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CNN’s quick poll, in response to DCI Porter Goss’s claim to know where Osama bin Laden is located, asks if the US should just go get him. Goss may be interested in respecting “national sovereignty”, but 19 out of 20 poll voters want Osama.

Giving the predilection of the US for kidnapping people from other countries and the propaganda value to the Shrubbery of having Osama in US custody, I find it impossible to believe that the CIA has a clue about bin Laden’s current address.

I’m really thrilled to find out that Illegal immigrants accessed nuclear weapons facility.

Y-12 National Security Complex near Knoxville, Tennessee is not a power plant, this is where the US builds nuclear weapons. All of the parts and the owner’s manual are on site and they are letting undocumented aliens wander around and build structures there.

I would be really upset if South Knox Bubba got vaporized because of a remote controlled bomb got inserted into an assembly building. This would be a quick “dirty bomb” with the taxpayers supplying the nuclear material that would spread out over the Knoxville area.

Via The Light of Reason Glen at A Brooklyn Bridge offers: Bring Your Own, about a Marine who needs about $600 worth of equipment before he gets shipped to Iraq.

This kid needs to get his own body armor and water bag, because there is no guarantee that the equipment will be waiting for him when he gets to his assigned area.

Excuse me, but no one should be sent until they are issued this personal gear and had it adjusted. The taxpayers are dumping money hand over fist into the Pentagon and they keep claiming they can’t afford to buy these essentials. This is pure bovine excrement – they are stuffing money into a slush fund and need to be audited by Congress immediately.

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Long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away [okay, about five years ago on Usenet] we were having one of the periodic yelling matches on the question: Is Atheism a Religion?

I maintained that a religion needs a book of ancient lore, some form of ritual, at least one special place, a recognizable form of architecture, and funny hats. You can’t have a good religion unless you do something that people not in the religion would consider a bit odd.

Many of the Protestant sects have eschewed hats recently, but those who started them had weird head gear.

My position was: anything with a total philosophy that fits on a post-it note, and which lacks any other of the forms cannot be adjudged a religion, no matter how obnoxious certain people who call themselves atheists might seem to theists. This statement does not include religions which take no position on gods, but which have all of the other traits, like Buddhism.

PZ Myers has an interesting post on the American Street: Planet of the Hats, which looks at societies from his individual viewpoint. [requires a sense of humor]

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