UK: Need religion like you need a hole in the head?

Why settle for just one?

Preacher Todd Bentley may think he has a cure for what ails you–and it’s a swift kick in the face.

The tattooed leader of Fresh Fire Ministries, based in Lakeland, Florida, plans on touring the UK this month, the Daily Mail reports. Several citizens, however, are begging officials to ban Bentley from the country, citing the preacher’s violent healing tactics as potentially harmful.

In one interview, Bentley claims that the “Holy Spirit” told him to kick an ill elderly woman in the face with his biker boot.

“Just as my boot made contact with her nose,” the 36-year old said, “she fell under the power of God.”

Huffington Post

John 11, 41:

Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead man was lying. And Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, “Seconds out! Round one!.” Now when He had said these things, He cried with a loud voice, “Take that! And that! And that!” And he who had died came out bound hand and foot with graveclothes, bruised and staggering, and his face was wrapped with a cloth, for his nose was bleeding. Jesus said to them, “I am the greatest, for I float like a butterfly and sting like a bee!”

Russia: Chechnyan suicide bomber kills four

A suicide bomb blast that killed at least four interior ministry soldiers and injured others in the capital of Russia’s volatile Chechnya region on Monday may have been organized by Islamist militants, regional leader Ramzan Kadyrov said.

The explosion, which Interfax news agency said happened as the soldiers left an armored vehicle near their garrison quarters, shattered the fragile peace of the broader North Caucasus region, where militants trying to create an Islamist state carry out daily violence.

Reuters

Gibraltar: Al-Qaeda plans attack on shopping mall

Three suspected members of al-Qaeda arrested in Spain were planning to launch an attack from the air on a shopping mall in the British territory of Gibraltar during the Olympics, reports said.

Police found a video in the home of one of the men, Turkish national Cengiz Yalcin, in the Spanish city of La Linea de la Concepcion, which shows him piloting a large, remote-controlled plane, the online edition of El Pais reported…

Police believe the men were preparing to use the plane to drop explosives on the mall, Spanish public television station TVE and other media said.

SMH

US: Faith school makes pregnancy tests compulsory, bans pregnant students

Now the ACLU is fighting a public school, Delhi Charter School in Louisiana, that is doing just that. The school has a formal policy banning pregnant students from attending the school, and they reserve the right to forcibly pregnancy-test any student. Here’s the policy, in the school’s own words:

If an administrator or teacher suspects a student is pregnant, a parent conference will be held. The school reserves the right to require any female student to take a pregnancy test to confirm whether or not the suspected student is in fact pregnant. The school further reserves the right to refer the suspected student to a physician of its choice. If the test indicates that the student is pregnant, the student will not be permitted to attend classes on the campus of Delhi Charter School.

Slate

“Are you pregnant, Louise?”
“Oh, no, sir, just grossly overweight.”

Who could possibly object to that?

US: Homophobia + arson = a marriage made in Heaven

Portrait of a cereal offender

The gay marriage opponent seen in a viral video accidentally setting a fire outside the General Mills headquarters is a Minnesota real estate broker who has previously recorded a series of anti-gay YouTube clips…

Leisner announces that he is there to protest the company’s advocacy of gay marriage, a reference to the food conglomerate’s June announcement that it opposes a November ballot initiative banning such nuptials. “So we are going to torch some cereal,” Leisner  says, as cars can be heard zooming past on nearby Interstate 394.

But after Leisner torches the Cheerios box, he somehow allows flames to spread to the lawn in front of a giant General Mills sign. After trying–and failing–to stamp out the flames with his feet, Leisner tells two young companions, “Okay, get out of here guys.”

via The Smoking Lawn — sorry, Gun