The Jewmanist

The Atheist Blogroll Photography Contest ends September 15! If you have not entered yet, you still have some time.

Via Deep Thoughts:

I am pleased to announce the 2009  Atheist Blogroll photography contest. This year’s contest is open to any member of the Atheist Blogroll, their family, friends or significant others. By request, I’ve also opened the contest up to members of the Atheist Nexus too. We have five categories this year.

• Atheism/Religion
• Travel and People
• Self-Portrait
• Altered Images
• The Natural World

The deadline for submissions is September 15, 2009.  Send your photographs as a .jpg file to the Atheist Blogroll.

I mentioned my father passed away and that my hubby and I moved to Miami from LA to aid my mother for a bit.

We stopped in Vegas for two days to break up the trip. We flew and shipped the car. As you can see below, my Saturn is no more:

The truck’s hydraulic breaks caught on fire and my car and six others all burned. Luckily, we only had a few things in the trunk (that no one will cover anyway). Now, I’m waiting on a check from my insurance company. Though it still won’t be the same (as my car was paid off, had little mileage, and was only a few years old), a chunk of change will be nice.

And we wait for the rest of our stuff to arrive.

Thanks Reliable Auto…not so reliable are we?

Our neighborhood Friendly Atheist is under attack by a hateful Christian extremist group. Via the Portland Humanist Examiner:

Hemant Mehta, the Friendly Atheist, is under attack by a right wing Christian hate group. The Illinois Family Institute, led by Laurie Higgins, is harassing celebrity atheist Mehta.

According to Mehta, a high school math teacher, Higgins emailed his boss, his high school’s entire administrative staff, and every school board member to inform them about Mehta’s private life as an atheist blogger. The attempt was to smear Mehta, claiming Mehta was unprofessional and unsuitable to be teaching because of his affiliation with atheism.

In Huggins’ disturbing letter, she argues that parents have the right not to have their children taught by those without faith in any god:

Rabbis attempt to fight off swine flu by blowing shofars. Accompanied by prayer, of course.

Via BBC News:

A group of rabbis and Jewish mystics have taken to the skies over Israel, praying and blowing ceremonial trumpets to ward off swine flu.

About 50 religious leaders circled over the country on Monday, chanting prayers and blowing the horns called “shofars”.

The flight’s aim was “to stop the pandemic so people will stop dying from it,” Rabbi Yitzhak Batzri was quoted as saying in Yedioth Aharanot newspaper.

The flu is often referred to as H1N1 in Israel, where pigs are seen as unclean.

Thanks to BBC for this gem I can’t unsee. Watch the video here.

H/t