Link round-up for 25 August 2013

Scheme or scam?  The Great Cross Alliance is the latest morbid but funny fundie project.

This is reality-denial, 2,400,000,000 BC style

What would happen if we let the public give names to planets?

Here are some fascinating old photos -- below the World War I trenches photo, click "View the entire album" -- there are more.

This looks like a must-visit if you're in Boston in August.

A judge orders a baby's name changed based on her own religious beliefs.

Did you ever think we'd actually be nostalgic for this guy?

The police chief of Minneapolis gets married.

If you're thinking of traveling by air, don't miss this story of the TSA at work.

The Catholic Church wages a shabby fight against rights for abuse victims in California.

Could the Republicans lose big in 2014?  Booman Tribune makes the case.

No to socialism!

A disgusting Photoshop job illustrates racism in action.

Ken Cuccinelli, Republican candidate for Governor of Virginia, announces the latest right-wing attack on the First Amendment.

Christians will sue to defend medical quackery (found via Republic of Gilead).

A prominent DHS employee advocates race war and mass murder in his free time.

Roads in Texas lead to the past.

Where the hell are they finding these crackpots?

Neo-Nazi Paul Craig Cobb plans an all-white town in North Dakota.  Cenk Uygur and friends comment here.

A measles outbreak in Texas is traced to a church which preaches against vaccination (found via Lady Atheist).

71% of voters -- and 53% of Republican voters -- oppose teabagger plans for a government shutdown.  And right-wingers shouldn't take comfort from this poll.

There are consequences for telling lies -- but two months isn't nearly enough.  And I don't know what would be an adequate punishment for this lie.

Business groups struggle to control the Tea Party insanity they helped create.

Here's an example of natural selection in action.

A prominent Iowa Republican explains why he left the party.

Much of the job growth in recent decades was in the bullshit sector.

Republicans are doomed in 2016 because they can't compromise and aren't even thinking about how to win.  They should learn from how Democrats once suffered for refusing to listen.  Wiser Republicans see disaster looming.

A Canadian family receives a horrifying letter.

British authorities forced the newspaper The Guardian to destroy computers containing documents from Edward Snowden.

A bus driver in Britain is stabbed in the head -- by mistake.

Civilized and barbarian standards clash in a British courtroom.

Here's an unusual modular house in France.

The latest country to legalize gay marriage is New Zealand.

Predictably, the US Christian Right applauds Russia's persecution of gays.  Two gutsy Russian athletes protest.

Humorless Russian Orthodox dingbats attack Pastafarians.

One of India's leading activists for rationalism, Dr. Narendra Dabholkar, has been murdered.  Tribute to Dr. Dabholkar here, more on his work here.

Sumatra, a major island of Muslim Indonesia, debates mandatory virginity tests for high-school students.

Booman Tribune raises some sober questions about the chemical-weapons attack near Damascus.

Hamas, stunned by the overthrow of its patron the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, turns to Iran.

A Saudi Arabian blogger has been sentenced to 600 lashes and seven years in prison for expressing unorthodox views about religion.  And the regime is even more diligent in fighting witchcraft.

Texas is an energy powerhouse.

Why are we investing billions in dangerous oil pipelines and nuclear reactors and leaving it to a 15-year-old girl to invent something like this?

[Art at top by Mario Piperni]