Five Public Opinions

The week in fundie . . .

1. Which employees would Jesus shaft? A Christian bookstore in the UK fired four employees by email after its parent organisation, a Christian charity, filed for bankruptcy in the US. The bookstore, which had closed but has opened again with reduced trading hours, also tried to impose a new contract on its employees, “drastically reducing their contractual rights.” And the administrators don’t like criticism of their activities: one sent a “Cease and Desist” letter to a blogger, containing the hilarious line “I do not consent to you posting blogs on the internet.” (via Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion)
2. The Christian fundamentalist brand of toilet paper known as OneNewsNow accuses the United Nations of advocating pedophilia, after (according to OneNewsNow) the UN granted recognition to two “homosexual activist groups” neither of which in the spirit of Christian honesty, integrity and forthrightness the innuendo-slinging OneNewsNow chooses to identify.
3. This is welcome news, if several millenia overdue. Iran is to suspend its use of stoning as a method of capital punishment. (AFP)
4. In Florida, a team of “psychic detectives” known as “Body Hunters” are “assisting” in the search for a missing toddler. “We will not even look at street names [. . .] We drive and go completely on feeling instinct, chasing down what we call a person signature.” Good luck with that. (FOXNews, naturally)
5. Meanwhile, the reality TV programme “The One” has declared one Charmaine Wilson *Australia’s leading psychic.” The winner “promised to represent the spirit world and the psychic community as best she can.” There’s a community? Wilson’s victory was decided by audience vote, which is as solid a methodology as any, given the circumstances. (LIVENews)