Terry Firma, though born and Journalism-school-educated in Europe, has lived in the U.S. for the past 20-odd years. Stateside, his feature articles have been published in the New York Times, Reason, Rolling Stone, Playboy, and Wired. Terry was the founder and Main Mischief Maker of Moral Compass, a now-dormant site that pokes fun at the delusional claim by people of faith that a belief in God equips them with superior moral standards. He was the Editor-in-Chief of two Manhattan-based magazines until he decided to give up commercial publishing for professional photography... with a lot of blogging on the side. These days, he lives in an old seaside farmhouse in Maine with his wife, three kids, and two big dogs.
Back in the 80’s, when he was still a teenager, Barry Minkow became famous after he founded a carpet-cleaning company called ZZZZ Best (pronounced Zee Best), an enterprise that made made him wealthy. His luck didn’t last. According to Wikipedia, ZZZZ Best was actually … a front to attract investment for a massive Ponzi scheme. It collapsed in 1987, costing investors and lenders $100 million — one of the largest investment frauds ever perpetrated by a single person, as well as one of the largest accounting frauds in history. The scheme is often used as a case study of accounting fraud. The judge who sentenced Minkow to 25 years in jail in 1989 described him as “a man without a conscience.” Guess what happened behind bars? Minkow found God! And his conscience! Hallelujah! Read more
Canton, Michigan is about to get a “Man Church.” Never heard of it? CBS Detroit explains: Homes without fathers or husbands are on the rise, so much so that some researchers say it’s becoming an epidemic. In response, Connection Church of Canton has created something unique they’re calling “Man Church.” “It’s not a political problem; it’s not a religious problem; it’s not a socioeconomic problem — it’s a man problem,” Mike Bartee, Pastor of Development, told WWJ Newsradio 950′s Brooke Allen. Read more
Witchcraft is prohibited by Islam. Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s government wants that encoded in law with a clause specifying that the use of black magic to cause “someone’s illness, death, mental or physical suffering” is a crime punishable by five years in jail and a $25,000 fine. Good idea. If it wasn’t for such legislation, presumably everyone would be terrified 24/7 due to witchy things like this event, described in Yudhoyono’s new autobiography. “Suddenly, my wife screamed,” writes Yudhoyono in the 900-page book, “Selalu Ada Pilihan” (There is Always a Choice). “There was this thick dark cloud hovering beneath the ceiling, trying to enter my bedroom. I then asked everybody to pray to seek Allah’s help. I closed the door to my room but left others wide open. The revolving clouds eventually headed out of my house.” Could’ve been a smokey kitchen oven I suppose, or a dream, or a vision brought on by food poisoning or an adverse drug reaction. Read more
Kathleen Tonn, a Republican senatorial candidate from Alaska, recently entered a steam room fully clothed and encountered a perspiring young woman wrapped in a towel. Tonn quickly found out that her captive audience of one, named Suzie, wasn’t an evangelical Christian, so she decided to unleash the power of the Lord to bring Suzie to Christ by singing and speaking at length — in gibberish tongues. How do we know this? Because Ms. Tonn was kind enough to shoot a video of the encounter and upload it to YouTube. The caterwauling starts at 1:09. Suzie makes a brief appearance at 3:17. Read more
Today, the Daily Herald rendered the invaluable public service of introducing us to two Chicagoland GOP candidates for November’s midterm elections. 55-year-old Susanne Atanus, especially, appears to be a real piece of work. Voters in the Republican primary will have two very different candidates to choose from in the 9th Congressional District, as David Earl Williams III and Susanne Atanus vie for the right to face Rep. Jan Schakowsky in the fall. … “I am a conservative Republican and I believe in God first,” Atanus said. She said she believes God controls the weather and has put tornadoes and diseases such as autism and dementia on earth as punishment for gay rights and legalized abortions. Read more
