stcynic
Posts by this author
January 13, 2004
The True.Origins website - a ripoff of the Talk.Origins Archive that I'm involved with - has posted an article about "debate dodgers". This is something that is quite common in creationist circles - make a ridiculous "challenge" to their opponents and then crow about how cowardly those heathen…
January 12, 2004
Intelligent design advocates have been furiously busy trying to find a way to sneak their views into science classrooms around the country. In Kansas, Ohio, Texas, New Mexico, Michigan and several other states, they have tried a variety of tactics to get in to the curriculum. But if this is any…
January 10, 2004
The first link on my list of other blogs is Jason Van Steenwyk's Iraqnow blog. Jason is an Army officer serving in Iraq around Ramadi. Unlike most of the military bloggers, Jason is an excellent writer with a degree in literature and an engaging mind. His blog is enormously valuable because it…
January 9, 2004
Ignored in the justifiable attention being paid to foreign Muslim terrorists after 9/11, domestic Christian terrorists have taken a backseat in terms of media coverage. How many people know that in 2001, 3 of the 10 names on the FBI Most Wanted List were anti-abortion zealots? Not many, I imagine.…
January 8, 2004
In the midst of a flap over Howard Dean's sudden conversion to the summonings of the spirit, Sandra Jacoby has an op-ed piece in the Times that includes something I've long said about the secular nature of the Constitution. She writes,The 18th-century public's understanding of the Constitution as a…
January 7, 2004
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld Hewlett-Packard's right to fire an employee who insisted on posting anti-gay bible verses on his office cubicle in response to the company having posters encouraging respect for diversity in the office building he worked in. The diversity campaign, as the…
January 6, 2004
Salon.com has an article today on Howard Ahmanson, the reclusive savings and loan heir who has spent millions to promote religious right causes in America. In addition to his enormous support of seemingly any anti-gay organizations he can find, Ahmanson is well known to those of us who are active…
January 5, 2004
Eugene Volokh, a UCLA law professor who blogs, has an excellent article in the National Review Online. He correctly points out that constitutional law is a good deal more complex than we often hear from conservatives throwing out such noble-sounding but mostly meaningless catchphrases as "original…
January 3, 2004
Yes folks, Pat Robertson has once again been confabbing with God and he has reported on the 700 Club that God has told him that Bush will win the 2004 election easily:"I think George Bush is going to win in a walk. I really believe I'm hearing from the Lord it's going to be like a blowout election…
December 29, 2003
The LA Times continues its investigative series on politicians misusing their office with an expose` on Ted Stevens, the enormously powerful chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and how he has become quite wealthy by starting businesses that benefit from legislation his committee passes…
December 28, 2003
Having used the moniker StCynic for nearly a decade now in various places, I have often been asked what a cynic is. More often, I am simply presumed to be whatever the person asking the question presumes cynicism to be - unduly negative, hateful, unhappy, angry, etc. For myself, the best definition…
December 22, 2003
Much has been made of the fact that the Massachusetts chapter of the ACLU has taken on a case defending NAMBLA, the North American Man-Boy Love Association, in a civil lawsuit arising from the kidnapping and killing of a 10 year old boy. There is no more controversial or emotionally-charged issue…
December 19, 2003
It has become a truism that the American people are "too cynical" about their government. We hear this repeated often, but I think the truth is quite the opposite. I think most Americans are still entirely naive about their government, even after having our trust betrayed by the government so many…
December 18, 2003
As someone who is very involved in the fight for quality science education in the US, nothing is more frustrating than seeing how often and how flagrantly science gets distorted in the popular media. Most Americans get what little knowledge they have of science not from scientists but from…
December 16, 2003
Thanks to Glenn Reynolds for finding this story:Joanne Webb, a former fifth-grade teacher and mother of three, was in a county court in Cleburne, Texas, on Monday to answer obscenity charges for selling the vibrator to undercover narcotics officers posing as a dysfunctional married couple in search…
December 11, 2003
I'll quote just the first part of this article:Groups of students, teachers and administrators from five Oakland County school districts are taking part in the Religious Diversity Initiative - a program funded by the Community Foundation of Southeastern Michigan and sponsored by the Oakland County…
December 11, 2003
I've long been active in the battle over the teaching of evolution in public schools. One of the arguments that we hear quite often is the "Fairness Argument". It goes like this: There are two explanations for the existence of life on earth, either life evolved by "random chance" (evolution) or it…
December 7, 2003
There is an e-mail making the rounds with a set of arguments alleging to prove that the US is a "Christian Nation." The entire e-mail was taken directly, word for word, from this webpage: http://www.errantskeptics.org/hold_quotes_2.htm, which was in turn taken from an article in Worldnetdaily, and…
December 5, 2003
Continuing the theme from the last essay, we often hear this argument - "Separation of church and state isn't in the constitution". It's a rather silly argument, but it's very popular. Some people really do look at the first amendment and think, "Gee, those words really aren't in there. I guess…
December 2, 2003
One of the arguments heard often, especially lately in light of the situation with Judge Roy Moore in Alabama, is that the US was "founded on Christian principles". Whenever I hear this argument, I counter with this challenge - point to specific provisions within the constitution, the founding…
November 28, 2003
No idea in science is as controversial as the theory of evolution. The controversy comes not from within science, but in that grey area where science and religion intersect. This is an issue I've been involved with for many years. Since my late teen years, in fact. I'm part of a group that…
November 27, 2003
Another book I've just finished rereading is People Rising: The Campaign Against the Bork Nomination, by Michael Pertshuk and Wendy Schaetzel. I was in college when Bork was nominated for the US Supreme Court in 1987, and at the time I was taking a course in judicial history. We ended up using the…
November 26, 2003
"Democracy is the theory that holds that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." - HL Mencken
Mencken certainly would not be surprised by how little the average American understands about the constitution or the nature of the American political system it was…