Saddam’s Ghost Haunts Baghdad

From the India Daily: In a most bizarre stories ever heard, some people in Baghdad are claiming that they are seeing Saddam’s ghost in Baghdad public areas. Sources say, this may be a plot by the Baathists to keep Saddam ‘alive’ among the Sunni communities. Some claim he is seen in restaurants, markets and so on. It is possible many Saddam look-alikes are now more prominent and people are mistaking these look-alikes as possible Saddam. It is also possible that Saddam was such a threat that people just cannot believe he is dead and not coming back. None of these possible ghost sightings are confirmed by any reliable sources or Iraqi authorities. Saddam Hussein was buried before dawn on Sunday in his native village of Awja, near Tikrit in northern Iraq, the head of his tribe and a family source said. Ali al-Nida, head of the Albu Nasir tribe, told Reuters the burial in a family plot took place in the early morning, less than 24 hours after the former president was hanged for crimes against humanity. He gave no further details. A source close to Saddam’s family confirmed his remains were interred at Awja, where his sons Uday and Qusay, killed by US troops in 2003, also lie in a family plot. The family had said he might be buried in the western city of Ramadi.Arab television stations broadcast new video images of Saddam’s hanging, apparently shot on a low-quality camera by guards or other officials at the execution, taken from a different angle from footage shown on Iraqi state television.

Drunk With the Lord

You gotta see this clip. Why do they think it’s the Lord and not some demon possessing them?

Snake-Handling Mishap in Kentucky Church

Woman bitten by snake at church dies
SERPENTS ARE HANDLED THERE, NEIGHBORS SAY
By Shawntaye Hopkins
A London woman is dead after being bitten by a snake during a Sunday church service, the Laurel County Sheriff’s Office said yesterday.

Neighbors near East London Holiness Church on Smith Brewer Road, which officials said the 48-year-old attended, said the church practices serpent handling.

The name of the woman was withheld yesterday as the Laurel County Sheriff’s Office investigated the death, which police described as accidental.

Friends escorted the woman to a local hospital Sunday afternoon, Lt. Ed Sizemore said.

“She said she was bitten by a snake at her church,” Sizemore said.

The woman was taken to University of Kentucky Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead at 11:30 p.m., almost four hours after the bite was reported.

Sizemore said he thinks the woman was bitten by a timber rattlesnake. He did not know if the woman practiced snake handling.

Snake handling is based on a passage in the Bible, in the Gospel of Mark, that says a sign of a true believer is the power to “take up serpents” without being harmed.

It is illegal in Kentucky to handle reptiles as part of religious services. Snake handling is a misdemeanor and punishable by a $50-$100 fine.

Opal Wagers lives near the church on Smith Brewer Road and said it’s been two or three months since she last visited the church, but said she’s witnessed snake handling there.

“I don’t have no dealings with those snakes,” Wagers said. “But they seem to handle them pretty good.”

She said people fill the church at least one Sunday each month to handle snakes. Wagers said members from Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia bring in the snakes.

Police said they had not received reports about snake handling at the church.

No church officials could be reached for comment last night.

In 2000, the Herald-Leader reported that the last person to die in Kentucky from a snakebite sustained during a religious service was in 1997.

The death of Daril R. Collins, 23, of Barbourville, was the sixth such death in the state since 1980.

Good Question

The other night on Art Bell’s Coast To Coast AM radio program, some guy called in and posed the question, “Why do ghosts wear clothes?” I’m stumped, except maybe to say that people who “see” ghosts aren’t seeing anything at all and are projecting our customs and morals on something they think they see. Anybody else have a theory?

Today’s Mohammedan Outrage Brought to You by Apple

As reported at The Register: According to a report on The Middle East Media Research Institute, Apple’s NY Fifth Avenue store has been slammed by “an Islamic website” as a “new insult to Islam”. The reason? Well, it resembles the Muslims’ sacred Ka’ba, situated in the Masjid al-Haram mosque in Mecca.

 

Top 10 Reasons Not to Go for a Psychic Reading

3. If you hear good news to come, you’ll relax, knowing that the good thing will happen. If you relax, then you won’t be able to spot the opportunity of that good thing when it comes, so it will never happen (Rest of reasons are here)

Online Confession

The Today Show recently did a piece on a church out of Edmond, Oklahoma that had set up a site for online confessions.  It doesn’t seem to be a new concept– just Google the idea. 

But, curiosity got the best of me.  http://www.mysecret.tv/ 

While many on the Internet have had a blast pulling up the different confessions and posting them to blogs, I just found the whole thing kind of sad.  On the one hand, these people aren’t going to feel any better stumbling upon their “horrible” secret as the butt of someone’s joke.  But on the other, after reading a few of these, I couldn’t help but feel bad for all the people feeling guilt over things they shouldn’t.  

So, how many people are going to need confession for the guilt that comes in reading these. 

And believe me, Edmond isn’t that big a town– I can imagine how many are sitting in church trying to figure out who wrote what.  

Or, how many will giggle as they bring up a particularly juicy confession never realizing that person is standing near. 

There are so, so many ways this kind of thing could turn ugly.

Face On Mars Debunked

Too bad.

Jesus Camp

I saw this bizarre piece on the ABC news the other night about a new documentary that spotlights a Jesus Camp where kids seemingly get indoctrinated to be soldiers in Christ’s army–much like how the madrassa schools in Pakistan teach Jihad. YouTube clip is here.

JFK’s 911 “Conspiracy” Doodle

A strange Associated Press article about presidential scribblings makes a bizarre reference to a John F. Kennedy doodle in which he seemingly predicted a “9-11 conspiracy” 40 years before it happened. Read all about it right here.