Blessed in a warehouse by a priest!

It took two Florida businessmen to come up with this. (Florida… again?)

Someone kill me. Kill me now!

Where business meets religion: Holy drinking water

The instructions are simple: Read the Prayer . . / Drink the Water . . . / Believe in God! / Believe in Yourself!

Spiritual Water, the faith-inspired venture of two Florida businessmen, offers its drinkers clearer focus, positive thinking and connection to a higher power. The 11 different bottle designs in the company’s collection bear prayers and impressively detailed images of Jesus Christ, St. Michael and the Virgin Mary.

Where’s Robertson’s or Dobson’s outrage? Spiritual-themed gimmicks like this tend to shoot religion’s credibility right in the foot.

The Impressions
“It’s Alright”

Fired for performing an act of wizardry. QuestionGirl, what the hell is going on in Florida?

Magic trick costs teacher job

Substitute teacher Jim Piculas does a 30’second magic trick where a toothpick disappears then reappears.

But after performing it in front of a classroom at Rushe Middle School in Land ‘O Lakes, Piculas said his job did a disappearing act of its own. [...]

After the magic trick, Rushe’s principal, [Dave Estabrook?], requested Piculas be dismissed. Now, Piculas believes the incident may have bewitched his ability to get a job anywhere else.

“I still have no idea what my discipline involves because I’ve never received anything from the school district actually saying what it entails,” said Piculas.

As a substitute teacher, the Pasco County School District considers Piculas to be an “at will employee.” That means the district doesn’t need to have cause for not bringing him back at all.

What I would like to see happen here is the school’s principal, and any and all like-minded cretins throughout America, be asked to leave the country. But I would settle with seeing Mr. Estabrook lose his job.

Hillary Clinton continued her swipes at Barack Obama in her final swing across North Carolina before the primary vote there Tuesday. Via Balloon-Juice:

Clinton again criticized her opponent for not accepting her gas tax relief proposal saying, “Sen. Obama wants you to pay the gas tax this summer - instead of trying to get it so the oil companies pay it out of their record profit. I believe that we should start standing up for the vast majority of Americans who are paying these outrageous prices.”

I’m confused by this. I thought both her and McCain were simply going to drop the tax for the summer. Now she’s talking about making big oil pay the tax temselves? What? Is big oil aware of Hill’s new plans? (I bet they’re nervous!)

Hillary also talked about a possible lawsuit…

Clinton also said that as president, she would try to sue OPEC — the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which controls the price of two-thirds of the world’s oil supply.

“We-re going to go after OPEC which remember is a monopoly cartel,” Clinton said. “There’s nothing free-market about it. They sit in some conference room a couple of times a year and decide how much oil they are going to produce and how much they are going to charge for it. So lets change our laws so we can sue them on anti-trust reasons.”

What say we all meet back here in about an hour so we can have a group eye-rolling?

Great piece by New York Times op-ed columnist, Thomas Friedman, “Who Will Tell the People?”

Much nonsense has been written about how Hillary Clinton is “toughening up” Barack Obama so he-ll be tough enough to withstand Republican attacks. Sorry, we don-t need a president who is tough enough to withstand the lies of his opponents. We need a president who is tough enough to tell the truth to the American people. Any one of the candidates can answer the Red Phone at 3 a.m. in the White House bedroom. I-m voting for the one who can talk straight to the American people on national TV - at 8 p.m. - from the White House East Room.

Who will tell the people? We are not who we think we are. We are living on borrowed time and borrowed dimes. We still have all the potential for greatness, but only if we get back to work on our country.

I don-t know if Barack Obama can lead that, but the notion that the idealism he has inspired in so many young people doesn-t matter is dead wrong. “Of course, hope alone is not enough,” says Tim Shriver, chairman of Special Olympics, “but it’s not trivial. It’s not trivial to inspire people to want to get up and do something with someone else.”

Mr. Friedman is more optimistic than I am. I believe our country would have to suffer a total and complete “tear down” to ever regain any amount of glory. Greed and religious hate/bigotry have too tight of hold on us to ever recover from.

Republicans. They’re pro-guns, pro-war and pro-death penalty. I guess that makes them pro-pain. Would explain why they get a kick out of seeing someone going through a rough patch.

That said, why are we to believe that John McCain will work tirelessly to help those of us wading neck-deep through a recession? I think it more likely he would just point and laugh.

Billboard by Ron English / Laughing Squid

Sick, twisted fucks:

GOP Gleeful at Obama rocky period

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans can hardly contain their glee as they watch Barack Obama battle through a rocky period. And why should they?

Nothing else is breaking the GOP’s way this year. But, at least now, the Democrats’ political phenom is tarnished, and, if he defeats Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic nomination, he will enter the general election campaign not only bruised and battered - but also carrying baggage as he faces Republican John McCain.

And Lieberman. And some Cheney. I can even sense a little bit of Rumsfeld mixed in there too.

But if she ever holds up both hands, fingers locked in a V sign, proclaiming “I’m not a crook!”, can we label her a kook and send her home then?

Obama says Clinton’s talk on Iran too much like Bush’s

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Barack Obama likened Hillary Rodham Clinton to President Bush for threatening to “totally obliterate” Iran if it attacks Israel and called her gas-tax holiday a gimmick as he tried to fend off her challenge ahead of two pivotal Democratic primaries.

Clinton, in turn, stood by both her comment on Iran and her tax proposal as she gave chase in Indiana and North Carolina to the front-runner for the nomination.

The competitors squabbled over the issues - one foreign, one domestic - from a short distance, first during separate appearances on Sunday news shows and then as they courted voters for Tuesday’s primaries.