We disembarked from USS Clueless when last we left the tour, so we will be picking up with the Watchers of Weasels. They have collectively made it their mission to blog about the “Weasels” that seem to be tearing down the fabric of our nation, but they appear to have exceeded their monthly bandwidth for August, and I am, therefore, unable to comment on any recent posts. Check back tomorrow, because they are usually worth some serious perusal.

Moving on to our next stop, we pause to warm our hands at Who Tends The Fires. They are blogging about the joys and wonders of being new parents of a particularly cute little boy. Kinda reminds me of me, but without the poop-spattered bedclothes.

Getting blown across to Winds of Change, we find the tradional Shabbat Shalom (the Sabbath of Peace) posts from yesterday, and talking about SCO vs. Linux. Winds always has an interesting take on the day’s events, and I spend far too little time there. Swing by and see what you think of them.

We next take a peek over the fence of sanity into the Wrong Side of History, where those statements from people who have mistaken Fame for Wisdom have been archived, so that they may never just automatically assume that people will just forget how idiotic they have been. With people denying their comments with the frequency and force they have, an archive such as this is not only beneficial, it is crucial. Oh, and Janeane? You still owe Bush a crawling-across-broken-glass apology, you sanctimonious bee-yatch. It’s been a while since they’ve updated (more than six weeks, in fact), but I have hopes that they will pick it up again, sooner rather than later.

Finally, we have “You Big Mouth, You!”, run by an EMT who is willing to share the sanitized stories of his day, plus the occasional rant about the ever-present idiotarians, the situation in Iraq, and cats. Lots of cats. He’s usually highly eloquent, and always a good reality check for those days when I want to complain about how bad my day has been.

Thus endeth the tour. I will be trying to get my DSL back up by the end of the week (if I’m lucky), and maybe I can narrow it down to a slightly quicker procedure, and repeat the tour maybe once a month.

Hope you’re celebrating the worker, rather than the unions. Have a great holiday.

1. Cameron Diaz and Adam Sandler were the highest paid actress and actor (respectively. I think.) last year. (I never want to hear anyone say “It’s all about looks!” ever again. M’kay?)

2. I have gotten fed up. I connected my dial-up account last night, and discovered that my speed meter was only clocking a 14.4 connection. So what if my DSL only links up half the time? It’s still 60 times faster, and I could still get much more on-line work done than that utterly pisspoor connection that was out-of-date a decade ago.

So I groveled a bit. I called up Verizon, and told them I want my DSL back. NOW! I explained that I understood that they couldn’t guarantee the connection would be reliable. I said if I can only get on-line for a few hours a day, rather than 24/7, I could live with it.

I did reserve the right to call and complain if there is no connection within a 24-hour period, but just a few hours per day is better than not being able to get phone calls while I’m on-line, and waiting for literally minutes for a webpage to load if I’m simultaneously surfing the web and conducting a search on the topic under discussion. (Such as the Ten Commandments monument fiasco.)

3. “Doctor” Laura Schlessinger is possibly one of the most annoying females on the planet. She gives conservatism a really bad name. Her advice to her radio audience is almost always accusatory and insulting. Her opinions are archaic, and she uses sources with which she has only the vaguest familiarity. Her f*cking “doctorate” is is Physiology, not in any kind of the medical or psychological sciences. That entitles her to use that label, but she is representing herself as some sort of expert of interpersonal relationships, which she most assuredly isn’t.

She is an unforgiving harridan who feels that she has been given the authority to judge the morals of others who are calling for situational advice, while ignoring her own “youthful indiscretions” and verbal faux pas. (Yes, “Doctor” Laura, I’ve seen the pics...)

4. That kiss on last night’s Video Music Awards. I’m not quite sure what message they were trying to send when they switched from Madonna kissing Britney to Justin Timberlake’s face… .

But the camera cut back in time to see the end of the Material Girl kissing Christina Aguilera. (Seeing as how there is no way of knowing exactly where Madonna’s mouth has been, I wonder which one dove for the Listerine barrel first - Britney or X-Tina?)

5. There is nooooo ..... Number Five.

It is suspected that Saddam loyalists were responsible for the blasts (it is now reported that there may have been as many as three explosions). But it begs the question that if the average Iraqi in the street can figure this out, then how is it going to cause the United States to leave the country? There have been calls from some Iraqis for the US to hurry up and make sure that these idjits can’t kill any more Iraqis.

But another problem is the fact that the various sects of Islam feel that it’s perfectly okay to blow up their theological competitors, whether it is “infidels” or just the difference between the Sunni and Shi’a branches of Islam. They call themselves the “Religion of Peace”, but you don’t see Cardinal Law ordering the assassination of Jerry Falwell. (Covering up the molestation of little boys, sure, but not murder!)

Or Billy Graham blowing up an Episcopalian sanctuary, or whatever. Only Muslims seem to think that it is okay to go kill innocents because of their religious beliefs, and their imams preach the joys of martyrdom with every mosque prayer session.

I’ve known a few Muslims (including a nice young guy in the Navy), and most of them were fairly intelligent and ethical beings. None of them would have been willing to kill me as an “infidel”, but the Muslims in the Middle East apparently see no better way to waste their life than to strap a few blocks of C-4 around his waist, and go kill a Jewish grandmother or two, because their imam says that these little old women drink blood and eat Palestinean babies as a part of their religious celebrations. (That’s called “Blood Libel” and goes on every day in madrassas. Just yesterday an Egyptian newspaper published a story that claimed that American soldiers were committing acts of cannibalism.)

But we have to treat them with kid gloves, right? After all, we might “offend” them…

Bastards.

Oh, before I forget, thanks for stopping by.

Federal Law trumps State Law. But even if it weren’t against the First Amendment (in that the posting of a religious monument could be reasonably construed as the government endorsing a particular sect or religion) and the Fourteenth Amendment (in that people of that particular religion are represented at public expense, at the direct cost to all taxpayers, while those other religions are not represented, thus there is no “equal treatment under the law"), it is also against Alabama’s State Constitution, specifically the 3rd Amendment.

I’ll quote it for you:

That no religion shall be established by law; that no preference shall be given by law to any religious sect, society, denomination, or mode of worship; that no one shall be compelled by law to attend any place of worship; nor to pay any tithes, taxes, or other rate for building or repairing any place of worship, or for maintaining any minister or ministry; that no religious test shall be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under this state; and that the civil rights, privileges, and capacities of any citizen shall not be in any manner affected by his religious principles.

(Emphasis mine)

So we have a judge, who is, by his very job description, an elected arbiter of the law, decreeing that his courthouse shall have a display supporting a specific religion, which gives a preference to that specific religion.

That same judge can compel people to show up at his “place of ministry” (he did have a religious display in the lobby, where people cannot avoid it), and has the authority to confine people for contempt for refusing to come to his “place of ministry”.

That same judge is using taxpayer-funded personnel and equipment (which means your taxes go for the upkeep of that place of ministry), and taxes are pretty much compelled from you.

The simple fact is that this judge was knowingly violating the First and Fourteenth Amendments of every single citizen within his purview who may not agree with his religious inculcations, plus the Third Amendment of his own State Constitution (amended in 1901) in trying to endorse or exhibit displays favorable to his religion. At taxpayer expense, lest we forget that little bit of information.

I’m trying to get people to understand that I would be just as opposed to a display of religious text from the Torah or the Quran, because religious displays have no place in taxpayer-funded and maintained buildings, no matter what religion it may be.

There is also a distinction of “public property” versus “private property”, as well as “land open to the public” versus “taxpayer maintained government buildings”.

The distinction between public and private property means that if Judge Moore had purchased a small square of land on the sidewalk in front of the courthouse to hold that monument, then there wouldn’t be a problem, because he owns the land, and is entitled to use it for whatever legal purpose (subject to zoning laws) he chooses.

The distinction between land open to the public and taxpayer maintained buildings is a little finer. If he were to stand on the sidewalk and hand out religious tracts, or stand on a soapbox and preach to passers-by, his freedom of speech and freedoms of religion would entitle him to do so, despite how his citizens might perceive him.

But Judge Moore isn’t doing any of those things. He’s violating Federal Law, the U.S. Constitution, Alabama’s State Constitution, and the order from the Federal District Court Judge (which is the next step up in the Judicial Branch of Government), and forcing taxpayers to fund the maintenance and upkeep of a display designed and intended to endorse a specific religion over all others.

And yet, whenever I try to point this out and ask “Would it be okay if it were a Star of David/Torah/Buddha/burning cross?”, the response seems to be (almost invariably) something along the lines of “but it’s not the same thing”.

They’re right. It’s not the same thing. And that is my point entirely. All religions should be treated exactly the same under the law (Remember that nasty ol’ 14th Amendment?). And in Judge Moore’s courthouse, that isn’t true. He says so himself.

And that’s why it’s wrong.

I’m going to bed. I’ll finish the Blog Tour tomorrow…

In other news, I’m glad to see that Gray Davis is starting to sling mud at Arnold (like that will save his job). It just goes to show you that even though “Shades of” Gray can’t think of anything positive to say about himself, he can still manage to come up with lots and lots of bad things to say about his opponent. (As if to say, “See? Compared with him, I’m not so bad, am I?")

Good riddance, Gray. You have managed to turn my wife (who is a life-long Democrat) to register as an Independent, and register to vote for the first time in two decades, just to brag that she helped kick you out of office. (And, no, I didn’t have anything to do with that - she registered all on her own - I just gave her the truth, and showed her the facts.)

As far as the Ten Commandments brouhaha in Alabama, I can see both sides of the issue. The fact that it wasn’t a religious display, but was part of a series of documents that served as the basis of American law (such as the Magna Carta and others), says that it should be permitted to stay. However, I have to also question whether these religious ranters who started screaming about “God-haters” would be protesting quite so much if it were the Quran or the Torah, or perhaps a small statue of Buddha.

It seems to me that this Chief Justice is using this case as free publicity. Well, not exactly free since the tax-payers are footing the bill. Judge Moore has been censured before for saying that if he had the authority to sentence according to “God’s Law”, he would sentence a lesbian to death, just for being homosexual.

Since Moore snuck this into place without warning, and wanted this to serve as a religious display, then it should be gone. But if it had been set up by state adminitrators as that “historical display” - which it wasn’t - then I would have no problem. Moore (and the religious protestors) are wrong, plain and simple.

The Angry Cyclist is exactly that, and blogs about the hypocrisy of tree-huggers and the arrest of Bobby Brown. (Bobby Brown was arrested? Again? ) He also tends to concentrate on local politics for Boston from a conservative point of view. If you’re from the region, he’s a must-read.

His Imperial Majesty, Emperor Misha I, invites you to peruse his website, where he eloquently rants about all the things that anger him during the day, from reporters who no longer report to lawyers who twist the law and judges who legislate from the bench. Always worth catching up on, and with connections around the world, he is always up to date. (He’s also at war with ”the puppy blender”.)

The Astronomicon is talking about NASA, and how it might have outlived its usefulness. I tend to agree, and think that space travel should be put into the hands of private enterprise, much like air travel was during the early part of the last century. I just recently blogrolled him, so I’m not as familiar with his work as I’d like to be, but there is definite promise there.

Jennie, at The Greatest Jeneration is talking about the recent revelation that Russia has been helping the Iranians to develop their nuclear power plant. I can foresee a chance that we will have to utilize a low-yield nuke, just to show people that we are not afraid to use them to protect our national security. (What with Iranian-backed terrorist groups - Hezbollah - already having all of Saddam’s leftovers WMD, that day may come sooner rather than later.)

The Noble Pundit asks a very legitimate question about the legal controversy regarding the display of the Ten Commandments in Alabama. He also provides general investing advice (but not tips), such as definitions of investing terms and general concepts. Worth a look if you have some ducats to spare.

Spoons, of The Spoons Experience, rants and raves about some dizzy bint making fun af Americans and their guns, while simultaneously managing to get most of her information completely wrong. He also eloquently remarks about NOW endorsing the least likely candidate on the Democratic ticket, Carol Moseley-Braun. (Uninterrupted laughter, in other words.) I mean, even Al Sharpton is looking askance at this woman.

Tiger is an attorney who manages to blog about subjects ranging from his court cases to the state and condition of his belly button (a nightly ritual). He keeps me checking up, because I never know where he’ll begin from, nor where he’ll end up, but I know that I will end up learning something before he finishes. Kind of like a modern-day Fat Albert, without the simpering sidekicks…

I’m going to finish tonight with an extraordinarily gifted writer and engineer, who manages to turn some very difficult concepts into simple to understand English. If he isn’t on your list of frequent reads, then you’ve obviously never read any of his work. I can only urge you to correct that lack as soon as possible. If you already read his work, then you know what I mean. I am proud to have Steven den Beste on my BlogRoll.

With just about half a dozen left, we’ll be finishing up tomorrow. Thanks for swinging by.

Right Wing News, owned and operated by John Hawkins (he of the “Top 20” lists, and the ACPOTI items) is one of my daily stops, even if there is no indication of a recent update, simply because he has a wonderfully dry wit, and an eye for picking out the logical absurdities in today’s news items. He also manages to get interviews with some really cool people. He’s talking now about Hamas, and Hezbollah, and how we should just let the Israelis deal with them, just as we would if those camel-humpers were blowing up buses in Des Moines rather than Bethlehem.

Lee runs another of my favorite haunts, Right Thinking From The Left Coast, from “the belly of the beast” - the San Francisco Bay area. He manages to provide some of the more humorous numbskullery from the Libtards who manage to surprise even themselves, and even manages to get pictures. He’s talking about how NOW (the National Organization for Women) is planning on giving its support to Carol Moseley-Braun. Hey, it’s worth a shot, right? Heh.

Scrappleface has a deliciously ironic and sarcastic sense of humor, satirizing the powerful and popular in the news of the moment. He’s engendering yux with his AOL Journal entry, among several others. Usually worthwhile, and always at least a little funny.