There continues to be a strong connection between religiosity and poverty.

From the NY Times op-ed piece.

From Alternet:

Leading fundamentalist rabbis gather in Israel to defend the publication of a book, Torat Ha’Melech, that attempted to provide halakhic justification for the killing of non-Jews, including innocent children and families. The gathering exposed not only the ferocious racism of a swath of Israel’s pro-settlement rabbinate, but the powerlessness of the government to stop them. Produced by Max Blumenthal, Joseph Dana and Alternet.

Zionists think their view isn’t being heard, so they’re learning how to edit in Wikipedia to make things more to their liking.

The Israeli military has reportedly destroyed hundreds of gravestones in a centuries-old Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem. Palestinians say bulldozers were used to raze the graves Tuesday as an Israeli court rejected a petition to halt the demolitions. The destruction occurred near the site of the planned “Museum of Tolerance,” a project funded by the US-based Simon Wiesenthal Center. Palestinians have opposed the museum because of its proximity to the cemetery.

A gas station’s credit card message in South Carolina lets you know that America is, “One nation under god and if you don’t like it. Leave !” Since it’s South Carolina, one can assume they mean the Christian god. So, all you atheists, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, and everyone else that doesn’t believe the way they do, you’d better start packing.

Fortunately, our secular constitution allows us to ignore, but make fun of these idiots.

In fact, all the customers we talked to like it. “I think it’s good,” said one driver. “I think people should have a choice, if they don’t like it, they can leave.”

Accept our version of totalitarianism. It’s better than yours.

Hitchens teaches a Rabbi a lesson on issue of genital mutilation. This is a snippet of the full debate.

Muslim converts and reverts, the Quran is a rip-off of the Bible, Torah and other pre-Islamic text. The Koran is just hearsay spread down the line from others. Muhammad’s own early followers plagiarized large sections of the Bible and the Jewish Torah, even old Indian and Persian text to create the Quran. Noted Atheist Christopher Hitchens explains how the Koran text was basically stolen from the other religions and is really a mixed up and corrupted version of several. Before Islam, besides the pagan religion, which Muhammad worshiped early in his life, there was a large Christian and Jewish community in Saudi Arabia. Muhammad just took the Christian Bible and the Jewish Torah and plagiarized text from those books to create the Quran.

Michael Paukner created this diagram of how the ancient Hebrews viewed the universe. You can see this image and more on his flickr page.

We jews understand that [earth's creation] did not take place in 7 days, and that’s because we know what we’re good at. And what we’re good at is bullshit.

The Anne Frank Museum has its own YouTube channel and has released this video, the only known bit of film that shows Anne Frank on film.

July 22 1941. The girl next door is getting married. Anne Frank is leaning out of the window of her house in Amsterdam to get a good look at the bride and groom. It is the only time Anne Frank has ever been captured on film. At the time of her wedding, the bride lived on the second floor at Merwedeplein 39. The Frank family lived at number 37, also on the second floor. The Anne Frank House can offer you this film footage thanks to the cooperation of the couple.