‘The Christian Democrat leader, Fred Nile, wants random drug testing for all NSW MPs.
He will be first to volunteer, and wants the Greens MP Lee Rhiannon to be second.
Unaccountably, in 2004 Mr Nile voted for an amendment watering down Rhiannon’s motion to breath-test MPs for alcohol while in Parliament.
Yesterday Mr Nile was tough on drugs in Macquarie Street: “The voting public deserve to know whether the people they elect are capable of making rational decisions and are prepared to devote themselves to the job. There is no room for illegal drug taking in a House of Parliament.”‘
‘”I found this man, and other than his hands and feet, he looked and seemed in good health. As best as I could gather these growths began when he was 14 years old, and began in the area of his wrists. The skin on his wrists and the back of his hands resembles that of a hedgehog – hundreds of spike like growths. The problem is much more severe on his palms and fingers where the growths resemble very much that of nails infected with a fungus. The growths have that same texture, smell and feel. I cut a number of the largest growths off, most of witch did not bleed. Some of the smaller growths did bleed a small amount and he seemed much more sensitive to the cutting of the smaller growths. I soaked his hands first in 3 WEA (phenyl mercuric nitrate) and then began. The 3 WEA did help to soften the growths but they still took time to cut through, or sand down, but it worked just as it does with these types of nails on normal hands or feet. I was able to pull many of the smaller growths off applying steady pressure and slowly pulling. But after 1.5 hrs there was not a noticeable change as there are hundreds and hundreds of growths. There was also quite a bit of dissolved material in the bucket of 3 WEA after we finished. [..]’
‘The uncoupling of American evangelism from the administration of George Bush gathered pace yesterday when one of the largest national umbrella groups of socially conservative Christians issued a statement critical of US policy towards detainees and repudiating torture as a tactic in the war on terror.
The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), which represents about 45,000 churches across America, endorsed a declaration against torture drafted by 17 evangelical scholars. The authors, who call themselves Evangelicals for Human Rights and campaign for “zero tolerance” on torture, say that the US administration has crossed “boundaries of what is legally and morally permissible” in the treatment of detainees.
“Tragically, documented cases of torture and inhumane and cruel behaviour have occurred at various sites in the war on terror, and current law opens procedural loopholes for more to continue,” the NAE said last night.’
‘Own a piece of Ted Haggard history from Mike Jones.
The table where it all happened.
Table is about 10 years old with a few tears but totaly usable.
Will autograph table if requested and in June an autographed book “I Had To Say Something” by Mike Jones will be sent.
All proceeds benefit ‘Project Angel Heart’, who provides people living with HIV/AIDS, cancer and other life-threatening illnesses nutritious home-delivered meals.’
more at the wiki.
‘This year’s Super Bowl telecast generated about 150 complaints to the Federal Communications Commission, with the bulk of the beefs centering on Prince’s halftime performance and a Snickers commercial. As seen in the letters on the following pages, many correspondents were upset because they believed that the rock star was manipulating his guitar as if it were a penis. As one viewer noted in an e-mail, the “pro-homosexual theme” of this year’s event, telecast on CBS, was “disgraceful.” The writer added that “just because 6% of the population is gay,” porn did not need to be included in the broadcast. Another purportedly offended viewer was concerned that the halftime show would have an unfortunate lasting effect on his son, who “hoped to be a quarterback and now he will turn out gay…Thanks CBS for turning my son GAY.” [..]’
‘New research published in the March issue of Psychological Science may help elucidate the relationship between religious indoctrination and violence, a topic that has gained renewed notoriety in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks. In the article, University of Michigan psychologist Brad Bushman and his colleagues suggest that scriptural violence sanctioned by God can increase aggression, especially in believers.
The authors set out to examine this interaction by conducting experiments with undergraduates at two religiously contrasting universities: Brigham Young University where 99% of students report believing in God and the Bible and Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam where just 50% report believing in God and 27% believe in the bible. [..]
The research sheds light on the possible origins of violent religious fundamentalism and falls in line with theories proposed by scholars of religious terrorism, who hypothesize that exposure to violent scriptures may induce extremists to engage in aggressive actions.’
‘Britney Spears has flipped her lid in rehab, trying to hang herself with a bedsheet after screaming “I am the anti-christ” to frightened staff.
She made the demonic cry after scrawling the devil’s number “666” across her head. [..]
The ordeal began when she terrified staff by writing the number of the beast on her head and running around the clinic screaming, “I am the anti-christ!”
“The clinic people just didn’t know what to do,” a friend claimed.
The pop star then tried to hang herself with a bedsheet was but was found before she could hurt herself.’
‘I met god the other day.
I know what you’re thinking. How the hell did you know it was god?
Well, I’ll explain as we go along, but basically he convinced me by having all, and I do mean ALL, the answers. Every question I flung at him he batted back with a plausible and satisfactory answer. In the end, it was easier to accept that he was god than otherwise.
Which is odd, because I’m still an atheist and we even agree on that!
It all started on the 8.20 back from Paddington. Got myself a nice window seat, no screaming brats or drunken hooligans within earshot. Not even a mobile phone in sight. Sat down, reading the paper and in he walks.’
‘Kevin Russell found out it’s not easy trying to cash a check from God. The 21-year-old man was arrested Monday after he tried to cash a check for $50,000 at the Chase Bank in Hobart that was signed “King Savior, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Servant,” Hobart police Detective Jeff White said. [..]
Police were called to the bank after Russell tried to cash the check, which was written on an invalid Bank One check with no imprint, White said. Russell had several other checks with him that were signed the same way but made out in different dollar amounts, including one for $100,000.’
‘As various parties continue to fight over the remains of Anna Nicole Smith and custody of her baby, John Travolta has stepped into the fray.
The Pulp Fiction star has decided to use her death as a chance to promote Narconon – the controversial Church of Scientology drug rehab programme – saying it could have saved the Playmate’s life. [..]
Travolta said: ‘It’s so sad. We could have helped her with Narconon but didn’t get a chance to. I wish we had.’ [..]
Scientologists claim Narconon is 85 per cent effective.
However, critics say it is a front to recruit vulnerable drug abusers into the religion.
Either way, it is sadly too late to help Smith now.’
‘Iranian MPs have demanded an apology from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad after teachers were given government-sponsored tests deemed “insulting” to the prophet Muhammad.
The exam – sat by teachers seeking promotion – provoked outrage by posing questions which appeared to degrade Islam’s holiest figure by alluding to personal habits and proclivities. Most of the 40 multiple-choice questions have been judged so mocking that Iran’s state-controlled media has refrained from publishing them.
One less offensive question, reproduced by local newspapers and websites, lists four choices when asking how Muhammad compared himself with the prophet Joseph. They are: “A) I am more beautiful than Joseph; B) Joseph is more beautiful than me; C) I am cuter than Joseph; D) Joseph is more beautiful than me but I am cuter than him.” Others refer to his hair and beard colour.’
‘Brace yourself. James Cameron, the man who brought you ‘The Titanic’ is back with another blockbuster. This time, the ship he’s sinking is Christianity. [..]
Let’s go back 27 years, when Israeli construction workers were gouging out the foundations for a new building in the industrial park in the Talpiyot, a Jerusalem suburb. of Jerusalem. The earth gave way, revealing a 2,000 year old cave with 10 stone caskets. Archologists were summoned, and the stone caskets carted away for examination. It took 20 years for experts to decipher the names on the ten tombs. They were: Jesua, son of Joseph, Mary, Mary, Mathew, Jofa and Judah, son of Jesua.’
‘Santa Fe police say an Ash Wednesday service at the cathedral was disrupted by pornographic messages from three CD players duct-taped to the underside of pews.
Santa Fe police Captain Gary Johnson says the CD players had been set to go off at 12:20 pm Wednesday during Mass in the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Francis.
Johnson says the recordings were full of foul language and pornographic messages.
Cathedral staff members removed the CD players, took them to the basement and called police. Church officials say churchgoers were not evacuated.’
‘A Malaysian state plans to recruit “spies” from the public to snoop on unmarried lovers and report them to Islamic religious authorities, a newspaper said on Tuesday.
The Terengganu state government plans to enlist the part-time spies to look out for un-Islamic behaviour, such as unmarried couples kissing or holding hands, the Star daily said.
“Some of these ‘spies’ could be waitresses or even janitors at hotels acting as auxiliary undercover agents for our religious department,” the head of the state government’s Islamic and welfare committee, Rosol Wahid, was quoted as saying.’
‘Pensacola evangelist Kent Hovind was sentenced Friday afternoon to 10 years in prison on charges of tax fraud. [..]
Hovind, founder of Creation Science Evangelism and Dinosaur Adventure Land in Pensacola, was found guilty in November of 58 federal counts, including failure to pay $845,000 in employee-related taxes. He faced a maximum of 288 years in prison.
Jo Hovind was charged and convicted in 44 of the counts involving evading bank-reporting requirements and faces a maximum of 225 years in prison.’
‘A leader of the Texas House of Representatives apologized Friday for circulating an appeal to ban the teaching of evolution as derived from “Rabbinic writings” and other Jewish texts.
“I had no intention to offend anyone,” said the lawmaker, Warren Chisum, a Republican from the Panhandle who is chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. [..]
It continued, “Indisputable evidence — long hidden but now available to everyone — demonstrates conclusively that so-called secular evolution science is the Big Bang 15-billion-year alternate ‘creation scenario’ of the Pharisee Religion.”
“This scenario,” the memorandum stated, “is derived concept-for-concept from Rabbinic writings on the mystic ‘holy book’ kabbala dating back at least two millennia.”’
Followup to: Texas Republicans are anti-Copernicus
‘A Romanian priest has been jailed for 14 years for conducting an exorcism that led to the death of a nun who he believed was possessed by devils.
Irina Cornici, 23, died after being starved and chained to a cross at a secluded convent in the north-east.
The ritual in 2005 was led by Daniel Petru Corogeanu, 31, the priest at the Holy Trinity convent in Tanacu village.
He and four nuns were convicted of manslaughter. The nuns got jail terms ranging from five to eight years. [..]
In 1999, when the Vatican issued its first new guidelines since 1614 for driving out devils, it urged priests to take modern psychiatry into account in deciding who should be exorcised.’
‘Just when you think Republicans can’t get any crazier, we find out that the powerful chairman of the Texas House Appropriations Committee, Warren Chisum, doesn’t even believe that the earth revolves around the sun.’
‘Police announced they uncovered a plastic bag stuffed with the skeletal remains of at least six newborns Sunday after searching the grounds of a Christian missionary hospital in the central Indian town of Ratlam.
Director General of Police A.R. Pavar said they found the remains hidden in a drainage ditch on the hospital’s property in Ratlam after scouring the grounds following a tip off from a local.
All 390 bone fragments are thought to be from newly born babies and fetuses, but Pavar said an investigation will offer more information. [..]
Bishop L. Maida, the senior official who represents the church that runs the hospital, told CNN the hospital is more than a century old and nothing like this has happened before.’
‘Anything starting with catholic and ending with fucking your mother has got to be good.’
‘Deep in the dusty, unlit corridors of Kenya’s national museum, locked away in a plain-looking cabinet, is one of mankind’s oldest relics: Turkana Boy, as he is known, the most complete skeleton of a prehistoric human ever found.
But his first public display later this year is at the heart of a growing storm — one pitting scientists against Kenya’s powerful and popular evangelical Christian movement. The debate over evolution vs. creationism — once largely confined to the United States — has arrived in a country known as the cradle of mankind.
“I did not evolve from Turkana Boy or anything like it,” says Bishop Boniface Adoyo, head of Kenya’s 35 evangelical denominations, which he claims have 10 million followers. “These sorts of silly views are killing our faith.”‘
‘For nearly two billion people, the Bible is a holy book containing the revealed word of God. It is the source of their religious beliefs. Yet few of those who believe in the Bible have actually read it.
This must seem strange to those who have never read the Bible. But anyone who has struggled through its repetitious and tiresome trivia, seemingly endless genealogies, pointless stories and laws, knows that the Bible is not an easy book to read. So it is not surprising that those that begin reading at Genesis seldom make it through Leviticus. And the few Bible-believers that survive to the bitter end of Revelation must continually face a disturbing dilemma: their faith tells them they should read the Bible, but by reading the Bible they endanger their faith.
When I was a Christian, I never read the Bible. Not all the way through, anyway. The problem was that I believed the Bible to be the inspired and inerrant word of God, yet the more I read it, the less credible that belief became. I finally decided that to protect my faith in the Bible, I’d better quit trying to read it.’
‘The Miracle Channel, a religious television station that has come under fire for its on-air fundraising campaigns, could lose its broadcast licence in the future if it doesn’t follow new rules on how donations are solicited. [..]
The cable channel, which raises more than $5-million a year, was ordered to revise its internal fundraising policy last year after controversial on-air statements led to complaints. Hosts during a 2004 fundraising campaign urged viewers to cash in their retirement savings and charge up credit cards to make donations. In some cases, viewers were told they would be rewarded by God with cash or higher real estate values.’
‘For nearly a decade, members of Ripon’s First Congregational Church bared their souls to Pastor Randall Radic. But clearly it didn’t work both ways. There were certain things he wasn’t telling them.
That became obvious a year ago, when Radic pleaded guilty to betraying his flock and secretly selling the church and its rectory out from under them. He used the money to buy himself a brand-new black BMW and a laptop — exploits he later chronicled in a cheeky, almost gleeful blog about his double life as a sinner.
“We didn’t know anything until we got a call from the bank that he had bought a BMW,” said David Prater, who led the church board during Radic’s tenure. “He drove that car right down Main Street.”‘
‘Scores of police have been sent to the jungles of remote Papua New Guinea to hunt for a cult leader known as the Black Jesus, who is said to have sacrificed three young women to the devil and eaten their bodies.
In one case reported by villagers, a mother who had fallen under the cult leader’s spell led her 14-year-old daughter to his hideout, offered her to him as a virgin then stabbed her to death.
The Black Jesus, 31-year-old Steven Tari, started his cult last year after he was expelled from a Bible college for stealing from fellow students.’
‘A senior Thai Buddhist monk has been charged with raping a Vietnamese Australian teenager during a ritual he claimed would protect her from bad luck, police said today.
“The victim did not know at first she had been raped because she thought it was part of the rite, until she called her parents and they told her to report to the embassy and the police,” Colonel Thanit Ratanopast said.
The 18-year-old woman went to the police, who told her to plant a camera in her bag when she went back to see Phra Wimonmunee, the 59-year-old abbot of a Bangkok temple, they said.
Police then arrested the monk while he was trying to rape the woman again, they said.’
‘A group of Greek nuns abandoned their convent and went into hiding after running up debts of more than 600,000 euros ($A1.01 million) from a knitting business that went bust, authorities said. [..]
The nuns are believed to have taken refuge at another monastery in central Greece and the Greek press has reported that the Church of Greece has offered to help them pay their debts and come out of hiding.
The church’s representative was not available for comment.’
