Some of You People Weren't Answering Those E-mails...

When bad things happen to good people:

The owner of a multimillion-dollar home on Foxhall Road in northwest D.C. was evicted on Monday.

The homeowner, Oladipo Aina, is a Nigerian-born CEO of a company called "The Potentional Millionaires Investment Club International." His business card says he is a foreclosure specialist.

Workers emptied the contents of the five-bedroom, 5,000-square foot home onto the sidewalk Monday.

Federal marshals looked on as two Rolls Royces were towed from the driveway.

"I am not afraid," Aina said.

Bank records show Aina and his associates in October were served with a 30-day notice to quit and vacate because another owner had purchase the home in a foreclosure sale.

"They are lying," Aina said.

Chairs, furniture and bags of personal effects took up nearly half a city block, causing people who live in the neighborhood to stop and stare.

Now, before you start to feel sorry for him...

Aina has 24 hours to move his positions. He said he's been railroaded.

"I have 30,000 acres of emerald mines worth billions," he said. He said the mines are located in Zambia.

Aina said he will move into an $8 million home in McLean as soon as he can get the people living there to move out.

I guess that settles that. Wanna bet the E-mails asking you, the most dearest one, to help transfer some funds from the Central Bank of the Ivory Coast to a Swiss bank account are "interrupted" until Aina can get his Internet access turned back on?

Danger UXB

I'm not sure what to make of this:

Sam White got hooked on the U.S. Civil War early, digging up rusting bullets and military buttons in the battle-scarred earth of his hometown.

As an adult, he crisscrossed the Virginia countryside in search of wartime relics - 19-century weapons, battle flags, even artillery shells buried in the red clay. He sometimes put on diving gear to feel for treasures hidden in the black muck of river bottoms.

But in February, White's hobby cost him his life: A cannonball he was restoring exploded, killing him in his driveway.

I think what's missing here is a little critical thinking--what would possess someone to take a grinder and try to "clean up" an artillery shell?

Experts suspect White was killed while trying to disarm a 9-inch, 75-pound naval cannonball, a particularly potent explosive with a more complex fuse and many times the destructive power of those used by infantry artillery.

Biemeck and Peter George, co-author of a book on Civil War ordnance, believe White was using either a drill or a grinder attached to a drill to remove grit from the cannonball, causing a shower of sparks.

Because of the fuse design, it may have appeared as though the weapon's powder had already been removed, leading even a veteran like White to conclude mistakenly that the ball was inert.

The weapon also had to be waterproof because it was designed to skip over the water at 600 mph to strike at the waterline of an enemy ship. The protection against moisture meant the ball could have remained potent longer than an infantry shell.

Brenda White is convinced her husband was working on a flawed cannonball, and no amount of caution could have prevented his death.

"He had already disarmed the shell," she said. "From what I was told, there was absolutely nothing he had done wrong, that there was a manufacturing defect that no one would have known was there."

After White's death, about two dozen homes were evacuated for two days while explosives experts collected pieces from his collection and detonated them.

It took TWO DAYS to remove the unexploded ordnance from his home--a sign that, at least to me, this guy was up to his eyeballs in something that, frankly, should have been illegal. His "accident" could have killed others. Shrapnel from the explosion that killed White sent pieces of metal flying up to a quarter of a mile from his home. I mean, really. Was it worth it? To put on a diving suit and pull a cannonball up out of the water?

Who Cares What You Believe?

How is this even an issue? Oh, that's right. The "God Boys" are running wild in the US Army as well as the US Air Force:

"I was ashamed to say that I was an atheist," Hall said.

It eventually came out in Iraq in 2007, when he was in a firefight. Hall was a gunner on a Humvee, which took several bullets in its protective shield. Afterward, his commander asked whether he believed in God, Hall said.

"I said, 'No, but I believe in Plexiglas,'" Hall said. "I've never believed I was going to a happy place. You get one life. When I die, I'm worm food."

The issue came to a head when, according to Hall, a superior officer, Maj. Freddy J. Welborn, threatened to bring charges against him for trying to hold a meeting of atheists in Iraq. Welborn has denied Hall's allegations.

Hall said he had had enough but feared he wouldn't get support from Welborn's superiors. He turned to Mikey Weinstein and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation.

Weinstein is the foundation's president and a U.S. Air Force Academy graduate. He had previously sued the Air Force for acts he said illegally imposed Christianity on students at the academy, though that case was dismissed. He calls Hall a hero.

"The average American doesn't have enough intestinal fortitude to tell someone to shut up if they are talking in a movie theater," Weinstein said. "You know how hard it is to take on your chain of command? This isn't the shift manager at KFC."

Hall was in Qatar when the lawsuit was filed on Sept. 18 in federal court in Kansas City, Kan. Other soldiers learned of it and he feared for his own safety. Once, Hall said, a group of soldiers followed him, harassing him, but no one did anything to make it stop.

The Army told him it couldn't protect him and sent him back to Fort Riley. He resumed duties with a military police battalion. He believes his promotion to sergeant has been blocked because of his lawsuit, but he is a team leader responsible for two junior enlisted soldiers.

Somewhere, there's the stupidest MP battalion ever. And I think Hall is serving in it.

Hall needs to get transferred to a Military Intelligence battalion (certain battalions have MPs to guard secure facilities) and he'll find atheists, Wiccans, Mormons, Episcopalians and worshippers of the alien God Zogart. And he'll just be another dude in BDUs.

Sometimes the jokes write themselves

Irony No. 1 - The ID loonies make a movie called Expelled, then they refuse entry to a registered guest who happens to be an evolutionary biologist and a known ID critic, even though he had agreed to appear on camera for the film and is in the movie.

Irony No. 2 - Do I really have to tell you to look what is scrawled in red under Ben's dour mug?