Gordon Howie turns on his webcam and lets Pastor Ron Burtz of Wall ramble about the supernatural, miracles, and conversion:

Some guys on a boat deciding to pray after a long sea voyage is far from a miracle. The "Great Awakening" of 1858 to which Pastor Burtz refers is no more supernatural than the decline in religion that preceded it. It's all perfectly explicable by natural, cultural forces.

Let's see some real miracles. Let's see Rep. Rev. Scott Craig get back to first principles, put his faith in the Lord, and withdraw his "I want to be a hero with my gun!" legislation that would put more guns near our children.

Let's see Rep. Jon Hansen decide he doesn't need to bully and insult every woman in South Dakota to prove his manhood. Or let's see him really man up and propose legislation to simply imprison women for seeking an abortion instead of fiddling with sneaky lies and legal tricks to take away their constitutional rights.

Let's see Rep. Brian Gosch, who in yesterday's House Judiciary committee declared Rep. Peggy Gibson's question about the out-of-state activism behind pending abortion legislation as not germane, apply that same stricture to legislation about animal cruelty, which Senate Ag and Natural Resources killed on trumped-up charges of that bills out-of-state origins.

And let's see the voters of South Dakota pay attention to the amount of time the majority party in Pierre spends embarrassing our state with discussion of lunatic fringe policies, delaying the big fiscal decisions on schools and roads to the end of the session when they can rush their favors and failures through without public input. Let's see the voters of South Dakota replace posers like Scott Craig and Jon Hansen and Jim Stalzer and Jenna Haggar and Ernie Otten with real problem-solvers.

Miracles like those just might get me to go to church... or at least shout a hearty Hallelujah.