"Mythbusters" Apologize for Cannonball Incident

Let's hope this doesn't mean the eventual cancellation of the show. It looks like this was a truly unavoidable but extremely dangerous accident, and luckily nobody was hurt. But if residents of the affected community sue the show, I wouldn't be surprised if Discovery pulled the plug on it.

Prayer at Honolulu City Lights and a potential can of worms

Also posted to furrychristians:

Honolulu City Lights is an annual event put on by the City and County of Honolulu marked by lighting the city's Christmas tree and Christmas/holiday decorations and lights throughout the city.

As part of the opening ceremonies to light the city's Christmas tree, Pastor Wayne Cordeiro, the senior pastor at my church, offered an opening prayer. But just as he started praying, a heckler in the audience kept objecting, saying the prayer was a clear violation of the Constitution:

At the risk of opening a can of worms, I was listening to a morning radio show the following Monday (the event was on a Friday night) when someone called into the station supporting the heckler, saying that the prayer violated the Constitution's Establishment Clause (separation of church and state). The radio DJs said that there is NO provision in the Constitution that states this, to which the caller vehemently disagreed, and both the DJs and the caller told each other to read the Constitution, which they both said they did.

So who was right?

After doing some research, I found out that the Bill of Rights doesn't explicitly state "separation of church and state." Instead, it says: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The Bill of Rights prohibits the establishment of a national religion, or endorsement of one religion over the other. And that's where it gets sticky.

This article describes the debate fairly well. One of the things it says is:

On one extreme are those who insist that "separation of church and state" isn't in the First Amendment. On the other extreme are those who interpret "separation" to mean eliminating religion from the public square entirely. The truth falls somewhere in between.

So who was right? Good question... though I do give Pastor Wayne props for ignoring the heckler and pressing on with his prayer.

Writer's Block: Chestnuts roasting on an open fire

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It's hard for me to pick out a single song as my favorite. Here are four... :)

"The Prayer" -- Ho'okena ft Maila Gibson. Gets a lot of airplay during the holidays, even though it isn't a holiday song per se.

"Merry Christmas Darling" -- The Carpenters. Sang this song in chorus when I was in 5th and 6th grade, then later played in orchestra in 10th grade through 12th grade.

"You" (holiday version) -- Jim Brickman ft Jane Krakowski. The holiday version of Jim Brickman's song, which was very elusive to get until it was released as a free download last year.

"It's Christmas Once Again in Honolulu" -- Barry De Vorzon. This version gets radio airplay but as far as I know has never been publicly released.
Link here (embedding disabled)

Cat's Pride Fresh & Light

Haven't tried this product yet but I like the commercials. :)