(You have no idea how tempting it is to change the last syllable of her name like I did to Kay Bailey in an earlier post.)

I’ve been telling Mick and Em that they aren’t really going to church, and now I’ve got the bitchiest comptroller of them all backing me up.

…according to the office of Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, a Texas Unitarian church isn’t really a religious organization – at least for tax purposes. Its reasoning: The organization “does not have one system of belief.”

Never before – not in this state nor any other – has a government agency denied Unitarians tax-exempt status because of the group’s religious philosophy, church officials say. Strayhorn’s ruling clearly infringes upon religious liberties, said Dan Althoff, board president for the Denison, Texas, congregation that was rejected for tax exemption by the comptroller’s office.

The nerve of this woman. I can’t believe people vote for senationalist bigots like this woman.

It’s the family-friendly animal-friendly game that’s sweeping the world! The rules for Look, There’s A Dog are simple and just about anyone can play.

… On spotting a dog, the sharp-eyed player then uses one of the phrases found within the rules.

… Only the following phrases can be used in the game: “Look, there’s a dog!” : 5 points

but best of all is this additional rule:

1. ‘Look There’s A Man’ – During the course of play, you may find that the odd dog will bark at you. If this is done before it is spotted and the dog has company, it can be safely assumed that the dog is playing the canine equivalent of this magnificent game. Therefore your points don’t count.

Today’s reason: his foreign policy makes us the most hated country in the world.

Flag waving by U.S. athletes is being discouraged by the U.S. Olympic Committee.

American athletes have been warned not to wave the US flag during their medal celebrations at this summer’s Olympic Games in Athens for fear of provoking crowd hostility and harming the country’s already battered public image.

Despite the overly-politic talk trying to stem this argument: The current adminstration’s gung-ho attitude has restricted our athletes’ freedom of expression.

Lately, there have been a couple of events here on the Backporch that I’d like to vent about. These are list of things I will not put up with in ascending order of how much I will not put up with them.

I was doing some research with Google and came across a pretty neat site that ref’s our site. All Consuming.net is a website that visits recently updated weblogs every hour, checking them for links to books on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Sense, and other book sites. Every book on this site has a list of all the weblogs that have mentioned it, and every weblog that has mentioned books in the past also has a page here listing which books it has mentioned.

They rank daily the popularity of books based on weblog content and we got their attention on 12/23/2003 when we mentioned LatLLWTT(Lies and the…I’m getting tired of writing this out):AFaBLatR(A Fair and…long-ass book name). Be sure to click through on the site info link, too.

Another Snakehead hits the Potomac.

BTW – what got me to post this was The National Audubon Society issued a statement yesterday calling for passage of a federal law to ban nonnative species from American waterways. Sounds good, but we’d end up killing a lot of bass and brown trout if we were to follow through with the letter of such a law. All of the salmon runs in the Great Lakes would have to be exterminated, too.

Just food for thought…

NYT reports that the bald eagle may be removed from the Endangered Species list.

My own personal encounters with the eagles have been with the couple of pairs that nest at the mouth of the Connecticut River. And they are phenomenal critters. The first time I saw one, I was taking a friend’s kayak for a spin, test driving the design prior to building. It was a misty winter’s day, completely still. The ducks were back in the marsh, scratching for the little food that was left from the others that had migrated that season, and seeking shelter from the open water.

I rounded a bend, and ahead saw what I thought was the biggest bird I’d seen in the wild sitting on a dead tree. As I paddled closer, the white head and yellow legs came clear. The eagle turned, looked at me, and jumped off the branch, spreading huge wings. I started fumbling for a camera as the bird flew right overhead, about 15 feet up. It was enormous, and had claws and a beak that looked like curved daggers. Not a bird to be trifled with.

The train was carrying missiles for Syria.

Pravda is picking this up, along with the recent imposition of sanctions on the Assad regieme, and is saying that war with Syria is imminent.

As a fan of the sport of baseball (who is recognizing that he’s not a fan of the theatrics of sports), I have always been curious about cricket. Here’s a Flash©-based Cricket game to give you a little batting practice.

For changing Samba settings under Panther. Sharepoints is freeware, and works as advertized.

Part 1 > Acknowledgement

Last night, one of the folks who I’ve worshipped for a couple of years passed. There’s not a whole lot of sadness to be had; Elvin Ray Jones appears to have lived a long life, surrounded by people and music he loved, and avoided many of the pitfalls to which artists are prone (Such as that which claimed the ‘Trane).

Part 2 > Resolution

While I’m familiar with Mr. Jones through his work with Coltrane, he’s played with everyone and their mom, from Charlie Parker to Miles Davis, and turned down an offer to join Benny Goodman’s band.

Part 3 > Pursuance / Part 4 > Psalm

NPR’s obit today was a work of art. The commentary was both driven and punctuated by Jones’ drumming, much like his decades of music. We are living in an age of falling giants, some only shadows of what they once were.

Thanks to the Rev. Jesse’s Mike Moore links. This one

I like.

and demand that the US increase its output of greenhouse gas

OK, maybe not in so many words, but they are asking the Pres to release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserves. Best quote was on ATC along the lines of “The senators need to be reminded that SPR is … not the Strategic Political Reserve”.

It’s a bad idea now, and it was a bad idea when WJC did it to try to buy votes for Gore in 2000. First, it’s easily countered by OPEC cutting production. Second, anything meaningful is unsustainable over the long term. DOE numbers show that we’re sucking about 20 million bbl a day. There’s about 650 million bbl in the SPR, less than a year at 10% of demand. (There’s a whole lot more at the DOE; my eyes glazed over). And when it’s gone, it’s gone.