A newly discovered batch of well-preserved dinosaur bones, petrified trees and even freshwater clams in southeastern Utah could provide new clues about life in the region some 150 million years ago.

The Bureau of Land Management announced the find Monday, calling the quarry near Hanksville "a major dinosaur fossil discovery."
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The area has long been known to locals and BLM officials as a dinosaur haven. But no one knew of the site's magnitude until excavation began.

• the availability to parents of built-in content filters


• the fact that U.S. law cannot reach online porn posted overseas anyway


• the fact that COPA "does not cover chat rooms, You Tube and other interactive sites that emerged in the last decade"

In the short walk across stage, Joseph Bryan Shore, 18, elicited more than boos when he allegedly cursed out his family and flipped the bird to the crowd, according to authorities. Immediately after the [high school graduation] ceremony, two police officers took him into custody and charged him with disorderly conduct.
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The principal of Arab City High School, Patrick Crowder, said he regretted the incident but that he had no choice other than to have Shore arrested.

Newark Public Schools has settled a lawsuit filed by a former student who claimed he couldn't attend his graduation from West Side High School because it was held in the sanctuary of a local Baptist Church.

Bilal Shareef, a Muslim student, said his religious faith prohibited him from entering a building with religious icons, such as pictures of God or images of the cross. He skipped the ceremony held at New Hope Baptist Church in June 2006.
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The district also agreed not to sponsor or promote religious events, not to hold student events in places of worship and not to hold student events in other religious buildings unless religious images are covered.

A high school newspaper in Northern California has been disbanded after it published a front-page photo of a student burning an American flag, triggering criticism that the administration was stifling free expression.
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The Redding controversy is the latest example in recent years of high school and college administrators in California attempting to censure [sic] student-run newspapers or punish those who oversee them.

The Jewish tradition in which Jesus lived and taught demanded that just rulers make a minimal provision for the poor, including no-interest loans and the distribution of agricultural commodities. (Look it up: Exodus 22:25-27 and Deuteronomy 24:19-21.) The apostle Paul held a high view of government's role in promoting justice and urged the willing payment of taxes — a biblical demand more severe, for some of us, than all those sexual prohibitions.

At least some, if not most, translations of Exodus 22:25 say "excessive interest" or "usury" and not just "interest."

The passage could also easily be interpreted as a call for discrimination: Do not charge one of my people (i.e., another Hebrew) excessive interest. Open season on exploiting goyim, however. (See also Deuteronomy 23:20.)

And the passage says nothing about government-mandated law — just being a good neighbor (and, of course, avoiding God's wrath).

The Alliance Defense Fund announced a new initiative Friday that will challenge the tactics of groups that use the Internal Revenue Service to intimidate churches and pastors into silence on important issues of the day.

"Pastors have a right to speak about biblical values from the pulpit without fear of punishment. No one should be able to use the government to intimidate pastors into giving up their constitutional rights," said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Erik Stanley. "The government can't demand that a church give up its right to tax-exempt status simply because the pastor exercises his First Amendment rights in the pulpit. Groups like Americans United intentionally trigger IRS investigations that will silence churches through fear, intimidation, and disinformation."

The new initiative will equip, protect, and defend pastors who wish to exercise their First Amendment right to openly discuss the positions of political candidates and other moral and social issues from the pulpit. Participating pastors across the country will deliver a sermon along these lines in their own churches Sept. 28.

Although most organizations seeking tax-exempt status are required to apply to the Internal Revenue Service ("IRS" or "Service") for an advance determination that they meet the requirements of section 501(c)(3), a church may simply hold itself out as tax exempt and receive the benefits of that status without applying for advance recognition from the IRS.
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The unique treatment churches receive in the Internal Revenue Code is further reflected in special restrictions on the IRS's ability to investigate the tax status of a church. The Church Audit Procedures Act ("CAPA") sets out the circumstances under which the IRS may initiate an investigation of a church and the procedures it is required to follow in such an investigation.
--Branch Ministries v. Rosotti, 40 F. Supp. 2d 15 (D.D.C. 1999)

Congress has not infringed any First Amendment rights or regulated any First Amendment activity. Congress has simply chosen not to pay for ... lobbying. We again reject the notion that First Amendment rights are somehow not fully realized unless they are subsidized by the State.

In a 7-1 majority vote Monday night the Charles Town [West Virginia] City Council decided to institute a moment of silent prayer, thus abolishing the decades-long tradition of reciting the Christian-specific Lord's prayer before the beginning of each meeting.
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Charles Town Mayor Peggy Smith, who did not vote on the issue, said she was disappointed in the council's decision but understood why it was made. "I understand why they did what they did after listening to legal advice. We cannot place the citizens in jeopardy with a lawsuit. So I do understand their vote but it doesn't make me happy about it," Smith said.
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[Geraldine] Willingham, who cast the dissenting vote [and] described Charles Town as a "Christian town" at the council's last meeting, was not pleased by the council's decision to do away with the recitation of the Lord's prayer.

"I think it's a sad day for Charles Town where we cannot start our council meetings off with the Lord's prayer all because of one negative person. That's my comment," Willingham said after Monday's meeting.

Conservative Christian leaders who believe the word "evangelical" has lost its religious meaning plan to release a starkly self-critical document saying the movement has become too political and has diminished the Gospel through its approach to the culture wars.

The statement, called "An Evangelical Manifesto," condemns Christians on the right and left for using faith to express political views without regard to the truth of the Bible, according to a draft of the document obtained Friday by The Associated Press.
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Richard Land, head of the public policy arm for the Southern Baptist Convention, said through a spokeswoman that he has not seen the document and was not asked to sign it.

James Dobson, the influential founder of Focus on the Family, a Christian group in Colorado Springs, Colorado, did not sign the document, said Gary Schneeberger, a Dobson spokesman.

So the reason stand-alone Decalogues on government property are not necessarily problematic under the First Amendment is because the Ten Commandments are no big deal? There are "many plausible secular reasons" to brandish a Decalogue in public? Decalogues can, indeed should, be viewed merely as the civic organization equivalent of a greeting card?

If I were a theocrat -- indeed if I were simply a non-theocratic Jew or Christian -- I would not be pleased to see a Decalogue disrespected in this manner.

Plaintiffs [i.e., the ACLU] filed suit after Defendants displayed the icon of Jesus Christ in the foyer of the City Court of Slidell [Louisiana]. Plaintiffs contend that Defendants' display served the purpose of advancing, promoting or endorsing Christianity, in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
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Defendants changed the display prior to and in anticipation of the hearing on the Motion for Preliminary Injunction. The Court noted that the modified display containing various historical lawgivers under the caption, "To Know Peace, Obey These Laws," was not in violation of the Constitution; however, the initial arrangement of solely Jesus Christ violated the Establishment Clause.

Thomas Jefferson and the other founding fathers never intended to eliminate religion from government.

I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline or exercises. ... I do not believe it is for the interest of religion to invite the civil magistrate to direct its exercises, its discipline, its doctrines, nor of the religious societies that the general government should be invested with the power of effecting any uniformity of time or matter among them.

Reverend Shartzer's public comments demonstrate that he had a clear religious purpose for requesting to erect the Foundations Display. The September 18, 2001, minutes of the Grayson County Fiscal Court reflect that "Reverend Chester Shartzer addressed the Court concerning his desire for the County to place the Ten Commandments in the County buildings." Reverend Shartzer indicated that "there were several Counties in the State who ha[ve] them in their Courthouses." The minutes further reveal that Reverend Shartzer "explained that some Counties ha[ve] them hanging in a group of other historical documents. He said he thought the Civil Liberties would look more favorable toward it if they were hanging in a grouping with the other historical documents."

In this case, a religious group that operates from a pyramid outside Salt Lake City wants to place what it calls the Seven Aphorisms in a city park, contending that the words are lesser-known instructions that Moses received from God.

Pleasant Grove City, Utah, said no. But a federal appellate court has agreed with the religious group Summum — founded in 1975 by its leader, Summum "Corky" Ra — that if a city accepts the Ten Commandments, it opens itself to requests from others and may not discriminate.

Most legislators thought it was a terrific idea last fall when they required students in Illinois schools to have a moment of silence to pray or reflect, but House lawmakers now think they could have used a few more moments for reflection themselves before they put the law in place.

The House voted Tuesday to reverse the requirement after getting an earful of complaints from school administrators and teacher unions who found the requirement poorly thought out and unenforceable.
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Chicago Public Schools spokesman Mike Vaughn said the district supports [the proposed reversal]. "We don't consider a moment of silence a good use of classroom time and don't plan on implementing one in our district," he said.

There's nobody more interesting than Ayn Rand, the founder of the Objectivist Order. And she was pretty assertive in the late '50s. She figured that the conservatism that didn't embrace her point of view 100 percent was going to sort of die of malnutrition.

The inevitable, even clichéd, response on the part of theists to this litany of woes is to ask: what about Hitler and Stalin? Yes, the question resorts to the hackneyed rhetorical ploy of et tu quoque (Latin for "So's your old man"). But at least the question's inevitability forces the atheist to show his hand. Thus Dawkins lamely avers that Hitler did believe in God (of sorts) and, hey, Stalin attended an Orthodox seminary in his youth! If that retort seems a tad desperate, England's most pious unbeliever concludes with this wan distinction: "Stalin was an atheist and Hitler probably wasn't, but even if he was, the bottom line of the Stalin/Hitler debating point is very simple. Individual atheists may do evil things but they don't do evil things in the name of atheism." So it's not atheism that's the problem, only atheists!

Atheist: It's reasonable to conclude that perhaps 90% of all killing and 99% of all cruelty in human history has been inflicted in the name of, or legitimized by, organized religion.

Theist: But some of the other 10% was done by Hitler and Stalin, who were atheists!

Atheist: So almost 100% of all killing and suffering has been done either in the name of organized religion, legitimized by organized religion, or replicated by those who merely sought to replace organized religion with another form of anti-intellectual, yield-to-authority, reason-denying worship — of the Volk, the State, or some other anti-individualist, anti-mind, power-greater-than-you construct. How exactly does that help the radically incredulous theist claim that blind faith — in whatever — has been a net positive for humanity?

Theist: But, but — Hitler!