Now, don’t respond to this by pointing out leftist hypocrisy. I know that a little human hypocrisy is inevitable. I’m even sure that you could run through 480 or so posts I have here on my blog, and find some minor instance where I exhibit hypocritical tendencies (though I feel confident there is nothing major).
I hate to do this. I really do. I’m a firm believer in free speech. The 1st Amendment is like my Bible. I really believe, that as bad as some speech is, to ban it is even worse. When we start banning speech because of its content, we’ve lost our way in what I feel is the inexorable progress of human civilization. Speech leads the way, so banning someone from my blog is banning their speech, and I really hate to do that…and…
…Oh, who am I kidding. No I don’t. At least not in this case.
With all this talk about whether President Obama is a Muslim or a Christian, as he claims, with Glenn Feckless making an issue of it despite his own Christian ambiguity, with 18% of the electorate believing he’s a Muslim, and with 60% of seemingly lobotomized Republicans using it as a political issue to retake Congress, it seems to me that the Founding Fathers didn’t go far enough defining the required qualifications for the job of President.
I apologize in advance for two posts in a row that combine politics and religion, but it seems that for some reason they make such fine bedfellows.
International Blasphemy Day got me thinking about the concept of blasphemy. 
What exactly is blasphemy? I know that the Church I was brought up in (Roman Catholic) didn’t think too highly of it. According to the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia
While etymologically blasphemy may denote the derogation of the honour due to a creature as well as of that belonging to God, in its strict acceptation it is used only in the latter sense. Hence it has been defined by Francisco Suárez as “any word of malediction, reproach, or contumely pronounced against God: (De Relig., tract. iii, lib. I, cap. iv, n. 1). It is to be noted that according to the definition (1) blasphemy is set down as a word, for ordinarily it is expressed in speech, though it may be committed in thought or in act. Being primarily a sin of the tongue, it will be seen to be opposed directly to the religious act of praising God. (2) It is said to be against God, though this may be only mediately, as when the contumelious word is spoken of the saints or of sacred things, because of the relationship they sustain to God and His service.
The plane accident the other day in New York where an obviously skilled pilot averted a major catastrophe, not only to the passengers in his charge, but to people on the ground in one of the most densely populated areas on the Earth, gave the media the opportunity to trot out two words that they love to pontificate with. Hero and Miracle. You hear them used quite often, with impunity and apparently without any thought to whether they are being used correctly (though the Christian Science Monitor, ironically, seems to have taken a sober approach to the subject). They reinforce in the listeners minds concepts that should be limited to extraordinary circumstances, but instead are blithely applied to some of the most mundane, commonplace experiences of human existence, in the process relegating the terms to the dustbin of nonsense. Let look at both words.
SPANISH INQUISITOR 