Beware of mind-bogglingly stupid aliens

Greetings.

Jewish date:  7 Tammuz 5769.

Today’s holiday:  Feast of Simon Magus.

Today’s quasi-holidays:  Camera Day, Please Take My Children to Work Day.

Relevant to Divine Misconceptions:

1. More people dying needlessly due to bad religious thinking:  “Horror of Kenya's 'witch' lynchings” and “Trial in death of infant raises questions of parental rights, religious freedom”, and “Man sees subtle victory in fight against Jehovah's Witnesses”.
2. It is unsurprising that Buddhists would find this offensive:  “Footwear store in Geneva uses Buddha statue to hang shoes”.
   
3. More oppression:  “AZERBAIJAN: 'Why shouldn't we bring order to this?'”.
   
4. Political irony:  “Atheist China promotes Buddhism”.
   
5. “Video of church's 'casting out' gay 'demon' in teen sparks anger”:  While demons are probably the least likely cause for homosexuality (as no one seems to have demonstrated yet why anyone specifically ends up with the sexual orientation they have), they are at least the most original suspected cause.  Some solid data supporting the existence of demons and an actual test of whether casting out gay demons actually works would be nice.
   

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Escape Attempt”
  
• “If It Bleeds, It Leads: An Exception to the Rule”
  
• “Lost Apollo 11 video tapes found?”
  

Today’s weird thing, submitted by Barry, is “40 Things I Learned From ID4 That I Never Knew Before”.  Enjoy and share the weirdness.

Aaron