The BBC is reporting that a mob in western Kenya has burned to death 11 elderly people. The eight women and three men, all of whom were over 80, were on a list of people who supposedly attended a “witches meeting,” which produced a list of people who were scheduled for future bewitchment. The victims were dragged from their homes one by one and set on fire in the street. The mob then burned down their houses.

  The best (most appalling) part of the article concerns the response of the people who weren’t burned to death:

Residents have been ambivalent about condemning the attacks because belief in witchcraft is widespread in the area.

  Yes, let’s not get up on our soapbox about burning old people to death, because a lot of people think that witchcraft is real. Hopefully, it won’t be MY grandmother that’s tortured and murdered next time.

But local official Mwangi Ngunyi spoke out against the murders. “People must not take the law into their own hands simply because they suspect someone,” he told AFP news agency.

  OH CRAP YES, Mr. Nugunyi. It’s not so important that your neighbors are vicious predators, murdering elderly people. It’s not the fact that their ridiculous superstitions are inciting them to this kind of appalling violence. No, the real problem here is vigilantism. We can solve the whole problem with a small shift in behavior. Next time your suspect that your elderly neighbor is casting spells on you, don’t burn her to death. CALL THE POLICE ON HER!

  This is why superstition and belief in (or fear of) the supernatural are not harmless fun. Blind belief, ignorance and fear are volatile and dangerous. Today, we can add 11 more names to the list of innocent victims of these awful human failings.

• The New Humanist Blog does a little investigating, and concludes that the Birmingham, Alabama City Council web-flitering flap was probably caused by a software setting, rather than simple anti-atheist discrimination. (Atheists lumped in with Satan, Baba Yaga and the Boogie Man. Except, you know, real.)
• FactCheck.org explains that the uranium shipped out of Iraq in July is left over from the end of Gulf War I: The Prequel, and had nothing to do with the still-elusive WMDs that the Bush administration invented out of whole cloth in 2003. (FYI, if you’re not reading FactCheck.org, you probably believe something that’s entirely untrue. If you are, you’re aware that being able to lie convincingly is a prerequisite for political office.)
• Wired provides useful links and a poorly cropped photograph to point out that forensic DNA isn’t as perfect as the hype. (Nature just keeps right on building better fools.)
• Some dinky blog seems to think that a lawsuit against a church for a faith-inspired injury isn’t as stupid as it sounds. (I am a filthy self-linker, and I deserve to have a belt sander applied to my genitals.)