Kansas school won't let female ref call boys' game

"Kansas activities officials are investigating a school's refusal to let a female referee call a boys' high school basketball game.

The Kansas State High School Activities Association said referees reported that Michelle Campbell was preparing to officiate at St. Mary's Academy near Topeka on Feb. 2 when a school official insisted that Campbell could not call the game.

The reason given, according to the referees: Campbell, as a woman, could not be put in a position of authority over boys because of the academy's beliefs.

Campbell then walked off the court along with Darin Putthoff, the referee who was to work the game with her."

Seattlepi.com, February 13, 2008

Nuts!

Update: Some background here.

Israeli MP blames quakes on gays

"An Israeli MP has blamed parliament's tolerance of gays for earthquakes that have rocked the Holy Land recently. Shlomo Benizri, of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish Shas Party, said the tremors had been caused by lawmaking that gave "legitimacy to sodomy".

Israel decriminalised homosexuality in 1988 and has since passed several laws recognising gay rights. Two earthquakes shook the region last week and a further four struck in November and December.

Mr Benizri made his comments while addressing a committee of the Israeli parliament, or Knesset, about the country's readiness for earthquakes.

He called on lawmakers to stop "passing legislation on how to encourage homosexual activity in the state of Israel, which anyway brings about earthquakes".

BBC News, 20 February 2008

Gay MP.

Religious police ban red roses

"Saudi Arabia's religious police have banned red roses ahead of Valentine's Day, forcing couples in the conservative Muslim nation to think of new ways to show their love.
The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice has ordered florists and gift shop owners in the capital Riyadh to remove any items coloured scarlet, which is widely seen as symbolising love, newspapers said.
"They visited us last night," the Saudi Gazette quoted an unidentified florist as saying.
It is not unusual for the Saudi vice squad to clamp down ahead of Valentine's Day, which it sees as encouraging relations between men and women outside of wedlock, the newspaper said.
Saudi Arabia imposes an austere form of Sunni Islam that prevents unrelated men and women from mixing, bans women from driving and demands that women wear a headscarf and a cloak."

News.com.au, February 11, 2008

Why not also shut down postal services that day?

See also these pictures from Karachi (I guess).
Love.
Heart.

11 books on Islam banned in Malaysia

"Malaysia has banned 11 books for allegedly giving a false portrayal of Islam, such as by linking the religion to terrorism and the mistreatment of women, an official said Wednesday, The Associated Press reported from Kuala Lumpur.

The government ordered the books - most of them released by American publishers - to be blacklisted this month 'because they are not in line with what we call the Malaysian version of Islam,' said Che Din Yusoh, an official with the Internal Security Ministry's publications control unit.

'Some of them ridicule Islam as a religion or the facts are wrong about Islam, like associating Islam with terrorism or saying Islam mistreats women,' he said.

The banned books include eight English-language ones, such as 'The Two Faces of Islam: Saudi Fundamentalism and its Role in Terrorism,' 'Secrets of the Quran: Revealing Insights Into Islam's Holy Book' and 'Women in Islam.' There are also three books written in the local Malay language.

New York Times/Khaleej Times Online, 1 February 2008

The banning, however, gives a very accurate portrayal of Islam.

Prince Charles's letter in support of Islamic 'fundamentalism'

"Demonstrating the extent to which he sees himself as "defender of faith", the Prince of Wales wrote to Mahathir Mohamad, the former prime minister of Malaysia, saying that he was "determined to continue the battle to spread the message that proper fundamentalism is in the best interest of the future of our world."
Charles told Mahathir, who later claimed that Jews "rule the world by proxy", he understood the "frustrations" Muslims experience "as a result of apparent Western misunderstanding and misrepresentation. I have, for a long time, despaired of the ignorant and thoroughly evil 'role' of the tabloid media in deliberately misrepresenting Islam and reducing everything to the level of the absurd."

[...]

Charles said he saw the appeal of "proper fundamentalism" in "a world, in my part of it at any rate, which is increasingly without meaning, without roots, without a spiritual dimension and which worships the God of Technology." He finished his letter with the rallying cry: "There is much to be done…!"

Daily Telegraph, 20/01/2008

His uncle, Prince Edward always had a fancy for Fascism, too.

Suicide bomber blows himself up

"A WOULD-be suicide bomber fell down a flight of stairs and blew himself up as he headed out for an attack in Afghanistan, police say.
It was the second such incident in two days, with another man killing himself and three others on Tuesday when his bomb-filled waistcoat exploded as he was putting it on in the southern town of Lashkar Gah.
Yesterday's blast was in a busy market area of the eastern town of Khost, a deputy provincial police chief said.
The would-be attacker tripped as he was leaving a building apparently to target an opening ceremony for a mosque that was expected to be attended by Afghan and international military officials, said Sakhi Mir.
"Coming down the stairs, he fell down and exploded. Two civilian women and a man were wounded,'' Mir said.
Suicide attacks are regular feature of an insurgency led by the extremist Taliban movement that was in government between 1996 and 2001. The most deadly was in November 2007 and killed nearly 80 people, most of them school students."

News.com.au, January 24, 2008

LoL.
(Shame with the wounded, but lives were probably saved)

Man sees mark of the Beast - cuts off hand

"A man who believed he bore the biblical "mark of the beast" used a circular saw to cut off one hand, then he cooked it in the microwave and called 911, authorities said.
The man, in his mid-20s, was calm when Kootenai County sheriff's deputies arrived Saturday. He was in protective custody in the mental health unit of Kootenai Medical Center.
"It had been somewhat cooked by the time the deputy arrived," sheriff's Capt. Ben Wolfinger said. "He put a tourniquet on his arm before, so he didn't bleed to death. That kind of mental illness is just sad."
It was not immediately clear whether the man has a history of mental illness. Hospital spokeswoman Lisa Johnson would not say whether an attempt was made to reattach the hand, citing patient confidentiality.
The Book of Revelation in the New Testament contains a passage in which an angel is quoted as saying: "If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand, he, too, will drink the wine of God's fury."
The book of Matthew also contains the passage: "And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for you whole body to go into hell."
Wolfinger said he didn't know which hand was amputated."

CNN, January 9, 2008

Nuts.
(H/T Kellym78)

Priest who committed suicide for rebirth cremated

"A three-day "miracle" drama in Chhattisgarh's industrial town of Raigarh ended on Monday afternoon after a Hindu priest, who had committed suicide promising to return to life within 72 hours of his death, was cremated.

Hundreds of people had laid siege around the body of 25-year-old Manoj Baghel, who ended his life on Saturday by consuming poison at a temple in Raigarh, about 200 km northeast of state capital, Raipur. Baghel had claimed that he would come back to life.

"The miracle drama is now over as the people, who had surrounded the body of the dead priest to witness the rebirth, handed over the corpse to the police for post-mortem on Monday afternoon," Superintendent of Police in Raigarh, J K Thorate said."

IBNLive.com, Dec 24, 2007

Back to the drawing board... or not.

Very, very religious

"The gunman believed to have killed four people at a megachurch and a missionary training school had been thrown out of the school a few years ago and had been sending it hate mail, police said in court papers Monday.
The gunman was identified as Matthew Murray, 24, who was home-schooled in what a friend said was a deeply religious Christian household. Murray's father is a neurologist and a leading multiple-sclerosis researcher.

[...]

A neighbor, Cody Askeland, 19, said the brothers were home-schooled, describing the whole family as "very, very religious.""

Yahoo, Associated Press, Dec 10 2007

Sad story of course, but I think anyone can see that the strong religious convictions of his family never did him much good.
There's another thing:

"I was just expecting for the next gunshot to be coming through my car. Miraculously — by the grace of God — it did not," she told ABC's "Good Morning America."

But "by the grace of God" he killed four people. If God exists, then he allowed this to happen. The religious world view is very sick indeed.

See also: “Christian-Hating” Gunman was Raised ‘Deeply Religious’ at Black Sun Journal

Why do Atheists want to take away the hope from people?

As an Atheist, I'm sometimes asked: "Why do you want to take away the hope from people?" But the fact is, you can't take away hope where there is none.

I found this through this blogpost: GodTube Presents..."A Letter from Hell"

So much hate

"I hate damnable heresies, but I love people. I hate the Jehovah Witnesses' religion with all my heart, but I love lost sinners who are in need of Christ. I hate gambling! I hate abortion! I hate cigarette smoking that put my mother in a wheelchair at age 53 for the rest of her life! I hate the lies of government! I hate the evil Federal Reserve system! I hate the injustice of Enron! I hate the injustice of the Supreme Court! I hate Hollywood! I hate homosexuality! I hate child abuse! I hate divorce! I hate the demonic public school system! I hate the Social Security scam! I hate the stealing of tax-payer's money by the government! I hate the killing of innocent people in Iraq! I hate the New World Order! I hate Skull and Bones, Bohemian Grove and every other Satanic organization on the planet! I hate Wicca and Freemasonry! I hate witchcraft! I hate Harry Potter! I hate horoscopes, astrology, tarot cards, Ouija boards, séances, psychics, palm reading, crystal balls, necromancy, worshipping the dead and the Virgin Mary of the Catholic false Religion. I hate Islam! I hate Buddhism! I hate Scientology! I hate Mormonism! I hate Atheism! I hate rock and roll! I hate soap operas! I hate the devils' music! I hate pornography! I hate sex tourism! I hate the United nations! I hate population control, sterilization and forced abortions. I hate the rigged, corrupt and godless pharmaceutical industry! I hate recited prayers that aren't from the heart! I hate indifference! I hate apathy! I hate the heresy of baptismal regeneration! I hate communism! I hate feminism! I hate sex-changes! I hate false Bibles! I hate the New International Version of the Bible! I hate to watch millions of people starve to death while Americans spend $280,000,000,000 to destroy a sovereign nation in an illegal war against Iraq! I hate the hypocrisy of America! I hate the selfishness of American corporations and the betrayal of our elected officials by allowing America's manufacturing jobs to flee by the tens-of-millions to third-world countries to exploit the poor! Yes, I hate all these things and a whole lot more. By the way, God hates all these things too. I know so because God hates evil and all of the above things I mentioned are EVIL!"

David J. Stewart, Jesus-is-savior.com

That's a lot of hate. If the guy stopped taking the bible seriously he could probably cut down his hate list by a half..

Play a tune on the radio and cure AIDS

"Right now AIDS in Africa could be significantly ameliorated by a simple tune played on the radio across Africa."

peterchappell.com

Is there noe end to the evils of homeopathy?

Anti-gay church vows to take control of Microsoft

"An evangelical Christian pastor has vowed to take over Microsoft, one of the world's largest companies by packing it with shareholders who will vote against their policy of advocating gay rights. The Reverend Ken Hutcherson, a former Dallas Cowboys player is the self proclaimed head of the Antioch Bible Church, based in Redmond, the home of Microsoft's headquarters. Microsoft has a strong diversity policy and LGBT staff enjoy a well-funded employee group. Mr Hutcherson told a shareholders' meeting that he would be the company's "worst nightmare", threatening that he has the support of not only the 3,500 members of his church, but perhaps also millions of evangelical Christians and orthodox Jews."

Neowin.net, 18 November 2007

I think that would open up to a new era of Microsoft jokes.

‘Miracle’ fuel that made a mockery of Mugabe

"When Nomatter Tagarira, a spirit medium, claimed that she could conjure refined diesel out of a rock by striking it with her staff, ministers in Robert Mugabe’s Government believed that they might have found the solution to Zimbabwe’s perennial fuel shortage.

[...]

She laid pipes from the bowser to a point at the bottom of the hill. Whenever she assembled an audience, she would strike a rock and an assistant at the top of the hill would open the tap and lo, fuel would pour out. The bowser eventually ran dry but that didn’t stop Ms Tagarira. “They would buy diesel from lorry drivers and keep it in the pipe on the pretext it was coming from a rock,” the docket said."

The Times, October 27, 2007

Master of arts in Diplomacy

Look at the ad at the top. This screenshot from World Nut Daily totally screams diplomacy. What kind of diplomats does Norwich University expect to get from the readers of WND? That's right, Norwich University is a private military college so I guess "diplomacy" means something completely different over there.