Cult Founder Told to Pull Head In After Bizarre Audition Ploy

by Red Wolf

Australia: It's been a year since the antics of Kenja have darkened our doorsteps. The cult has since published several more full page ads in high profile Australian papers in strange attempts to convince the locals that their alledged paedophile leader was really a good bloke. At least the last attempt wasn't as libellous as the first and just stuck to lying about Dyers rather than lying about those who accused him of being a naughty boy. But this isn't about glorifying their leader in print, it's about their co-founder bizarre attempts to put the frighteners on a woman who pointed the finger at Dyers.

Alison Pels thought she had finally escaped the grasp of the cult Kenja Communications when she left the group in February last year.

But six months later the then 20-year-old found herself the subject of a bizarre plot by Jan Hamilton and other members of the group, who disguised themselves with fake facial hair and wigs while posing as directors of a play.

Tags: Australia, cult, Jan Hamilton, Ken Dyers, Kenja, law, paedophilia

Off-topic Bargain of the Day: a male grooming product

by Feòrag

We usually only feature unusual religious products on the Prattle, but while flicking through a copy of QXMen (don't click that link if you have a crap job and are at work!), I noticed a most interesting offer amongst the pictures of nude and scantily clad men at it with one another. It was for a male grooming product, but those of you in the aforementioned crap jobs should leave reading the rest of this entry until you are safely at home.

Tags: bizarre products, lgbt, men, pseudoscience

Bargains of the Day: the Kosher iPhone

by Feòrag

Red Wolf mailed me a most interesting link over the weekend, highlighting a pair of iPhone apps of interest to observant Jews with a food fetish.

iBlessing ... shows a plate filled with food--no traif, of course. Clicking on the meat, fruit, bread, wine, etc., brings up the blessing you should say over the item in question. The app has additional bonus blessings as well, for events like hand washing and the after meal grace.

The other application is of no use to vegan Jews whatsoever, being to do with the prohibition on eating meat and dairy together.

ParveOMeter, counts down the amount of time until you can eat dairy after meat and vice versa. The milk to meat setting is customisable depending on how kosher you are (zero minutes to an hour), but the meat to milk timer keeps ticking for six whole hours. The app keeps you on track too, since there is no easy way to manually stop the timer.

But there's others, that Gizmodo chose not to highlight! KosherMe is

... a beautiful Bentscher for your iPhone. It puts the Blessings ("Brachot") you should say before and after eating something (including Birkat Hamazon) right at your fingertips.

Additionally KosherMe contains a (growing) number of wonderful prayers and blessings, e.g. the Complete Bedtime Shma, Tfillat Haderech and other useful blessings.

Then there's Siddur:

Take your weekday siddur with you with this feature-packed Jewish prayer book. You'll get Ashkenaz, Sfrard and Sefarad Mizrachi versions of davening, including weekday Shacharis, Mincha, Maariv, standard Brachos and more. Real time Zmanim will give you the prayer times for each day based on your location determined with the iPhone's GPS. A Minyanim database will help you find nearest shul. A Luach or Jewish Calendar will aid you in your prayer services.

... and Tehilim, which is a mobile version of the Psalms. Just remember to not use any of these between sunset Friday and sunset Saturday.

iBlessing and ParveOMeter iPhone Apps Make You a Kosher Keeping Mensch—Gizmodo Australia, 18th August 2008.

Tags: iPhone, Judaism, religion, software

Canada tells Phelps to bugger off, too.

by Feòrag

Canada: Canadian border guards have been told that Westboro Baptist Church members are not welcome, and are to be turned away should they try to enter Canada.

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day's office sent an alert to border patrol to look out for people with signs and pamphlets consistent with the messages that the church promotes and to keep them out of the country, Winnipeg MP Pat Martin told CBC News on Friday.

Entering Canada by a U.S. citizen isn't an absolute right, and if you're coming here only to disrupt the social order and to promote what we consider to be bordering on hate crimes or hate language, they shouldn't come into Canada, Martin said.

We're not going to allow these people to compound the tragedy of the McLean family loss, and Canadians simply won't tolerate these lunatics disrupting what should be a respectful service.

Border guards to turn away church group aiming to picket bus victim's funeral—CBC News, 8th August 2008.

Tags: Canada, not welcome here, Westboro Baptist Church

Bargain of the Day: Pagan wine

by Feòrag

Malta: Okay, so this product is not deliberately marketed at neopagans, but I bet they buy it:

Meridiana Wine Estate has launched its third white wine called Astarte, inspired by the Phoenician goddess of fertility worshipped in Malta during the Punic period. Astarte is based on the Vermentino grape, a Mediterranean wine grape variety which is ideal for Malta's climatic conditions.

New wine toasts fertility goddess—Times of Malta, 7th August 2008. See also Bargain of the Day: L'Chaim!, The Prattle, 18th October 2004.

Tags: Astarte, Malta, wine

Facebook Blog Networks

by Feòrag

There's a new tool on Facebook for tracking blogs. Don't know if it's any good yet, but you can find the Prattle here.

Nobody expects...

by Feòrag

Charlie has a login on the Prattle, but does he use it when he has a Prattleworthy story? Does he 'eck, so you'll have to read about the Knights Templar suing the Roman Catholic Church over on his blog.

God Hates Phelps

by Feòrag

United States: Westboro Baptist Church suffered a small fire, which destroyed a garage and a fence. Members of the church think it was deliberate, though we at Prattle Towers are of the opinion that it's because God hates them.

Small fire strikes Westboro Baptist—The Wichita Eagle, 2nd August 2008.

Tags: Westboro Baptist Church

Unclear on the concept.

by Feòrag

England: A festival promoting religious tolerance has been cancelled because members of one religion objected to the presence of members of others. The Laxfield Festival of Tolerance honoured the life of a local Protestant executed during the reign of Queen Mary, and the legendary reaction of the villagers.

John Noyes, a Laxfield shoemaker, was burnt to death on 22 September 1557, one of 34 executed in the county for his religious beliefs.

Legend has it that almost all the villagers disagreed with his death sentence and tried to put out their fires to stop his execution.

The festival was started three years ago in a bid to remember the execution and spread the message of religious tolerance.

The message flew right over the heads of some, though.

One villager explained his opposition to the festival. He said: I felt there was a drift towards the darker side of things, such as people selling five-pointed stars and other symbols of witchcraft. It didn't uphold the values I see in life.

Just one sentence which demonstrates the need for the festival.

"Intolerant" villagers stop "tolerance" festival —The Daily Telegraph, 30th July 2008.

Tags: bigotry, England, religious tolerance, Sussex

Is this inciting terrorism?

by Feòrag

Cheryl has noticed an interesting OpEd piece in the Mormon Times, in which science fiction writer Orson Scott Card calls for terrorism against any government which allows same-sex marriage.

I will act to destroy that government and bring it down, so it can be replaced with a government that will respect and support marriage, and help me raise my children in a society where they will expect to marry in their turn.

As Cheryl comments, [p]resumably the Department of Homeland Security will be taking note, but it brings two questions to mind. Firstly, how is ensuring his children can marry regardless of the sex of their beloved stopping them from doing so? And doesn't Mormonism historically have a definition of marriage which is ever so slightly different from the one which inspires Card's violent thoughts?

A Call for Revolution—Cheryl's Mewsings, 29th July 2008, citing State job is not to redefine marriage—Mormon Times, 24th July 2008.

Tags: bampots, bigotry, lgbt, Mormonism, Orson Scott Card, religion, same-sex marriage, United States

Brethren accused of kidnapping, fraud.

by Feòrag

Australia: The Exclusive Brethren are in trouble again, as a writ is filed accusing the cult of kidnapping, fraud and a number of other crimes.

Three sisters, from India, who say they are on the run from the religious sect, allege they can link it to numerous crimes. The women also allege the Exclusive Brethren is involved in money laundering, immigration fraud in New Zealand and bribery of police and members of the judiciary in India.

We've got 3,000 pages of evidence ... and now we're going to expose this whole thing, one of the sisters told reporters in Canberra.

Exclusive Brethren accused of kidnapping—The Age, 29th July 2008.

Tags: Australia, Exclusive Brethren, religion

Amusement of the moment

by Feòrag

From Failblog

Equality: you're doing it wrong

by Feòrag

England: Birmingham council appear to have failed to have paid any attention to the requirements of the law on religious discrimination when they decided to censor the internet for their employees.

The authority's Bluecoat Software computer system allows staff to look at websites relating to Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and other religions but blocks sites to do with witchcraft or Satanism and occult practices, atheistic views, voodoo rituals or any other form of mysticism.

Under the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003, it is unlawful to discriminate against workers because of their religion or belief, which includes atheism.

One also wonders what Birmingham's social workers are expected to do if they have, for example, a Wiccan client, and they need to learn more about that faith in order to deal with them fairly? Perhaps they are expected to dig out those fundie dossiers from the late 80s' Satanic panic?

Council ban on atheist websites—BBC News, 29th July 2008.

Tags: Birmingham, discrimination, internet censorship, religion, United Kingdom