The SloboPoll question this week is:

Do you think U.S. troops will begin withdrawing from Iraq during the first half of this year?

The choices are:

Yes
No

This post is open for comments on the SloboPoll, if you so desire.

The question was:

Do you plan on making any New Years resolutions?

There were a total of 420 votes which breakdown like this:

Yes (235 votes) [56.0%]
No (185 votes) [44.0%]

Check out the new questions each week here on Slobokan’s Site O’ Schtuff.

Ella is a single girl living in New York City who decides to start a blog. In one post, she lets a little too much information out, teaching her a very important lesson about how much to keep to yourself when making your life public.

It’s not everyday someone I know writes a book, and a damn fine book at that! Way to go Vinny!

(excuse me, what are you still doing here? go order yourself a copy).

Yesterday, as I was reading through the news of the day, when I happened across a story on FoxNews…

A federal judge in Indianapolis says he won’t reconsider his decision barring the Indiana House of Representatives from opening its sessions with specifically Christian prayers.

I really did not think much of it. While our country was founded on Judeo/Christian beliefs, it was also founded on the basis of religious freedom and I see where some people may find a Christian prayer at the beginning of a legislative session as an unwelcome intrusion on that freedom. Some people are quick to argue that the words “separation of church and state” are not mentioned verbatim in the U.S. Constitution, and I would not disagree with them, but I doubt they could argue that the Founding Fathers didn’t fully intend it.

During the debates in the Federal Convention of 1787, Mr. Charles Pinkney moved to add “but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the authority of the United States.” but Mr. Sherman thought it was not necessary. He thought the prevailing liberality already proposed by the convention was sufficient security against such tests. The proposal eventually passed and became part of the Constitution (Article VI, Section III).

Mr. Pinckney also wished to guarantee religious freedom in the Federal Constitution by providing that “The legislature of the United States shall pass no law on the subject of religion”, but for some reason that subject was dropped until the Bill Of Rights was drafted two years later.

I am no Constitutional scholar, but the two references to religion that I have referenced are

Article VI, Section III, which says,

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

and the First Amendment, which says,

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

If you simply read those two sections, you might be left to wonder what exactly was intended. The same can be said when one reads passages from the Bible. If you do not understand the context in which the words were written, do you really understand what the words intend to convey to you? For example, throughout the New Testament, passages are constantly referenced to passages within the Old Testament, else they might not make sense to the reader.

The elimination of religious tests for public office by the Constitutional Convention of 1787 represented a major achievement for the future course of American church-state relations. Article VI not only removed the basis for any preferential treatment of one religion over another for holding public office, but also denied the right of any preferential status of religion over nonreligion in matters of one’s political participation in the life of the Republic. William Lee Miller appropriately noted in his recent historical review of religion and the Constitution, The First Liberty: Religion and the American Republic, that “in the framing of Article VI …the new nation was electing to be nonreligious in its civil life.” On the subject of religion, Miller finds “more striking than what the Federal Constitution did include is what it did not.” Unlike other legal documents of the period and throughout history, there art no references in the Constitution to the Deity, to God, to “Providence.” or even to the Creator, as in the case of the Declaration of Independence, which, unlike the Constitution, was not a formal legal document.

The prohibition of any religious test for public office came not only out of a religious pluralism that was rampant at the time of the nation’s founding, but also out of the concept of the new Republic as a secular state. The very exclusion of any religious test for office was itself a profound acknowledgment of the secular character of the new Republic, to use Miller’s phrase, “to be nonreligious in its civil life.”

The secular state, by its very nature, is a limited state in which the people have denied the jurisdiction of civil authority over religious affairs. The secular state is not born out of hostility to religion, any more than Article VI, as noted earlier, is to be viewed as adverse to religion. In the words of America’s most distinguished church historian of the nineteenth century, Philip Schaff, the Constitution is neither hostile nor friendly to any religion; it is simply silent on the subject, as lying beyond the jurisdiction of the general government.”

[Source: The No Religious Test Ban Clause (Separation clause)]

I think the Founding Fathers made it quite clear that church and state should be separate. So I find it odd that most every site I have visited has attacked Judge Hamilton for his ruling, calling him “anti-Christian” and citing Matthew 7:22-23,

Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

How pious of them to assume that Judge Hamilton is not a Christian, or that he will be judged in such a way. Who do these people think they are? How do they know what Jesus would say? This man has not condemned Christianity. He has not forbidden people to pray when opening the legislature. This man has done nothing, except step on the toes of religious fundamentalist hypocrites who are so quick to cite the law of the land when it suits their needs, but even quicker to attack those who uphold other laws they deem inappropriate.

“The Baptist Message Online” quotes the following:

The lawsuit was brought against Bosma by the Indiana Civil Liberties Union – the Indiana affiliate of the ACLU – on behalf of four Indiana citizens. One is a member of the Society of Friends (Quakers), another is a retired United Methodist minister and two are Roman Catholic.The ICLU did not ask that the prayers be discontinued altogether – only that the prayers not be sectarian and include Christ’s name. According to Hamilton, the 2005 legislative session included 53 prayers. Forty-one were delivered by Christian clergy, nine by representatives and one each by a Muslim, a Jew and a layperson.

If there was ever an argument that shows the violation of freedom of religion, its the last two lines of that quote. 53 prayers. 50 of them by Christians. Judge Hamilton’s ruling does not call for an end to the prayers. It calls for an end to using specifics within such prayers.

The web is teeming with calls for Judge Hamilton to be removed from office. People are outraged that this Judge could rule in such a way. Why are they not outraged at the Quaker, the Methodist, or the two Catholics who brought the suit? Why is there only outrage at the judge? Where is the outrage toward their “known” fellow Christians? What? There isn’t any? Thats just a tad hypocritical isn’t it? Especially seeing that most people commenting on this issue don’t even know if he is a Christian or not.

Do you honestly think Judge Hamilton will be turned away at the gates of Heaven because of this? If so, then your Jesus is a far cry from my Jesus, and Your God is definitely not my God.

Having recently discovered and installed Hamachi, I realized I needed it to run as a service on several machines. When machines reboot, for one reason or another, I need Hamachi to start with the machine, irregardless if someone is there to login to the machine. I decided to see if anyone else had accomplished this task, and found that several people had in fact done exactly that, but I could not find all of the instructions from beginning to end, in one easy location.

I now have Hamachi running on two Windows XP machines, and one Windows 2000 Server machine, as a service. It automatically starts when the machine boots. The following is a list of the steps I took to get there, and they may (or may not) help you do the same thing. These steps include editting the Windows Registry, and unless you know what you are doing, I don’t recommend doing it. I offer no guarantee this will work for you, but it won’t hurt to try will it?

I hope this brief tutorial helps you get Hamachi running as a service on your machine.

NOTE: As I finished double checking this post, I found two posts in the Hamachi support forums, here and here, which also cover running Hamachi as a service.

Just yesterday, I was reading one of our local news websites…

DeKalb County authorities are investigating how a mental patient reported missing by her family in October was actually in the DeKalb County jail the entire time.

Felicia Kindle’s family is furious that police and jail personnel were unable to locate her until Wednesday.

…

DeKalb Police, as well as jail officials are investigating. They’ve already figured out part of the problem. They say Felicia came in as a ‘Jane Doe.’ Her fingerprints turned up the right name, but the wrong spelling from her most recent arrest. They say that they had her last name spelled ‘Kendele’ and ‘Kindle.’

Authorities were unable to find this “missing person” because of a misspelled last name. Who would have thought correct spelling could make the difference in a missing persons case.

Imagine my surprise then, to read see this article, about another missing person, today…

Hopefully this family will not have to wait three months to find her…

I decided to do a little checking, and another local news website reports the following information:

Police in Woodstock are searching for a 79 year old woman who walked away from the Woodstock Estates Assisted Living Center on Wednesday night.

Louise Poe managed to get out of a bedroom window rigged with an alarm shortly before 9 p.m. Ms. Poe suffers from Dementia and Asthma. It’s not know what type clothing Ms. Poe was wearing.

Dozens of Woodstock and Cherokee County officials searched Wednesday night and Thursday near the assisted living center located on 1000 Professional Way in Woodstock.

Ms. Poe is described as a white female, grey and black hair, 4 foot 10 inches and about 99 pounds. Anyone with information in this case is asked to contact the Woodstock Police Department at 770-592-6030.

Let’s hope they find her soon.

WSB-TV also reports her name as Louise Poe.

Michael J. Totten gives his first person account of the real Libya.

I don’t think any of us, who haven’t been there, can truly understand what it’s like, but his article really opens the eyes.

Head on over to LA Weekly and experience Libya. Just don’t eat the fish.

Sixty-four percent (64%) of Americans believe the National Security Agency (NSA) should be allowed to intercept telephone conversations between terrorism suspects in other countries and people living in the United States. A Rasmussen Reports survey found that just 23% disagree.

Eighty-one percent (81%) of Republicans believe the NSA should be allowed to listen in on conversations between terror suspects and people living in the United States. That view is shared by 51% of Democrats and 57% of those not affiliated with either major political party.

Impressive numbers, considering the fact that Lamestream Media has attempted to make this the next Watergate.

So, I was sitting here today, reading my favorite blogs, when I noticed Lisa had upgraded to Wordpress 2.0

Of course, I am not one to be left behind, so tonight, I took the plunge. And everything works! WOOT!

All of my plugins work. They include Akismet, Bad Behavior, Angsuman’s Feed Copyrighter, Counterize, Get Recent Comments, WP-Polls, Simple Tags, Subscribe To Comments, todayAgo, WP Grins, WP-IPAT, and IP 2 Nation.

I have a couple other “plugins and functions” that I wrote specifically for me, that are also running as well.

I cannot stand the WYSIWYG editor, so of course, even though I do not use the built in interface, I am thankful the developers added an option to turn that off. Ya never know when I will have to post using it.

If I ever do have to use it, the new post preview feature is awesome! It let’s you see your post exactly as it will appear on the site. Very nice.

I love the ease in uploading images and the new image browser, but I do not like the fact that the image I uploaded is automatically placed in “wp-content/uploads/2005/12/” folder. When I make a post in September, how am I supposed to remember which month I uploaded the image? Cool image browser or not, that would be a lot of browsing to find an image, when I most likely would already know the name of it.

There are so many changes, I will simply point you to Asymptomatic for a much more detailed list.

After giving this thing the once-over, all I can say is WOW. Great job guys!

Vincent Schiavelli, the droopy-eyed character actor who appeared in scores of movies, including “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and “Ghost,” died Monday at his home in Sicily. He was 57.

He died of lung cancer, said Salvatore Glorioso, mayor of Polizzi Generosa, the Sicilian village where Schiavelli resided.

…

“With a smooth, witty conversation, he would make everything look more colorful. I’ve lost a brother,” he said.

Schiavelli also had worked in Italy, including in 2001 when he directed a theater piece in Sicily based on nine fables.

A funeral service will be held Tuesday in Polizzi Generosa, Glorioso said.

Rest In Peace, Vincent.