stcynic

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October 14, 2006
Max Blumenthal has a post at Talk2Action about the possibility that Republicans in Congress will begin to purge their staffs of all gays and lesbians because religious right leaders are now viewing them as a "homosexual clique" put in place to undermine the party: Immediately after the scandal…
October 14, 2006
Frederick Clarkson has a post at Talk2Action about a new Senate report that shows all sorts of funny goings on between Jack Abramoff and Toward Tradition, a group headed by the religious right's favorite wingnut whacko Rabbi, Daniel Lapin. I had no idea that Abramoff had served as chairman of that…
October 14, 2006
Keith Olbermann's "worst person in the world" segment recently nailed pretty much all of Fox News for their blatantly dishonest attack on Ted Turner. They claimed that Turner was saying he couldn't choose between terrorists and America when that was not the case. Here's the clip:
October 14, 2006
Just when you think the Worldnutdaily can't get any more ridiculous, they publish this tripe from Kevin McCullough entitled, Why Liberals Channel Lucifer. I can't even begin to parody that, so I won't even try.
October 13, 2006
That's a new organization formed by a partnership of the Interfaith Alliance and Americans United for Separation of Church and State. I suspect I will view them very much like I do their parent organizations, agreeing with them most of the time and disagree once in a while. And as usual, I'll be…
October 13, 2006
Man, the ADF is really on a roll lately with false claims. In this blog post, the admin of their blog claims that the various state amendments banning gay marriage do not interfere with governments or private companies offering benefits to domestic partners: Preying on these and similar fears,…
October 13, 2006
Georgetown recently announced that it was not renewing any of its relationships with "affiliated ministries" - outside religious ministries that were allowed to have a presence on that Catholic campus to work with students. This includes many Protestant groups, which has led to a lot of media…
October 13, 2006
The admin of the ADF's blog has a post responding to this column by Edward Lazarus about judicial independence and judicial activism. Amusingly, he titles the post Why Won't the Left Engage in Honest Debate? You'll see why this is amusing in a moment. He claims that Lazarus "fails to acknowledge…
October 13, 2006
Good ol' Hans Zeiger's illogic appears to know no bounds at all. One wonders if he writes papers for his professors at Hillsdale that are as rife with irrational statements as those he writes for the Worldnutdaily. His latest column makes the ridiculous argument that because scientists have said…
October 13, 2006
The Washington Post reports: Five years after Arab terrorists attacked the United States, only 33 FBI agents have even a limited proficiency in Arabic, and none of them work in the sections of the bureau that coordinate investigations of international terrorism, according to new FBI statistics.…
October 13, 2006
Glib has a post at STACLU where he admiringly cites two columns, one by Alan Sears of the ADF and one by Mike Adams. Both of those columns are loaded with ridiculous arguments. The column by Sears is one of the funniest ones you'll read this week, trust me. In attempting to establish the "fury of…
October 12, 2006
So here's what I've been through for the last few days. Two trips to Lansing (an hour away), one in a driving rainstorm and the second in a driving snowstorm. Yes, it's Michigan and we're getting snow in October. On the first trip, I bought a brand new case, motherboard and processor. I brought it…
October 12, 2006
Lee Bollinger, the President of Columbia University, has issued a very strongly worded and entirely justified statement in response to campus protestors disrupting a perfectly legal speech at the university last week. I'll quote the full text below the fold: Columbia University has always been, and…
October 12, 2006
Yesterday was a very good day for science education in the midwest. I wrote last week about ongoing controversies in Michigan and Ohio as advocates of intelligent design (ID) were trying to find a way, any way, to weaken science education and open the door at least a crack for the introduction of…
October 12, 2006
Berkley, Michigan, that is, the city trying to decide what to do with its nativity scene that I mentioned the other day. Jay at STACLU quotes the TMLC's press release, which offers to defend the city for free in case the ACLU files suit. Hey, that sounds kind of familiar. They did the same thing in…
October 11, 2006
You may have noticed my lack of presence on my own blog today. That's because I'm having endless difficulty getting a new computer to run. I've built a new computer, but it won't power up. So far I've tried 3 different power supplies, pulled every single peripheral out of it, found out I had a bad…
October 11, 2006
Dembski has a completely substanceless post on his blog about Chris Mooney, where all he does is quote from a brief bio of Mooney prior to one of his appearances. He writes, "Yes, this is the same Chris Mooney who attacks ID and has written THE REPUBLICAN WAR ON SCIENCE" and proceeds to quote the…
October 11, 2006
Katherine Harris continues to be the gift that keeps on giving for those of us who enjoy watching politicians make fools of themselves in public (and who doesn't?). Just check out this report from her own website, which reports that she now leads incumbent Sen. Ben Nelson despite all the public…
October 11, 2006
A case I mentioned a couple weeks ago, where a school denied permission to a student to hand out "day of truth" cards to classmates in response to the "day of silence" the day before, will go forward. The school filed a motion to dismiss and the judge rightly denied the motion. The ADF issued a…
October 11, 2006
Our pals at STACLU are quoting a blog post by a lawyer named Ray Kraft, encouraging Congress to pass legislation defining the terms of the Constitution so that the courts can't. Here's Kraft's suggestion: "But there is a Third Way here - and that is for Congress to debate and define, by legislation…
October 10, 2006
Michigan Citizens for Science (MCFS) is happy to announce that we won a major victory with the State Board of Education on Tuesday. Having failed to have pro-ID language included in a bill earlier this year to harmonize the educational standards for public and charter schools in the state, House…
October 10, 2006
This is worth reading.
October 10, 2006
The New York Times is doing a series of articles on religous exemptions from generally applicable laws (first and second). This is an interesting subject for me, but not one on which I have fully formed views. In general, I am in favor of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and similar laws. I…
October 10, 2006
Allyn Jaffrey Shulman, writing in Card Player, has a very optimistic take on the new gambling bill from the poker industry's perspective. It's perhaps a bit too optimistic, but it does suggest another possible basis for a court challenge. I'll post a long excerpt below the fold: Even though the…
October 10, 2006
To give you some idea of just how sophisticated and well educated our opponents are on evolution and ID, just look at some of the letters to the editor in the Detroit Free Press. My personal favorite: Here are my questions for those who believe in evolution: How did the Big Bang happen? How is it…
October 10, 2006
Gotta love this kind of hatchet job on a man running for an appeals court position in Texas. They've outed him as an atheist and are claiming that he will therefore refuse to do his job: Should Franks be elected in November, one would have to conclude that he will hold true to his out of touch "…
October 10, 2006
Charles Swift, the JAG lawyer who bravely defended Hamdan and won his case before the Supreme Court, was denied a promotion and now must leave the Navy: Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, 44, will retire in March or April under the military's"up or out"promotion system. Swift said last week he was notified…
October 9, 2006
All of the posts prior to this one for today were written and scheduled to post last night. When I woke up this morning, my computer was dead - I mean dead, no power at all. So either I've got a bad power supply or a bad motherboard. I may have it fixed tonight, or it may take a day or two. In the…
October 9, 2006
A settlement has been reached in the lawsuit in Harrison County, WV, over a picture of Jesus hanging in the hallway of a public high school there. But amusingly, both sides are declaring victory. The ADF, which apparently intervened at some point to represent the school board in negotiations, put…
October 9, 2006
Fellow PT contributor Steve Reuland has a follow up on my two posts about the recent DI excuses for the utter lack of research on intelligent design. He makes the very important point that not only has there been no such research, there has been no suggestion of how it might even hypothetically be…