stcynic
Posts by this author
June 30, 2005
Okay, I gotta take a break from the seriousness once in a while and talk about sports. I am, as you all should know, a major college basketball nut and Tuesday was the NBA Draft. The first thing you must do if you care about this subject at all is go read the Sports Guy's draft diary, which he does…
June 30, 2005
Fast on the heels of Canada, Spain has given final approval to the legalization of gay marriage:
"Today, Spanish society is responding to a group of people who have been humiliated, whose rights have been ignored, their dignity offended, their identity denied and their freedom restricted," Prime…
June 30, 2005
Howard Friedman has a post on his excellent Religion Clause blog about Roy Moore's address to the Southern Baptist Convention's Pastor's Conference recently. He cites the Florida Baptist Witness' report on Moore's speech, which contains this bizarre statement:
"There are consequences to what is…
June 30, 2005
John West, associate director of the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute, has replied to my "fulminating" essay, posted to Dispatches, In the Agora and the Panda's Thumb, on ID and "divine design". You'll recall that Mr. West had claimed that he and his fellow…
June 29, 2005
One of my readers passed on this link to the speech given by Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin in support of legislation that legalizes gay marriage. It makes one almost sad that we have no such leaders in American government. Who in American government would ever dare to speak this way:
For…
June 29, 2005
Jon Rowe has yet another excellent post on the subject of the founders and religion. This one looks at how at least two of them, Jefferson and Adams, felt about the Ten Commandments.
June 29, 2005
Jennifer Tilly, an actress I've always really liked despite her ditzy demeanor, just won the World Series of Poker Women's No Limit Hold Em tournament. She's the girlfriend of Phil (the Unibomber) Laak, a World Poker Tour champion, and obviously he's taught her a thing or two about the game. Just…
June 29, 2005
Canada's House of Commons passed landmark legislation Tuesday to legalize gay marriage, granting same-sex couples legal rights equal to those in traditional unions between a man and a woman.
The bill passed as expected, despite opposition from Conservatives and religious leaders. The legislation…
June 28, 2005
Randy Meyer sent me this and I haven't stopped laughing since:
Weare, New Hampshire (PRWEB) Could a hotel be built on the land owned by Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter? A new ruling by the Supreme Court which was supported by Justice Souter himself itself might allow it. A private developer…
June 28, 2005
This is hilarious. I posted my essay on whether the Ten Commandments decisions are overblown on In The Agora and Adam Packer, one of the other contributors there, diagnosed people like us perfectly:
We're just dorks. We can't resist getting all hot and bothered about every con law case that comes…
June 28, 2005
The Washington Post reports that in the aftermath of yesterday's split decision, some prominent religious right leaders are planning a massive campaign to put Ten Commandments monuments at public buildings around the country. Their reasoning is rather bizarre:
Within hours of yesterday's Supreme…
June 28, 2005
In his first post on the SCOTUSblog's Ten Commandments mini-blog, Marty Lederman suggests that the Ten Commandments cases are of dubious importance and perhaps even damage the cause of separation. I think the arguments are plausible. First, quoting Ann Althouse:
"I think it's very bizarre of us to…
June 28, 2005
While reading Jack Balkin's excellent analysis of Scalia's dissent in McCreary, I noticed something about Scalia's reasoning that I find disturbing. Take the following passage from his dissenting opinion, for example:
Today's opinion suggests that the posting of the Ten Commandments violates the…
June 28, 2005
I find this quite fascinating as a sideline in the story of the ID experts in Dover. William Dembski, who was an expert witness for the defense in the Dover ID trial before he was withdrawn, was a few days ago threatening to sue the Thomas More Law Center to get paid for 115 hours of work on the…
June 28, 2005
The Washington Nationals are the talk of baseball this year, having returned baseball to the nation's capital and put aside the losing ways they had as the Montreal Expos prior to this year. They're such a hot commodity that several groups are bidding to buy the team, including one group that…
June 27, 2005
As they did with the Raich and Kelo decisions, SCOTUSBlog has put together a group of eminent scholars to discuss today's Ten Commandments decisions. The list includes Doug Laycock (Texas), Sanford Levinson (Texas), Marty Lederman, Rick Garnett (Notre Dame), Jack Balkin (Yale) and several others.…
June 27, 2005
After reading the majority opinion in the McCreary case, involving the posting of the Ten Commandments in a county courthouse, I am convinced that the ruling is extremely good news for those of us who are active in fighting the attempts of creationists (in whatever form) to weaken science education…
June 27, 2005
I haven't seen the actual rulings yet, but it appears that my prediction has come true - the Supreme Court has split on the two Ten Commandments cases, ruling against the Kentucky display in the McCreary case and upholding the Texas display in the Van Orden case. According to Lyle Denniston at the…
June 27, 2005
Back in my stand up comedy days I did a bit about a politically correct dry cleaners in Hollywood used by celebrities. It didn't really clean the tuxedo, it just raised its self-esteem and put the proper colored ribbon on the lapel for the next big event. Now comes this:
Bravissimo! (Hat tip to…
June 27, 2005
Slate has published a fairly thorough analysis of all of the potential people said to be on Bush's short list for a Supreme Court nomination. Well worth reading, but bear in mind my usual disclaimer that it is always best to look up the actual rulings for yourself rather than accepting the way…
June 27, 2005
The inevitable result of the Kelo decision:
With Thursday's Supreme Court decision, Freeport officials instructed attorneys to begin preparing legal documents to seize three pieces of waterfront property along the Old Brazos River from two seafood companies for construction of an $8 million…
June 27, 2005
Jon Rowe has another excellent essay on the founding fathers and religion, this one focusing on Adams and Jefferson and their shared antipathy for the biblical conception of God. As he points out, and their words make clear, both men rejected the notion of hell and thought the idea of the trinity…
June 26, 2005
It appears that I will be a guest on the Jim Babka show again tonight. He has asked me to come on along with Herb Titus again, this time to discuss the Supreme Court's Kelo decision the other day. I'll be curious to hear what position Titus takes. On the one hand, I know that he is a staunch…
June 24, 2005
Bill Kristol is making the case that Justice O'Connor will step down in the next week, not Chief Justice Rehnquist, and that Bush will nominate Gonzales to replace her. That would certainly be an interesting development.
June 24, 2005
John West, associate director of the Discovery Institute's Center for (the Renewal of) Science and Culture, the most prominent ID think tank in the world, is mad as hell and he's not gonna take it anymore. It seems that a state legislator in Utah has submitted a bill in that state to give equal…
June 24, 2005
Jon Rowe has an excellent post up about deism, Christianity and the founders. He and I have talked a bit about this lately and it's something he's been writing about a lot. In particular, about the different types of deism, the different types of Christianity, and the ways in which the views of the…
June 23, 2005
The notion of limited government took another enormous body blow today with the Supreme Court's astonishingly wrongheaded decision in the Kelo case (see the text of the decision here). It was 5-4, with the 4 most conservative justices - Rehnquist, Scalia, O'Connor and Thomas - dissenting. There is…
June 23, 2005
In their annual drive to pander to the hyper-emotional right, the House has yet again passed an amendment to ban flag burning. The award for the most shameless demagoguery so far:
"Ask the men and women who stood on top of the (World) Trade Center," said Rep. Randy (Duke) Cunningham, R-Calif. "Ask…
June 23, 2005
Numerous websites are reporting that Chief Justice Rehnquist has informed the White House of his intent to retire at the end of this term. The Chicago Tribune is reporting that the White House has been busy interviewing potential nominees and quotes anonymous White House sources on the short list…
June 23, 2005
Jon Rowe has an interesting post about the question of whether homosexuality has genetic origins, and whether it matters. I've always been of two minds on this issue. On the one hand, I think the evidence is clear that homosexuality is a genetic predisposition, like any number of other traits, most…