Violence at an Indonesian Blasphemy Trial

This article from the Jakarta Post is very short and concise, but it has an M Night Shayamalan-ish twist. Here’s the lede:

Violence broke out on Tuesday at a blasphemy trial in Temanggung, Central Java, immediately after prosecutors read out a five-year prison sentence demand for defendant Antonius Richmond Bawengan.

I was kind of hoping that this would mean the people watching the trial started attacking the prosecutors for suggesting such an absurd sentence for this “crime.” But here’s the twist:

I’m Conflicted About This

On the one hand, Greta Christina has an excellent post up at AlterNet called No, Atheists Don’t Have To Show “Respect” For Religion which you should read. But on the other hand, it’s way better than my own atheistic rantings and will probably soon threaten my #1 most read spot (I’m still beating Chomsky on Egypt – suck it, old man!) on that same site.

Romanian Fortune Tellers Are Outraged

Queen Witch Bratara Buzea, mooch

The Romanian government has just passed a law which will require the fortune tellers in that country to pay a fine if their predictions don’t come true.

Naturally, the “witches” are outraged. From KOMO News:

“They can’t condemn witches, they should condemn the cards,” Queen Witch Bratara Buzea told The Associated Press by telephone.

The Social Network

Facebook is a social-networking website. You can sign up for it by logging into the world wide web and typing “http://www.facebook.com” into the address bar at the top. Remember, that’s facebook — all one word, all in lower-case letters. You will need a valid electronic mail “address” in order to create an “account,” which you can then use to stalk that girl who wouldn’t go to the dance with you in 8th grade because you were too “creepy” and “weird.” But now that you are a VERY SUCCESSFUL WRITER FOR THE INTERNET, she will doubtlessly throw herself at you and you can LAUGH and remind her of her cruelty as a 13 year old! It’s payback time! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

w00t

I Am Not Sure What “Pseudo-Religious” Means

So an editor at AlterNet asked to re-post an article I wrote. They just wanted to take out one joke about anal rape, which I thought was no big deal, so I said OK. They also added a sub-headline and air quotes to the title, which I’m sure they also saw as no big deal. And what it says is something that’s become a bit of a cliche amongst people into liberal politics who maybe don’t think about religion so much. Here it is:

Winter’s Bone

“Movie, I’m going to have to ask you to pick up the pace already.”

I am looking forward to summarizing this because I have never seen Inuit porn before. Rule #34 is in effect.

First 5 Minutes: Some survivalist woman named Ree is raising her two kids way out in the sticks somewhere. They go to a school which has been invaded by a local militia.

More 9/11 “Truth” News

The full NYC Chapter of 9/11″Truth” meets with its Boston Chapter.

Every time I think the 9/11 troofer business has died out, within a few months another crazy news story comes out which breathes new, paranoid life into it. This time we have two.

First of all, one of the “Loose Change” filmmakers has been arrested for selling heroin. Obviously this has set off somespeculation that the arrest itself was yet another “inside job.” That makes sense though: The Bush Administration came to power and had 9/11 set up within 8 months, but it takes the Oneonta Police Department about six years to plant drugs on someone. And with crowds like this about to overthrow the US government, we needeven more reasons to distrust 9/11 troofers now more than ever.