And another thing ... Bibles, books and babble

Navy Reverses Bible Ban

An apparently dangerous book has returned to Navy base lodges.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation, citing "a government endorsement of a religious text," had filed a complaint with the Navy Exchange Command about Bibles placed in lodge room drawers as they are in other hotel rooms around the world.

When the Navy Exchange quickly assented to the threat in June, thousands of veterans and other people called the Navy to protest. As a result, a Navy spokesman now says the action was taken without knowledge of the Navy administration. While the military branch reviews its religious accommodation policies with regard to the placement of religious materials, the Bibles have been returned to lodge room drawers.

The Bibles were donated by Gideons International, a global ministry that provides the books to schools, military personnel and hotels.

Battle Of The Books

Hillary Clinton may be the presumptive Democrat Party nominee for president in 2016, but a book by a former neurosurgeon who many would like to run for president in 2016 is outselling hers, according to Slate.

Ben Carson's "One Nation," as of Aug. 10 and according to Nielsen BookScan numbers, had edged past Clinton's "Hard Choices," 225,000-223,000. Both trail Bill O'Reilly of Fox News, whose "Killing Jesus" had sold 228,811 copies.

Clinton reportedly was paid $14 million, the second highest advance in history, for her memoir of her four years as secretary of state under President Obama, while Carson's take for his book was unknown but thought to be considerably less.

Celebro-babble

When Ora TV talk show host Larry King talks to a liberal actor and director about something as critical as the situation between Israel and the Palestinians as he did last week, either the actor/director has no new movie to hawk or the host is out of celebrity questions to ask. The answer given by Rob Reiner, not surprisingly, was as clueless as the octogenarian questioner.

Reiner, who played the beleaguered "Meathead" on the celebrated "All in the Family" television series in the 1970s, proceeded to compared the terrorist group Hamas with the tea party movement in the United States that seeks only fiscal responsibility in government.

Having referred to Hamas as an "extreme faction," he said, in the United States "you've got a strong tea party group controlling the whole country" because they have a "stranglehold on [House Speaker John] Boehner ... so anytime you're dealing with an extreme group, you cannot negotiate with them, and the way to do it is to eliminate it."

Quick Takes

• Southern Adventist University in Collegedale recently was named the "tamest party school" in Tennessee by the website collegefinder.org. Wonder if the students had a party to celebrate? Numerous studies have found Adventists live longer than most Americans. And since many Adventists don't eat meat or consume alcohol, coffee, tea or soft drinks, there's not a whole lot with which to party. And after consuming a box of Swiss Cake Rolls from nearby McKee Foods, students probably don't feel much like partying anyway.

• After Hurricane Katrina, climate change alarmists predicted the future would be filled with annual Katrina-type hurricanes. But again this year, as in almost every year since Katrina in 2005, the Atlantic storm season has been revised down, to between seven to 12 named tropical storms. It's sad, though, when such alarmists have to hope for more devastating hurricanes to be right.

• Attempts at unionizing the fast-food industry should be interesting to watch. A recent National Labor Relations Board ruling indicates a fast-food chain could organize nationally, say, through the Service Employees International Union, rather than one store at a time. The ruling, stemming from complaints against McDonald's Corp., considered the restaurant chain a "joint employer" and, thereby, party to any anti-organizing activity by its franchisees. Since McDonald's and other chains long have considered franchisees independent contractors, an appeal is likely. One community organizer, oblivious to what unionization would do to the industry, crowed that "we are one step closer to $15 an hour and a union." The problem is, the fast-food business is the first job for many employees. Should such franchise employees unionize, they would be putting their own jobs at peril since such an increase in costs would only cause franchisees to shed employees and close down locations.

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