RationalWiki:What is going on in the world?/December 2011
December 2011[edit]
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So-called liberal Barack Obama pulls a Calvin Coolidge and signs the vaguely-worded NDAA "with reservations." And if you think this is bad, wait for SOPA. |
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13 |
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6 |
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10 |
Blatantly creationist bills in New Hampshire and now Indiana. |
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Conservatives, typically, fear change. Some for very specific reasons, apparently. |
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5 |
From the same state that almost set the value of pi to three comes a law to set specific standards for performing The Star-Spangled Banner. |
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11 |
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5 |
A new book claims that Tricky Dick was gay. Arrrrrroooooo. |
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5 |
Make a straight line for Dear Leader or go down the memory hole! |
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10 |
While a couple of BONs try to tell us that feminism is irrelevant, the BBC can't find 12 human women to put on its list of top female newsmakers, and pads the list with a zoo animal. Update: See the original for a laugh. |
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Creationist antivaxer professor sues the University of Louisiana for viewpoint discrimination. |
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4 |
American Indian activists take offense at the Occupy Movement's use of that word, trying to get them to change their name to the "Decolonize Movement." |
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First Newt Gingrich failed to get enough signatures for Virginia, now nearly half the signatures for Rick Perry's campaign are invalid. Competence? And these are the same politicians who |
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11 |
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14 |
Michelle Bachmann: "We won't have teleprompters in my White House! I'll just read off an iPad instead." |
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7 |
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12 |
Christmas. A time of peace and brotherhood. |
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6 |
The son of the messiah from the south meets the son of the messiah from the north. |
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9 |
This year RationalWiki will cover all the major fashion shows, London, Paris, Milan, Rome, Tehran. |
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9 |
New census data shows that in 12 major U.S. cities, geographic racial segregation has continued the downward trend it has been on since 1980. |
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15 |
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Meet a lovely young couple: they're birthers, they're dominionists, they're...hipsters? |
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A group of war protesters in New York are brought in guilty on a charge of disorderly conduct, following a failed defense on the grounds that U.S. wars are violating international law. |
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The U.S. Department of Justice has blocked enforcement of a voter identification law in South Carolina set up to keep |
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Wikipedia's domains are moving from GoDaddy, in protest of the registrar's support of PROTECT-IP and SOPA. GoDaddy has already lost over 37,000 domains since December 22. |
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According to Newt Gingrich it's Virginia's fault that he couldn't get enough signatures to get on the state's GOP ballot. Nate Silver agrees. |
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Why mid-twentysomethings shouldn't have access to nuclear arsenals. |
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Bruce Schneier shows Vanity Fair just how blitheringly incompetent the TSA is. |
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"Ark Encounter" theme park is having trouble staying afloat. |
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3 |
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The gay community of Minnesota apologises for ruining the institution of marriage. |
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For once, Obama does not back down. |
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Climate change in action? Deadly floods in Dar es Salaam. The "other stories relevant to this subject" link on the BBC article? Droughts lead to power cuts, only five months ago. |
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The Texas governor we should have sent to Washington finally gets there.... Well, to the Kennedy Center. |
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Remember last month's study of a modified bird flu variant that, if left in the wrong hands, could be used to exterminate huge sectors of the human population? The US government and Nature/Science are in a major battle to censor it or not. |
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Bradley Manning's lawyer demands that the investigating officer in Manning's case recuse himself due to the fact that >gasp!< his employers are conducting an investigation of Manning. |
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Researchers at UC Berkeley find that rich people are less empathetic than poor people, specifically because they have not suffered as much themselves. This would, of course, explain why blue-bloods are much more likely to dribble sympathy over the Lower Orders than the "self-made" nouveau riche. |
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In the midst of the SOPA controversy, who has the gall to twist US copyright law even further away from sanity? None other than those notorious copyright villains, the Atlanta Braves. One can only hope they're proving the laws' idiocy by example (and that certain commentators are being sarcastic). |
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Here's something that will keep you nauseous for a few hours. |
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December 20th: Happy 6th Birthday Kitzmiller v. Dover |
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Newt Gingrich gets an unwanted endorsement from an adultery website. |
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-5 |
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PolitiFact's Fail of the Year: In April, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) pushed a bill through the House of Representatives that would have made Medicare a privatized voucher program, essentially gutting it. About five weeks later, PolitiFact said that a "throw-granny-from-the-cliff" ad claiming that the Ryan plan would privatize Medicare was "Mostly True." Fast-forward another seven months (December 20) when PolitiFact names its Lie of the Year: The Democratic Party claim that "Republicans voted to end Medicare". Dems are now pissed because PolitiFact lopped off the last half of the claim: "Republicans voted to end Medicare as we know it." Paul Krugman is especially miffed. |
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18 |
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Goddamn! Are there any straight Republicans out there? (and Toronto does what it does best...*wink* *wink*) |
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Invoking similar comments other conservatives made toward Christopher Hitchens, John McCain says goodbye to Kim Jong-il. Not sure which dead guy deserves such |
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5 |
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What a day: Kim Jong-il is dead. Update: The horror of the cult of personality in full display. |
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Tea Party member calls for assassination of Obama and his family. |
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Mission finally accomplished? |
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Catholics demand tolerance for their views. Of course, only their views should be tolerated. |
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More bad news for Greece: the worse an economy gets, the more the wingnuts enter the spotlight. |
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Abandoning all claims of being a progressive conservative, David "Lizard" Cameron has revised the United States as a Christian nation myth into a twisted version for the UK of today. |
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I love oooooooil! The look of it! The taste of it! The schmell of it! The texture! |
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New report says that Sheriff Arpaio might not like dark skinned people |
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We can now literally say that if you're anti-gay marriage, you're trying to break the Sixth Commandment. |
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Want your mind to be blown? The six heirs of the Wal-Mart fortune own more wealth than the bottom 30% of American citizens. |
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Christopher Hitchens has died at age 62 of complications from cancer treatment. |
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War in Iraq declared over. |
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Southern California family asked fellow churchgoer to beat their child. |
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4 |
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The CDC carries out a Mary Koss-style rape survey, of the general population this time around. Results are as expected. |
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Butler, would you mind carrying me to my money bed? Oooh, my. But seriously, this is becoming a joke. |
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8 |
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You smoke pot? Gingrich wants to give you a hemp necktie. |
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Scientists observe altruistic behaviors in rats. Crap, we can't indoctrinate them with Ayn Rand. |
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Scientists discover giant methane plumes bubbling to the surface of the Arctic Sea. - hmmm, sounds familiar... |
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Two top US hurricane prognosticators school others in the meaning of the term "scientific integrity" by quitting after "a look back shows their past 20 years of forecasts had no predictive value." If only political pundits would follow this example. |
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World's tiniest frog species (<9mm long) is discovered in New Guinea. And the world's biggest insect discovered on a New Zealand island. |
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Bill Johnson, a candidate in the Alabama GOP gubernatorial primary who campaigned against same-sex marriage, has been found donating sperm on the gray market behind his wife's back. |
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9 |
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James Murdoch: LOL, didn't read. But we all know what he was thinking about in his head. |
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11 |
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Obama: "Hey mister! Can we have our ball back please!" Ahmadinejad: "No, I wanna play with it." |
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In a move that will forever damage Canada's reputation abroad, Peter "What is ozone?" Kent pulls the plug on the Kyoto Protocol. This move essentially turns the Great Black North into China and the United States' bitch. |
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David Frum gives Fox News an appropriate description of their actions. |
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In an eerie moment in post-Cold War politics, Putin and his sockpuppet to government dissenters: "Ok, ok, we might just listen to you. Calm down." |
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If Anthony Weiner's clusterfuck wasn't enough, politicians should really be watching what they're texting. |
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COP 17: Yay! We have a treaty... um... to talk some more and not do anything until 2020... *sigh* |
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Sing along now: "We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy Nuke Year!" |
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THANK YOU CLEVELAND! Cleveland shows official support for the Occupy movement. |
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It seems that Joe ("Mr. Tough Guy") Arpaio has been somewhat more enthusiastic about rounding up illegal immigrants than about locking up child molesters. |
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And the OECD confirms what Occupy has been saying all along: |
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A neat architecture design offends some people who think the entire world is based on American sensitivities |
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26 |
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9 |
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Newt Gingrich states there is no such thing as Palestine or Palestinians. |
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Rick Perry: Now officially worse than Rebecca Black. |
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Papa Bear: "Jon Stewart, you're going to hell." No, really. |
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The EU decides not to break itself apart, but to allow stronger integration in a new budget pact. Here are the possibilities. |
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Another one bites the dust as the GOP's least unreasonable presidential nominee candidate now "has questions" about climate change/global warming. |
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8 |
Sean Hannity does |
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8 |
Fox News makes something up, using footage from Greek riots to suggest violent election riots in Russia. |
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11 |
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Obama invokes Teddy and fudges some facts in Kansas. |
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So your people are protesting the fact that your elections were an obvious sham. Who's to blame for the protests? Who else? |
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Belgium gets an atheist, socialist and openly gay prime minister. |
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8 |
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Virginia Tech sprayed with bullets again. |
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It is almost certain that Mars had liquid water at one point. All that remains to be found is if there is water now. |
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So... the Senate has passed the "infinite detention" provision. You're not keeping very good company, are you? |
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If Republicans had a choice between killing Bin Laden or Obamacare, guess who would win. (Hint: It's not the guy with the beard.) |
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It looks like you're building a nuclear reactor. Would you like help? |
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Assad admits to being a crazy person. |
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Now this is an example of a welfare queen. |
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The second Illinois Governor in a row is headed to jail. |
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WTF of the Day: Mythbusters experiment goes hilariously wrong. |
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Church charity gives homeless fake designer clothes. |
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Still using Facebook, and worried about shitty privacy settings? You won't have to anymore. |
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Just in time for Christmas, a Greek history teacher has published a combination cookbook and survival guide based on newspaper articles published during the 1941-44 Nazi occupation of Greece. |
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"A pawn or a champ?" Either way, the Crazy Lady of Minnesota got pwned. |
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Woman who was anti-ObamaCare discovers ObamaCares |
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For Christ sakes, another one? GOP NJ mayor Myers resigns following fallout from a Larry Craig-esque scandal involving a "RentBoy." |
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OWS wins first major victory in New York State as Governor Cuomo agrees to rework state tax brackets. |
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When you enter an address with the .xxx domain, don't say we didn't warn you. |
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Muslim groups speaking out against women's violence? But I thought they all stoned women, OMG! |
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For those (i.e., Newt Gingrich) who romanticize the era before child labor laws, be informed that today (December 6) is the 104th anniversary of one of the worst industrial disaster in US history, where 362 workers (including many children) died in a chain-reaction mine explosion. |
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Irony alert! It seems that when Occupy Wall Street chose Zuccotti Park as their demonstration area, they chose an open space owned by wealthy tax evaders. |
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Hype or Hope? Higgs Boson seen taking tea with Lord Lucan! Disclaimer: Please note, the previous story wasn't obtained through any form of phone hacking. We're serious! |
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If you can't get the irony of this, you're not reading it right. It also seems that the Huff has managed to expand its fanbase quite a bit. |
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10 |
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Another staunch anti-homosexual mega-church leader discovered to be closet homosexual. Can we say Haggard's Law? |
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Astronomers announce the finding of an Earth-Like planet around Kepler-22. |
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5 |
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So that's what Schadenfreude means. |
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Jim Henson's Muppets just a bunch of goddamn commies! says Fox News. UPDATE: Of course, paranoia regarding beloved Hollywood iconography is nothing new. |
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8 |
Mario Monti, the new Italian PM in charge of clearing up Bunga Bunga's massive mess, passes an austerity plan which pisses off both lefties and righties as the euro deadline nears. Proving that stopped clock exists for politicians, he forgoes his entire salary as part of the deal. |
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...and Nick Clegg appears out of nowhere to pressure the Lib-Tory coalition on curbing excessive boardroom pay. |
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The beginning of the end for Vladimir Putin? Yes, that Vladimir Putin. Update: Video goes viral showing how easy it is to rig votes in Russia. |
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The German city of Koblenz gets a WWII surprise. |
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Were Herman Cain's staff pranking him the whole time? First there was the economic plan from "Sim City;" now he's quoting from Pokémon 2000: The Movie. |
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Herman Cain suspends his campaign |
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10 |
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Atheists considered as untrustworthy as rapists, a new study finds. Watch out children, there's an unbeliever under your bed! Update: Full paper available here. |
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Australian woman claims to have been imprisoned on a Scientology ship for 12 years. |
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