Friday, May 24, 2013
800px-minnesotacapitol.jpgThe Minnesota State Capitol can seem like a very intimidating place. And yet the legislators there are elected to represent us and they welcome our input.
 
What's the best way to contact our representatives? How do we set up a meeting? How can we find out about upcoming legislation? How do we know what legislative bills have been introduced and when they might get a public hearing? How does one sign up to testify at committee hearings? What bills might be introduced in the upcoming legislative session? How can an average person (or, in the case of a Minnesota Atheists member, an above average person) make a difference?
 
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Read more: January Meeting: "How to Lobby Your State Legislator"

Minnesota Atheist member Lois Schadewald is featured in the latest episode of Skepticality, the podcast of Micheal Shermer's Skeptic Magazine. Lois is talking about "Worlds of Their Own: A Brief History of Misguided Ideas; Creationism, Flat-Earthism, Energy Scams, and the Velikovsky Affair", a book written by her brother, Robert J. Schadewald. Robert, the former president of the National Center for Science Education died of cancer in 2000.

Listen to the podcast at http://www.skepticality.com/

Link to the book description at Amazon.com

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no_profit.jpgBy Bob Schmitz

The business section of the October 24th Pioneer Press contained an article headlined "Regulators close 2 Otsego bank sites." Bank regulators closed two branches of Riverview Community Bank of Ostego after the banks were deemed to be critically under-capitalized.
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Read more: A Bank with no Prophets?

By George Kane

The Obama administration achieved a diplomatic coup at the United Nations this month when the Human Rights Council unanimously passed a resolution on freedom of expression that was jointly sponsored by the United States and Egypt (http://www.unitedstatesaction.com/documents/Oct2009-UNHRC/A_HRC_12_L.14_Rev.1-English.pdf.)
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Read more: News and Notes: Ambiguous Wording

the_greatest_show_on_earth.jpgBy Ryan Sutter

I was raised as one of Jehovah's Witnesses, and therefore a creationist. I qualified as one of the “history-deniers” that Professor Dawkins describes in his latest book The Greatest Show on Earth.  I believed that human beings were created 6,000 years ago and that evolution was a lie. I had never looked deeply into the matter. I trusted my parents and my religion. The creationist literature they indoctrinated me with was very convincing to me when I was twelve.
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Read more: Book Review: The Greatest Show on Earth (by Richard Dawkins)