If the animals are killed humanely, then my only complaint would be if the halal version of my dead animal flesh was more expensive to produce than the normal meat I eat. If I find out that my grocery store or favorite restaurants are wasting my money having the food they server blessed for some sort of mythical being, I will do one of two things: 1) eat/buy somewhere else; or 2) eat a hell of a lot more pork.

I used to live in Cape Coral (aka Cape Cadaver, where it was the place for "the newly wed and the nearly dead"...). It was a combination bedroom community for Fort Myers and retirement haven. When I moved from there in 1997 it was still growing rather quickly, with a population of (I believe) 80,000 with room for 250,000. It was actually a decent place to live.

Now, it is one of the foreclosure capitals of the country (http://baltimorehudhomes.com/blog/cape-coral-real-estate-foreclosure-rates/). Real estate rocketed so high that the house I sold in 1997 for $75k sold for $218k in 2006. (I saw pictures of that house recently on a real estate page - the new home owners made no significant improvements to the house.) Now, there is a short sale pending for $80k... They got hit HARD by the real estate bubble....

So, why not put the ten commandments up at city hall? What else could the mayor have to occupy his time? I mean, it's not like the guy has to worry about decreased home values leading to decreased tax revenues... or houses being abandoned leaving tax revenues short.... or anything else of importance...

During my time there, I saw some interesting characters in local politics. And by "interesting characters" I mean "complete morons." Sad to see things have not changed.

I hope nobody is surprised by Mr. Beck's comments. He is a practitioner of a system of superstitions that is based on everybody being punished for what those before them supposedly did. This is just a continuation of those superstitious practices.

Per those superstitions, everybody is born stinking of original sin. How is this different? A child wants to get into a school, but his parents (not him - his parents) have done something "wrong". Who is punished? The child - the one innocent* party. (*Actually, the parents and child are all innocent and have done no wrong, except to dare break one of Beck's group's superstitions...)

I think you took the right actions. Whenever I am watching a game on TV or live and GBA is played, I take advantage of that waste of time to either go to the men's room or hit the concession stand. Not only does it remove me from something I'd rather not sit through, but it also allows me to turn my backside to it.

FWIW - I do the same thing when they play "Cotton Eye Joe."

Please change the link to the Resolution to http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.CON....

The current link goes through the AFA site unnecessarily.

One other consideration for North Carolina - it is state law that the Pledge of Allegiance MUST be said in public school every day. So, every child in public school will hear "under god" every single school day.

Sure - children have the option of not stating the Pledge, but how many 6, 7, or even 15 year-olds will single themselves out and not say it, or skip the "under god"?

Billy and Jeffy tried that "not me" stuff all the time in Family Circus.
http://picasaweb.google.com/NoYourGod/NoYourGod#5...