I updated the Blogs page here on Everyday Freethought. It is a list of agnostic/atheist/skeptical blogs written by people in the state of Illinois. I became aware of these thanks to Skeptic Money, a blog run by my guest from Episode 2.
Recently there was a debate at UIUC between John Loftus And Dinesh D’sousa. A lot of people in the atheosphere thought D’sousa did better. Loftus seemed sick, and so his speaking voice was not very good. A lot of people also thought that D’sousa made a few whoppers (I think First Cause and the Ontological Argument were his favorites) and Loftus just let them go repeatedly. One of the attendees is a local atheist who recorded it and has a blog called Le Café Witteveen. I left a comment on his blog and gave him a link to my Groups page, and he signed up for a few of the Meetup groups. So far he has only been interacting with other atheists online, but says he may start coming to the groups. I think he “crossed over” recently.
Skeptic Money also had a post about a lawsuit by Rob Sherman against the State Of Illinois because there are appropriations to churches, including some appropriations to churches with connections to lawmakers and/or their relatives. Not only is it unconstitutional, but it is bad budgeting as well as a lot of conflicts of interest.
In case you have not heard, a lot of states are not doing well. Recently, the Pew Center On the States released a report about the finances of all fifty states in the USA. I have not read the actual report, but I have read about it in the media, downloaded their PDF files, and read a few of them. A lot of states have not funded their state employee pensions, in addition to having trouble funding their day to day operations. Illinois is one of the states in the worst condition. The $2 billion that Sherman is challenging is not as large as the budget gap (which may be from $8 billion to $12 billion), but every bit helps.
Rob Sherman was on Dogma Free America recently to talk about his lawsuit.
On a few of his posts Rob Sherman has Paypal links, as well as an address to which you could send checks. If you live in Illinois, I think you should send him some money. He says that even $20 would help. I will send him a few dollars.