Nominations for the Minnesota Atheists board of directors will occur at the January 17, 2010 meeting at the Ridgedale Public Library and elections will be held at the February 2010 meeting. Nominations will open and close at the January 17 meeting. We will publish and mail candidates' statements prior to the February meeting elections.

 

The 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?

 

By 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.

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.)

By 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.