RationalWiki:What is going on in the world?/March 2013

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March 2013[edit]

30

Creationist stakes $10,000 on contest between Bible and evolution. Why do I get the feeling he'll never pay up?

22

Egypt issues arrest warrant for Bassem Youssef, the "Egyptian Jon Stewart".

13

"Act of God" destroys 25 cars at a religious gathering.

24

Sometimes your faith in humanity is rekindled (Anyone got that pic of Muslims protecting Christians in Egypt?)

17

Let's see how much of a bluffer you really are...

48

The only way to say this is is to say it straight: Pope Francis washed the feet of a female Muslim prisoner, sparking fears among conservative Catholics over women priests.

18

The Governor of Iowa wants to increase education spending by $187 million. Guess his party affiliation.

18

According to a Pew study, 48% of US Christians say that Jesus will return within the next 40 years.

18

First Neanderthal/modern human hybrid found. 40,000-30,000 years ago, northern Italy. Original paper.

8

The NRA serves to protect responsible gun owners...especially when one of them is the Sandy Hook massacre shooter.

31

Anti-gay protesters in Paris attack the police and use their kids as human shields. You know, “pro-family.”

17

Australia to crack down on bogus "therapeutic goods".

41

Ok, who gave Papa Bear the weed?

12

Start seriously worrying about Korea. Update: Here come the B-2s.

15

Christians rush to the Supreme Court in the wake of the Prop 8 case screaming about states' rights and their imaginary world in which the USA is run on mobocracy. Bonus points for non-white Christians telling others who they can't marry!

14

Anthony Kennedy, the Justice who wrote the majority opinion on Lawrence v. Texas and is likely to be the decider on SCOTUS legalizing gay marriage, is being a bit grumpy today.

24

Tennessee lawmakers reassured that mop sink isn’t sink for Muslims to wash feet^{[No, not The Onion]}

42

A gay teenager with Asperger's syndrome was viciously abused at his own birthday party; he was forced to strip down, had homophobic slurs written on his body, and was then set on fire. He died the next morning. The individual responsible gets a whopping three and a half year sentence.

13

Get your printed organs here.

21

No Christianity in our Easter eggs, please.

12

Where's Rosa Parks when you need her?

18

How we died for 100 years

29

Richard Littlejohn has blood on his hands.

24

And from the air came water.

38

It's official. Fox News is too liberal for the Tea Party.

18

Due to sequestration, NASA suspends all its educational and outreach efforts "pending further review". Some people are already calling the death of the agency...

45

Michele Bachmann doesn't understand how science works, blames government regulation for the continued existence of Alzheimer's disease.

17

North Korea may be selling meth out of its embassies.

31

Today in Harper's Canada: a motion, essentially affirming that accurate scientific research is useful in sound public policy making, was defeated in the House of Commons after every single Conservative MP voted it down. (to be fair, party solidarity means that it would be political suicide to vote against your party line)

8

Angry at new gun laws, a Colorado based magazine manufacturing company decides to takes its ball and leave, costing Colorado a whopping 200 jobs.

22

The Aussies have "revived and reactivated" an unusual species of frog that went extinct 30 years ago.

33

From the Planck satellite: Big Bang theory reinforced, more matter and less energy than we thought there was, and the Hubble constant gets a recalculation. Also a trippy CMB map in the mix.

3

James Herbert, he of the Rats and the Fog and so many teenage nightmares, dies.

24

Someone follows terrible advice from Dr. Oz, sues him for injuries sustained.

12

The Wee Frees go all slippery slope

19

Google doesn't pay its taxes.

10

Bollocks.

8

Cyprus has rejected the bailout.

27

Possible college gun massacre stopped by traditional 911 call to police.

15

Birds evolve to avoid becoming roadkill.

22

The GOP does some serious navel gazing, and comes up with: "The Republican Party needs to stop talking to itself…and driving around in circles in an ideological cul-de-sac...young voters are increasingly rolling their eyes at what the Party represents...and if changes aren't made, it will be increasingly difficult for Republicans to win another Presidential election." Grab some popcorn and sit back - the next eight years may be interesting times for the Party of No.

31

Water water everywhere and every drop to drink.

15

On the night that submissions for the board of Ireland's constitutional convention close, enormous support for same-sex marriage floods in.

7

Oh no, we are not starting this again - Power outage at Fukushima. Update 1: Already fixed. Update 2: Official cause: Kentucky Fried Rat.

14

The Hague is right this way, sir.

14

Well fuck. Forget Greece, we might have an Iceland-style bank run in Cyprus. Update: Now Putin holds the cards in the Eurozone crisis? Historic vote tomorrow.

10

Indian Police on yet another gang rape: It's your fault that you were in an area where we're completely incompetent in addressing crime!

17

The mad scientists running New York City come up with an inventive way to deal with the city's long bemoaned rat problem.

1

More Catholic dumbfuckery: "Paedophilia is not a criminal condition."

8

Worst Nazi salute excuse ever.

21

A guilty verdict for the alleged human beings in Steubenville. The scumbags receive a whole one year in juvie.

11

How many more weeks of this shit are we going to have to take?

15

Sherry Shriner's apocalyptic, NWO, UFO crankery drives unfortunate Detroit woman to suicide... or is that what they want you to believe?

14

Canadian federal librarians and archivists now have to be bound to a “duty of loyalty” to Stephen Harper. Because it's librarians who are acting against the government?

34

Don't ya luv 'em: “I didn’t know the legacy of the Republican Party included women correcting men in public.” (also: ...African-Americans “should be allowed to vote in Africa,” of course.)

28

Senator Rob Portman (R-OH), former supporter of DOMA, renounces opposition to gay marriage, but is still kind of a jerk.

-5

"Every October, a group of about 100 divorcees pack into a hotel on Treasure Island Beach, Florida, for the annual gathering of the Straight Spouse Network - bound together by their shared separation from former husbands and wives who are now openly gay."

26

If this story is true, the sound of exploding irony meters will be deafening.

24

Another preacher caught diddling an underage member of his flock, this time "because Jesus wanted them to have sex."

13

The ISS just got a whole lot politer.

23

The Family Research Council takes a little break from hating gays to hating everyone who has premarital sex.

28

Possible Higgs boson found in 2012 now probable Higgs boson.

9

Paul Ryan: "We're not going to give up on destroying the health care system for the American people."

37

Religious affiliation in the United States is at its lowest point since University of California sociologists began tracking American religiosity in the 1930s.

27

Habemus Papam. Update: It's Jorge Mario Bergoglio AKA Francis I, from Argentina.

40

Kiwis pass gay marriage!

10

Pope watch: First vote inconclusive. Still nothing after 3 votes. Where's a Borgia when you need 'em?

16

Men, beware of women with poison-laced skirts!

14

We honest, patriotic Americans, wish to name this mountain for the man who gave weapons to the Islamic Republic of Iran. The current name is too French.

10

Who else wants to see a game of basketball between Dennis Rodman and a doddering old man? (It might be better than his last game between a younger, more... corpulent one.)

-12

~~WE ARE NOT ALONE~~ Well, that defused quickly.

35

Vatican "accidentally" invests 23 million euros in a ... HUGE GAY SAUNA.

16

EU bans animal testing for cosmetics.

16

Looks like the caveman diet may have had no real effect on heart disease.

12

The three-body problem now has 13 more families of solutions to add to the three families that were already known.

13

If Adolf Hitler flew in today, they'd send a limousine anyway.

13

Quebecois association of victims of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy champion Marc Ouellette (one of the "dirty dozen") as Pope in the hopes that it will draw media attention to his sorry record on the issue.

11

Second case of church standing up for the poor against shitbags Well done for once (twice?)

16

Your rights mean nothing to us

20

Deacon in the Archdiocese of Baltimore caught with child porn (which the genius stored in his on-line Verizon account).

22

Mandatory gun ownership... that'll make closing time in the bars on payday interesting...

9

Rand Paul's fillibuster - full of stupid.

-17

Let's turn abortion into a light-hearted game! Come on, people. Serious issue, serious attitude.

9

Move to Feldheim!

19

Scientists say Earth is hotter today than in (most) of the last 11,000 years, suck it global warming doubters!

22

In Louisiana, a charter school is teaching children the Hippies worshiped Satan.

20

Quebecois Catholic priest charged with, ah, f**k it, you know the drill....

-5

"There are currently more people with neo-Nazi views in the Netherlands than the number of Dutch collaborators with the Nazis during the Second World War." (Where "neo-Nazi" here means "disapproves of Israel's behaviour".)

11

James O'Keefe will pay $100K to ACORN employee he defamed.

17

The EU is going to debate a ban on all pornography on the Internet. When this went public, the European Parliament blocked incoming email after MEPs complained about getting email from citizens about it. Update: This seems to be a habit with the EU parliament's email system, as any email with the words "gender stereotypes" in it is also blocked... on International Women's Day.

19

There might be life under Lake Vostok. We await the marine biologist/exobiologist nerdgasms in May.

30

Your move, Jong-un. UPDATE: North Korea ends all non-aggression pacts with the South, the largest escalation since the Korean War.

15

That didn't take long to rectify

17

Prepare to give a giant fuck you to David Petraeus.

24

Explain this, YECs. 80,000-year-old grove of Aspen trees in Utah is a single vast root structure that clones itself, making it likely the oldest living organism. It may be even older. It's also the heaviest, with conservative estimates putting it at 13 million pounds.

2

Louie Gohmert is at it again.

15

Superman: If Orson Scott Card's writing it, I'm not drawing it

5

Hugo Chavez will come back from the dead, says Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

11

Duane Gish gallops into the sunset. (And probably the last time you'll see AiG in WIGO:World.)

3

Let's see how those goldbugs are doing these days, shall we?

16

TSA to allow people to bring the weapons used by 9/11 hijackers onto planes again, but not bottled water or snowglobes.

8

The Canadian government is required to evaluate all proposed legislation for consistency with the Charter. Seems standing Harper-government policy is that it's fine if it has a 5% chance of surviving a constitutional challenge.

5

North Korea threatens to break 1953 armistice agreement. Meanwhile the USA and China have come to an agreement on new sanctions over their nuclear test.

16

Hugo Chavez is dead. (for real this time)

29

A Christian school fired a woman for having premarital sex and then hired the man she had the premarital sex with.

10

My son needed guns to shoot his girlfriend because he had to fight white crime!

6

"But what about the third terror of the ~~Fire Swamp~~Tehran? The R.O.U.S's?" "Rodents of Unusual Size? I don't believe they exist."

24

Obama administration to the Supreme Court on Prop H8: "the exclusion of gay and lesbian couples from marriage does not substantially further any important governmental interest. Proposition 8 thus violates equal protection."

14

"Justice must not only be done, it must be seen to -" Fuck that shit.

11

Getting drunk at the UN?

11

$15 million bill... for a website created with a $40 Wordpress theme.

7

Seven children die in Chinese orphanage due to exposure, Chinese government claims illness, not the bad facilities.

15

Haven't the Bush family fucked up the world enough already? Jeb's "...not going to declare today, ..."

4

Unlucky, but please try again

22

Is Israel reading the same history books as we are?

22

In 2013, the tide was turned against AIDS ... ... or maybe not ...

53

According to Republican Washington state legislator Ed Orcutt, a proposed bicycle tax is essential because cyclists aren't environmentally friendly due to all the CO₂ they exhale. "[b]icyclists need to start paying for the roads they ride on rather than make motorists pay".

4

In an effort to stay current, United States president Barack Obama, while talking on the subject of the upcoming sequester, made what the internet is describing as an "epic fail". Will Obama lose his nerd constituency? UPDATED: Ubernerd to Obama's rescue.