Looks like Kevin took all the cat stories, so I’ll have to lead with Osama bin Laden.
The al-Qaida leader reportedly released another audiotape on Friday, this one with a change in tone. Rather than call down God’s wrath on America, OBL calls for the creation of a new humanitarian group to help Muslims in need – particularly those affected by a flood of water (e.g. Pakistan) and droughts (e.g. Africa).
NPR is the latest to dig into religion’s role in the Tea Party, finding the movement in some ways a marriage of convenience and in others a natural fit for Christian conservatives. Savior’s Alliance for Lifting the Truth, a non-profit founded and run by Tea Party fav and Republican senatorial candidate in Delaware Christine O’Donnell is in danger of losing its tax exemption because it hasn’t file tax returns for the past three years, the AP reports.
As the Phelps prepare for their big day before the Supreme Court (Oct. 6), WaPo finds them a little peeved that they are only designated the most hated family in America, not the whole world. Fred Phelps predicted a unanimous victory in his favor. I’ll be spending my weekend reading briefs for the case; anyone want to trade places?
The U.S. Catholics bishops are facing a small but vocal “mutiny” in their ranks calling for fellow believers to support gay marriage and related matters. Government prosecutors in the Philippines charged a popular Manila artist and tour guide with offending Roman Catholics after he disrupted Mass at the capital’s main cathedral to protest the clergy’s opposition to contraception.
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The head of the Belgian Church’s commission to investigate clerical sex abuse says Pope Benedict XVI should resign to set an example to other church leaders and to “return a moral standard for all other institutions to draw.” A California appeals court has ruled that psychiatric and other confidential records of Franciscan friars accused of sex abuse should be made public – a decision that could lead to the release of similar documents about dozens of other accused priests and religious figures, according to the AP.
Two center-right parties in the Netherlands have made a deal to ban full-face Islamic veils to get an anti-Islamic party to join their coalition. British police apologized for hiding surveillance cameras in Muslims neighborhoods. Ever so sorry, but they weren’t switched on, so jolly good, right?
Bishop Eddie Long’s ex-wife says the embattled pastor beat her, according to divorce papers from the 1980s dug up recently by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Michigan’s attorney general said he won’t file criminal charges against FBI agents who shot a Detroit mosque leader 20 times, killing him during a raid last year on a suburban warehouse. One of his assistant ag’s has taken a leave of absence after coming under heavy criticism for harassing a gay rights leader at the University of Michigan.
A federal court in Wisconsin has dismissed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of engravings of the National Motto — “In God We Trust” — and the Pledge of Allegiance at the Capitol Visitor Center in Washington.
A scholar’s son was convicted of using online aliases to harass and discredit his father’s detractors in a debate over the origins of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Two Pennsylvania seminaries have been removed from a list of schools approved to train United Methodist clergy. One school says it was told it did not have enough “ethnic” or United Methodist professors; the other says the reasons behind the removal are unclear.
