With a little over a week remaining until the release of Ben Stein’s Expelled, the atheist blogosphere is aswarm with pre-emptive strikes, including a long post by Richard Dawkins himself called “Lying for Jesus?” written after Dawkins flew to Minneapolis to see a screening of the film and witnessed the now notorious ejection from the theater of fellow Darwinist PZ Myers by Expelled producer Mark Mathis. Both Myers and Dawkins are interviewed by Stein in the film, but they claim they were shanghaied and their comments were taken out of context. How could you grant an interview to Ben Stein, long-time friend of James Dobson, Pat Robertson and others on the far religious right, and not know what you were getting into? There have been perhaps a hundred websites frequented by scientists that have taken notice of the film now. Other late-breaking reports from the “British Atheists Roaming the American Midwest” department has Christopher Hitchens showing up this week at Fountain Street Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to debate younger brother Peter Hitchens, a columnist for the Mail on Sunday. Christopher is an atheist, of course, while Peter is a faithful Anglican, and their topic is “The Existence of God.” It’s about time the Hitchens family decided that issue for us. Note to Christopher: if Ben Stein shows up, have him ejected!

The Pink Pig Video Was Better

Bill Keller, the whack-job Internet evangelist out of St. Petersburg, Florida, was promoting a “high tech cyber debate” with Oprah Winfrey yesterday, but it turned out to be a sloppy YouTube edit of the widely-circulated “Jesus is not the only answer” speech Oprah has made in the past, with inserts of the kinky-haired Keller nodding, grimacing, and interjecting his “Oprah, you ignorant slut” comments. In the past Keller has called Oprah a false prophet, a purveyor of “spiritual crack,” and a New Age “tool of Satan.” Keller is also the guy who produced a video featuring a talking pink stuffed pig named Muhammad called Muhammad the Muslim Pig. Unfortunately, he didn’t know how to actually spell Muhammad. We’re only spelling it correctly here so that nobody firebombs the office.

Jan Crouch to Haiti: You Do That Voodoo

Carol Williams of the Los Angeles Times went down to Haiti to find out just exactly what went so horribly wrong between Jan Crouch of the Trinity Broadcasting Network and the charismatic pastor who was building a children’s hospital there. Almost two years ago construction on the hospital abruptly stopped, after TBN had already spent $2.5 million on the project, and Archbishop Joel Jeune says the reason is simple. He went to Crouch to report that some Haitian boys who were guarding the construction site had reported homosexual advances by a TBN missionary. Crouch expressed outrage, not against the missionary, but against Jeune for making the accusation, and after that time all funding ceased. The Haitian government tried to bring the two sides together in February, but the meeting disintegrated into a near fistfight when TBN lawyer John Casoria (the nephew of Crouch) refused to accept overtures of Christian love and accused all the gathered ministers of ripping off TBN. With TBN insisting on title to the half completed building, and Jeune insisting on using it as a school until this is resolved, it looks like a virtual standoff that will eventually have to be sorted out by government officials and the notoriously unreliable Haitian courts. Jeune has known Crouch for 20 years, but claims that he didn’t realize until recently that she was wealthy. The irony of the world’s wealthiest Christian broadcasters getting all legalistic with the child orphans of the world’s poorest country was apparently lost on all parties.

Fie On Your Infidel Deli Items!

Indonesia blocked YouTube after students attacked the Dutch consulate in Medan to protest Geert Wilders’ film Fitna, whereas Malaysians limited themselves to boycotting Dutch grocery items, including the popular Dutch Lady Milk, which was pretty pissed at Wilders. Both countries created angry twisted faces suitable for Wilders’ next film.