stcynic
Posts by this author
October 31, 2005
As I'm sure everyone knows by now, President Bush has nominated Samuel Alito to replace Harriet Miers and will send his name to the Senate for confirmation to take Sandra Day O'Connor's seat on the Supreme Court. It's an interesting pick to me, as I would have put him about 3rd or 4th on the list…
October 30, 2005
In addition to the first documented lie by former Dover school board member William Buckingham, there was another huge contradiction between his deposition answers and his testimony during the trial. This one involves the question of where the 60 copies of the book Of Pandas and People that were…
October 28, 2005
Okay, there likely won't be anything new for a couple days. I'm heading out of town, first to Grand Rapids and then to Kalamazoo. Today I'm going to stop at the East Grand Rapids debate tournament and see some old friends there, maybe even watch a debate or two. Then I'm having dinner with one of…
October 27, 2005
I said I was baffled by why the defense, of all people, would call former Dover school board member William Buckingham to the stand in the case, and here's why: he was in a no-win situation. He was the one quoted multiple times about wanting to balance out evolution with creationism in Dover's…
October 27, 2005
Last week I wrote about the fact that Michael Behe claimed under oath in the Dover case that his book, Darwin's Black Box, received even more thorough peer review than a scholarly article in a refereed journal. Now more and more facts are coming to light. We only know the names of 3 of the 5…
October 27, 2005
As I predicted last weekend, Harriet Miers has withdrawn as a nominee to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court. This paves the way for someone competent to be named to the court. But far more important than that, it wins me another dinner from my buddy Dan Ray. And that's what really…
October 26, 2005
I have no idea how they figure this out, but according to this page, here's what this blog is worth:
My blog is worth $157,506.66.How much is your blog worth?
If anyone would like to offer even half of that, you've got a deal. On the other hand, their formula for figuring it out must be pretty…
October 26, 2005
There is an update below the fold with much new information
Last week I wrote about the fact that Michael Behe claimed last week under oath that his book, Darwin's Black Box, received even more thorough peer review than a scholarly article in a refereed journal. Now more and more facts are coming…
October 26, 2005
Now that indictments are about to be handed down, let me take this opportunity to predict yet another of those epic partisan flip flops that so afflict our political system. Here are my predictions.
1. No one will be indicted for actually outing Plame, but one or more people, including Rove, Libby…
October 26, 2005
Two of my favorite thinkers weigh in on the Miers nomination. So sayeth Radley Balko:
On Monday, the Washington Post ran excerpts of a 1992 article Harriet Miers wrote for Texas Lawyer. I've read the thing several times, now. I haven't the foggiest idea what it's actually about. Or advocating. Or…
October 26, 2005
The Ku Klux Klan has received permission to hold a rally in Austin in support of the proposal to outlaw same-sex marriage in the Texas Constitution, and the planned demonstration has managed to unite forces on both sides of the debate heading into the Nov. 8 election.
"I hate to say that we don't…
October 26, 2005
Okay, let's take a momentary break from the serious stuff and talk a little basketball. The NBA season starts next week and the college basketball season a couple weeks later and, as everyone knows, basketball is my favorite sport. I'm gonna make a few predictions for both the college and NBA…
October 25, 2005
For those of you who don't know of her, Denyse O'Leary is sort of the ID movement's demented, spastic little cheerleader. She's a Canadian journalist who spends most of her time making profoundly silly claims in support of ID. Her latest bit of loopiness is to claim that Stephen Jay Gould would not…
October 25, 2005
Yet another expert witness has pulled out from testifying in the Dover trial. Warren Nord, a philosopher from the University of North Carolina, has been withdrawn as a witness. Out of the 8 experts that the defense lined up for this trial, 5 of them have pulled out. Of the three left, Behe and…
October 25, 2005
Josh Claybourn passes along this link about a proposed law in Indiana that would make protesting at a military funeral a felony. There's some background required to understand it though. It involves the infamous Rev. Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church, the cretins behind God Hates Fags.…
October 25, 2005
The Thomas More Law Center's defense of the Dover school board is beginning to resemble a Keystone Cops sketch. After having yet another witness drop out, they presented Steve Fuller, a British sociologist, to defend the teaching of ID in public schools. And you're gonna love the rationale he…
October 25, 2005
And naturally, let the Worldnutdaily lead the way. Their crack reporting staff is hot on the trail of the story of Hurricane Wilma forcing a "homosexual party" to be postponed. We're talking about Key West here, folks. There's a "homosexual party" going on pretty much every night. I'm sure the…
October 25, 2005
William Dembski has gotten the honor of an official parody blog, Uncommon Dissent. The author, using the nom de plume of TH Huxley (I would have chosen Asa Gray myself), does a post-by-post mockery of Dembski's blog. It's not terribly good, but I'll say this - he's a hell of a lot brighter than…
October 25, 2005
A major development in the Dover trial yesterday. The Discovery Institute had submitted a brief in the case last week and Judge Jones issued an order denying that brief's use in the case. Our attorneys had filed a motion to strike that brief from the proceedings on the grounds that it was an…
October 25, 2005
Jack Balkin has a long and thorough essay on how Democrats should respond to the Miers nomination and he says much the same thing I've been saying. As he notes, the Democrats are currently in popcorn mode - sitting back, munching their popcorn and enjoying watching the Republicans yell at each…
October 24, 2005
Radley Balko is his usual ascerbic self after noting Arlen Specter's statement that Harriet Miers' nomination was still moving ahead okay but "she might need a crash course in constitutional law":
I picture Harriet Miers burning the midnight oil at the library with her Emmanuel Con Law outline all…
October 24, 2005
The Worldnutdaily is making a huge deal today about a new book alleging that the Lawrence decision - the Supreme Court ruling that declared state sodomy laws unconstitutional - was based upon a setup, an intentional arrest for the purpose of challenging a law in court. And naturally, they're trying…
October 24, 2005
I've said many times that there are clearly problems between the Discovery Institute, the primary thinktank of the ID movement, and the Thomas More Law Center, the legal group defending the school board in Dover (and involved in the Gull Lake situation here in Michigan as well). Three DI fellows…
October 24, 2005
During his testimony, Michael Behe continually brought up the big bang as being comparable to intelligent design. His intent was to show that some people objected to the big bang because it had religious implications as well, but that didn't mean that the big bang theory wasn't a genuine scientific…
October 23, 2005
Last night I saw a show that presented the top 100 movie quotes of all time, as voted on by members of the American Film Institute. Some of them were quite memorable, of course, but I thought it was a bit too skewed toward older films. In some cases, that's deserved of course. The fact that 6 of…
October 22, 2005
In his testimony, Behe repeated over and over again that the evidence for ID is the "purposeful arrangement of parts." Early in his direct testimony, he made it clear that this was going to be the recurring theme in his testimony. He said that he disagree with the definition of intelligent design…
October 22, 2005
I got this amusing email last night from someone named John Schroeder, suggesting that the TMLC attorneys in the Dover case are getting a bit desperate. The email says:
Testimony in the trial should get really interesting by the middle of next week.
At the request of Ms Sherry Doran of the Thomas…
October 22, 2005
University to Ban Bibles, the headline screams. Brave New Schools, says the tag above the headline. The first sentence reiterates the message:
Edinburgh University in Scotland will begin banning Holy Bibles from its student halls of residence due to concern they are the source of discrimination…
October 22, 2005
This just keeps getting worse and worse for the White House. The questionnaire that Harriet Miers filled out was so bad that they sent it back to have her redo her answers. How bad was it? The LA Times reports:
Asked to describe the constitutional issues she had worked on during her legal career,…
October 22, 2005
One of the interesting segments of the Michael Behe cross examination begins on page 42 of the Day12AM transcript, and it concerns a paper that Behe wrote with David Snoke. That paper, called Simulating Evolution by Gene Duplication of Protein Feature that Requires Multiple Amino Acid Residues, was…