Jonathan's blog

From an article in The Onion:

Detroit, a former industrial metropolis in southeastern Michigan with a population of just under 1 million, was sold at auction Tuesday to bulk scrap dealers and smelting foundries across the United States. "This is what's best for Detroit," Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick said. "We must act now, while we can still get a little something for it." Once dismantled and processed, Detroit is expected to yield nearly 14 million tons of steel, 2.85 million tons of aluminum, and approximately 837,000 tons of copper.

From an article in The Onion:

President Bush, already facing the lowest approval ratings in history, is coming under fire from former supporters over what they call his "ineffectual and incompetent" use of prayer for national guidance and assistance. "Every time the president is criticized, he insists that the nation is in his prayers," said the Family Research Council's Bob Jensen. "That may be, but it's becoming more and more clear that these prayers are either too infrequent, too brief, or not strongly worded enough to be effective." Despite assurances from the president that he "prays every day" for the nation's interests both at home and abroad, the mounting crises of recent months-escalating gas prices, the botched Dubai port security deal, ethics scandals, and the rising death toll in Iraq-have left many unimpressed with the effectiveness of his devotion. While newly released portions of White House prayer logs show that Bush's praying has actually gone up in recent months, critics are seeking to subpoena the documents in their entirety to determine the strength of those prayers. The harshest criticisms continue to come from members of the president's conservative base, who insist that the proper devotional words must be used in prayer. "There is a real possibility that the president misrepresented the number of times he invokes Jesus' power each day in accordance with the strict guidelines of scripture," said Henry Holbrook, senior fellow at the Intercession Institute, a leading conservative prayer tank. "Is he clasping his hands together tightly enough? Is he using the proper forms of the pronouns 'thine' and 'thou'? What about the verb 'hast'?"

A joke (a good one IMHO) of course, but there is some meat there...an illustration of how the non-religious look at those of us who pray as silly...and I can almost understand it if (since?) prayer so often seems so ineffectual?

From YouTube, footage of the 2006 slam dunk contest (turn down your speaker volume if you want to avoid hearing the explicit rap lyrics):

From an AP story on MSNBC.com:

Kuwaiti women voted and ran as candidates for the first time Tuesday in a municipal election in the conservative country's capital, but initial reports indicated not many women were casting ballots. The vote to fill a seat in the city's Municipal Council came almost a year after parliament passed a bill enfranchising women and enabling them to run for office. It was seen as a preview of how women might fare in the parliamentary elections due next year in this oil-rich state. Women candidates were disadvantaged, both by prejudice and tradition, such as the fact that no female faces adorned the huge electoral posters plastered outside polling stations. It would be considered indecent for a woman candidate to advertise her face.

From an AP story on msnbc.com:

A youth minister in Missouri has been charged with assault for for allegedly knocking down a 16-year-old boy and kicking him in the groin during a dodgeball game. Authorities say the teen had missed David Boudreaux with one throw, but then knocked his glasses off with another. The boy apologized, but authorities say Boudreaux pushed him backward and then kicked him in the groin when the teen got up again.