stcynic
Posts by this author
March 13, 2006
The NCAA tournament is finally here and I'm excited. Duke got the overall #1 seed, but I don't think they're the favorite to win it all. UConn is clearly the best, deepest and most talented team and I think they have to play down a bit for anyone else to beat them, including Duke. Frankly, I think…
March 12, 2006
Catholic Charities of Boston has decided to close up its adoption agency rather than comply with a Massachusetts policy that gays be allowed to adopt children. This charity had been facilitating adoptions for over 100 years, but placing foster children with gay parents is a violation of Church…
March 11, 2006
I know we've probably got one last blast of winter left here in Michigan, but as far as I'm concerned today is the official start of spring. Why? Because the first rack of ribs is in the smoker. It's been in there about an hour and I just put in a second load of applewood chips, flipped and basted…
March 11, 2006
My pal DarkSyde continues his terrific series of interviews with science advocates with Barbara Forrest today. No one has been more valuable in this battle than Barbara. As I wrote during the Dover trial, she was the witness that they feared the most. They spent a great deal of time and energy…
March 11, 2006
I picked up today's Grand Rapids Press and found an article on the front page of the religion section about Greg Forbes, one of my co-founders and fellow board members with Michigan Citizens for Science. Greg is a powerful speaker with an encyclopedic knowledge of evolution. He has trained…
March 11, 2006
In Long Beach, California, the city is trying to invoke eminent domain to seize a Baptist church to make way for a condo project (yes, this is a Worldnutdaily article but the facts are accurate). It's being defended by John Eastman, who I believe was one of Sandefur's law school professors. He's…
March 10, 2006
Warning: This post contains strong language and jokes that will likely be offensive to some people. If that will bother you, don't read it. If you do read it, don't complain about it.
One of the cool things about having a relatively popular blog is that I'm now occasionally being sent books and…
March 10, 2006
Science and Theology News has a series of invited commentaries on the Dover trial and Judge Jones' ruling that are worth reading. Among others are commentaries by Steve Fuller, witness for the defense in the trial; Alvin Plantinga, prominent Christian philosopher; Paul Gross, fellow Panda's Thumb…
March 10, 2006
The California Supreme Court ruled unanimously yesterday that the city of Berkeley could refuse to give a rent subsidy to a Boy Scouts project because they discriminate against gays and atheists. Berkeley had a policy of giving space at the city marina rent-free to non-profit groups, but they…
March 10, 2006
The Worldnutdaily has yet another article on the search for Noah's Ark and how it has been "rejuvenated" by a satellite picture of what looks for all the world like nothing more than a typical mountain ridge. Along the way, they mention the frauds of Wyatt Archaeological Research (Ron Wyatt is one…
March 10, 2006
The North County Times, a local newspaper in Southern California, just published an interesting profile of fellow Panda's Thumb contributor Mark Perakh. I've mentioned his fascinating life before, having spent time in a Siberian prison camp in the Soviet Union before emigrating to Israel and then…
March 10, 2006
Interesting development:
A Dubai-owned company abruptly abandoned its plans for managing U.S. ports on Thursday, defusing an election-year showdown between President Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress over an issue that had become a political land mine for the GOP.
"DP World will transfer…
March 9, 2006
Or bills, in this case. It turns out that there are now two bills in the state legislature - HB 5606, sponsored by Rep. Palmer, which contains the "arguments for and against" language that will inevitably open the door to ID; and a Senate bill, sponsored by Sen. Kuipers, that doesn't yet have a…
March 9, 2006
As reported yesterday, three college students have been arrested for setting fire to 9 churches in Alabama (and possibly a 10th), and one of the students ridiculously claimed that their crimes were a "joke" that "got out of hand". I thought it would be hard to top that idiotic statement, but…
March 9, 2006
I'm one of those folks who thinks that courses in comparative religion, or about the bible as literature, can be a valuable thing. Unfortunately, they just don't work in the real world. There's really only two ways to teach such a course. You either teach that the Bible is absolutely true (in which…
March 8, 2006
The only thing funnier than the Sports Guy may be the Sports Guy's readers, who have chipped in with a load of amusing questions in his latest mailbag. I love the way they draw connections between different aspects of popular culture with such accuracy. To wit, these two entries about Isiah Thomas…
March 8, 2006
Three suspects have been arrested for burning down 9 churches in Alabama. All three were college students. One of them says that the fires were "a joke" that "got out of hand". Uh, yeah. Hilarious joke. If they're convicted, lock them up and throw away the key for a long, long time.
March 8, 2006
AP has an interesting article that includes many quotes from Justice Breyer on the functioning of the new court under John Roberts. He says there's more debate behind the scenes now, which is not a surprise. Insiders had long said that Rehnquist allowed very little debate during the justice's…
March 8, 2006
Orac has the story on the latest attack on the Holocaust History Project, a group that fights the efforts of holocaust deniers. After over a year of cyber-attacks on their website, now their building was victimized by arsonists. I urge folks to send a donation along to the project to help them…
March 8, 2006
Sorry about the lack of new posts, but I'm tied up at the moment with legislative issues here in Michigan. The house bill that includes language opening the door to ID was passed by the house last week and sent to the Senate. We are awaiting today the release of a separate bill by the chairman of…
March 8, 2006
By executive order, President Bush has created the "Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives at the Department of Homeland Security". Apparently it hasn't occured to him that the primary enemy against which DHS ostensibly protects us is also a faith-based initiative.
March 8, 2006
David Berlinski may be one of the lesser known ID advocates, but he is surely the one who is easiest to dislike. The man has turned the striking of a pompous pose into an art form. If you want to see his gift for ignorance-fueled condescension on full display, check out this post where he…
March 7, 2006
Reed Cartwright has the full text of a letter from Kentucky Governor Ernie Fletcher to the Kentucky Academy of Sciences. Fletcher is a creationist who has urged local school districts in that state to teach creationism. His argument is patently ridiculous. He actually argues that evolution…
March 7, 2006
One of the truly violence-inducing aspects of modern life is the inability to get an actual human being on the phone when you call any customer service number. You have to go through an endless series of prompts to push the right numbers, designed to make you hang up in frustration so they don't…
March 7, 2006
How's this for appeasement:
Franco Frattini, the European Union commissioner for justice, freedom and security, revealed the idea for a code of conduct in an interview with The Daily Telegraph. Mr Frattini, a former Italian foreign minister, said the EU faced the "very real problem" of trying to…
March 7, 2006
The Supreme Court yesterday upheld the Solomon Amendment, a law requiring universities to allow military recruiters to recruit on campus as they would any other potential employer (see ruling here). It was yet another 8-0 decision (Alito did not participate) in a relatively controversial case,…
March 6, 2006
DaveScot has a strange and rambling post about the 2nd law of thermodynamics that includes one statement that totally jumps out at me. He writes:
The layman's expression relating to this is you can't unbake a cake. The reason why you can't unbake it is it would violate 2LoT. However, that's not…
March 6, 2006
Here's an interesting new blog, Evolution 101. It's owned by Zachary Moore, a molecular biologist, and its purpose is to explain evolutionary theory and the evidence for it. He already has informative and useful posts up about junk DNA and the definition of "species". This should be very much worth…
March 6, 2006
I have been meaning to write more about Tom Monaghan's new Florida town, Ave Maria, for a while now. Monaghan, founder of Domino's Pizza, is building an entire town near Naples, Florida, and according to numerous news reports, he plans to make it into, essentially, his own little theocracy. No…
March 6, 2006
As I noted the other day, and as many other blogs have discussed, there is a bill in front of the Missouri state legislature with enormous church/state implications. It is House Concurrent Resolution 13 and it reads pretty much like something out of a David Barton pamphlet. I'm going to examine it…