The London Guardian/Observer, May 11, 2008 (HAT TIP 3 Quarks Daily):

For Abdel-Qader Ali there is only one regret: that he did not kill his daughter at birth. 'If I had realised then what she would become, I would have killed her the instant her mother delivered her,' he said with no trace of remorse.

I like the presentation format of this YouTube but disagree with many of the quotes. Hemingway's "All thinking men are atheists" is demonstrably false and arrogant. My favorite is probably Amanda Bloom's "An idea does not gain truth as it gains followers."

My diary "Secular Content: An Atheist's Iconostasis" is up over at Street Prophets.

Baltimore Sun, March 29, 2008:

The Archdiocese of Baltimore will celebrate its bicentennial starting next month with work on a new prayer garden near downtown, musical performances in the Basilica of the Assumption and an exhibit of the Catholic community's history at St. Mary's Seminary.

Many events will coincide with Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Washington and New York from April 15 to April 20.

Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien said yesterday that the pope is expected to acknowledge the Archdiocese of Baltimore as the nation's first Catholic archdiocese. Benedict did not accept an invitation to visit Baltimore; Pope John Paul II visited Baltimore in 1995.

Religion can either be a buttress to basic moral and ethical decency or a shoddy, insufferably immoral substitute for basic decency. The absence of religion neither guarantees nor prevents basic decency either. Examples of all instances abound. Both non-religious and religious people, at their finest, perceive and address this dichotomy responsibly.

He says "Great Whore" as if it were a criticism. I don't get it.

I was enchanted by this hauntingly simple, beautiful site dedicated to the restoration of the mother church of Eastern Christianity, the Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom) cathedral in Istanbul, to active status as an Orthodox house of worship.

I can understand how pro-life doctors will want to refuse to administer an abortion. I can even understand how some will refuse to supply birth control. But I cannot understand how a GYN refuses on MORAL grounds to administer a PAP smear to determine whether a woman has cancer or a meaningful risk there of in the future. Apparently, the risk of death from cancer is important to preserve as a moral bulwark against the immorality of, well, sex before marriage. I guess it's more moral, more "pro-life", to watch a woman die of cancer than to risk the appearance that her concern for her health might be interpreted as an endorsement of her presumed sex life.

YouTube revoked, then reinstated, this video from the internet-based anti-Scientology group "Anonymous."

I do not claim first-hand knowledge about Scientology, but found this discussion of its alleged esoteric beliefs interesting.

I am too exhausted after a long sick day of posting to go through the whole story, but HAT TIP to Moe Lane at RedState for his piece on explicit antisemitism and racism in a Memphis Congressional race, this time a "Black Christian" minister calling for the ouster of Congressman Steve Cohen on the alleged ground that he and "the Jews" "hate Jesus." Offensive flier here, WaPo article here. I liked Moe's take but am just too tired to manufacture the will to march on.