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We the People #conspiracy msnbc.msn.com

The White House has responded to two petitions asking the U.S. government to acknowledge formally that aliens have visited Earth and to disclose any intentional withholding of government interactions with extraterrestrial beings.

"The U.S. government has no evidence that any life exists outside our planet, or that an extraterrestrial presence has contacted or engaged any member of the human race," Phil Larson from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy reported on the WhiteHouse.gov website. "In addition, there is no credible information to suggest that any evidence is being hidden from the public’s eye."

The petition calling on the government to disclose any knowledge of or communication with extraterrestrial beings was signed by 5,387 people, and 12,078 signed the request for a formal acknowledgement from the White House that extraterrestrials have been engaging the human race.

“Hundreds of military and government agency witnesses have come forward with testimony confirming this extraterrestrial presence,” the second petition states. “Opinion polls now indicate more than 50 percent of the American people believe there is an extraterrestrial presence and more than 80 percent believe the government is not telling the truth about this phenomenon. The people have a right to know. The people can handle the truth.”

...

The Paradigm Research Group, one of the organizations promoting the petitions, said that the response by a "low-level staffer" was unacceptable and that it would begin a new petition campaign.

TSA & Mary Bagnoli #fundie msnbc.msn.com

The assistant director [of the TSA] told [Carole Smith, a Wiccan] he was investigating a threat of workplace violence. He said that her former mentor in on-the-job training, officer Mary Bagnoli, reported that she was afraid of Smith because she was a witch who practiced witchcraft. She accused Smith of following her on the highway one snowy evening after work and casting a spell on the heater of her car, causing it not to work.

US Sen. James Demint, R-SC #fundie msnbc.msn.com

South Carolina Republican Sen. James Demint called the decision [overturning California's Prop. 8] "another attempt to impose a secular immorality on the American people who keep voting to preserve traditional marriage."

"Traditional marriage has been the foundation of civil society for centuries and we cannot simply toss it aside to fit the political whims of liberal activists with gavels," Demint said.

Colleen Hauser #fundie msnbc.msn.com

Daniel was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma in January. It was recommended that he have six rounds of chemotherapy but he stopped after one round in February.

Doctors have said Daniel’s cancer had a 90 percent chance of being cured with chemotherapy and radiation. Without those treatments, doctors said his chances of survival are 5 percent. Child protection workers accused Daniel’s parents of medical neglect, and went to court seeking custody.

Court testimony indicated Daniel’s tumor shrank after the first round of chemo, but has since grown. His mother, Colleen Hauser, testified last week: “My son is not in any medical danger at this point.”

She has been treating his cancer with herbal supplements, vitamins, ionized water, and other natural alternatives she learned about on the Internet — despite testimony from five doctors who agreed Daniel needed chemotherapy.

....

The Hausers, who have eight children, are Roman Catholic and also believe in the “do no harm” philosophy of the Nemenhah Band. The Missouri-based religious group believes in natural healing methods practiced by some American Indians.

Marie Moore #fundie msnbc.msn.com

[in a letter written by a woman who killed her son and herself at a gun range]

"I'm sorry to do this in your place of business, but I had to save my son," one message said. "God made me a queen and I failed. I'm a fallen angel. He turned me into the anti-Christ."

Moore said she could have killed only herself but felt she had to "save" her son and do it in a public way so the world could also be saved. "Hopefully when I die, there will 1,000 years of peace."

Modesty Patrols #fundie msnbc.msn.com

JERUSALEM - In Israel's ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, where the rule of law sometimes takes a back seat to the rule of God, zealots are on a campaign to stamp out behavior they consider unchaste. They hurl stones at women for such "sins" as wearing a red blouse and attack stores selling devices that can access the Internet.

In recent weeks, self-styled "modesty patrols" have been accused of breaking into the apartment of a Jerusalem woman and beating her for allegedly consorting with men. They have torched a store that sells MP4 players, fearing devout Jews would use them to download pornography.

"These breaches of purity and modesty endanger our community," said 38-year-old Elchanan Blau, defending the bearded, black-robed zealots. "If it takes fire to get them to stop, then so be it."

The Kumari family #fundie msnbc.msn.com

PATNA, India - Eight members of a man's poverty-ridden family were shot and beheaded before their bodies were thrown into a river in eastern India after he secretly married a wealthy girl, police said Wednesday.

Police in the eastern state of Bihar found the eight bodies floating in a river and have charged 15 people, mostly from the girl's family, with the murders.

The weekend killing took place after 21-year-old Ratan Mandal eloped with 18-year-old Kanchan Kumari, afraid their families would never approve due to an old social rivalry.
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"The girl's family invited the boy's family for a meeting on the pretext of settling the dispute, but killed all eight and beheaded them," said Raghunath Prasad Singh, a senior police officer from Bhagalpur, where the incident took place.

Lawless region
Bhagalpur, one of India's most lawless regions, has been notorious for revenge and honor killings.

Men and women are still murdered across the villages of eastern and northern India for daring to marry outside their caste.

In May last year, a young couple was murdered by the girl's family in northern India for marrying within the same village, considered taboo in many communities.

Patina Hindus #fundie msnbc.msn.com

PATNA, India - A teenage Indian boy was thrashed, paraded through the streets with his head shaved and then thrown under a train for daring to write a love letter to a girl from a different caste, police said Thursday.

Manish Kumar, 15, was kidnapped by members of the rival caste on his way to school and was killed as his mother begged for mercy, police in the impoverished eastern state of Bihar said.

One man has been arrested and a policeman suspended.

The victim's mother, Lalit Devi, told police she had watched "helplessly" as the wheels of the train passed over her son.

"The accused persons killed the boy for writing a love letter to the girl of the same village," superintendent of police in Kaimur district, Rajesh Kumar, told Reuters by telephone.

Police said the girl belonged to a washerman community, considered a lower caste, whereas the boy came from the slightly higher dairymen Yadav community.

Love across caste lines is often violently opposed, especially in rural northern India, and it is not uncommon for outraged families to kill to "save the family honor."

Focus On The Family #fundie msnbc.msn.com

[From an an article on MSNBC.com about the Christian Right increasing it's attacks on Obama in the final days before the election.]

But among the strongest pieces this year is Focus on the Family Action's letter which has been posted on the group's Web site and making the e-mail rounds. Signed by "A Christian from 2012," it claims a series of events could logically happen based on the group's interpretation of Obama's record, Democratic Party positions, recent court rulings and other trends.

Among the claims:

A 6-3 liberal majority Supreme Court that results in rulings like one making gay marriage the law of the land and another forcing the Boy Scouts to "hire homosexual scoutmasters and allow them to sleep in tents with young boys." (In the imagined scenario, The Boy Scouts choose to disband rather than obey).

A series of domestic and international disasters based on Obama's "reluctance to send troops overseas." That includes terrorist attacks on U.S. soil that kill hundreds, Russia occupying the Baltic states and Eastern European countries including Poland and the Czech Republic, and al-Qaida overwhelming Iraq.

Nationalized health care with long lines for surgery and no access to hospitals for people over 80.

Steve Griffin #fundie msnbc.msn.com

"We are a small, rural district in the Bible Belt with strong Christian beliefs and feel like homosexuality is wrong," said Steve Griffin, Holmes County's school superintendent, who keeps a Bible on his desk and framed Scriptures on his office walls.

a federal judge reprimanded Davis for conducting a "witch hunt" against gays. Davis was demoted, and school employees must now go through sensitivity training.

And despite all that, many in this conservative Panhandle community still wonder what, exactly, Davis did wrong.

Lydia Playfoot #fundie msnbc.msn.com

“I am very disappointed by the decision this morning by the High Court not to allow me to wear my purity ring to school as an expression of my Christian faith not to have sex outside marriage. I believe that the judge’s decision will mean that slowly, over time, people such as school governors, employers, political organizations and others will be allowed to stop Christians from publicly expressing and practicing their faith.”

(read the article)

AP Story #fundie msnbc.msn.com

A Hindu clergyman made history Thursday by offering the Senate's morning prayer, but only after police officers removed three shouting protesters from the visitors' gallery.

Rajan Zed, director of interfaith relations at a Hindu temple in Reno, Nev., gave the brief prayer that opens each day's Senate session. As he stood at the chamber's podium in a bright orange and burgundy robe, two women and a man began shouting "this is an abomination" and other complaints from the gallery.

For several days, the Mississippi-based American Family Association has urged its members to object to the prayer because Zed would be "seeking the invocation of a non-monotheistic god."

Zed, the first Hindu to offer the Senate prayer, began: "We meditate on the transcendental glory of the Deity Supreme, who is inside the heart of the Earth, inside the life of the sky and inside the soul of the heaven. May He stimulate and illuminate our minds."

[...]

Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said the protest "shows the intolerance of many religious right activists. They say they want more religion in the public square, but it's clear they mean only their religion."

Ken Ham (reported on msnbc.com) #fundie msnbc.msn.com

April 11, 2007 - In the theater, the seats shake and audiences are sprayed with water at every mention of the flood. Nearby, a Garden of Eden is an animated vision depicting humans happily coexisting alongside dinosaurs and a little girl who laughs every time one of the giant reptiles bares its teeth. And nope, this isn’t your average theme park.

Welcome, instead, to the Creation Museum. Here, dozens of exhibits attempt to show the Bible as the literal truth and the theory of evolution as unsupportable by science. Creationists believe that the Garden of Eden did exist, that the world is 6,000 years old, that God created man and animals simultaneously, and that the flood wiped out every living creature that wasn’t inside Noah’s Ark.

The museum will open to the public in late May, and founder Ken Ham hopes it will attract 250,000 visitors in its first year. Located on a 50-acre piece of flat land in the little town of Petersburg, Ky., it is in the heart of Middle America—just a short drive from Indiana and Cincinnati, Ohio, and, say the organizers, no more than a day’s road trip for two thirds of the American population.

Ham, 55, went on to found the Creation Museum and become president of Answers in Genesis, the Evangelical ministry behind the project. In an interview, he recalls how, when he was first taught evolution in school at the age of 13, he asked his father—a dedicated Christian—about “those ape men.” “If you don’t believe in Genesis,” his father told him, “then the whole rest of the Bible falls.”

These words stuck. The Creation Museum, which has so far funded its $26 million cost through private donations, focuses on Genesis, the first book of the Bible. Its special-effects theater shows a video of Biblical history; when it’s time for the flood, the seats shake and the audience is sprayed with mists of water and air. There is also a planetarium—Ham calls it “one of the most powerful parts of the museum”—with big, comfortable chairs that tilt backward so that viewers can watch a video about the galaxy projected on the dome-like screen on the ceiling. “It gives them a taste of the kind of creator they have, and they say ‘wow,’” says Jason Lisle, who is in charge of the planetarium program.
Lisle is 32 and has a Ph.D. in solar astrophysics from the University of Colorado. One of his tasks, he said, is to review videos for accuracy. Has he ever found a contradiction between the scientific and Biblical claims in the videos? Lisle says this is the wrong question. “Science comes out of a Biblical worldview,” he says. “We don’t try to prove the Bible from outside evidence. We accept the Bible as presupposition.”

many Americans #fundie msnbc.msn.com

[According to a Newsweek poll]

Nearly half (48 percent) of the public rejects the scientific theory of evolution; one-third (34 percent) of college graduates say they accept the Biblical account of creation as fact. Seventy-three percent of Evangelical Protestants say they believe that God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years; 39 percent of non-Evangelical Protestants and 41 percent of Catholics agree with that view.

Saudi Arabia #fundie msnbc.msn.com

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - A Saudi Arabian judge sentenced 20 foreigners to receive lashes and spend several months in prison after convicting them of attending a party where alcohol was served and men and women danced, a newspaper reported Sunday.

The defendants were among 433 foreigners, including some 240 women, arrested by the kingdom's religious police for attending the party in Jiddah, the state-guided newspaper Okaz said. It did not identify the foreigners, give their nationalities or say when the party took place.

Judge Saud al-Boushi sentenced the 20 to prison terms of three to four months and ordered them to receive an unspecified number of lashes, the newspaper said. They have the right to appeal, it added.

The prosecutor general charged the 20 with "drinking, arranging for impudent party, mixed dancing and shooting a video for the party," Okaz said.

The paper said the rest of those arrested were awaiting trial.

Saudi Arabia follows a strict interpretation of Islam under which it bans alcohol and meetings between unrelated men and women.

The religious police, a force resented by many Saudis for interfering in personal lives, enjoys wide powers. Its officers roam malls, markets, universities and other public places looking for such infractions as unrelated men and women mingling, men skipping Islam's five daily prayers and women with strands of hair showing from under their veil.

In May, the Interior Ministry restricted the powers of the religious police to just arresting suspects, because the police sometimes had held people incommunicado and insisted on taking part in ensuing investigations.

unidentified 35 year old #fundie msnbc.msn.com

PORTLAND, Maine - A New York-to-Portland flight was delayed for more than two hours on Christmas Eve after a passenger passed along a note about blood and death.

He said he had AIDS, and the shedding of his blood and all our blood would cure all sickness,” Budek, of Sharpsville, Pa., told the Portland Press Herald at Portland International Jetport on Sunday. She said the note suggested “he was Jesus and it was time for everybody to die.”

Anglican Archbishop Peter Akinola #fundie msnbc.msn.com

FAIRFAX, Va. - Two of the most prominent and largest Episcopal parishes in Virginia voted overwhelmingly Sunday to leave The Episcopal Church and join fellow Anglican conservatives forming a rival denomination in the United States.

Truro Church in Fairfax and The Falls Church in Falls Church plan to place themselves under the leadership of Anglican Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria, who has called the growing acceptance of gay relationships a “satanic attack” on the church.

Timber-lee Christian Center #fundie msnbc.msn.com

At the summer camp at Timber-lee Christian Center in East Troy, Wis., for example, campers can go on a seven-room "Creation Walk," where each room showcases one of the Bible's seven days of Creation. Says Karen Good, outdoor education director at Timber-lee, "The curriculum is designed to open their eyes so when they go back to school [and hear about evolution] they say, 'Oh, that sounds goofy!' "