What a year it’s been! No matter how you slice it, these last twelve months have been very eventful (UNDERSTATEMENT)!But before I retire with my family for the evening, I’d like to thank you all for reading, publicizing, and commenting on the blog, and even more so for your continued support of our activism. Your donations and volunteer work have helped us make real progress this year.Thank you all, and Happy New Year.

The Secular Coalition For America has released some suggested resolutions on which I cannot improve. Check them out, watch the video, and do as you see fit!

Two-thirds of Americans think religion is losing its influence on U.S. life, a sharp jump from just three years ago when Americans were nearly evenly split on the question, according to a new Gallup Poll.Sixty-seven percent of Americans think religious influence is waning while just 27% say it is increasing. That perspective demonstrates a continuing downward trend, Gallup said.

The Israel Defense Forces said Sunday that its aircraft had bombed more than 40 tunnels linking the blockaded Gaza Strip with Egypt’s Sinai desert on Sunday, one day after the launch of the largest Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip since it captured the territory in 1967.”The air force just attacked over 40 tunnels found on the Gaza side of the border. Those tunnels, we believe, were used for smuggling weapons, explosives and sometimes people,” an IDF spokeswoman told reporters, after two days of intensive air strikes that killed nearly 300Palestinians and wounded close to 800.Palestinian sources reported that two people had been killed in the strike. Witnesses said that fires raged in the area and that dozens of explosions were heard.

Separately… http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1050626.html

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a religious decree to Muslims around the world on Sunday, ordering them to defend Palestinians against Israel’s attacks on Gaza, state television said.”All Palestinian combatants and all the Islamic world’s pious people are obliged to defend the defenceless women, children and people in Gaza in any way possible. Whoever is killed in this legitimate defense is considered a martyr,” state television quoted Khamenei as saying in a statement.

More fighting over land, money, and of course gods. My theistic Jewish relatives seem disappointed when I tell them I have no intention of traveling to Israel, but traveling to the “Region of Unlimited Unstoppable Religious War” is simply unappealing to me — especially when The Bahamas is closer.

Today I needed an MRI done on my knee, which under normal circumstances is hardly blogworthy, but this time was a little different. I needed an MRI with CONTRAST, which means they had to inject a dye in my arm.Now, about 30 years ago, I cut my hand on a piece of glass and it actually cut my artery in my palm. So, I went to the hospital to get the sliced repaired, and they injected me with dye.And then I woke up, and a nice nurse was standing over me smiling me saying “we almost lost you”. Apparently, the dye had caused my heart to stop, and they had to use the paddles they use on TV to get me living again.For the record, no, I didn’t hear anything, see anything, or have any kind of experience at all. All I got from the experience was a better appreciation for my own mortality.I must admit swallowing hard when they injected the dye today, despite their assurances that it was a totally different type of dye, and I was very very unlikely to have that kind of reaction, and even if I did they could help me because I was already in a hospital. In the end, they were right, and I had no reaction at all. Science rocks. Let’s just hope they can fix my knee.