Sean Tevis is running for State Representative in Kansas, 21st century style. His campaign website explains why he’s running, and talks about what he needs to do to win. It doesn’t sound remarkable, but he does it with an XKCD homage. If I lived in Kansas, he’d be my candidate.

EDIT: The second link is currently getting traffic from Pharyngula, so it’ll still be loading when the sun devours the inner planets.

Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah opened an interfaith conference with a call for greater communication and cooperation between major religions. “We all believe in one God,” the Muslim monarch said. “We are meeting here today to say that religions should be a means to iron out differences and not to lead to disputes.” (I guess a billion Hindus couldn’t wrangle a single invitation to the party?)

The whole thing was organized in Madrid, Spain by the Muslim World League, based on an original concept by Abdullah himself. But wait. If it was King Abdullah’s idea, why not hold it in Saudi Arabia? He’s mind-bogglingly wealthy, and he runs the whole country. Why not host the conference in Riyadh, instead of diverting all those sweet tourist dollars to Spain?

Because it’s illegal to practice anything but Islam in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia bans the practice of any non-Islamic religion within its borders. It’s hard to see how anyone can take seriously this plea for greater tolerance between religions, when the man making it is the head of a country that criminalizes the faiths of the people he’s speaking to. It’s like Megatron wandering into the U.N. and asking  everybody to stop giving the Autobots such a hard time.