stcynic
Posts by this author
January 24, 2006
In that thread on the Orson Scott Card message board I just got a long reply from someone named Bo Grimes. Since it's so long and I'm not adept at the message board coding, I thought I'd just post a line by line reply here and perhaps he'll come over and defend his claims, all of which are highly…
January 24, 2006
Not only wrong, but completely backwards. Here's the situation. Polk County, Florida, has announced that it is doing away with what it called the "free speech zone" on the grounds of the county administration building. This was an area that they designated as a public forum where community groups…
January 23, 2006
We have happy birthdays to hand out for two of the good folks at the National Center for Science Education. Yesterday was the birthday of the NCSE's associate director Glenn Branch. And today is the birthday of information project director Wesley Elsberry. They are both really nice guys and Wesley…
January 23, 2006
In an interesting turn of events, Geoffrey Stone of the University of Chicago Law School has come out against the confirmation of Samuel Alito. His argument is based solely on Alito's views on executive power:
Whatever else Judge Alito may or may not have made clear about his views on such issues…
January 23, 2006
Todd Zywicki has an interesting post reacting to this article by Alan Dershowitz, in which Dershowitz suggests some changes in the Senate confirmation process for Supreme Court nominees. Dershowitz argues that the Senate judiciary committee lacks the expertise to ask good questions to judicial…
January 23, 2006
As a measure of just how far our political system has fallen, the White House has actually put out the word that President Bush is now taking unscripted questions from audiences when he makes appearances around the country:
Bush has been taking questions from audience members in recent speeches,…
January 23, 2006
In Utah, there is a bill in front of the state legislature to require teachers to to offer a disclaimer when teaching evolution. That disclaimer would state that A) not all scientists agree on the theory of evolution and B) the state does not endorse the theory of evolution. In Michigan, there is a…
January 22, 2006
In a new post, Dembski's faithful manservant Cato has built a perfectly inaccurate straw man and proceeded to beat the heck out of it while pretending to actually engage an argument being made by the anti-ID side. To wit:
The Vatican Newspaper published an article distancing itself from ID and (…
January 22, 2006
At the bottom of Card's article there was a place to leave comments, so I decided to do so. It's a message board on his website. I posted a message to begin this thread and the reaction of one of his acolytes was quite ridiculous. He tried two claims to explain away the absurd claim Card made. Here…
January 21, 2006
Orson Scott Card has a patently absurd essay on ID and evolution, which PZ Myers has already done an admirable job of fisking. But there's one argument that Card makes in particular that is just infuriating in its outright dishonesty and I want to highlight it again. Here's his argument:
3.…
January 21, 2006
Well, my Blue Devils just lost their first game, to Georgetown on the road by 3. What made this a fascinating game is what it tells us, both good and bad, about this Duke team. This game simultaneously showed why this Duke team will have a difficult time winning the national championship this year…
January 21, 2006
This is funny. Repent America - the same organization whose leaders were arrested in Philadelphia for protesting a gay pride event (the charges were eventually dropped, and I believe rightly so) - has rented out the Dover High School auditorium to hold a creationism seminar and "teach the truth…
January 21, 2006
The Utah Senate took a preliminary vote on Sen. Buttars' anti-evolution bill on Friday and it passed; a final vote is expected on Monday, then it will move on to the house. The Salt Lake Tribune notes that the debate over the bill may well doom it in court:
Sen. Chris Buttars has tried to…
January 20, 2006
Eugene Volokh has caught Clayton Cramer yet again on the subject of the ACLU. This time at least he didn't make outright false accusations against them, he just asked a leading question with a negative implication that a few minutes research could have answered for him. In discussing a rather…
January 20, 2006
I have to confess to being really surprised that my posting of some of my favorite past essays didn't provoke a single comment other than to correct a bad link. That means one of three things: A) everyone had already read them; B) those who hadn't read them didn't bother to follow the links; or C)…
January 20, 2006
Our little project has hit the big time with an article in today's New York Times. The article focuses mostly on business aspects like attracting advertisers, but it should certainly help generate some interest for us all.
January 20, 2006
One of the great delights in reading the WorldNutDaily is watching them try to hype up completely pointless little teapot tempests into major controversies. Here's a perfect example from this morning's edition, complete with flashing graphic saying "Breaking News" and declaring it a "WND Exclusive…
January 20, 2006
If you think the StopTheACLU coalition is comprised of halfwits, you gotta figure that the Alabama chapter is even worse, right? Yep. I particularly enjoyed this delightful bit of irrationality involving our old pal Gerald Allen, the Alabama state legislator and past winner of the Robert O'Brien…
January 20, 2006
Okay, my first sports post at the new place and this one is really funny. Isiah Thomas has actually threatened The Sports Guy, Bill Simmons, on a radio show.
Well, now I have a new career highlight: During a New York radio interview Monday, Isiah Thomas threatened to make trouble for me. Talking…
January 20, 2006
It's always nice to see folks come around to what you've been saying for years (not that I had anything to do with it). Here's Stephen Bainbridge on Scalia:
There is much to be admired about Scalia. It no longer seems possible, however, to believe that he is developing a coherent conservative…
January 19, 2006
This past Monday was an important date, the 220th anniversary of what I and many others believe was the birth of religious freedom in America - the passage of the Virginia Statute Establishing Religious Freedom. On January 16, 1786, this important law, written by Thomas Jefferson and pushed to…
January 19, 2006
I find this highly amusing. The folks at StopTheACLU think that they're actually going to be able to intervene in the ACLU's lawsuit against the NSA. Intervention is a term of art in the law. It means that you actually get added as a party to the proceedings. An attorney named Debbie Schlussel, who…
January 19, 2006
Many of the other ScienceBlogs authors are posting "greatest hits" links so that new readers can get acquainted with some of their previous writings. I figured I'd do the same, since I know I've picked up a lot of new readers in the last few weeks. These links will open up the original post from…
January 19, 2006
A potentially important meeting took place last month in Mecca, a meeting involving the Organization of the Islamic Conference, a group of leaders from 57 predominately Muslim nations. It was important because it was the largest and most important gathering of Muslim leaders to unequivocally…
January 19, 2006
One of the great things about a group blog is that you get to hear different perspectives on the same topic. That's especially interesting when your co-bloggers are as engaging as mine are at Positive Liberty. In response to my essay on Blackstone and the common law, I've gotten replies from both…
January 19, 2006
USA Today has an article about the ACSI lawsuit against the University of California system over the lack of accreditation for a few of their courses. Despite rhetoric from the ACSI about the UC discriminating against Christians and trying to keep kids from Christians schools from attending their…
January 19, 2006
Just noticed this article, about a month old now, about the ACSI lawsuit against the UC. It contains one statement that jumped out at me. Wendell Bird is the lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the case. He's a young earth creationist who was affiliated with the Institute for Creation Research and…
January 18, 2006
I was reminded of this in a conversation with my dad yesterday and it still cracks me up. Many years ago, one of the Kennedy clan died when the family was skiing in Aspen and played a football game - on skis - on the mountainside. I don't remember which Kennedy it was. It's hard to keep them…
January 18, 2006
Sen. Buttars' ridiculous bill has passed the Senate Education Committee in Utah by a 4-2 vote and is headed for a floor vote. And along the way, we get another one of those brilliant statements showing Buttars' rank ignorance of evolution:
"There is evolution within species," Buttars said. "There…
January 18, 2006
A group of very prominent conservatives, including Bob Barr, Grover Nordquist and Paul Weyrich, have formed a group called Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances and are demanding a Congressional investigation into the NSA wiretapping issue. David Keene of the American Conservative Union had this…