Call me a bad Christian if you like, but I’m really sick of how God has invaded daytime soap operas.  Other members of my household enjoy watching NBC’s Days of Our Lives, so I’m forced to endure this badly written show on a daily basis (damn TIVO!).  In a one-hour showing they mention God at least a dozen times or more:  you got one guy hating God because he thinks God has it in for his family; a young girl chooses to have an abortion, then tortures herself because she believes God punished her by ruining her chance to ever have children again; in another instance the Horton clan clasps hands and starts praying for the health of a sick child.  Now, don’t get me wrong, Days has always revolved around its main family, but it was also full of bed-hopping, failed marriages, and bad seeds.  Now, it’s full of goody-two-shoes who stop everything to pray.  Again, this is not a bad thing, but it often comes off sounding so fake, so forced.  Soap operas are designed to be a diversion, not sermons.  Maybe that’s why NBC’s daytime offerings are among the lowest-rated.  All those Desperate Housewives-loving red-staters prefer the sex and violence.

If Tom DeLay thought 2005 was a bad year 2006 isn’t turning out to be so hot either.  Things can’t be good when members of your own party turn against you. Hats off to Rep. John Kline for having the courage to say what many are thinking.

One has to wonder if Arnold Schwarzenegger has put the final nail in his coffin.  According to this article, the Governor has practically abandoned the party that got him into power.  With the right turning against him and the left long ago tired of his condescending attitude, Schwarzenegger may have a short term in office.

When you consider the kind of life led by Ariel Sharon, no matter what you may think of it, it’s really sad that it has come to this.

So, I wrote my little post about Wal-Mart yesterday.  It was a rare occasion of defending Wal-Mart because of the whole Planet of the Apes brouhaha.  Well, this morning I received an email from someone by the name of Marshall Manson, who claims to work for a company named Edelman on behalf of Wal-Mart.  Apparently, this person had seen my post and wanted to inform me of Wal-Mart’s statement to the media concerning this computer glitch (see below).  I’m sure they used some sort of computer program or online service to get all the blog posts about this error, but I wonder if they are sending e-mails to every poster?  Bravo to Wal-Mart if they did.  They’re still not my favorite company, but if they can harness those "Internets" to their advantage that shows a lot of forward thinking on their part.

MEDIA  STATEMENT

• We
  are heartsick that this happened and are currently doing everything
  possible to correct the problem.  The offensive combinations that have
  been identified will be removed from the site by 5:30 CT today.
  However, with thousands of movie items available, there is an almost
  endless number of possible combinations.  Because of that, we will be
  shutting down our entire movie cross-selling system until the problem
  is resolved.   
• We are deeply sorry that this    happened.   
• Our
  system, like those of most other on-line buying sites, refers buyers
  interested in a particular movie to other movies through a technical process    known as "mapping."   
• Walmart.com’s
  item mapping process does not work correctly and at this point is
  mapping seemingly random combinations of titles. We were horrified to
  discover that some hurtful and offensive combinations are being mapped
  together.    
• To
  further illustrate the bizarre nature of this technical issue, the site
  is also mapping movies such as Home Alone and Power Puff Girls to
  African American literature.