stcynic
Posts by this author
March 3, 2005
So most reports are saying that the justices appeared fairly hostile to the idea of removing the Ten Commandments displays. Judge for yourself by reading the transcript of the oral arguments. I was right that Douglas Laycock did not argue the Van Orden case, it was Erwin Chemerinsky of Duke…
March 2, 2005
Timothy Sandefur has written an ode to his favorite pen, the Pilot V-ball Extra Fine Point. I had to laugh because I am exactly the same way. I am very picky about my pens and I absolutely hate most pens. I guard them jealously and threaten physical harm on anyone who steals a pen that I like.…
March 2, 2005
The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life held a public discussion of the Ten Commandments cases to be heard by the Supreme Court this week. That discussion featured Douglas Laycock, one of the foremost church/state scholars in the nation and the associate dean of the University of Texas Law School…
March 1, 2005
The Supreme Court ruled today that state laws giving the death penalty for those under 18 were unconstitutional, in violation of the 8th amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments. I'm not going to take a position either way on the ruling, since I really know nothing of the history or…
March 1, 2005
A fascinating exchange has gone on between two of my favorite bloggers, Caleb McDaniel and Paul Musgrave, about how the two sides tend to look at American foreign policy in a far too simplistic manner. Caleb began by responding to a recent column by David Brooks crowing that the recent movement to…
March 1, 2005
Here's the arch-moron mynym's latest response to me, wherein he still is too stupid to understand the difference between a public form and a private one. I'm not going to bother with a line by line refutation of it. If you feel like it, go there and pick out all the logical fallacies yourself. Most…
March 1, 2005
Jason Kuznicki has a fascinating exchange with a blogger by the name of Chris Byrne. Along the way, he points out the often irrational nature of anti-gay bigotry with examples from his own life. I think Jason misinterprets Byrne to some degree. He was not arguing that homophobia does not exist,…
March 1, 2005
The terrific Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has finally started their own official blog, The Torch. The great thing about FIRE is that, unlike a lot of people who talk about liberty from both left and right, they actually take a consistent stand for freedom of thought…
March 1, 2005
Steve Sanders has a couple of terrific posts up currently at Reason and Liberty. The first is about Pope John Paul II's most recent statements calling gay marriage "evil". You can hear sadness in his voice as he writes this, and I can understand why. Like Steve, I've always held the current Pope in…
February 28, 2005
In a major ruling with enormous implications, a federal judge has ruled that the government has 45 days to charge Jose Padilla with a crime, prove that he is a material witness and must be held, or release him. Padilla, a US citizen, has been held for over two and a half years in a military prison…
February 28, 2005
In a response to my post on his ridiculous equation of private and public forums, mynym has taken his own already-established absurdity and raised it to a whole new level. In response to my statement that "The Constitution's free speech provision applies to governments....", he replies, "But a…
February 28, 2005
Okay, it's official. I'm old. It doesn't seem possible that I'm old enough to be having a 20 year class reunion. Yikes.
February 28, 2005
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument on two cases involving the Ten Commandments being posted in government buildings and courthouses, one in Kentucky (McCreary) and one in Texas (Van Orden). Linda Greenhouse, the excellent legal reporter for the NY Times, had an article…
February 27, 2005
As usual, these two have challenging and interesting posts up about issues I care deeply about. Rowe has this post about the Ten Commandments case and David Barton's dishonest arguments about their influence on our founding. And Sandefur delivers this post examining the various meanings of "liberty…
February 27, 2005
Come on, tell the truth. You all missed mynym, didn't you? Well let me show you his latest bit of stupidity, wherein he takes me to task for opposing censorship by a public university while banning him from leaving comments here. It seem that our favorite little halfwit still doesn't recognize the…
February 27, 2005
Howard Van Till, my colleague on the board of Michigan Citizens for Science, has written a review of By Design, by Larry Witham. The book explores the issues and personalities at the interface of science and religion through interviews with some of the key people involved, including Michael Behe,…
February 26, 2005
At the same time that wannabe satrap Gerald Allen has been conspiring to kill free thought with his bill to ban all books and plays that mention homosexuality, the University of Alabama Faculty Senate has passed a resolution calling on restrictions on "hate speech" at that university. This is as…
February 25, 2005
Mark Butterworth has responded to my post on his own blog with his thoughts on what he sees as an inevitable civil war. He says:
I'm trying to recall the circumstances which first prompted my musings on a future civil war. I believe that it was in watching the Democrats attack the Republicans in…
February 25, 2005
I've read a flood of obituaries of Hunter S. Thompson in the last few days, most of them falling into one of two extreme categories. Depending on who you listen to, Thompson was either an unquestioned genius who changed journalism forever or, alternatively, nothing more than a drunken hack who…
February 25, 2005
Jon Rowe has an interesting post up about the question of incorporating the Establishment Clause of the first amendment. It was sparked by a discussion on the Panda's Thumb between Sandefur and another frequent commentator here, Ed Darrell (you have to scroll down a ways in the comments to find the…
February 25, 2005
Mark Butterworth stopped by and commented on a thread below after googling his name and finding a post I'd written in response to something he wrote on his blog almost a year ago. I thought I'd move it up here so we can carry on a public conversation about it in the comments. The gist of his post,…
February 24, 2005
Media Matters has a side by side comparison of various "news reports" written by Jeff Gannon/James Guckert for Talon News that were simply taken word for word from either the President's speeches or from RNC or White House "fact sheets". It's a pretty funny comparison.
February 24, 2005
My friend Wesley Elsberry has updated the Transitional Fossil Evidence Challenge (TFEC) and posted it on his blog. The TFEC has a long history in online discussions of evolution and creationism, particularly in the talk.origins newsgroup, but as far as I know this is the first time it has been…
February 24, 2005
One of the things that is endlessly amusing to me is watching the two parties do their dance of feigned outrage at the tactics of the other party when they have engaged in the same tactics when the tables were previously turned. The latest example is the frantic hand-wringing of the Republicans…
February 23, 2005
A Virginia Assembly committee has soundly rejected Charles Carrico's proposal to amend the state constitution, which was written by Thomas Jefferson himself. Thankfully there was some sanity, with 4 Republicans on the committee joining 6 Democrats to reject the bill.
"Having survived 219 years of…
February 23, 2005
From Scott Jonas at a website called jesus-is-savior.com comes this little ditty:
"For those of us who believe we should train our daughters according to Titus 2, 1 Peter 3, and other Biblical passages, my answer is "Yes, it is not good." I propose that sports greatly hinders the development of…
February 23, 2005
I've just been waiting for this, knowing that Joseph Farah couldn't help but put foot in mouth in this situation. But even for Farah, this is astonishing. In a delightfully silly column called No Substitute for Real Journalism, Farah gives us his take on the whole Gannon/Guckert ordeal. He eagerly…
February 23, 2005
The latest installment in my never-ending series to demonstrate that when conservatives use the phrase "judicial activism", it means nothing other than "when judges do things we don't like." From the AP:
Politically conservative public interest groups filed lawsuits Tuesday seeking to invalidate…
February 22, 2005
In a Washington Post column the other day, George Will said the same thing I've been saying the last couple weeks - the notion that Bush's proposed budget is fiscally responsible is ridiculous:
Not that his "lean" (his adjective) and "austere" (John McCain's) $2.57 trillion budget is anything of…
February 22, 2005
The New York Times is reporting this morning that the White House is expecting Rehnquist to retire at the end of the current term in June, if he can hold on that long, and they are preparing for that event. They also quote sources as saying that 10th Circuit Court Judge Michael McConnell has…