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West 66th Street/Lincoln Center Subway Art 5

tags: West 66th street/Lincoln Center Subway Art, Artemis, Acrobats, Divas and Dancers, subway art, NYC through my eye, photography, NYC Artemis, Acrobats, Divas and Dancers. Artist: Nancy Spero, 1999. Installed 2004. West 66th Street/Lincoln Center Subway tile mosaic art #5 as seen at NYC's Lincoln Center stop at Broadway for the downtown (southbound) 1 train. Image: GrrlScientist 2008 [larger view]. Glass mosaic murals depicting scenes of theater, dance, and orchestra-related subjects are scattered throughout this station. I have photographed tile artworks from several NYC subway…

West 66th Street/Lincoln Center Subway Art 4

tags: West 66th street/Lincoln Center Subway Art, Artemis, Acrobats, Divas and Dancers, subway art, NYC through my eye, photography, NYC Artemis, Acrobats, Divas and Dancers. Artist: Nancy Spero, 1999. Installed 2004. West 66th Street/Lincoln Center Subway tile mosaic art #4 as seen at NYC's Lincoln Center stop at Broadway for the downtown (southbound) 1 train. Image: GrrlScientist 2008 [larger view]. Glass mosaic murals depicting scenes of theater, dance, and orchestra-related subjects are scattered throughout this station. I have photographed tile artworks from several NYC subway…

West 66th Street/Lincoln Center Subway Art 3

tags: West 66th street/Lincoln Center Subway Art, Artemis, Acrobats, Divas and Dancers, subway art, NYC through my eye, photography, NYC Artemis, Acrobats, Divas and Dancers Artist: Nancy Spero, 1999. Installed 2004. West 66th Street/Lincoln Center Subway tile mosaic art #3 as seen at NYC's Lincoln Center stop at Broadway for the downtown (southbound) 1 train. Image: GrrlScientist 2008 [larger view]. Glass mosaic murals depicting scenes of theater, dance, and orchestra-related subjects are scattered throughout this station. I have photographed tile artworks from several NYC subway…

Mothership Question #4

The mothership recently began asking us a question each week and then linking to our answers each Wednesday in a blog carnival-like format from the staff blog, Stochastic. (more about the rules here). This week's question is; Since they're funded by taxpayer dollars (through the NIH, NSF, and so on), should scientists have to justify their research agendas to the public, rather than just grant-making bodies? "Justify?" No. The public does not have a clear and precise understanding of scientific research so the public is not qualified to make decisions about how research money should be spent…

Go Directly To Jail

The Bush administration proves once again that they hate your Constitutional rights as much as Al Qaeda does. U.S. citizens suspected of terror ties might be detained indefinitely and barred from access to civilian courts under legislation proposed by the Bush administration, say legal experts reviewing an early version of the bill. A 32-page draft measure is intended to authorize the Pentagon's tribunal system, established shortly after the 2001 terrorist attacks to detain and prosecute detainees captured in the war on terror. The tribunal system was thrown out last month by the Supreme…

Must Read SF

Bora passes on (and supplements) a request for must read SF here are some they missed Axiomatic by Egan Stories of Your Life ad Others by Chiang Startide Rising by Brin True Names by Vinge Use of Weapons by Banks (actually anything by Banks, seriously) Antibodies by Charlie Stross Instrumentality of Mankind by Cordwainer Smith War Hound and the World's Pain and the Cornelius Chronicles by Moorcock Her Smoke Rose Up Forever by Tiptree - since 10,000 light years from home is unvailable Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen by H. Beam Piper (oo, and Space Viking!) Good Omens by Gaiman, Russian Spring by…

iPod iChing - I've got an idea...

Oops, friday again already. So, we ask the omniscient iPod - got any good ideas? Whoosh goes the randomizer. Whoosh. The Covering: The Sky The Crossing: A Rush and A Push and The Land is Ours - Smiths The Crown: Taktu Til Við að Tvista - Stuðmenn The Root: Suedehead - Morrissey The Past: Hevi Metal Maður - Stuðmenn The Future: Scenes from Childhood: An Important Event The Questioner: The Big Country - Talking Heads The House: You Woke Up My Neighbourhood - Billy Bragg The Inside: Í grænni lautu - Ása Hlín The Outcome: Vizka Einsteins - Utangarðsmenn Wise is the iPod! The Crown is "Go…

Dropping the Torch

Name a concrete, new international facility class science project that the US is going to be leading in near future. Seriously: and you can either keep it to Astronomy, or any natural science. Used to be that you could rattle off several upcoming major science projects which were US initiatives, international in scope and clearly great things to do. Heck, you could do that just in astronomy. There are still some US projects, mostly though put in place a long time ago and just now peaking. There are still major international scientific projects, but mostly without US leadership. Either…

O wad some Power the giftie gie us

"...To see oursels as ithers see us! It wad frae monie a blunder free us An foolish notion:" Yes, everyone has linked the latest, greatest XKCD: So painful, so true. Fortunately the other thing about physicists, is that we have a great sense of humour. And we need it. Steve Hsu has been doing some provocative ruminating along these lines. This of course leads to classification of physicists, there being two types: Type I is smart. Type II is hard working. Type Ib/c is smart and hard working, and therefore really sub-category of Type II while Type Ia is smart but lazy. Type IIn is hard…

Kepler: lookin' good

We hear that Kepler scientists looking at commissioning data are rather pleased... Kepler scientists after first look photometry... Here is the official word. Note "...data are of very high quality and the scientists are very pleased with the precision of the data..." This is, I gather, what we might call an understatement. There is unprocessed pipeline calibration photometry and apparently it looks very very good indeed. Should get even better with post-processing, though of course long term stability is not yet known. Kepler field They are being careful, not going to release anything…

The Last Pretty Picture

The Wide Field/Planetary Camera-2 on the Hubble Space Telescope is being decommissioned, since the servicing mission is putting all the nice new toys on the telescope. To commemorate the occasion, the Space Telescope Science Institute took one last "pretty picture" Planetary Nebulae K 4-55 click to embiggen Starts With A Bang is doing a Favourite WF/PC2 photos series, starting with the Hubble Deep Field. I need to put up a "favourite WF/PC2 images" from papers I co-authored... not as famous, but we got some pretty cool images over the years. I hope it will be a long time before I have to…

iPod iChing - wazzup

It is a rainy, autumnal friday, and many things are in mind. So, oh Mighty iPod One. What lies in store for us in the next year? Whoosh goes the randomizer. Whoosh. The Covering: Slippery People - Talking Heads The Crossing: Something About Alligators - Twin Sisters The Crown: Christmas in Heaven - Monty Python The Root: Which Side Are You On? - Billy Bragg The Past: Restless Legs - Half Man Half Biscuit The Future: Scenes From Childhood: Entreating Child The Questioner: Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen - Mozart The House: Paradise Lost (You're The Reason Why)- Half Man Half Biscuit The Inside:…

Pelosi Speaks

This would be funny, but... Congress questions VP Office claim to not be an entity within the executive branch "I question both the legality and wisdom of your actions. ... [I]t would appear particularly irresponsible to give an office with your history of security breaches an exemption from the safeguards that apply to all other executive branch officials." An elegant solution does present it self: if the VP's office is not within the executive branch, then it presumably should not receive any funding that Congress has designated for the function of the executive branch. This might leave…

Apple, Science and I in the Big Apple

There will be a strange and wonderful gathering at the Apple Soho, NYC store at 7 pm on wednesday night... It is The Jonas Brothers!!! No, wait! That was Last Month. Damn. They rock. (Or so I'm told...) But, it gets even better! This wednesday, Oct 1st, at the Apple store in Soho, New York City it is Blogging Science: What's Hot, What's Not 7:00-8:30 pm, sharp. Be there, or be at home having a quiet dinner watching Jeopardy reruns... Part of the Apple - Science thingy they are doing. We will be provocative, we promise, and we'll talk about stuff and science thingies, and probably…

iPod iChing - Biggest Black Holes

It is friday, it is raining, and I can't find my umbrella. There ain't no justice. So, we squelch over to the Mighty iPod, and ask: do black hole masses in the current universe really top out at 1010 solar masses? Whoosh goes the randomizer. Whoosh. ul> The Covering: The Passenger - Iggy Pop The Crossing: Jump in the River - Sinéad O'Connor The Crown: II Concerto No 2. (Summer) - Vivaldi The Root: Dýrðin er Þín - Bubbi Morthens The Past: Joy to the World - The Irish Tenors The Future: Ég er Vinur Þinn - The Questioner: Hm hm hm (Magic Flute) - Mozart The House: Carnival of the Animals:…

iPod iChing - annihilate this

Hot and sultry friday. We ask the iPod: will GLAST really detect cold dark matter annihilation radiation from centers of nearby galaxies? Whoosh goes the randomizer. Whoosh. The Covering: My Flying Saucer - Billy Bragg The Crossing: Revenge - Spoon The Crown: Real Wild Child - Iggy Pop The Root: When Love Comes To Town - U2 The Past: King James Version - Billy Bragg The Future: Baggy Trousers - Madness The Questioner: Firebird: Introduction The House: E Lucevan Le Stelle - Three Tenors The Inside: Iris - Goo Goo Dolls The Outcome: Hersham Boys - Sham 69 "And the Stars Were Shining..." The…

Best Science Books 2009: Boing Boing

Boing Boing has some very cool scitech suggestions in their annual gift guide for non-fiction books. If Your Kid Eats This Book, Everything Will Still Be Okay: How to Know if Your Child's Injury or Illness Is Really an Emergency by Lara Zibners The Whuffie Factor: Using the Power of Social Networks to Build Your Business by Tara Hunt The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope by William Kamkwamba, Bryan Mealer Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities by Amy Stewart How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer The Math Book: From…

linkedy links viii

yes, more swine flu link save the frog day reprap and other random bits Ok, first the Swine Flu (there's some actual astro and other stuff below): Revere: Pandemics - seen one... Revere Channels Jon for the best news summaries Revere: CFR, virulence and all that Revere: afternoon briefing Revere: what did you expect? Aetiology: 'flu update Chandar blog: 4-way Cluster Collision Chandra: Talk To The Hand 100th Carnival of Space - I keep forgetting those... First Annual Save The Frogs Day! er, we saved one from the pool yesterday... does that offset the two frogs and three tadpoles the kids…

KITP: those who came before

I now know who to blame for this science blogging thing I was a little bit bemused when I arrived at KITP and was told, by the way, that the program needed an official blogger, and that I, for my sins and in recompense, was it. It is all Jennifer's fault, she thinks it is all parties and cocktails over there at twisted physics, but then someone else ends up doing the work... though I must say the wine the other night was rather excellent... anyway, go read her rationale and general guide to physics blogging, combined with podcast and video - you might even start your own blog actually, the…

KITP: fresh blood

New week, and a new set of topics for us to contemplate. This week we hear from the grad students, who will tell us what it is they have actually been doing all this time, scientifically... Tom is here! For a flying visit. We may go post-Newtonian, and we may meander back through stellar evolution for a bit. So - where, cosmologically, and when, do globulars form? Is the mass-metallicity relation for galaxies a clue? Should we look to dwarf galaxies with masses less than 1010 solar masses as cites for most or all of globular formation? How long can we delay globular formation? How dense…

iPod iChing - what now?

Indian summer and a friday. May snow this weekend... So, that was exciting. Oh, Mighty iPod - what now? Whoosh goes the randomizer. Whoosh. The Covering: Light My Fire - Doors The Crossing: Money - Pink Floyd The Crown: Good Vibrations - Beach Boys The Root: Dream River - Mavericks The Past: Pump It Up - Elvis Costello The Future: Maria - Green Day The Questioner: T.V. Party - Black Flag The House: End of the World - Cure The Inside: Ce qu'a vu le vent d'ouest The Outcome: Lilli Hittir Mikka Ref - Thorbjorn Egner Hm. The Outcome is the Little Mouse meets the Tricky Fox. Much shenanigans…

Interlibrary Loan and eBooks: Helping you survive the summer!

A nice post from computer scientist Amy Csizmar Dalal on Five things that helped me survive summer: 5. Interlibrary loan and ebooks (tie). I am almost certain that I have checked more out of the library through interlibrary loan this summer than I have in my previous 7 years at Carleton combined. And this summer, I bought my first ebooks (because I was too impatient to wait for the paper versions to ship, but still). Recently I've expanded my view of which subfields relate to my research, and by expanding my view, I've discovered a whole new set of literature that will help push my research…

Clearly, no one watches Fox News for intelligent commentary

Fox News really needs to fire this idiot. Look at this clip where Brian Kilmeade is, for some unknown reason, trying to dismiss a study that found that married people were at a lower risk for Alzheimer's disease. I have no knowledge of the study, but his reasons for dismissing its applicability to Americans are bizarre. BRIAN KILMEADE: We keep marrying other species and other ethnics-- GRETCHEN CARLSON: Are you sure they are not suffering from some of the causes of dementia right now? BRIAN KILMEADE: The problem is the Swedes have pure genes. They marry other Swedes, that's the rule.…

Mystery Bird: Greater Scaup, Aythya marila

tags: Greater Scaup, Aythya marila, birds, nature, Image of the Day [Mystery bird] Greater Scaup, Aythya marila, photographed in Oakland, California. [I will identify this bird for you tomorrow] Image: Joseph Kennedy, 22 December 2007 [larger view]. Nikon D200, Kowa 883 telescope TSN-PZ camera eyepiece 1/350s f/8.0 at 1000.0mm iso400. Rick Wright, Managing Director of WINGS Birding Tours Worldwide, writes: Push me into a corner and I guess I'd call this a Greater Scaup. The bill is very broad, and the black, though it doesn't reach the edge of the bill, does "bleed" outwards from the…

Down the Stream the Swans All Glide

tags: Down the Stream the Swans All Glide, Spike Milligan, poetry, National Poetry Month April is National Poetry Month, and I plan to post one poem per day, every day this month (If you have a favorite poem that you'd like me to share, feel free to email it to me). Today's poem was suggested by a reader and friend who writes that "I've attached a poem by Spike Milligan. It should break up the more serious ones (honestly, who decided that the cruelest month should be dedicated to poetry?). It's scanned from Silly Verses for Kids -- his drawings are half the fun." [larger view] Down the…

A Sunny NYC Welcome

tags: photography, Lincoln Center, NYC, NYCLife Looking south towards Lincoln Center from West 66th street. Image: GrrlScientist 2008. [wallpaper size]. Yesterday, I had plenty of errands to keep me busy because the birds were out of food and I had a mountain of mail to send and an even bigger mountain of mail to retrieve. So I took my camera and got a few pictures while I took care of business. I thought this picture was especially nice. Incidentally, I was unable to get out today because the building super and his assistant were fixing the holes in my trashed bathroom. I am excited…

The Sex of My Hawk-headed Parrot Is ..

tags: Deroptyus accipitrinus, hawk-headed parrot, red-fan parrot, pets, birds, avian, parrots Adult red fan (hawk-headed) parrot, Deroptyus a. accipitrinus. (Adults of both sexes are distinguished from juveniles by the creamy white spot on the forehead and the orange ring around the pupil of the eye. The skin around the eye darkens in adults if the birds are exposed to sunlight). Image: Dale R. Thompson. As you probably remember, about six weeks ago, a reader got me a young, newly-weaned hawk-headed parrot, Deroptyus a. accipitrinus, for a pet. I preferred not to name this bird until…

The World's Smallest Seahorse

tags: Satomi's pygmy seahorse, Indonesian wildlife, Stephen Wong, Takako Uno, image of the day Satomi's pygmy seahorse, endemic to Indonesia, is one of the world's tiniest seahorses. Two adults would fit head-to-head across the face of a penny and their offspring are each about the size of a 12-point apostrophe. Image: Stephen Wong and Takako Uno/National Geographic. At under half an inch tall (13 millimeters), Satomi's pygmy seahorse -- named after dive guide Satomi Onishi -- is a strong contender for the world's smallest seahorse. With their tails stretched out straight, two Satomi's…

God math is bad math

John Allen Paulos, in an interesting essay on the co-option of mathematics into religious apologia, makes a useful explanation. To counter the idea that the elegance of mathematics is a reflection of the divine, he suggests otherwise — it is a reflection of the natural world. The universe acts on us, we adapt to it, and the notions that we develop as a result, including the mathematical ones, are in a sense taught us by the universe. That great bugbear of creationists, evolution has selected those of our ancestors (both human and not) whose behavior and thought are consistent with the…

The wisdom of the cephalopod

That smart guy, Carl Zimmer, has written an article on those smart molluscs, the octopus. I like that his conclusion is that we can't really judge their intelligence, because it is different than our own. That's the same answer I give to questions about the existence of intelligent life in the universe. I suspect that it's there (but rarer than most astronomers seem to think — intelligence is an extremely uncommon adaptive strategy here on Earth, as is probably likewise elsewhere), but that it will be radically different in intent and action than our own, as different as we are from a squid,…

Leprechauns always looked suspiciously fey to me

How do these bigots get into high office so frequently? An Irish official in charge of the country's health care cheerfully made some outrageous accusations on the air. Homosexuality is a mental illness, at least according to the head of Northern Ireland's health committee. Iris Robinson MP, who, with impeccable timing, put forth her views on a radio show while responding to the news that a local man had been badly beaten in a homophobic attack. After apparently branding homosexuality as "disgusting, loathsome, nauseating, wicked and vile" she went on to recommend that "I have a very lovely…

I'll take anger over sleaze any day

I don't quite understand this etiquette thing. So Maryscott O'Connor is angry about war and corruption and our incompetent administration, and that's bad. Naughty leftist, she should be better mannered and respectful to our president, no matter how badly he screws up. Meanwhile, Michelle Malkin sics her mouth-breathing minions on some college-aged peace activists, and they get swamped with death threats from right wingers. And she does it twice, even after learning what kind of sewage her pals are spewing. Hmmm. Decisions, decisions. Angry denunciations of political actions vs. vicious but…

Diving For Bottles Again

The people who owned my mom's summer house in the 60s and 70s threw household waste into the sea from the main dock. And they methodically filled their empty wine bottles with water and sank them there. (If you toss an empty bottle into the sea it floats away.) The water's only about 2.5 m deep at the dock, so when we took over in '82 we could see the junk covering the sea floor clearly. Hundreds of bottles. For a few years in the mid-80s me, my brother and our friends did a lot of diving and took most of the stuff ashore. But a few empties have still been visible in favourable lighting,…

Comet Tempel 1 Re-Visited

Recently my mind has been blown twice. First by listening to the first four songs on Funkadelic's acid-drenched 1970 album Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow. Then by studying the above picture. It's comet Tempel 1. Up close in interplanetary space. And it's been visited twice by different space probes: first Deep Impact imaged the comet on its way towards the sun in 2005 and shot an impactor point blank at it. Then the Stardust probe, originally designed and launched to meet with another comet, was sent to meet Tempel 1 on its way out again from the sun. Today Stardust imaged the comet…

Five Mountain Names

Mount Everest: named after Colonel Sir George Everest (1790-1866), British Surveyor General of India. K2: an early land-surveyor's shorthand notation, used because nobody lived near enough to the mountain for it to have a local name. Himmelbjerget: "Mount Heaven", 147 meters above sea level. Denmark's highest point is in fact Møllehøj, "Windmill Barrow", at 171 m a.s.l. Kebnekaise: "Kettle Peak". Sweden's highest mountain carries this name due to a misunderstanding between local Saami and surveyors, as the mountain with the concave peak is actually nearby Tolpagorni. Mount McKinley: the…

Union Depot, Duluth

Upon hearing that I'm going to Minnesota, my excellent detectorist buddy Kenth Lärk sent me some scans of postcards from Duluth that his emigrant uncle sent home to Sweden in the early 1910s. I particularly like this image of the 1892 Union Depot, as the architecture is similar to that of the station houses along the Saltsjöbanan commuter railway that I've been riding for most of my life. It was built in the early 1890s, at a time when American architecture was en vogue in Sweden -- but in the US, the style is known as "French château". New Englanders will instantly feel at home in the…

Has Robyn Credited Trans-X for the "Cobrastyle" Melody?

The other night my wife suddenly hummed a familiar melody line. After some mental searching I identified it as a slightly modified version of French Canadian synth-poppers Trans-X's 1983 hit "Living on Video" that I haven't heard in 20 years or more. But my wife said, "No, it's this Robyn song I heard on a Letterman clip on YouTube". That turned out to be Robyn's 2006 treatment of the Teddybears' 2004 song "Cobrastyle", where she's backed by the Teddybears. The 2006 version introduces the Trans-X line which is not present in the 2004 original. Now I wonder, have Robyn and/or the Teddybears…

Swedish Autism & Vaccination Lawsuit

Yesterday the parents of a 17-y-o Malmö boy who suffers from autism lost a case in the Swedish court of appeal, Hovrätten. They had sued their insurance company for not recognising their claim for compensation. The parents blame the boy's condition on common vaccines, which would have entitled them to insurance money, while the company holds that autism is almost always congenital and never caused by vaccines. The court found the science presented by the defendant convincing and ruled in the company's favour. I'm glad that the judicial system values scientific knowledge. But I am saddened…

Congratulations, Canada!

Canadians always make such a fuss about being distinct from their southern neighbor, but you know it's all a pretense. They want to be just like the US, they admire and respect us so much. And here's the evidence: they're getting rid of the position of science advisor to their government. Just like the United States of America … who needs reality-based advising on some of the most important issues of the age? Oh, sure, the Canadian scientists are unhappy about it, but the wailing and lamentations of American scientists are everywhere, too, and who cares? And it seems Canadian Prime Minister…

Airport Runestone

I've written before about the archaeological landscape surrounding Arlanda International Airport north of Stockholm. Following on yesterday's post about the fake archaeology in Oslo airport, here's a piece of landscape that has been moved inside Arlanda's terminal 2. It's an 11th century runestone commemorating one of the men who died on Ingvar the Far-travelled's disastrous expedition to the east. The stone was found in 2000 when the road to the airport was widened, suggesting an impressive age for the road. Placing the runestone in the airport terminal ensures its protection from the rain…

Airborne Chinese Marketplace

On the flight from Amsterdam to Hangzhou Saturday, I observed some interesting behaviour on the part of my Chinese co-travellers. After the main meal, the stewardesses went around hawking tax-free goods. At this time, a bunch of people stood up and formed a large prattling group in the aisles toward the rear of the plane where myself and Junior were seated. They seemed to be discussing the merits of the wares among themselves and with the Chinese stewardess, reading labels and handing packages around for inspection. The whole thing looked like a cross between a cocktail party and an Oriental…

Hot Rectal Peat Douche

"The main strength of the book lies in the description of the numerous ways in which peat was utilised in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The author clearly proves that peat is a fascinating substance with qualities that made it suitable for a wide variety of tasks, from horse bedding, to soap and paper manufacture and as a soil improver and building material. In the UK and Germany its properties were even promoted in health spas, with treatments such as immersion in hot electrified peat and the even less enticing hot rectal peat douche." Richard Brunning reviewing Ian Rotherham…

Warming Wine

I heard that within 15 years, global warming will have made Napa County too hot to grow good wine grapes. Is that true? What other changes are we going to see during our lifetimes because of global warming?... Hmmm... well assuming 0.2-0.3 oC/decade, globally, and maybe twice that for NH continent, then 15 years gets you maybe 1 oC, on average. Is that enough to see a response from grapes? I really don't know. In the UK we're in the middle of a heatwave, which a little thundery rain doesn't seem to touch much, and its unpleasant since were not used to it. If it gets any worse, and recurrs…

Still Having Technical Difficulties

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 memory chip, got the board to power up momentarily with the third power supply, but then stop working....it's driving me nuts. In the morning I'm taking the whole thing back to Comp USA, where I bought the case, motherboard and processor, and hope that they can figure it out. Unfortunately, that's…

Harrassing Those Poor White Supremacists

Found this via Volokh. A white supremacist family that includes the singing duo Prussian Blue has moved from Bakersfield, California to Great Falls, Montana because Bakersfield wasn't "white enough" for them. When their new neighbors found out who they were, they handed out flyers around town with the message "No Hate Here" on them. The family complained to the police, saying this was harrassment. The police explained that the neighbors were just exercising their free speech, much like that family exercises theirs to preach hate. Touche. I thought the flyers were rather well devised: "This…

Iowa Flag Desecration Case

A case in Iowa where a man is accused of desecrating an American flag has been allowed to go forward by the trial judge: Scott Wayne Roe, 40, of Ottumwa is accused of desecrating the United States flag June 4 when he displayed the flag upside down at his residence and wrote "Corruption of Blood," a phrase from the U.S. Constitution, on the flag. In his complaint filed with magistrate court, Ottumwa Police Officer Mark Milligan said Roe "did admit to displaying for exhibition and had present in the front yard of his residence for public viewing, an American flag flown upside down." Roe's…

ADF Sues New York Over Pension Benefits for Gays

The ADF has filed suit in state court in New York over the state's public employee pension fund recognizing gay marriages performed elsewhere. In 2004, NY Attorney General Elliot Spitzer issued a legal opinion stating that the New York is obligated to recognize same-sex marriages performed in areas where same-sex marriages are legal. New York State Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi followed that with a directive that the New York State Retirement System would respect legal out-of-state marriages between same-sex couples for the purposes of pension benefits. The ADF is arguing that since the state…

What happens in NY should stay in NY

You may be wondering what I'm doing in New York. I'm not going to tell you, except that I will mention a dreaded phrase: late-night inebriated karaoke. Not me, sweet jebus, but there I was, overwhelmed with culture shock, in a karaoke bar, something I have never experienced before. Let me tell you, Dave can dance if he wants to, Janet does a pretty fair Liz Phair, Rich is an enthusiastic whoever-that-was, Chris truly is angry drunk Dylan, and Bora is hereafter known as monotone Elvis, but Razib stole the show with a flawless, pitch perfect impersonation of a goat on psilocybin being anally…

Madonna Watched in Germany

Yet another example of our European allies just not understanding freedom of speech. Prosecutors in Germany have announced that they'll be watching Madonna's concerts there to make sure she doesn't violate the law against insulting religious beliefs. There's a point in her concert, apparently, where she puts on a crown of thorns and sings a song from a mirrored cross. The Roman Catholic Church has condemned the performance, which is fine - you don't like it, you have a right to say so. But no government has the legitimate authority to tell her she can't do it just because some people find it…

Sandefur Replies to DaveScot

Sandefur took a short break from his travels to briefly reply to DaveScot's terminal cluelessness in a post titled "Why DaveScot Should Stop Playing Lawyer". I'll just quote the first paragraph: DaveScot is an especially belligerent idiot who was happily adopted as a co-blogger by the credibility-free Intelligent Design proponent William Dembski. Normally, I ignore idiots. But DaveScot has lately dragged my name into a dispute with Ed Brayton--a dispute Brayton was happily and handily winning, as usual--and I thought perhaps I should explain just why DaveScot should stop talking about things…