invading the president's "spiritual privacy"

A recent survey shows nearly 1 in 5 Americans think president Obama is Muslim. No surprise there. The White House issued the following statement: President Obama is a committed Christian, and his faith is an important part of his daily life," the statement read. "He prays every day, he seeks a small circle of Christian pastors to give him spiritual...

Read More

Water boarding ruled constitutional

I happened to read this story today. The 9th US circuit court of appeals ruled that a law against lying about military medals is unconstitutional. The case involved a member of a water board in California (hence the title of this post) who claimed to have received the medal of honor when in fact, he hadn't. The majority opinion claimed that there is...

Read More

Atoms and Molecules

According to a new recent Rasmussen poll, "seventy six percent of Americans say it is at least somewhat likely that a terrorist group will detonate a nuclear weapon in the next 25 years, and that includes 45 percent who say it is Very Likely." Most Adults (58%) also believe it is at least somewhat likely that there will be a major war involving...

Read More

Return of the True Cross

About a month ago I posted about a relic of the True Cross that was stolen from the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston, MA. The relic has been found and returned to the church. According to the article, in summary: Vermont State Police stumbled upon it after receiving a call from Richard Duncan.... Duncan told police he was having an argument...

Read More

How many Catholics do you know?

Last week at scout camp I went to mass for the first time. Well, not my first time at mass, but my first time at mass up there. It was very interesting. Camp runs from Sunday at around noon to Saturday at around noon. Since I have to leave Sunday morning before 10 AM to get up there, and since I usually spend about two hours remembering last minute...

Read More

Baptists and Muslims

President Obama has expressed his support for the "ground zero" mosque. For those who have missed the story entirely, The Islamic center's leaders say they plan to build the $100 million, 13-story facility called Cordoba House three blocks from the site of the 9/11 attacks. The developer, Sharif El-Gamal, describes the project as an "Islamic community...

Read More

August Mars Hoax

I am an amateur astronomer, and so each year I am approached by a dozen or so people and asked if Mars is really going to appear as big as the full moon in August. The answer is no, it will not be. Why do people think so each year? There are two ways to describe the size of an object. One is to give its actual size, in miles, for instance. Mars' actual...

Read More

Big Brother's Driving You

I read this article "How electric cars could pull the plug on U.S. highway funding" and it got me thinking. The gist of the article is as follows. Currently US transportation projects (like highway maintenance and improvements) are mostly paid for by state and federal taxes on gasoline. Revenue from those taxes has been falling in recent years, to...

Read More

Where has Mike been?

Sorry for the long hiatus. I was away at boy scout camp last week. The plan was to spend a week with our troop and Friday morning leave to go to the CNMC (Catholic New Media Celebration) in Boston. The week started out great. I learned how to belay on the climbing wall and had a great time doing all sorts of fun activities. However, a stomach virus...

Read More