Jesus said road rage is ok in San Antonio

Apparently in San Antonio Jesus told a man to “take a woman off the road because she wasn’t driving like a christian.” It has been reported that the bizarre incident which involved a speeding pickup truck (don’t they all) rear-ending a woman’s sedan occurred on Friday. Texans have given us many great things for example the Bush family Texan Barbecue, but Jesus instructing people to commit road rage may be the best yet.

The sheriff’s office issued a press release stating that the driver had advised them the incident was Jesus’ will because the other motorist was not “driving like a Christian.”

“He just said God said she wasn’t driving right, and she needed to be taken off the road,” said Lt. Kyle Coleman of the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office.

'I was told to kill to my last breath'

The only terrorist captured alive after the Mumbai massacre has given police the first full account of the extraordinary events that led to it

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Militants in Mumbai ‘Wanted an Indian 9/11’

The gunmen who attacked Mumbai killing at least 195 people wanted to go down in history for an Indian 9/11, and were also inspired by the bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, media reports said.

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Vatican thanks Muslims for returning God to Europe

PARIS (Reuters) - A senior Vatican cardinal has thanked Muslims for bringing God back into the public sphere in Europe and said believers of different faiths had no option but to engage in interreligious dialogue.

...Europe's largest Muslim minority has brought faith questions such as women's headscarves into the political debate after decades when they were considered strictly private issues.

"GOD IS AT WORK IN ALL"

Tauran said religions were "condemned to dialogue," a practice he called "the search for understanding between two subjects, with the help of reason, in view of a common interpretation of their agreement and disagreement."

Saudi Arabia All-Girl Rock Band - illegal!

They cannot perform in public. They cannot pose for album cover photographs. Even their jam sessions are secret, for fear of offending the religious authorities in this ultraconservative kingdom.

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Brainwashed Fanatics Open Fire in Mumbai Killing 80+ [vid]

Gunmen have targeted luxury hotels, a popular tourist attraction and a crowded train station in at least seven attacks in India's financial capital, killing 80 people and wounding 250, officials and media reports say.

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U.S. war on drugs has failed, report says

The United States' war on drugs has failed and will continue to do so as long as it emphasizes law enforcement and neglects the problem of consumption, a Washington think tank says in a report co-chaired by a former president of Mexico.

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IRONY: Ann Coulter's Mouth Wired Shut

Although we didn't think it would be possible to silence Ann Coulter, the leggy reactionary broke her jaw and the mouth that roared has been wired shut

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Think Godzilla's Scary? Meet His Lawyers

Godzilla is a pussy cat compared to the coterie of lawyers and investigators in Los Angeles and Japan who aggressively protect the radioactive behemoth from anyone who dares to appropriate his lizardly image for profit.

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10 Arrested for Afghan Acid Attack

The police in Kandahar have arrested 10 Taliban militants they said were involved in an attack earlier this month on a group of Afghan schoolgirls whose faces were doused with acid, officials in Kandahar said Tuesday.

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Ottawa university boots cystic fibrosis from charity drive

The Carleton University Students' Association has voted to drop a cystic fibrosis charity as the beneficiary of its annual Shinearama fundraiser, supporting a motion that argued the disease is not "inclusive" enough. Cystic fibrosis "has been recently revealed to only affect white people, and primarily men" said the motion read Monday night...

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Popular Atheists book leads to suicide of college student?

After being "challenged" by a professor to read the book "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins, 22 year old military vet becomes depressed to the point of suicide.

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Genetically Engineered Corn: Equals Increasing Infertility?

This is truly the stuff of nightmares. As someone who lived through years of infertility and miscarriage misery, I can't imagine being in the shoes of a desperate-to-be-mother who found out that an ingredient in our food -- unmarked because of government bowing to the lobbying interests of farming giants like Monsanto who don't want you knowing ..

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Scummy Radio Psychiatrist Secretly Paid by Drug Companies

An influential psychiatrist who served as the host of public radio’s “The Infinite Mind” earned at least $1.3 million from 2000 to 2007 giving marketing lectures for drug makers, income not mentioned on the program. Senator Grassley of Iowa has proposed legislation that requires drug makers to publicly post all payments of $500 or more to doctors.

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Michael Jackson 'converts to Islam, changes name to Mikael

Michael Jackson has reportedly become a Muslim and changed his name to Mikaeel.

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Cannabis 'could stop dementia in its tracks'

Cannabis may help keep Alzheimer's disease at bay. In experiments, a marijuana-based medicine triggered the formation of new brain cells and cut inflammation linked to dementia. The researchers say that using the information to create a pill suitable for people could help prevent or delay the onset of Alzheimer's.

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American Companies Building Hospitals in Mexico Near Border

Medical tourism, which used to be mainly for elective surgery, and aimed at people who could afford weeklong trips to Brazil, is becoming an increasingly viable source of more basic health care for some of those sidelined by the insurance system in America, where 47 million people are uninsured and many millions are underinsured.

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Aspirin vs. Marijuana

When Bayer introduced aspirin in 1899, cannabis was America’s number one painkiller. Until marijuana prohibition began in 1937, the US Pharmacopoeia listed cannabis as the primary medicine for over 100 diseases. Cannabis was such an effective analgesic that the American Medical Association (AMA) argued against prohibition on behalf of medical progr

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Legalize It

With a recession in sight, the case for legalizing marijuana and taxing it for government revenue seems more practical than ever.

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Dad Chains Himself To Meter To Save Daughter on Life Support

In a desperate attempt to prevent his power from being turned off, a father chained himself to the meter outside his home saying his daughter, who requires a feeding tube and other electrical equipment, could die. The family owed $2,000 dollars in bills, and an anonymous donor has since paid off the debt after the father's heroics.

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This is NUTS!

Holocaust survivors to Mormons: Stop baptisms of dead Jews

NEW YORK (AP) -- Holocaust survivors said Monday they are through trying to negotiate with the Mormon church over posthumous baptisms of Jews killed in Nazi concentration camps, saying the church has repeatedly violated a 13-year-old agreement barring the practice.

Ernest Michel, left, and Roman Kent look at a list of Holocaust victims who were posthumously baptized.

Leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints say they are making changes to their massive genealogical database that will make it more difficult for names of Holocaust victims to be entered for posthumous baptism by proxy, a rite that has been a common Mormon practice for more than a century.

But Ernest Michel, honorary chairman of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors, said that is not enough. At a news conference in New York City on Monday, he said the church also must "implement a mechanism to undo what you have done."

"Baptism of a Jewish Holocaust victim and then merely removing that name from the database is just not acceptable," said Michel, whose parents died at Auschwitz. He spoke on the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the Nazi-incited riots against Jews.

"We ask you to respect us and our Judaism just as we respect your religion," Michel said in a statement released ahead of the news conference. "We ask you to leave our six million Jews, all victims of the Holocaust, alone, they suffered enough."

Michel said talks with Mormon leaders, held as recently as last week, have ended. He said his group will not sue, and that "the only thing left, therefore, is to turn to the court of public opinion."

In 1995, Mormons and Jews inked an agreement to limit the circumstances that allow for the proxy baptisms of Holocaust victims. Ending the practice outright was not part of the agreement and would essentially be asking Mormons to alter their beliefs, church Elder Lance B. Wickman said Monday in an interview with reporters in Salt Lake City.

The case of the pickey prayers

I've been doing a bit of academic writing about legislative prayer lately, and couldn't resist a short post on the most recent legislative prayer case -- the Eleventh Circuit's decision in Pelphrey v. Cobb County.   It is huge on both of the two major doctrinal issues -- first, whether legislative prayer can be "sectarian" in the sense of using identifiably denominational language (i.e., words like "Jesus" and "Allah"), and second, whether government can pick and choose among prayergivers on the basis of their religious affiliations.   The Eleventh Circuit said yes to #1, and no to #2.  So going forward, Cobb County can have sectarian prayer, but it has to stop having its clerk weed out Islamic, Jewish, Mormon, and Jehovah Witness prayergivers.   (No joke there: The county clerk located prospective prayergivers by going through the phone book.   Her phone book was apparently turned over in discovery, and she had crossed out a number of sections, including "Churches-Islamic," "Churches-Jehovah's Witnesses," "Churches-Jewish," and "Churches-Latter Day Saints."  Those groups just didn't get called.)

So Pelphrey means that there are now two circuit splits on legislative prayer issues.  The Fourth Circuit earlier came to the opposite conclusions on both doctrinal issues -- it held that sectarian prayers are flatly unconstitutional, and that government can indeed select prayergivers by religious affiliations.   (That latter point was made in a startling case where a Wiccan got a letter in the mail saying that she wouldn't be allowed to pray because, well, she was a Wiccan.)  End result: Both the appeal and the cross-appeal here have arguably certworthy issues to raise.  Very interesting times....

This is a joke, right? please tell me it's a joke!

Girl, 13, stoned to death in Somalia as 1,000 watch; charged

A 13-year-old girl who said she had been raped was stoned to death in Somalia after being accused of adultery by Islamic militants, a human rights group said.

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Woman Kills Repeat Rapist With Shotgun Blast

An intended rape victim shot and killed her attacker this morning in Cape Girardeau when he broke into her home to rape her a second time, police said. The 57-year-old woman shot Ronnie W. Preyer, 47, a registered sex offender, in the chest with a shotgun when he broke through her locked basement door. He had raped her days earlier.

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