Musings of a Twisted Mind|Here you will find thoughts on current events, sports, politics, court system, theology, and other things.

Is there anything that could be better then that?

I mean seriously. Could there be a better story then Mario and Ron Burkle buying the Pirates?

It could even make me a Penguins fan. I have never liked hockey but if they could save Pittsburgh from the worst owner in sports, I’m willing to learn to love hockey. Truly I am.

Do Pittsburgh a service and sell the team Nutting. Pittsburgh deserves better then you.

Back at the end of November, there was the message posted at Badger Comics that their subscriptions were ending. This was without warning and they made people pay deposits for comics two months in advance.

Effective immediately Badger Subscriptions is closed. We appreciate you the customers and the business you have given us over the years but unfortunately it has become impossible to keep the service going. It has been a difficult decision but instead of things getting better over the past few months they have continued to decline making the choice quite plain.

Orders for November will be finished/shipped by Wednesday Dec 2nd. All unfilled items that have not yet been received will have their deposits calculated and refunded fully within the next 7-10 business days. Any orders/items that have been received and have not been able to be billed are still subject to the terms of the service and are only eligible to have their deposits refunded as store credit. All other deposits will be refunded to the original payment method. Thank you.

Well that stunk. I had just started using them for about four months. Well its now January 24 and I still never got that shipment that was supposed to ship on the 2nd of December. And I also have never received a refund for the deposits by my last statement received on January 7.

My inquiries have gone unanswered.

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This is just amazing. I never would have imagined Massachusetts electing a Republican to replace Ted Kennedy. This should show the Democrats just how unpopular this health bill is with people. The only thing it does is give money to the insurance companies since it will force people to pay for it.

In an epic upset in liberal Massachusetts, Republican Scott Brown rode a wave of voter anger to win the U.S. Senate seat held by the late Edward M. Kennedy for nearly half a century, leaving President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul in doubt and marring the end of his first year in office.

Addressing an exuberant victory celebration Tuesday night, Brown declared he was “ready to go to Washington without delay” as the crowd chanted, “Seat him now.” Democrats indicated they would, deflating a budding controversy over whether they would try to block Brown long enough to complete congressional passage of the health care plan he has promised to oppose.

“The people of Massachusetts have spoken. We welcome Scott Brown to the Senate and will move to seat him as soon as the proper paperwork has been received,” said Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin said he would notify the Senate on Wednesday that Brown had been elected.

I wonder how long the proper paperwork will take.

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A Vietnamese man violently forced to recant his fledgling Christian faith faces pressure from authorities and clansmen to prove his return to traditional Hmong belief by sacrificing to ancestors next month.

Sung Cua Po, who embraced Christianity in November, received some 70 blows to his head and back after local officials in northwest Vietnam’s Dien Bien Province arrested him on Dec. 1, 2009, according to documents obtained by Compass. His wife, Hang thi Va, was also beaten. They live in Ho Co village.

Dien Bien Dong District and Na Son Commune police and soldiers led by policeman Hang A Senh took the Christian couple to the Na Son Commune People’s Committee office after police earlier incited local residents to abuse and stone them and other Christian families. After Po and his wife were beaten at 1 a.m. that night, he was fined 8 million dong (US$430) and a pig of at least 16 kilos. His cell phone and motorbike were confiscated, according to the documents.

Christians Sung A Sinh and Hang A Xa of Trung Phu village were also beaten about the head and back and fined a pig of 16 kilos each so that local authorities could eat, according to the reports. The documents stated that the reason for the mistreatment of the Christians was that they abandoned “the good and beautiful” traditional Hmong beliefs and practices to follow Protestant Christianity.

I discovered over the weekend that the entire debate that was held back in 2007 is online at the organization that held it, Fix Point Foundation’s website.

You can watch it here

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Texas is considering adding to the high school curriculum more emphasis on how religion influenced American History. Such as the founders’ faith and how Christianity impacted the early nation.

Over the past several months, much of the debate has centered on proposals highlighting the religious beliefs of the nation’s founding fathers. Some require that students “identify major intellectual, philosophical, political, and religious traditions that informed the American founding, including Judeo-Christian (especially biblical law);” explain the significance of religious holidays and observances such as Christmas, Easter, Ramadan, and the annual hajj; and describe religious motivation for immigration and influence on social movements, including the impact of the first and second Great Awakenings.

Of course there is opposition:

Texas Freedom Network, an organization of religious and community leaders advocating for church-state separation, fear students in public schools classrooms may learn that the United States favors one faith over other faiths.

“Some board members and the non-expert ideologues they appointed to a review panel have made it clear that they want students to learn that the founding fathers intended America to be an explicitly Christian nation with laws based on their own narrow interpretations of the Bible,” said Kathy Miller, president of the Texas Freedom Network, according to The Associated Press.

But others argue that the proposed standards do not declare the United States to be a Christian nation. Rather, they provide understanding that the biblical world view of the founding fathers was a big influence in shaping the principles on which the nation was founded.

We’re going to make sure that EVERYONE has health insurance. That’s right everyone.

How are we going to do that?

Well you have to sign up for that health insurance policy that costs an arm and a leg. Or you’ll be fined.

Isn’t that great?

What a wonderful concept for the insurance industry.

We’ll decide how you spend your money so we can pat ourselves on the back and say we did something. YAY!!!!

Its amazing how good it is at filtering out the spam comments on this blog.

Maybe they could teach yahoo email some things so that the yahoo email addresses are actually useful.

There will be no tax after all. An agreement between Non-Profits and the city averts it. The University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon, and unexpectedly, Hallmark have agreed to increase their voluntary payments to the city.

For some reason it doesn’t seem very voluntary to me.

No word on if Pittsburgh Theological Seminary or the other not mentioned schools have avoided having to pay. With PTS only have about 300 students they certainly couldn’t afford much compared to the other schools.

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The protesting continues in Iran. I bet the officials never dreamed they would last this long when they gave the election to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over Mir-Hossein Mousavi.

These protests are formed during the funeral of Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri who at one point was the second in charge in Iran until he criticized Khomeini for the mass killings of political prisoners in Iran. That got him removed two months before Khomeini died.

Hossein Bastani, an Iranian political analyst, said the protests had moved beyond anger over the election and were now aimed directly at Khamenei. “Khamenei’s comments about Montazeri met with a very negative reflection in Iranian opposition websites and media,” he said. “Today we had a very great demonstration in Qom, a small provincial city and the ideological centre of the Islamic regime,” he added

“I don’t think there were demonstrations there of that size even during the revolution. The slogans people were chanting were indirectly against the Islamic regime and similar to what was chanted before the revolution against the Shah.”