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From Townhall.com:

Keith Ellison, D-Minn., the first Muslim elected to the United States Congress, has announced that he will not take his oath of office on the Bible, but on the bible of Islam, the Koran.

He should not be allowed to do so — not because of any American hostility to the Koran, but because the act undermines American civilization.

Substantive points from Dennis Prager’s Op-Ed piece:

…only imagine a racist elected to Congress. Would they allow him to choose Hitler’s “Mein Kampf,” the Nazis’ bible, for his oath? And if not, why not? On what grounds will those defending Ellison’s right to choose his favorite book deny that same right to a racist who is elected to public office?

…for all of American history, Jews elected to public office have taken their oath on the Bible, even though they do not believe in the New Testament, and the many secular elected officials have not believed in the Old Testament either…Nor has one Mormon official demanded to put his hand on the Book of Mormon.

… When all elected officials take their oaths of office with their hands on the very same book, they all affirm that some unifying value system underlies American civilization. If Keith Ellison is allowed to change that, he will be doing more damage to the unity of America and to the value system that has formed this country than the terrorists of 9-11.

That last bit, to me, seems over-the-top and clearly a slippery-slope fallacy and glittering generality. But at the same time, he does have a point: commonly swearing on the same document has a unifying effect in the US Congress. Or does it?

My personal preference would be for those sworn in to swear upon the U.S. Constitution. Unfortunately, seeing how widespread the abuse of that document has been under the current regime (warrant-less wiretaps, incarceration of American citizens without due process, deportation of American citizens to foreign countries for cruel and unusual punishment, etc.), I don’t know if that would do any good.

What do you think? Is this a violation of an honored tradition? Is the precedent of Jewish (the USA has the largest Jewish population on the planet) and nonreligious Congressmen swearing upon the Bible for generations enough call for it to continue in all cases? Or is Keith Ellison establishing a valuable new precedent?

I appreciate all the calls over the past weekend asking what I want for the Holiday season. Just to make it easier for all my friends, I’ve decided to throw up my gadget wish list here. 🙂

Anyone have any kudos or warnings about the list? Or the fact that I’m too dumb to figure out how the html list code works (Matt’s help appreciated for formatting purposes)?

**Sprint Treo 700wx, 700p — need my NHL Mobile and my live video feed **Microsoft Zune or Zen Nano Plus (Creative) **JVC HA-FX33 Marshmallow earbuds, $20, www.jvc.com **Jabra BT125, $40, Bluetooth headset, www.jabra.com **Parrot Minikit, $125, Bluetooth hands-free speaker phone, www.parrot.biz **SanDisk Ultra II SD Plus, secure digital card, memory storage

What is everyone else looking at for a stocking stuffer? Geeks like me want to know.

This one was sufficiently weird that I just had to post it:

The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain plays “Smells Like Teen Spirit”.

Thanks to the Rabid Paladin for the link.

Sammy G and Wife Unit in the hizzy. We fly in this afternoon late and leave Saturday night. Call me, email me or blog me if anyone wants to hang.

Ever find yourself hitting the snooze button repeatedly? This little device may be just what you need: an alarm clock that hides itself after you hit the snooze button so that you have to get up and find your alarm clock in order to snooze more…

The most extreme solution I’ve ever seen is one where a gentleman rigged a timer to a garden hose which would douse him if he did not get out of bed on time. What’s the most extreme you’ve gone to wake yourself up?

Mine has been relatively tame: three alarm clocks, each louder than the last, each just a bit further away from the bed than the last.

Just watched a wonderful, brief presentation by Michael Shermer on selective observation and humanity’s tendency to fixate on certain details.

Original source: http://tedblog.typepad.com/tedblog/2006/11/skeptic_founder.html.

Michael Shermer is the founder of the Skeptic’s Society, and author of the fabulous book, “Why People Believe Weird Things”. The video’s worth the watch if, for nothing else, to hear the difference between a poetic song and the same one written with science in mind. Not to mention the kids throwing balls back and forth. Concentrate really hard on what Shermer asks you to watch in the video! It’s worth it!

So it turns out the local non-emergency lines spread misinformation; it wasn’t an explosion at Kennecott, it was a minor earthquake with an epicenter on their property.

A minor earthquake (earlier reported as an explosion) at or near the Kennecott Copper Mine or plant rocked the city of Salt Lake tonight at approximately 11:21 PM. Two jolts were felt in succession; in this location, it was sufficiently loud and concussive enough to make us think that our building had been hit by a large truck.

More news and links to follow as I get more information. The problem is, major news networks aren’t reporting anything about it yet since it’s the middle of the night here, and I suppose it’s a fairly minor event as far as major news networks are concerned. The only way I learned the cause of this shake was that our building security called the local non-emergency number to determine the source of the concussion and if we needed to take any action. The police dep’t said it was an explosion.

It sure shocked the heck out of us here in the valley, though. It felt about like a magnitude 4 earthquake (Note: This just goes to show how not having been in an earthquake for a very long time, I’ve lost my sense of perspective), two strong jolts which caused the entire building to move sideways and plaster and dust to fall from the ceiling and walls.

The Bingham Copper Mine, an open strip mine just a few miles east of my home on Tooele, is the single largest man-made object on the planet, and clearly visible from space.

First update: Data from the University of Utah Seismograph places this as a magnitude 2.6 earthquake.

Second update: Looking at the epicenter information, the Utah Geological Survey places the epicenter right northwest of downtown Magna, only about 4 miles from my building. If that’s the case, the earthquake was much more minor than I first thought. However, the UGS says the location information is only “fair”, meaning not fully triangulated, and could be off by a couple of miles. (later upgraded to “good”, moved one mile north).

Third update: A co-worker and I decided to go for a drive up towards the copper mine on our lunch break, and there are a bunch of fire engines up there around the “Little Valley” area on the north side of the mine. No exact location yet, but it looks like it wasn’t in the pit mine itself, but in one of the buildings further north. Given the time of night and the lack of any news coverage of this event, I’m guessing there were no fatalities. (Note: OK, so this was an earthquake, not an explosion, but why were there so many fire trucks up there last night?)

Fourth update: Conflicting reports now that daylight is arriving. Latest rumors say it was a micro-earthquake, and not an explosion at all. A micro-earthquake is a non-event, we get several every day in the mountains nearby. An explosion at the copper plant is a big event. Which one’s right?

So there I was today eating my lunch in the local diner watching the local news when I had a celebrity Sighting. A commercial came on for Senate Pest Control service. The scruffy guy sitting in his kitchen looks like a well know Barnsonian – Mr. Justin Timpane.

Is it true Justin, or is there another who looks like a dead ringer for you?

Yeah. This commercial only makes sense if you’re in Utah, and this kind of thing happens way more often than you’d think!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZrSZvABT58k&mode=related&search=