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Denmark Intends to Publish MEDINA Danish publishers association Trykkeselskabet has approved the publication of Shery Jones’s novel THE JEWEL OF MEDINA in Denmark. A spokesperson told a Danish newspaper, “Fear or threats should not keep a book from being published. It would be principally and entirely a renewal of all that Denmark has already been through with the Mohammed cartoon affair.”To that point, Jones’s agent Natasha Kern wrote to the society, “When you consider what’s happened in your country, I admire your readiness to ensure that freedom of expression is not obstructed.”

http://jp.dk/uknews/article1417184.ece

The novel was brought into the spotlight in the US after Denise Spellman, a professor of Islamic history at the University of Texas, was quoted in the Wall Street Journal as saying the book was ‘much more controversial than the Mohammed drawings from Denmark’. She called any decision to publish the book a ‘declaration of war’ against Muslims.But Trykkeselskabet indicated that it felt the book needed to be published.’Fear or threats should not keep a book from being published,’ association spokeswoman Helle Merete Brix told Nyhedsavisen newspaper. ‘It would be principally and entirely a renewal of all that Denmark has already been through with the Mohammed cartoon affair.’

Nuff Said

August 22, 2008 Fundamentalist Group Drops Public Funding Windfall After Americans United Protest Kentucky Arm Of ‘Teen Challenge’ Gives Up $50,000 Federal Grant A fundamentalist Christian group that claims to help young people overcome drug and alcohol addiction through Bible study and prayer has given up a federal grant after Americans United for Separation of Church and State protested the funding.Attorneys with Americans United wrote a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in June, noting that a $50,000 grant to Teen Challenge of Kentucky raised serious constitutional issues. The money was allocated through the Compassion Capital Fund, a special program created as part of President George W. Bush?s ?faith-based? initiative.Teen Challenge, Americans United pointed out, requires participants to take part in prayer, worship, Bible study and other religious activities. Program participants must sign a ?Civil Rights Waiver? in which each surrenders the right to ?exercis[e] the religion of my choice.?Applicants for the program are required to describe their Christian faith and agree to conduct themselves in a ?Christ-like manner.? The organization vows to offer ?deliverance from addiction through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and practical application of Biblical principles.?Public funding of such sectarian activities, Americans United asserted, would clearly violate the First Amendment.In response to Americans United?s letter, an official with HHS wrote to say that Teen Challenge ?voluntarily terminated? its participation in the program.The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director, said he was pleased with the outcome but noted that Teen Challenge should never have received public funds in the first place.?Teen Challenge boasts about its program being saturated with fundamentalist Christianity and makes it clear that required participation in religious activities is key to its approach,? Lynn said. ?I cannot imagine a worse candidate for tax funding. ?Bush administration officials have claimed that they do not fund religious activities, but this grant suggests otherwise,? he continued. ?Apparently their policy is to do it until they get caught.?Lynn noted that while Teen Challenge and other fundamentalist ?faith-based? groups often claim high rates of success, no empirical data backs up the claim.?Tax funds were being funneled to this organization even though it openly boasts about its religious content, and there?s no evidence its approach even works,? Lynn said. ?This incident is a perfect example of what?s so wrong with faith-based initiatives.?AU Senior Litigation Counsel Alex Luchenitser, who handled the AU complaint about the funding, said, ?This was a clear example of unconstitutional support of religious coercion and discrimination. I?m glad we were able to bring the matter to an appropriate conclusion.?

American Atheists extends our congratulations and compliments to Americans United for your outstanding activism and bloodless victory in exposing and blocking an unconstitutional expenditure of federal funds unlawfully going to a religious organization in Kentucky.

WASHINGTON ? Senator Barack Obama has chosen Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware to be his running-mate, turning to a leading authority on foreign policy and a longtime Washington hand to fill out the Democratic ticket, people told of the decision said.Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, questioning Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during a committee hearing in January 2007.Mr. Obama?s selection ended a two-month search that was conducted almost entirely in secret. It reflected a critical strategic choice by Mr. Obama: To go with a running-mate who could reassure voters about gaps in his resume, rather than to pick someone who could deliver a state or reinforce Mr. Obama?s message of change.

Biden’s a good choice, except for the name. How long will it be before certain older-than-dirt Bushies “slip up” and instead of saying “Obama/Biden” they say “Osama Bin Laden”? It rhymes, so they must be terrorists.

LANCASTER, Pa. (Aug. 20) – The Amish are expanding their presence in states far beyond Pennsylvania Dutch country as they search for affordable farmland to accommodate a population that has nearly doubled in the past 16 years, a new study found.States such as Missouri, Kentucky and Minnesota have seen increases in their Amish populations of more than 130 percent. The Amish now number an estimated 227,000 nationwide, up from 123,000 in 1992, according to researchers from Elizabethtown College’s Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies.Over the same period, Amish settlements have been established in seven new states, putting them in at least 28 states from coast to coast. The new states are: Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, Mississippi, Nebraska, Washington and West Virginia.

Well, at 230K, it’s not really an “ambush”, and Amish don’t really do anything bad on a sect-wide level (unless you count how they treat each other, and their annoying habit of driving their buggies in the street). And they do make nice quilts.But guess what they don’t do — READ THIS BLOG. BAD AMISH!