The BBC, not to be outdone, jumps eagerly into the god-hugging pool, reporting joyfully that Birmingham city council has fixed a “funding shortfall” by spending public money on a hideous tin-foil statue of a local-boy-makes-good “saint.”

A funding shortfall to pay for a work of art to celebrate the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Birmingham has been met by the city council.

The sculpture of the Blessed John Henry Newman was commissioned by the
authority, to mark the visit last year.

It was hoped public donations would pay for the statue of the Victorian
clergyman who was beatified by the Pope in a special Mass.

But they didn’t, which is not surprising if you look at it, so … Read the rest

Holy shit.

More extremist posters have been discovered in the East London borough of Tower Hamlets.

It is understood the posters were found last Thursday morning at council-managed housing blocks in Shadwell, next to the DLR and Overground station.

They state: “You are entering a Shariah controlled zone. Islamic rules enforced.”

Underneath, images declare that smoking, alcohol, music, drugs, prostitution and porn are forbidden.

In other words, good morning, the Taliban has arrived in Shadwell. If you live here, your life is now hell. Have a nice day.

Islamic preacher Anjem Choudary, who said in 2008 that gays should be stoned to death, has claimed responsibility for the campaign.

Ah. Well that’s a relief. If it’s true, that means … Read the rest

Guest post by Patrick O’Malley.

I wrote 2 apologies for the Archbishop in Ireland, who is preparing to give an apology after the scathing Cloyne report, which showed that in 2011 the Catholic church continues to be criminally negligent about clergy child sex. Both apologies are completely honest, so they are inadmissible in today’s Catholic church:

1) Let’s be honest. We don’t care. A few of our priests raped your kids. We don’t care. It’s a nuisance. They’re only kids. Let’s get back to fighting women priests, condoms, and gays, and fixing everyone else in this world. Now shut up, go home, and don’t bring this up again. God bless, fools.

2) I’m so embarrassed to be a Catholic … Read the rest

Christopher Shea on Patricia Churchland.

“It all changed when I learned about the prairie voles,” she says—surely not a phrase John Rawls ever uttered.

She told the story at the natural-history museum, in late March. Montane voles and prairie voles are so similar “that naifs like me can’t tell them apart,” she told a standing-room-only audience (younger and hipper than the museum’s usual patrons—the word “neuroscience” these days is like catnip). But prairie voles mate for life, and montane voles do not. Among prairie voles, the males not only share parenting duties, they will even lick and nurture pups that aren’t their own. By contrast, male montane voles do not actively parent even their own offspring. What accounts for