolla, In the News, Interesting/Trivia
There’s a bit they run occasionally on The Adam Carolla Show called “Germany or Florida.” One of the staff reads some wacked out news story and the host and sidekick(s) try to guess if it happened in Germany or Florida.
So here’s my version, with a few edits to hide the location. Answer after the jump.
The two men [...] had already tried a traditional recipe using their own blood.
But they were caught trying to recruit fellow servicemen and family members to ensure a constant flow of raw materials.
One of the soldiers posted pictures of himself on a popular [...] website siphoning off their blood and adding it to a recipe for the traditional [blood] sausage using onions, bacon, spices and breadcrumbs.
The incident only came to the attention of senior officers after one of their fellow soldiers reported the fact that he had been asked to donate some blood for the scheme.
The man is reported to have said: “I have been asked to give blood for sausage-making and I want to know if this is against regulations.”