The Skeptic's News Fart Digest #2

Here we go with the second round up of the 'skeptish' news of the last week.

REMEMBER: This material is presented as is. A skeptical interpretation of the material is left to the reader. I haven't read everything I've posted here in detail, so if you take anything here on face value based on it being linked here you've messed up.

• When invading a country like Iraq it is extremely important to not make it look like a religious war. I mean putting Bible quotes all over your Top Secret reports would send a bad message. So I'm glad Rumsfeld et al. didn't do that.
  Oh.
  And the posters are here.
  and more stuff here.
  
• George Carlin on UFO believers VS Religious Believers.
  
• The Daily Show on the LHC (thanks Naomi!)
  
• Ackward Questions about Jesus from the brilliant Outnumbered. Outnumbered is a bit depressing because by liking it I feel a bit old.
  
• Been catching up with Mormanism this week. It see,s to be a bit, er, mental. As this 7minute cartoon will attest.
  
• Child won't say 'Amen' so a woman along with One Mind Ministries starve the boy to death thinking that when he resurrects the demon possessing him will be gone.
  
• Armando Iannucci sneaks into US state department. Just like how he has sneaked into my heart.
  
• No goggles were needed for old chemistry sets. And they are beautiful. Relatedly here are some amazing magazine covers.
  
• Who would be a female under islamic law?
  
• Remember last week there was a guy who was sued and lost because he was critical of creationism in a science lesson? He's responded to what happened on Salon. I haven't read enough about this to settle my mind one way or the other, but if you have a secular school (which is a good thing) then being critical of religion is the same as promoting it.
  
• Church literally being worn away by sin. Religious speech writers must be creaming themselves with tortured metaphor possibilities.
  
• Don't shoot the scientists
  
• The American Patriot's Bible exists. Hell you can buy it on Amazon.
  
• Witch hunts, murder and evil in Papua New Guinea.
  
• BNP members don't exist
  
• Cardinal Cormac Murphy thinks that I'm not fully human. Well I think he's a big stupid poopy head.

Events

Tonight (monday) is the meeting for Simon Singh's response to the libel ruling against the BCA. In The Penderel's Oak in Holborn, London. I'll be going and reporting back, so say hi.

Jack of Kent's blog is covering it all and the facebook page has details of the event.

Wednesday sees the normal Skeptics in the Pub night. Which looks to be a cracker:

Edzard Ernst's team of 10-15 researchers have tried for the last 15 years to critically evaluate “alternative medicine”. Much of the resulting evidence has now been summarised in the book ‘Trick or Treatment’ by Simon Singh and myself. As it turns out, alternative medicine is more “trick” than “treatment”. In my talk, I will report about some of the often amazing milestones on my long journey toward the truth.