The Devil Made Me Do It!

In a tragic, yet sadistically amusing story, a baby was put in a microwave by her father. Luckily, the 2-month old child was not killed, just severely burned. The mother of course doesn't blame the the 19-year-old father.

Eva Marie Mauldin said Satan compelled her 19-year-old husband, Joshua Royce Mauldin, to microwave their daughter [on] May 10 because the devil disapproved of Joshua's efforts to become a preacher.

Satan is a great scapegoat for any problems you're having. Didn't pay the rent on time? The devil of course made you do it! Ate the heart of a small child? It's not your fault, the devil was controlling you.

Praise rationality, for the justice system has yet to fall for this silly ploy and Mr. Mauldin could receive up to 99 years in prison.

Joshua Mauldin faces a charge of injury to a child causing serious bodily harm, which carries a possible prison term of five to 99 years, as well as a fine of up to $10,000.

Too bad castration isn't allowed in cases such as this. People like Mr. Mauldin and his stupid wife should not be allowed to unleash their horrible seed upon this world any further (no offense to their already born and tramatized daughter). It's bad enough that the man tried to kill his daughter in a microwave, but it's even worse that the mother can't even come to terms with the fact that he is responsible.

By the way, I think it might be important to note that this occurred in Texas.


Source: Associated Press

Atheism in America

Religion is a hot topic for many people. In America, this seems especially so, since we are a melting pot of religious freedom in which church and state are supposed to be separated. This can often cause many societal and political debates that involve religion (gay marriage and abortion come to mind). Because of this America seems to be a fairly religious state, but is it?

The majority of the world's population is religious, which isn't surprising in the least bit. But about 1.1 billion people fit into the non-religious category, which includes a wide range of people from secularists to the anti-religious. With about 6.7 billion people on the Earth today, about 16% of them are non-religious. Of this 16%, between 12 and 15 percent are estimated to atheist. Only Islam and Christianity encompass more people, with 21% and 33% percent of the world's population respectively. But even with this large number worldwide, how do non-religious people fare in the United States?

Various findings show that about 9-14% of Americans are nonreligious. That's about 27-36 million people. Only a surprising 0.4% of these people actually claim to be atheists, while 0.5% claim to be agnostic. No matter your religious standing, those numbers should seem low. What's more interesting though, is how high the percentage of atheists and non-religious people is in other first-world nations.

Sweden is routinely considered to be one of the most non-religious states, in which only 23% of the populace believe there is a god. In Europe overall, about 18% are atheist, which is at about 45 times higher than in the US.

So why is the United States so religious? Or are people less open about their non-religious attitudes in a nation where religious freedom in explicit? One comment I often hear is that America was founded as a Christian nation. This is actually not true. Albeit, Christianity was, and still is, the most prominent religion, the majority of the founding fathers were either non-religious, or at least rationalists. So the questions still stands, why is the United States of America so religious, or at least seem that way?



Sources: Wikipedia, World Religion Day, World Population, Adherents.com, CIA, About.com

The Power of User-Created Content

The fury of the Internet was released, especially on the Digg, when the HD-DVD encryption hex key was leaked. I'm not sure how many people actually know what to do with the key, or could even put it to use, but it was an interesting showing of what a revolt on the Internet looks like. Most people who care already know the story behind the whole fiasco. But I found a website that sums up the whole situation pretty well; http://www.09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0.ws/. Anyways, fight the power and so forth, the only way Internet nerds with too much time on their hands can do; with a hexadecimal number.

Media Contact Info

A list containing much of the contact information for the majority of major media outlets has been Dugg and revealed to the world. The source of the list is the Palestine Media Watch, whose main purpose is to "promote fair and accurate coverage of the Israeli occupation of Palestine in the US mainstream media."

The list is currently available at their website, and as a Google document. So, get in contact with your favorite/most hated media outlet and let them know how you feel.

Libby found guilty

Irve Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Jr., an ex-aide of Vice President Dick Cheney, has been convicted on 4 of 5 counts of obstruction of justice. This ends a long chapter in the whole Plame affair with only a conviction on an aide and the person who actually revealed Plame's identity to the media.

"We're all going back to our day jobs," Fitzgerald said outside the courthouse. "If the information comes to light, or new information comes to us that would warrant us taking some action, we will do that."

So many high-level people are implicated in this whole situation that I do no understand why not more people are coming to justice. Patrick Fitzgerald has already stated that Richard Armitage was the first one to leak Valrie Plame's identity, but he supposedly did it by "accident".

All of what's been revealed about the Bush administration's dealings with this situations has be highly suspicious at best. First of all, I don't trust Armitage. He's a dirty guy who had shit up to his ankles in the Iran Contra scandal during the Regan era. Not surprisingly, he's been in the Bush administration almost since the beginning.

Then there's the question of why would Libby lie if there was no connection to Cheney in the investigation. The only person that I know who hasn't been officially implicated into the whole affair is Bush himself.

Everything is highly suspect, and the even the jurors know it.

One juror, Denis Collins, said "there was a tremendous amount of sympathy for Mr. Libby on the jury.

"It was said, 'Where's Rove, where are these other guys?'

"We're not saying that we didn't think Mr. Libby was guilty of the things we found him guilty of. It seemed like he was the fall guy," Collins said.

I call bullshit on the whole situation. I'm glad Libby will be going to jail, barring a successful appeal, but the American people want justice against an administration that seems to play by their own rules, even when it comes to our national security interests.