stcynic
Posts by this author
November 7, 2005
It has now been 5 days since I posted absolute, undeniable proof that Dembski's claims concerning why Jeff Shallit didn't testify at the Dover trial were false. That proof was in the form of a motion filed by the defense and Judge Jones' ruling on that motion, which proves incontrovertibly that…
November 7, 2005
While waiting for stuff to load on my hard drive yesterday I did some surfing and came across a huge list of food blogs. I guess I should have known that there are tons of blogs devoted to food, one of my great passions. So go see this list and visit some of the pages. Time well spent.
November 7, 2005
On Friday, the curtain came down on the Dover ID trial. Rather ironically, the drama lasted a Biblically-significant 40 days and 40 nights from start to finish. Eric Rothschild delivered the closing argument for the plaintiffs, available here, and Patrick Gillen for the defense. After the attorneys…
November 7, 2005
One of the mailing lists I used to be on, and miss being on, is the ASA list. The ASA is the American Scientific Affiliation, a group of Christian scientists who are, for the most part, not creationists. Their listserv has long been home to debates over evolution and creationism that are of a…
November 6, 2005
I am happy and proud to report that the reformatting was a smashing success. I've still got a lot of stuff to move back to the hard drive from CD, and a lot of software to reinstall, but I'm up and running and running smoothly. Got my antivirus to install correctly (that was one of the big problems…
November 6, 2005
Okay folks, I'm about to do a major overhaul on my computer. I appear to have mucked up my operating system and caused some serious problems, so after burning about 30 gigabytes worth of stuff (songs and research) to CD last night I'm going to reformat and start over. Problem #1 is that I don't…
November 4, 2005
Most people are probably familiar with the recent Kansas case involving Matthew Limon. Limon was convicted of having sex with an underage boy (he was 18, the other was 14) and sentenced to over 17 years in prison. If his partner had been female, for the same action he would have received a maximum…
November 4, 2005
Today is the final day of testimony in the Dover trial. Scott Minnich is scheduled to finish up his cross examination, and likely already has, and then we'll move on to closing arguments this afternoon. Expect a ruling in the next 6-8 weeks, give or take.
On another note, the New York Times has an…
November 4, 2005
So I'm watching TV last night and they show a clip from an interview that Barbara Streisand did a couple weeks ago with Ellen Degeneres. And in the interview Streisand suddenly announced that four was her favorite number because, "it's the most creative number in the universe. If you have four,…
November 4, 2005
Dean Esmay stopped by last night and left a comment in reply to my recent posts about his stance on evolution. True to his usual form, he slings a lot of invective and says almost nothing of any substance. He begins:
Heh. It's fun to watch this: ad hominem first. Ed always starts there--it's what…
November 3, 2005
It can hardly be surprising that the Discovery Institute has picked up on Dean Esmay's ignorant blather about ID and us "Stalinist" evolution advocates and are shouting it from the rooftops as evidence that "even religious skeptics" disagree with us. The fact that Esmay is an atheist or agnostic…
November 3, 2005
Blue Mass Group has an excellent post about how easy it is to compile a list of rulings for a judge to make them appear to be an extremist. They look at the lists provided by liberal activist groups to paint Alito as a right wing nut, then give their own list of other rulings by Alito that would…
November 3, 2005
Dale Carpenter, one of the most articulate defenders of gay marriage, is guest-blogging at the Volokh Conspiracy this week, after gay marriage opponent Maggie Gallagher blogged there a couple weeks ago. Carpenter is doing an excellent job of rebutting Gallagher's claims and the arguments offered by…
November 3, 2005
The battle over creationism in public schools is heading for Indiana, as lawmakers there prepare to submit a bill to mandate the teaching of intelligent design there. And in the process, they're leaving behind all sorts of evidence of the essential equation of ID and creationism.
The proposal…
November 3, 2005
David Bernstein and Randy Barnett have interesting posts up at Volokh about the growing split among conservative originalists. Barnett's post came first and he notes that when conservatives today invoke the idea of "judicial restraint" in opposition to judges "legislating from the bench", they are…
November 2, 2005
Tony Mauro has written a pretty devestating expose` on Jay Sekulow, director of Pat Robertson's American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ). It's pretty much what has come to be expected from people who build their career around TV evangelism. I'll post some long excerpts below the fold.
But there…
November 2, 2005
I think this will be the final word on the Shallit issue. I've uploaded the court's rulings on a series of in limine motions, including the defendant's motion to exclude Shallit's testimony. This ruling came down on September 22nd, just before the trial began, and in it the judge refers to an…
November 2, 2005
More information has come to light on this situation. I noted on Monday that Shallit had not testified, despite being deposed, because after Dembski withdrew the TMLC had objected to allowing him to testify and the attorneys reached an agreement that he would not do so unless they used Dembski's…
November 2, 2005
A year ago I had a fairly memorable exchange with Dean Esmay on the subject of evolution and creationism. He showed pretty clearly then that A) he doesn't have the first clue what evolution actually says and B) he has even less understanding of the dangers of creationism in public school science…
November 2, 2005
I meant to mention this yesterday, but got busy and forgot. Mark Chancey, the SMU religious studies professor who did the critique of the NCBCPS bible curriculum a few months ago, has updated his analysis of that curriculum in light of the changes that were made in response to his criticisms…
November 2, 2005
Blue Mass Group has an interesting interview with Kate Pringle, a former clerk for Samuel Alito as well as for Stephen Breyer and Sandra Day O'Connor (how's that for a resume?). Unlike Alito, Pringle is a liberal and a Democrat who was highly involved in John Kerry's campaign. Nonetheless, she is a…
November 1, 2005
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=47148
People are convinced that you can't give tax breaks to rebuild casinos after a hurricane
November 1, 2005
Doug Theobald managed to correct the problems in a couple of the testimony transcripts we've had difficulties with and it showed some previously mangled text that is quite fascinating. There is this fascinating bit from the Day 12 PM transcript of Behe's cross-examination. The plaintiff's attorney…
November 1, 2005
Tomorrow is the 81st birthday of a fascinating man that Sandefur and I have had the great privilege to get to know over the last couple years. His name is Mark Perakh. He's a retired physicist from CSU, the owner of the TalkReason site and the author of many articles and at least one book on the…
November 1, 2005
Mike Argento has been sort of the HL Mencken of the Dover trial, making pithy comments daily about the trial. And you knew he wasn't going to let Bonsell's testimony go unscathed. This is pretty funny stuff, but it's long so I'll put it below the fold.
It was remarkable. Judge John E. Jones III…
November 1, 2005
It seems that Judge Jones is getting a little miffed by the constant lying of the defense witnesses who served on the Dover school board. Buckingham was caught in several lies on the stand, one of which implicated board president Alan Bonsell as well. That $850 check that Buckingham gave to Bonsell…
November 1, 2005
Howard Friedman has an invaluable list of all of Alito's religion clause rulings, including links to all of the actual rulings. Great place to start looking at his track record.
October 31, 2005
William Dembski has this odd habit when someone publishes a criticism of his writings. Rather than engage in substantive refutation of those criticisms, he often claims either to be the victim of some cosmic unfairness by the Darwinian Inquisition, or he claims that the person criticizing him is…
October 31, 2005
The ACLU-PA blog has a report on yet another defense witness in the Dover case contradicting their sworn deposition under cross examination. But there's another aspect of this that I find really interesting and that is the type of people we tend to put on school boards. The ignorance of the Dover…
October 31, 2005
Both the York Daily Record and the Harrisburg Patriot-News have articles up on the growing friction between the Discovery Institute and the Thomas More Law Center. Richard Thompson of the TMLC accuses the Discovery Institute of undermining their case and says that the Dover school board is a "…