Our Marines are trying to convert the Muhammadans in Fallujah by handing out this coin. One side asks: “Where will you spend eternity?” and the other provides John 3:16 as an answer. And this little act of religious zealotry is only costing us 500 billion dollars. So killing nearly a million Iraqis is just another one of the Bush Company’s Faith Based Initiatives. Can you say — NOT IN MY NAME.Peter Nuhn

Oh yah. Here’s big news. Bush lied to us. Wow. Now I’m really disenfranchised with the GOP. Before, I was happy with the current administration, but now I am not.Yah. Surprise. What’s next? Ties to Big Oil? Low intelligence? Drunk driving?I’ve not read the book, but from what I’ve seen from the reports I don’t see what’s news. Can someone please enlighten me?

PASADENA, Calif. (May 26) ? NASA’s newest outpost in the solar system is a polygon-cracked terrain in Mars’ northern polar region believed to hold a reservoir of ice beneath.Hours after the Phoenix Mars Lander softly landed Sunday in the Martian arctic plains, it dazzled scientists with the first-ever glimpse of the Red Planet’s high northern latitudes.A flood of images sent back by Phoenix revealed a landscape similar to what can be found in Earth’s permafrost regions ? geometric patterns in the soil likely related to the freezing and thawing of ground ice.”This is a scientist’s dream, right here on this landing site,” principal investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson said in a post-landing news conference.

AMERICAN ATHEISTS MEDIA ALERThttp://www.atheists.org BLAIR SCOTT ON AIR AMERICA SUNDAY, MAY 25, 2008 — listen online Blair Scott, the National Affiliate Outreach Director and Alabama State Director for American Atheists, will be the guest on “Atheist Talk” airing on Air America Minnesota AM 950 on Sunday, May 25 at 10 a.m. CST.The show starts at 10 a.m. CST and Blair Scott will be the guest for the second half hour beginning at 10:30 a.m. CST. Blair Scott, the Founder and Press Relations Director for Operation Foxhole Atheists, will be discussing foxhole atheism and Operation Foxhole Atheists (http://thenafa.org/ofa). The show will also cover the lawsuit filed by Specialist Hall and the Military Association of Atheists & Freethinkers (http://maaf.info).You can listen online at http://www.am950ktnf.com/listen but you have to enter 55303 as your zip code in order to listen. Or you can go to the Minnesota Atheists (http://mnatheists.org) home page and click on the ?Listen Now!? link to go directly to the show. WHO & WHAT: Blair Scott, National Affiliate Outreach Director on AIR AMERICAWHEN: Sunday, May 26, 2008 10 am CSTWHERE: Air America Minnesota AM 950 and http://www.am950ktnf.com/listen(American Atheists is a nationwide movement that defends civil rights for nonbelievers; advances the cause of Reason; and labors for the total separation of church and state.)

Although the article linked to in the title to this post is about a rabbi who left his religion, the following quote from the article was news to me. Assaf not only gave up his religion, but in doing so, now has to pay taxes.

It’s perhaps surprising that in the world’s only Jewish nation, so much friction exists between the Israeli majority who consider themselves secular and the 700,000 Haredi Jews, who follow the most theologically conservative form of Orthodox Judaism.The problem, as many secular Jews see it, is that being Haredi carries certain privileges, which include not having to pay tax or work or do three years’ military service.Haredi Jews receive government handouts to help support their families in the absence of a breadwinner. And with most Haredi Jews having large families, often with 10 or 11 children, their number is expected to double from about 10% of the population to 20% by 2020.

Would you give up religion if it meant you had to start paying taxes?Peter Nuhn