Sure, he looks like Wayne’s friend, Garth, a couple decades after being   forcibly removed from Wayne’s mother’s basement. But he’s actually Welsh Methodist minister, Derek Rigby, in his hobo kit, teaching his congregation a lesson about how they should treat the least among them. You know, that central instruction of Jeebus that today’s average christer so conveniently ignores? From Matthew 25:

“33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

40 “The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’”

So, how’d Rigby’s flock of sheep respond to the pseudobum in their midst?

“‘I had bought clothes from a charity shop” (he said), “which were immaculate - so I had to dirty them up a bit and I poured a bit of lager on them.

“When I got to the church I arranged a couple of cans and some plastic syringes, without needles, which I have at home for the dog. It gave the impression of a real down and out.”

He added: ” None of them spoke to me, apart from a few who told me off and told me to get away from their cars, which they kept checking.

“They all ignored me.””

Let’s see a show of hands from those who didn’t see that coming…

Props to Rigby. Both for the lesson and for the Foster’s.

Well, it’s been a while, but you’ll all be relieved to know that The American Family Association has found another subject to boycott: McDonald’s. Why? TEH GAYS! Those evil, subversive hummersexuals have infiltrated all that is holy and truly Amurrican-the Big Mac, the Quarter Pounder, the Sausage McMuffin, the Adam’sApple Turnover and anything Supersized! How’d they do it? Brace yourselves, ugly words ahead…tolerance and, dare I say it? Diversity! McDonald’s donated $20,000 to the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. Yowsers!

From here, this apparently means that

McDonald’s, as a corporation, [is] refusing to remain neutral in the culture wars. McDonald’s has chosen not to remain neutral but to give the full weight of their corporation to promoting the homosexual agenda, including homosexual marriage.
Full weight? Does the AFA think that $20,000 check was supersized with a few extra zeroes before the decimal point? Mickey D’s probably throws out $20K worth of grease a day.
AFA is upset at McDonald’s for refusing to condemn Vice President of Communications Richard Ellis’s decision to serve on the Board of Directors of the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC). AFA President Donald Wildmon said the situation is “strange” because “it’s the family that McDonald’s appeals to — children’s playland, you know, all the little toys, all of that. And they are promoting a lifestyle that would utterly destroy the traditional family.”

Yeah-destroying the traditional family-one clogged artery at a time!

McDonald’s has come back at the AFA with this statement:

We treat our employees and our customers with respect and dignity, regardless of their ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation or other factors. We support our employees’ personal involvement in organizations of their choice.

In other words, if our customers and employees want to hold the cheese or hold the lettuce, what they want will not upset us. Oh wait, that’s Burger King…Maybe the Burger King and Ronald McDonald are secretly a couple!

I highly recommend a reading of Chris Kelly’s rollicking Huffington Post article McDonald’s Makes Jesus Cry, which is where I first read the news. Hat tip to alexatheist over at NoGodBlog.

Here’s a fun link to read some of the responses to the AFA boycott ad, but I didn’t see any nearly as funny as the ones Chris Kelly mined.

And another funny item I came across when doing some searching on this post: apparently the AFAOneNewsNow site has a filter which auto replaces the word”gay” with the word “homosexual”. And it ends up with some unfortunate results, such as sprinter Tyson Gay being renamed Tyson Homosexual. See here.

Now, I don’t really eat at Mickey D’s all that much, but I think I’m Lovin’ It tonight! How about you?

Sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men’s penises

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men’s penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft. Reports of so-called penis snatching are not uncommon in West Africa, where belief in traditional religions and witchcraft remains widespread, and where ritual killings to obtain blood or body parts still occur.

Rumors of penis theft began circulating last week in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo’s sprawling capital of some 8 million inhabitants. They quickly dominated radio call-in shows, with listeners advised to beware of fellow passengers in communal taxis wearing gold rings.

Purported victims, 14 of whom were also detained by police, claimed that sorcerers simply touched them to make their genitals shrink or disappear, in what some residents said was an attempt to extort cash with the promise of a cure.

“You just have to be accused of that, and people come after you. We’ve had a number of attempted lynchings. … You see them covered in marks after being beaten,” Kinshasa’s police chief, Jean-Dieudonne Oleko, told Reuters on Tuesday.

Police arrested the accused sorcerers and their victims in an effort to avoid the sort of bloodshed seen in Ghana a decade ago, when 12 suspected penis snatchers were beaten to death by angry mobs. The 27 men have since been released.

“I’m tempted to say it’s one huge joke,” Oleko said.

“But when you try to tell the victims that their penises are still there, they tell you that it’s become tiny or that they’ve become impotent. To that I tell them, ‘How do you know if you haven’t gone home and tried it’,” he said.

Some Kinshasa residents accuse a separatist sect from nearby Bas-Congo province of being behind the witchcraft in revenge for a recent government crackdown on its members.

“It’s real. Just yesterday here, there was a man who was a victim. We saw. What was left was tiny,” said 29-year-old Alain Kalala, who sells phone credits near a Kinshasa police station.

Is this really 2008? I am sure you all will have fun with this one, too!

That’s like Elton John, right? Anyway, stiff upper lip, wot?

First off, a right-wing nutbag from Parliament has coined a new word and promptly called for a debate on it(from the Beeb):

“Mark Pritchard, Conservative MP for The Wrekin, Shropshire, said “Christianophobia” of the “politically correct brigade” also ran the risk of Christianity being hijacked by extremist parties.”

snip…

“He told the BBC: “The debate is not about doing God or theocracy. It’s about ensuring that the Christian tradition of our nation is recognised.

‘If mainstream political parties do not recognise and protect the Christian tradition of this nation then other more extremist parties will.

If that happens, we are in danger of Christianity being hijacked by these ambitions.’

Mr Pritchard said the debate was particularly topical, as recent findings suggested four fifths of schools were not staging Nativity plays this year.”

Fortunately, a Mr. Keith Porteous Wood, executive director of the National Secular Society is there to remind the errant MP that.

“The head of state is a Christian, the prime minister is a Christian and almost all the cabinet are self-identified Christians. How on earth can anyone imagine that Christians are disadvantaged or pushed to the margins?”

Mr Porteous Wood also said: “Christians are not being pushed out of public life, if anything they are over-represented.”

Meanwhile, also via the BBC, the Archbishop of Wales weighs in on “atheistic fundamentalism“:

The archbishop said ‘atheistic fundamentalism’ was a new phenomenon.

He said it advocated that religion in general and Christianity in particular have no substance, and that some view the faith as ’superstitious nonsense’.*

As well as leading to Christmas being called ‘Winterval,’ the archbishop said ‘virulent, almost irrational‘ attacks on Christianity led to hospitals removing all Christian symbols from their chapels, and schools refusing to allow children to send Christmas cards with a Christian message.’”

*- So here’s my question; Since religion in general and christinsanity in particular do have no substance and are superstitious nonsense, what part of pointing that out is fundamentalist?

Oh, and do any other seagoing mammals have their own archbishop?

Celina Texas: “An Abilene man who recently moved to Collin County said he wants to share a gift from his own personal dark recesses with North Texans. Terrance Cotton said he strained on what he thought was simple constipation inside his Abilene outhouse while playing with himself. The object headed septicwards at lighting speed, he said. ‘There was this loud cracking sound, and it really hurt,’ Cotton said.

‘After I changed my drawers, I heard a voice, and it said, ‘Look at your doings and see if you can see a face,’ he said. ‘And I looked, and I saw an image of Jesus Christ.’

It made headlines in Abilene when it happened almost a year ago. Dozens of people come to his home to see it.’I've had people look at it, and they can’t look at it anymore; it’s too much,’ Cotton said. ‘And I’ve had people come in and say they can’t see the beatific topography for the loveliness of the turd.’

Cotton said he has seen the changes in his life. He is at peace and taking fiber supplements five times a day, he said. He hopes the Holy Cotton Apple can be studied.

‘I believe science needs to take a look at this and study it to see what it means,’ Cotton said, grimacing at the thought of a colorectal screening.

He had scientists from Hardin Simmons University look at his Mighty Spoor and confirm it is real.

Several Evangelical coprophiliacs have offered to buy it for thousands of dollars, Cotton said.”

_{Real story by knbc5i, embellishment by yours truly…}

“For the last 15 years, the homosexual community has been publishing children’s books promoting homosexuality, starting with the book Heather Has Two Mommies. Other books such as Daddy’s Roommate and My Two Uncles have followed suit…”

Why, it’s a veritable market saturation, a cornering, even!

“…To our knowledge, no comparable children’s book designed to combat the promotion of homosexuality is available on the market—until now. “Does God Love Michael’s Two Daddies?” is a professionally designed and illustrated book that promotes God’s love for all individuals, while at the same time showing, in a loving way, that homosexuality is wrong. This book has tremendous potential to positively influence the lives of thousands of children growing up in tumultuous and confusing times.”

Thus spake the Mental Giants, known collectively as Apologetics Press. Obviously, given the name of their operation, we know to mock and/or ignore their output- which includes that extrasciencey*, contemporaneous man/dinosaur cohabitation thing. If we’re feeling generous, we may even rise above the belly laughs over the author of this claptrap being Sheila K. Butt.

*- my brand new, Stephen Colbert word.

I think maybe a new category is in order. Something like; “Oh, for Fuck’s Sake!” because some of this stuff just goes way beyond “Crazy Fundies” and simple “Stupidity”.

With a tip of the helmet to Miss Poppy Dixon and the General…and here’s the reworked version.