The Burqueño who saved the little girl from a kidnapper is being praised and rewarded by people around the country.

What's this about a new oil sheen in the Gulf?

President Obama tells Assad to split.

Public Regulation Commissioner Jerome Block Jr.—the admitted pharmy addict who won't resign—had his driver's license suspended.

In Japan more than $78 million was found in the post-earthquake wreckage. The people who find the wallets and cash and safes keep turning them over to authorities. Weird.

California high court won't hear Phil Spector's appeal.

Coco Chanel: Nazi agent?

The taxonomy of graffiti.

Veteran APD officer made a deal with a decoy prostitute, according to police. He was arrested.

This person could die if she combs her hair.

Hey little girls: It's never to early to think about dieting.

Religion is going … going … gone in nine countries.

U.S. agency wants to know what it would take to travel to another star. Figuring it out could take a hundred years.

Not everyone is meant for college.

• Who would die from static electricity? (pencil) [ Thu Aug 18 2011 1:16 PM ]
  

 

The city of Bloomfield, N.M., may have the Ten Commandments installed in front of City Hall. Not so fast, says the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico. The organization announced today that it filed a public records request on the project to determine if it violates the First Amendment.

The Bloomfield City Council supported a proposal to install the biblical statue on Monday, June 13. Four years earlier, Councilor Kevin Mauzy spearheaded a policy allowing any organization to donate a monument to City Hall as long as it pertains to the history of the U.S. law.

After the policy passed in July 2007, Peter Simonson, the executive director of ACLU-NM, expressed concerns that the Ten Commandments monument violates the Constitution. Supporters say the statue reflects the history of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Simonson says he doesn't see anything to validate that view.

"There is no evidence to suggest a direct link between the Ten Commandments and anything in our body of laws." America’s legal system can't be attributed to any particular text, he adds.

While the monument will not receive city funding, he says its placement suggests an endorsement of a specific faith. The language of the Ten Commandments varies between religions, and Simonson says the inclusion of one variation excludes others.

"The city of Bloomfield is faced with a decision of which religion they're going to snub and which particular faith they're going to ensconce in a monument on the lawn of their City Hall," he says.

The members of the ACLU watch for cases of local governments endowing religious symbolism and meaning on city property. In some cases they can resolve the issue with a letter or open dialogue—but other cases end up in the Supreme Court. Simonson says the courts generally rule against the local government in similar cases throughout the country.

"Where the local government has simply constructed a stand-alone Ten Commandments monument ... the courts have ruled those monuments to be an impermissible violation of the First Amendment," he says. This is especially true when the governmental body that supported the installation had a religious motivation, he adds.

Simonson says that the ACLU will determine its next course of action after a full investigation into the proposal.

Bloomfield's city councilors were unavailable for comment.

• Your wording suggests the solution (sloppy) [ Wed Jun 22 2011 4:10 PM ]
  

Man found dead with his throat cut near Mountain and Sixth Street.

Guy goes to the lost and found at Sandia Casino looking for his cocaine.

Bears in Roswell and Belen.

AIDS vaccine works in monkeys. A human vaccine may be just around the corner.

Paramedic says he was discriminated against because of his beard in Española. He's a Sikh, and it's part of his religion.

The M-I-crooked letter-crooked letter-I-crooked letter-crooked letter-crooked letter-I-humpback-humpback-I River is flooding at historic levels.

Guard for Nazi camp was charged with 28,060 counts of accessory to murder. He was sentenced to five years in prison.

Google lobbies for self-driving cars. Guess Google never watched the "Doctor Who" episode about the ATMOS system in cars.

This technology can read your mind.

World wastes more than a billion tons of food every year.

Bin Laden's diary (crushes revealed! jk).

Dems try to repeal tax incentives for big oil, given the companies are seeing profit.

Lobo Lucy was groped, according to APD.

No condoms for APS students, say emotional parents.

New major at UNM.

Interpol issues an arrest warrant for Dick Cheney. Ex-VP will be charged in a Nigerian bribery case.

Holy matrimony! Same-sex couples can't divorce in Iowa.

2018 World Cup heading to Mother Russia. U.S. loses 2022 to Qatar.

Shark attacks at Egyptian hotel. Sharktopus!

Sports training for babies. 400 babies!

Ant-covered Jesus smote.

Usher Molests Inanimate Objects: A Guide

Eminem hoards Grammy nods for his tired b.s.

300 sextillion real stars!

• More, please!!!! (TD) [ Thu Dec 2 2010 10:31 AM ]
  
• But I'm addicted! (TD) [ Thu Dec 2 2010 11:19 AM ]
  

This APS board member doesn’t believe condoms stop STDs. (This is about dispensing birth control on campuses.)

That dude who was shot Downtown by APD was armed with a butter knife.

Rio Rancho graverobbers steal bronze urns.

Baby flamingo at the zoo.

The expensive 2010 N.M. races.

Federal agency that gives money to religious groups has poor oversight.

The top 10 stories the media didn’t report.

Lobo robbed lobo, says UNMPD.

Criminals wear Yankees caps.

1 in 7 Americans lives in poverty.

Pope compares atheists to Nazis.

Tiny cow.

That band Hanson still exists. Now, it’s broody.

 

America is a religious nation no matter what the Constitution says about the separation of church and state. And there is no greater ritual in America than the worship of football.

The football season began last night, amid the more obscured actual religious holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Ramadan. While some people were fasting or just breaking that fast, the majority of the nation was taking in chicken wings, beer, and the sights and sounds of the Vikings and Saints mauling one another.

The New Orleans Saints played host to the Minnesota Vikings in a rematch of last year's NFC Championship Game. The Saints had a magical season last year, which culminated in a Super Bowl victory. Drew Brees, quarterback for the Saints, completed 27 of 36 passes for 237 yards and one touchdown, as the Saints won 14-9.

The football season begins in earnest now, with the meaningless preseason junk out of the way. A full slate of games begins on Sunday, Sept. 12 at 11 a.m., with the Denver Broncos taking on the Jacksonville Jaguars. The schedule ends with the Dallas Cowboys playing the Washington Redskins in a game that begins at 6:30 p.m.

And just like that, America's got its true national pastime back. While baseball may have occupied that territory early in the last century, it's clear from the devotional fervor that adorns even the commercials for the NFL that our deities have shifted. Fantasy football is almost as big as the actual games, and the Super Bowl is the biggest TV draw in the U.S. It remains to be seen if that attitude will shift again in the future, but for now, football is king and football is back.

• Saints (Jessica) [ Fri Sep 10 2010 3:27 PM ]
  

Another offshore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded.

Hurricane Earl is growing and heading for North Carolina.

Stephen Hawking says God didn't create the universe.

Woman's body found on a NE Heights sidewalk. She was 30.

Pipe bomb in a Rio Rancho apartment complex.

Privately owned prisons in N.M. haven't paid fines for understaffing.

More people in N.M. don't like the boosted war effort in Afghanistan.

LANL OK'd to build a staging facility for nuclear waste.

Families say Santa Fe police threatened them with deportation when they wouldn't cooperate in an investigation.

Chain-smoking 2-year-old quits.

Look how much BP spent trying to clean up … its image.

Stop the press! Some women like having small breasts.

Have a DIY drink.

• This is so bleak today. (miha) [ Thu Sep 2 2010 11:43 AM ]
  
• GULF UPDATE: Oil sheen (marisa) [ Thu Sep 2 2010 1:18 PM ]
  
• Another explosion,,, hmmm... (Pattriot) [ Fri Sep 3 2010 8:55 PM ]
  

wow-tube.ru

"Pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space, 'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth!"--Eric Idle, The Meaning of Life.

All praise is due unto the Grand Unified Theory and the intolerant hairless apes that hath spawned it.

It’s a shame that a bunch of white wing (deliberate Freudian slip) Christians don’t want an Islamic community center in an old Burlington Coat Factory in Manhattan, even though by protesting against one, they contradict the very freedoms they hold dear. I guess they don’t realize what an ugly and irrational force hate can be.

At the same time, I can’ t help but think I’m sick of people arguing about who has the better version of the invisible-man-in-the-sky who-invented-all-of-creation story. Whoever S/he is, S/he isn’t amused. I’m not into any of this, and it’s taking up too much airtime, especially since most of these people seem to hate the same things: immigrants, homosexuals, women and each other.
Seriously, unemployment is high, we are still involved in one and a half wars, and the earth appears to officially be broken. My cable news has been invaded by the Wholly Irrelevant.

Besides, believing in an omniscient being that obsesses over this tiny rock, which amounts to the western Oklahoma of the universe, seems silly when the size of it can be measured and it’s age calculated, and it’s very very big, thirteen billion light years wide. Hubris.

Solution: I’ve been watching space shows on the Science Channel, and the History Channel, when it’s not playing shows about the DaVinci Code. Some of this space stuff is so hard to fathom, it might as well be a religion.
Because I am sick and tired of religion and the animosity it creates, I propose . . . a new religion for all of humanity based on what I have learned watching basic cable.

My glorious new religion shall be called “Big Bangism,” and it’s adherents, Big Bangers, after the widely accepted theory that the universe sprang into existence from a tiny point in the black void of nothingness--or something like that; I can’t remember; I wasn’t really paying attention. Don’t drag me down with your damn details. The devil is in those. This is faith, dammit.

To keep things interesting, humans can argue about the exact title of the new religion. Half of the people can refer to this exciting new cosmology as “Giant Explosionism,” though Giant Explosioners are generally smelly heathen with no class. But I appreciate their right to worship as they please. It’s not me who will have to answer to the Supermassive Black Hole when it engulfs us all in it’s glorious and all powerful event horizon. Amen.

That’s the beauty part of watching these shows: half of the episodes focus on space objects that may one day destroy us all, so the apocalyptic angle is covered. In addition to rogue black holes, there are gamma ray bursts from the poles of stars going supernova, giant rocks, and, I suppose, malevolent species of aliens.

Come, brothers and sisters. Abandon your old-fangled ways and embrace some new-fangled ones. It’s really hard to understand, but that’s the beauty of religion: Why have understanding when you can have faith. I am reminded of a time when I was mocking a piece of duct tape purported to show an image of Jesus. I was told, with disdain for my obvious lack of it, “It’s faith, John.” This particular image of Jesus, by the way, is available if you’re interested, on Ebay. May he who hath the highest bid emerge triumphant. Praise the Black Hole and pass the Strong Electromagnetism. Amen.

• Count me in. (faun lebowitz) [ Mon Aug 23 2010 10:15 AM ]
  

Hellllloooo, booooys

A “lie-beral” atheist heathen friend of mine passed this along to me— the 15 gayest pictures of his holiness. Behold Pope Benedict XVI, Ratzinger of Bavaria in all of his fancy-hatted glory.

• Five stars for this post. (Madmammajamma) [ Fri Jul 30 2010 3:40 PM ]
  
• ah hahahahaha (gitagovinda) [ Fri Jul 30 2010 4:07 PM ]
  

Another reason to walk? The DWI Resource Center is fresh out of cash.

It's Pride week, and Albuquerque is getting a new gay bar. Fabulous!

You can cross dress there, but don't try it in Dubai.

There's no Empire State of Mind for Mother Theresa.

Soap operas save the world.

A Canadian in England contemplates silly spelling while Spanglish continues its toma de posesión.

It's not a UFO, it's just a new comet.

Have you joined a World Cup pool yet? Super smart economy writer Felix Salmon breaks down the real cost.

What to do with all those World Cup winnings? Buy this, because chances are that sweet state gig you've been hoping for isn't coming around soon.

Sticks and stones can get you shot. Better stick with words.

Dan Lewis, city councilor

Alibi reporter Carolyn Carlson asked around City Hall, and not even the oldest employees could recall another religious leader ever being elected to the Council. So she went to Councilor Dan Lewis’ sermon at the Soul Rio Church on Easter Sunday and talked to him about his dual roles. Is there a conflict, she asked, in being a born-again pastor and a politician who represents constituents of many religious and nonreligious persuasions? Lewis said: “My job as councilor is to serve every person in this city no matter who they are or what they believe. Many people base their view of pastors or Christians from a negative experience they have had or from the media's perspective that is often skewed. ... ”

Read this excellent interview in its entirety.