News Roundup March 2007

In case you've been living under a rock for the past month, here are some of the important stories from the month of March:

● Blogger Party 2.0 went down tonight, and as usual it was awesome. Local bloggers Mindy, Jason, Christine, Katie, and myself were in attendence, with Becky out of town. Mindy's sisters Miranda and Laura took part in the festivities as well, both of whom I think have blogs but I'm apparently not hip enough to get access. Mindy's dog Otis was also there of course, whom we're pretty sure blogs when mama is at work but so far he has managed to stay out of Google searches. More when I get pics that Mindy took with her fancy dancy camera.

● Representative Pete Stark became the highest ranking elected U.S. official to publicly acknowledge that he is an atheist. Despite the fact that many estimate non-believers to make up around 10% of the U.S. population, not one has ever been openly elected to Congress or the Senate (Stark has been officially registered as a Unitarian) despite the fact that we have elected women, Jews, Mormons, Buddhists, a Muslim, a Sikh, blacks, Asians, Arabs, Hispanics, Native Americans, disabled people, and gays, not to mention philanderers, addicts, criminals, people who think the Internet is a bunch of tubes, and of course an inordinant number of complete assholes. Repeated polls have found that over half of those surveyed would refuse to vote for a well qualified atheist, with much smaller numbers refusing to vote for a well qualified woman or homosexual.

● Khalid Sheikh Mohammed told a U.S. military tribunal that he was the mastermind behind the September 11th attacks, had personally beheaded reporter Daniel Pearl, and took responsibility for 30 other terrorist operations. KSM also compared himself to George Washington, took responsibility for the Zodiac killings, and admitted to helping fake the moon landing.

● Chiquita Banana admitted that it paid millions of dollars in protection money to Colombian rebel and paramilitary groups designated as terrorist organization by the U.S. government. Seriously, I always knew there was something wrong with that Chiquita Banana lady.

● General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress that he supported the military’s current Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, calling homosexuality immoral and comparing it to adultery. Pace apparently didn’t read the report that said the majority of military personal are comfortable with gays serving openly in the armed forces. To make up for the loss of some 11,000 personnel discharged under the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, General Pace said he planned to focus recruiting efforts on criminals and the stupid. Other ongoing efforts include maintaining dilapidated veterans’ facilities, sending medically unfit soldiers back to active duty, cutting research on traumatic head injuries (the signature injury of the Iraq War), and spending billions and billions of dollars on stealth fighters that so far have done a great job prevent the al-Qaida air force from invading America.

● The Supreme Court hears the landmark case of Morse v. Frederick, also known as the “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” case. Student Joseph Frederick, in an attempt to annoy school officials and get some cheap publicity, waved a large banner with the aforementioned slogan across the street from school property during a 2002 Olympic torch relay celebration, and was consequently suspended for 10 days. Frederick’s lawyers argue free speech, while the school’s legal counsel Kenneth Starr argues that schools should be able develop any kind of mission statement it wants to and to prevent any speech that runs counter to the mission.