Now don’t laugh. You mustn’t laugh. It would be terribly rude to laugh. Whatever you do, do not laugh.

The “EmoTrance” project is taking place at the Haydon School in Pinner, Middlesex. Nineteen pupils are being trained in “emotional transformation”, which is described in a press release from EmoTrance.com as a “practical system for energy healing and energy working”…The EmoTrance.com press release says the therapy helps students to “identify where emotions are held in their body”. It quotes one pupil as saying: “I felt hatred towards a person, yet when I went through EmoTrance after some layers of energy were removed I felt as if I could accept this person.”

The release adds that the pupils are practising the therapy

Joe Hockey has been reading Karen Armstrong, it appears.

Those who seek to proclaim the prescriptions of the Bible selectively or literally provide an armoury of ammunition to those like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins. Laymen like myself struggle with the logic of such an approach. While debate rages about such matters, the true message of the scriptures – of compassion, justice, equality, dignity, forgiveness, charity and respect for other people – inevitably takes a back seat.

That’s the true message of ‘the scriptures’ is it – in spite of all the content of the scriptures that says no such thing but rather the very opposite? In spite of all the abundant material in the scriptures that urges cruelty, … Read the rest

Iran has a section of its penal code that makes quite clear why it gets to execute pretty much anyone who opposes it.

Article 186 of Islamic Penal Code states that when any group or organization attempts armed confrontation against the Islamic Republic of Iran, so long as its leadership is intact, all its members and supporters who are aware of the organization’s positions and take steps to further its objectives, are “enemies of God,” even if they are not involved in its military branch. Article 190 of Islamic Penal Code states that there are four possible punishments for “war against God or corruption on earth”: death, death by hanging; amputation of the right hand and then the left foot;

Anthony Grayling points out that university students aren’t there to get maximum ‘contact hours’ with faculty.

The assumption that lies behind the contact hours issue is a deeply mistaken one. It is that universities are a simple extension of school, and that as at school, students should be given as much attention as possible. This misunderstanding is astonishing coming from Peter Mandelson, who read PPE at Oxford, though comprehensible enough among students first encountering a much more independent working style than they had while being prepared for the endless hoop-jumping at school…University is emphatically not about spoon-feeding and hand-holding through courses, but the very opposite. It is not about maximising contact hours, but about autonomy in thinking, researching and writing.

The Catholic church has veto power over significant US legislation, to the point that Pelosi has to ask it for its approval in order to get a bill passed.

Now House leaders are not only negotiating with fellow lawmakers, but also with representatives from the bishops’ organization, Democratic sources said. “It’s come to this,” said one bewildered senior Democratic lawmaker, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to discuss internal deliberations…Several Democrats, including Rep. Jason Altmire, D-Pennsylvania, said they are in touch with their Catholic bishops back home. Altmire said he must have the approval of his bishop in Pittsburgh before he can vote yes.

The bishops got their way.

The provision would block the use of federal