Saturday, August 9, 2008

A Christian MP3 Player?

Have you seen this MP3 player yet?

I'd like to get a hold of one of these puppies and fill it up with Ozzy, Black Sabbath, Slayer, Iron Maiden and Morbid Angel tunes... and then leave it in a church... with a note that said something like "To the person who finds this, it is your lucky day! Enjoy the music on this special MP3 player!"

It'd be fun to follow the person who finds it and watch their crazy little head explode as they listened to "Satanic" heavy metal on a cross-shaped MP3 player...

Friday, August 8, 2008

200 Children Have Died Due to Faith

Most pediatric research takes place in a medical or scientific setting such as a clinic or lab. But one postdoctoral fellow in forensic pediatrics is more likely to conduct his work in a cemetery. Seth Asser, M.D., studies the deaths of children due to medical neglect on religious grounds.

In the past 15 years, more than 200 children have died in the United States because their parents relied exclusively on faith to heal them. The children died of treatable ailments such as diabetes or dehydration.

“Typical parents cannot relate to this topic because it is so unbelievable,” said Asser. “But freedom of belief doesn’t allow you to throw away a young life.”

Nicely stated. The linked article later states: There are “many laws that allow parents to deprive their children of various kinds of health care on religious grounds,” said Swan. “The religious exemption laws are a rare example of discrimination de jure: laws that deprive one group of children of protections afforded to others.”

Many cases of religiously motivated medical neglect never become public due to cover-ups, lack of investigations and poor record keeping, Asser said. His most recent findings provide bone-chilling evidence that some individuals and groups look outside of medicine for healing illness and disease.


It is long overdue for laws to be changed that explicitly prohibit parents from not seeking medical attention and treatment for their children. I don't care what make-believe sky daddy they believe in and I don't care if they think that medically treating their offspring will anger said sky daddy.


My screed above was awkwardly worded, as Bob so kindly pointed out in the comments, so I'm re-writing it:

It is long overdue for laws to be changed! Specifically, those laws that permit parents to avoid seeking medical attention and treatment for their children in lieu of prayer. I don't care what make-believe sky daddy they believe in and I don't care if they think that medically treating their offspring will anger said sky daddy.

Diebold Still Causing Problems

Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner has filed a lawsuit against an electronic-voting machine vendor, saying the vendor should pay damages for dropped votes in the state's March primary election.

E-voting machines from Premier Election Solutions, formerly called Diebold Election Systems, dropped hundreds of votes in 11 Ohio counties during the primary election, as the machine's memory cards uploaded to vote-counting servers, Brunner's office said. Officials in Brunner's office later discovered the dropped votes in other counties after voting officials in Butler County discovered about 150 dropped votes, said Jeff Ortega, Brunner's assistant director of communications.

The votes were recovered and included in the final counts but could have easily been overlooked, Ortega said.

A Premier spokesman didn't immediately respond to a request for the company's comments on the lawsuit.