Another day, another set of daily links. Normally, we’d allow more time to pass between editions, but there’s incredibly important news for us to bring you! To wit, our most recent edition of the links publicly requested an apology from Lutheran Church Missouri Synod President Matthew Harrison for his less than compassionate approach to his Church’s participation in services for Newtown victims. Well, it turns out he’s released an apology. See? We at The Revealer ask, and we receive. What’s more, he released his apology video a full two days before we even publicly requested it! While I can only guess as to the nefarious means he used to hack into our private, in-house correspondences, this is certainly a move in the right direction for us at the blog. Religious leaders are learning that they will be held accountable, to such an extent that they attempt to anticipate our every move! Congratulations all around for bringing this one to the light.

You may also recall that just Tuesday we also pointed to mounting dangers for the world’s Alleged Sorcerers. Well, it turns out the head of the Chechen Republic must have been intercepting our internal memos as well. Ramzan Kadyrov made a public announcement on Saturday that anyone seen to be “turning to wizards and false healers,” who he characterized as discrediting Islam, could expect to run afoul of the region’s security forces.

Our notoriety is also quickly encompassing the entire globe. A government MP in New Zealand, Richard Prosser, published an article in the national newspaper saying, effectively, that young men who are Muslim, look Muslim, or come from a country that is Muslim should not be allowed to fly on Western Airlines. He, of course, quickly redacted and issued a formal apology. See? Our reputation has grown to the point where public figures are apologizing before we even get wind of what they’re apologizing for!

But enough about our astounding prescience and influence on international and domestic politics…there’s plenty of other interesting stuff happening.

For one, there is this study that, at long last, proves the actual existence of Bigfoot (or at least Bigfoot’s DNA). If only the scientific community weren’t so short-sighted, Dr. Ketchum, the lead researcher on the project, wouldn’t have had to start her own journal to get it published and only release complimentary review copies to Bigfoot bloggers. The Revealer will be sure to be more diligent in our pursuits on this front in the future.

In the Phillippines, Islamic militants who have long held control over the island of Joro face a new enemy – Islamic militants who have long held control over the island of Joro. Confused? It’s complicated. But the AP has an excellent piece on the conflict here.

This next story is actually more interesting for what didn’t happen. A North Carolina man made headlines when he was kidnapped and abused by a conservative local church in an attempt to “cure” his homosexuality. Thing is, he now says it was all made up. While motives are still anyone’s guess, it turns out that Michael Lowry’s story about being locked in a building on church grounds and beaten as part of an “ex-gay” treatment are all made up. He was not kidnapped, he was not beaten, and he is not gay. Or at least now Lowry has made that claim to police.

And for those of you following the Texas State Board of Education’s ongoing struggle to finalize its Science curriculum (and I reviewed an excellent documentary about it a while back, so I just know that you are), there is an interesting new development. If you’ve been following, you know conservative Christians have made great inroads in downplaying the legitimacy of the theory of evolution in Texas curriculum in recent years. They’ve also managed to push through standards facilitating the teaching of Creationism and Intelligent Design. However, the new chair of the SBOE has announced that both Creationism and ID are “better taught at home or in church,” and will not be featured in the public school curriculum should she continue overseeing the development of state standards.

If you missed any or all of these stories, it’s totally understandable. I mean, the pope resigned. Every religion media outlet seems to think that constant updates (Monday’s “resigns with Grace” has become Thursday’s “resigns for the good of the Church”) are their primary responsibility. However, in all the build-up to the coming conclave, another monumental election has taken place just across the Mediterranean. For the details on the first ever election (rather than the traditional appointment) of Egypt’s new mufti check out Times writer Issandr El Amrani has the lowdown.