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New Physics Contest

Slow blogging this weekend, as yesterday was taken up with activities that will be blogged about later. Today promises to be a sticky and unpleasant day outside, so I'll probably end up doing a lot of blogging in my nice, comfortable, air-conditioned home office. Of course, there's not much point in posting lots of stuff on a Sunday, so I'll probably just schedule posts for later in the week. But, you know, that's something to look forward to. Or something. If you'd like a way to pass the time, Scott Aaronson has announced a Best Anthropicism Contest, to see who can come up with the best…

The Perverse Incentives of Tenure

From America's Finest News Source: Professor Pressured To Sleep With Student For Good Course Evaluation FAYETTEVILLE, AR--Alan Gilchrist, an associate professor of English literature at the University of Arkansas infamous for his tough grading standards and dry lecturing style, was coerced into sleeping with an undergraduate on Monday in order to earn a good course evaluation. "My tenure's on the line here, so I allowed a student to take advantage of me," said an emotional Gilchrist of the experience, which he hopes will earn him at least six "very much enjoyed" responses on the eight-item…

Poke, Poke, Poke

Last week's attempt to shame people into donating to the DonorsChoose fundraiser produced a flurry of donations that brought us up to a respectable $896.02 and third place on the leader board. Which is pretty cool-- thanks to all who have donated. The official challenge runs through July 1 (that is, Saturday), and it'd be cool to take that total over $1000, if possible. I'm not really going to ramp up the annoying pledge-drive stuff as we approach the deadline, but if you haven't given anything yet, please do consider contributing. There are a large number of proposals left open, seeking…

Diversity in Science

Inside Higher Ed has an article today on a study of career tracks that found markedly different results for different ethnic groups. This ought to be interesting data for the endless debates about diersity in science hiring, especially this tidbit: Asian doctorates - 51 percent of them - are far and away the most likely to be employed in industry. White doctorates are the next closest at 29 percent, and blacks are the lowest at 19 percent. Honestly, though, I don't have the foggiest idea what it means. That's a really big gap, though, and I'm sure somebody will come up with a theory of why…

Switching Into Research Mode: Priceless

By the numbers: Exams graded: 16 Mean exam grade: 64% Mean final grade for Physics 121: B- Papers assigned: 17 Papers received and graded: 16 Mean final grade for Physics 311: B+ Students receiving grades of Incomplete: 1 Large bottles of Scottish ale drunk while watching "Dr. Who": 1 And another academic year is in the books, but for a few odds and ends (one seriously ill student who needs to get me a final paper, receiving my course comment sheets for the term). This is the last term that will count toward my tenure review on the teaching side, so I'm vaguely apprehensive about the course…

Occupy Wall Street?

I was going to write something about "occupy wall street" - I even found their statement, and was going to analyse it. But really all I was going to do was snark. So instead I'll point you at Anarchists for good government which has the benefit of being by someone who was there. I agree with it all. Principally, with the assertion that although people think something is wrong, no-one has any idea how to put it right. And secondly, with the observation that this helps unify the protests (and the implication that the protests would fragment if there was an idea of what to do). Updates: well,…

Sea ice: and the winner is... no-one!

Hurrah. That saves lots of effort paying :-). Not long ago it was looking bad for the good guys (i.e., me) with a "douple dip" recession of sea ice. But a strong perforcance from the boys up north in the mushy white stuff stakes saw a sharp rebound at the end of the month, leading to a monthly average for september of 4.90 (thanks for C for vigilance). As a reminder, recent years have been: 2000 9 Goddard N 6.32 4.31 2001 9 Goddard N 6.75 4.55 2002 9 Goddard N 5.96 3.98 2003 9 Goddard N 6.15 4.01 2004 9 Goddard N 6.05…

Congratulations to First and Third

A glorious days bumping action on the Cam, rounded off with a confident row-over by First and Third. Here they are looking happy afterwards, as well they might. The jollity here is in marked contrast to the totally zoned-in look all the top boats had during the race, where everyone was staring past the end of the world. There is a bit of crew commentary here. And also congratulations to Pembroke who had a similarly untroubled time as head of the Women's divisions, though not by quite the margin FAT had. But I don't have a pic of them, so here is LMBC (5) just about to bump Caius (6). Full…

Time considered as a helix of semi precious stones

From William Leeman but found via SkepChick, in turn found via The Penguin. (If you've never read Time considered as a helix of semi precious stones you should; though it isn't quite as good as its title). While I'm here, do you fancy some of that John "wacko" Donne? BATTER my heart, three person'd God; for, you As yet but knocke, breathe, shine, and seeke to mend; That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow mee,'and bend Your force, to breake, blowe, burn and make me new. I, like an usurpt towne, to'another due, Labour to'admit you, but Oh, to no end, Reason your viceroy in mee, mee…

Best posts of 2009

Paul puts up his best posts of 2009 and that seems like a good idea. He did 8, so I think I should try for 9. I'll write it tomorrow; you've got till then to do it for me :-) No-one did my work for me. And I decided to do a rough pick month-by-month instead. * Jan Hegel does maths * Feb "Will" I be able to think of a witty title for this post? (it was a thin month; runner-up) * Mar Too hot to handle! * Apr Wandering across the Arctic * May Meinshausen et al. * Jun Mays (runners up) * Jul Communicating Science * Aug Midsummer madness (well, it was August. And I didn't win the bet) * Sep…

Summer time

Summer is the time when middle-aged parents scrabble around trying to patch together work and school holidays. We've been to Wales and the Lakes. I could make some not-very-interesting comments about rain; but apart from saving us the trouble of camping one night it hasn't been a bother. Rowing-wise, summer is the interval between the Bumps and Ely (or even Boston), usually filled with nothing but this year the club seems to be unusually active, which is good, though being back to the K8 is a step down after the menacing Black Prince. Mind you the varnish is excellent - I keep wanting to…

Ecologists don't understand physics

I hate blogs that force you to jump through hoops to post comments, especially when those hoops don't work. So I could mail Gareth to complain about my inability to comment on "The inner mounting flame" but I'm too impatient, so instead I'll just post my minor snark here: It sez: "This is a global event now, and the inertia for more permafrost melt is increasing." Not good news. I agree. It isn't good news. It means that ecologists (or, to be slightly fairer, one particular ecologist) doesn't understand the difference between inertia and momentum. Meanwhile, Gareth asks So why are we…

'Apocalyptic climate predictions' mislead the public, say experts

I was going to rant about Lord "I know what you should hear" Ahmed but that's just the religious suppressing freedom of speech, which is hardly news. But then along comes a much more interesting rant, from Vicky Pope, about the good old Arctic sea ice. 'Apocalyptic climate predictions' mislead the public, say experts. Met Office scientists fear distorted climate change claims could undermine efforts to tackle carbon emissions. With which I agree. Recent headlines have proclaimed that Arctic summer sea ice has decreased so much in the past few years that it has reached a tipping point and will…

Methane Data

AL (and V1S, sorry!) pointed me to http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/, which lead me to http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/iadv/, from which I selected Barrow, as being in the Arctic, and CH4, as being methane, and 2000-2008, as being a small enough interval that you can see whats going on, and I got: So there you have it: methane isn't shooting up precipitously. Its a bit higher this year than last. OK, I know, those are preliminary data. But I think thats enough to rule out any major changes. Its worth pointing out (JA has said this, but I forget where) that methane is an awful long way…

"Melting on top of the World" by Stefan Rahmstorf

POTSDAM – In 1845, Captain Sir John Franklin of the British Royal Navy led 128 men on two iron-plated steam ships, Erebus and Terror, into the Arctic, where they eventually disappeared. The voyage was the culmination of four centuries of failed attempts to navigate the Northwest Passage – a direct route from Europe to Asia across the Arctic Ocean – and remains one of the greatest tragedies in the history of polar exploration. Today, a far greater Arctic tragedy is unfolding: the Arctic sea-ice cap is melting. Last month, an unprecedented new low was reached after decades of decline. Indeed,…

What a terrible title

Some local godless heathens got mentioned in the Mankato Free Press, in an article titled "Becoming atheist akin to finding religion". It highlights August Berkshire of Minnesota Atheists and an attorney, Jim Manahan, who say pretty much the exact opposite of what the title suggests. The article itself is good and explains a little bit about how one comes to abandon religion, but I suspect the title is an example of an editor doing some editorializing. Here's some useful local information from the Minnesota Atheists, too: A brief history of disbelief is being broadcast next week in the Twin…

Blogging to Hit Peak Next Year

From the BBC: The blogging phenomenon is set to peak in 2007, according to technology predictions by analysts Gartner. The analysts said that during the middle of next year the number of blogs will level out at about 100 million. The firm has said that 200 million people have already stopped writing their blogs. Gartner has made 10 predictions, including stating that Vista will be the last major release of Windows and PCs will halve in cost by 2010. Gartner analyst Daryl Plummer said the reason for the levelling off in blogging was due to the fact that most people who would ever start a web…

174/366: Crushing

As I've mentioned a few times, SteelyKid is part of an Odyssey of the Mind team through her school, working on a problem to build a structure from balsa wood and glue that will hold as much weight as possible. They've been hard at work the last several weeks, and completed a test structure last night, shown here just prior to testing: SteelyKid's OM team's balsa wood structure, ready for testing. This ended up supporting about 53 pounds before it collapsed, which means it could've held up at least one of the team members. Not too shabby. The kids were very fired up for the crushing process…

140/366: Dog and Volcano

When I arrived to pick SteelyKid up the other night, she and her friends were light-saber fighting with long balloons, which is fairly typical of that bunch. While I gathered her stuff up, though, she stopped and twisted her balloon into an animal shape: SteelyKid's balloon dog, and The Pip's clay volcano. She got a "How to Make Balloon Animals" kit a few years ago, but she doesn't often do anything with it. So I was pretty impressed that she did this completely from memory. (Of course, I'm easily impressed when it comes to my own kids doing stuff...) The balloon dog (we'll call it a dog…

076/366: Air Traffic

It was a cool clear morning when I took Emmy out for our morning walk, with a band of high clouds running eat-west across the sky to our north. After watching a bit, I realized that these were probably entirely seeded by jet contrails, as I saw at least four planes flying along that band during the walk. This shot catches one of them (the big band crosses the frame diagonally at lower right), plus a second running parallel to it but a bit farther south, and a third crossing them: Contrails crossing in the northern sky. I'm guessing this must be a route from Boston to points west, possibly…

012/366: Rocket Dude!

SteelyKid spent a good chunk of the afternoon playing at a friend's house, so most of the photographic activity of the day involved The Pip energetically playing with various toys. This included a good while spent in the back yard with a Stomp Rocket: The Pip attempts to send a Stomp Rocket into orbit. In this shot, he's leaped with great force onto the rubber bulb of the launcher, sending the rocket up over his head. Kate is playing the Mission Control role. This is cropped from a wider shot, part of a series of rapid-shutter images of the launch, zoomed out to get the whole flight. I…

In Praise of AMO Physics

I'm at DAMOP this week, though it took longer to get here than it should've-- severe storms yesterday canceled the flight I was supposed to take from Baltimore to Columbus, so I had to rebook to the 6am departure this morning, whee. I think this is the first time I've ever had a flight canceled while I was at the airport, though which is kind of amazing. Anyway, I missed most of the morning session, and I'm short on sleep, but I saw some cool talks already, and expect to write about some of them tomorrow. For the moment, though, here's a post I wrote for Forbes yesterday talking about why…

Holiday Card

Once again, it's Christmas for those who celebrate it, and a really boring Thursday on the Internet for those who don't. In keeping with tradition, we've taken the kids to Grandma and Grandpa's house in Scenic Whitney Point, NY for a few days. This will coincide with a big drop-off in social media use on my part, for a number of reasons; I've got one more post scheduled for the day after tomorrow, and that's probably it for 2014 blogging. I'll be ringing in the New Year in Charleston, SC at the Renaissance Weekend event there, and while that promises to be a good deal of fun, they've got very…

Weekend Diversion: Imagine a hero (Synopsis)

“Hard times don’t create heroes. It is during the hard times when the ‘hero’ within us is revealed.” -Bob Riley But we all have our heroes, for a myriad of reasons. Perhaps it will serve you to think of them as you listen to Dropkick Murphys singing about the Heroes From Our Past. But heroes exist as much in our minds as they do in real life, and so I'm pleased to share with you the amazing imaginings of Alex Tuis! Image credit: Alex Tuis, via http://a.tuis.free.fr/SuperHero.html, of Rutger Hauer as Thor. By combining a number of Hollywood legends (and rising stars) with a selection of…

Getting the Best Letter of Recommendation (Synopsis)

“It’s a brilliant surface in that sunlight. The horizon seems quite close to you because the curvature is so much more pronounced than here on earth. It’s an interesting place to be. I recommend it.” -Neil Armstrong Whether it's a job, a college/University, a scholarship or a competitive program, we've all had occasions where we've had to go through the application process in one form or another. And in almost all cases, that means we've needed to get recommendations from others. Image credit: Linkedsoul of deviantART, via http://linkedsoul.deviantart.com/art/All-i-need-is-someone-to-say-i-…

The Disappearing Universe (Synopsis)

“I realise now that I wanted to disappear. To get so lost that nobody ever found me. To go so far away that I’d never be able to make my way home again. But I have no idea why.” -Jessica Warman When you think about the galaxies up there in the night sky, only visible with the most powerful telescopes in the world, it also behooves us to think about how incredibly rapidly they're moving. Image credit: Tony Hallas of Astrophoto.com, via http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap070719.html. As the Universe expands, the space between us and them expands as well, causing an incredibly fast apparent…

Throwback Thursday: The 95th Anniversary of Relativity’s Confirmation (Synopsis)

“Oh leave the Wise our measures to collate. One thing at least is certain, light has weight. One thing is certain and the rest debate. Light rays, when near the Sun, do not go straight.” -Arthur Eddington It might seem like General Relativity has been around forever, but it's been less than a century since it was released and confirmed. In fact, today marks the 95th anniversary of the solar eclipse that changed our view of the Universe! Actual negative and positive photographic plates from the 1919 Eddington Expedition, via http://www.sciencebuzz.org/buzz-tags/eddington-expedition. The…

The Temperature of Dark Matter (Synopsis)

“Science casts a long black shadow back over who we think we are, and where it falls the temperature falls with it. Its touch is chilly and unforgiving.” -Richard K. Morgan Here on Earth, when we're dealing with normal matter, it's relatively easy to measure the temperature of something. Even if you don't have a thermometer handy, if you can do something like measure the speed/kinetic motion of the particles in there, you can easily figure out what the temperature of a system is. Image credit: screenshot from Schooltube, of a video by mrcoia (Teacher),L A Webber High School. But things are…

Messier Monday: The Galaxy at the Head-of-the-Chain, M84 (Synopsis)

“Man must rise above the Earth, to the top of the atmosphere and beyond, for only thus will he fully understand the world in which he lives.” -Socrates It's hard to believe that it's been nearly two years since we started our Messier Monday series, and so with only 110 objects to go through, we're actually starting to run out of objects! The most numerous type of object in the Messier Catalogue are the galaxies, but only a handful of those remain. Image credit: The Messier Objects by Alistair Symon, from 2005-2009, via http://www.woodlandsobservatory.com/messier_map.htm. Still, the richest…

Messier Monday: An Elliptical Rotating Wrongly, M59 (Synopsis)

“Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life’s realities.” -Dr. Seuss With 110 objects in the Messier catalogue, and 40 galaxies (more than any other class of object), you might take a "if you've seen one, you've seen them all" attitude. But if you did, you'd be missing out on some truly amazing facts and phenomena happening right here in our own backyard! Image credit: courtesy of Sloan Digital Sky Survey/WIKISKY, via http://www2011.mpe.mpg.de/highlights.html.…

Happy Earth Day from the Universe (Synopsis)

“It took less than an hour to make the atoms, a few hundred million years to make the stars and planets, but five billion years to make man!” -George Gamow Whenever Earth Day comes around, I see a lot of different reactions from people. Some express their passion for the environment, others express disdain for the whole concept as a distraction. Some step up to act as responsible stewards of the world, while others fear nuclear accidents, asteroid strikes or climate change. Image credit: NASA / Voyager 1. This (cropped) 1977 image is the first photo of the complete Earth and Moon in a single…

Throwback Thursday: The Lives and Deaths of Sun-Like Stars (Synopsis)

“Man alone is born crying, lives complaining, and dies disappointed.” -Samuel Johnson You might look up at our Sun in the sky, delighted at its brilliance and life-giving brightness, thankful for all it's brought to our world. But we're all just a little bit dismayed at the crushing realization that it won't live forever, and will someday burn through its fuel and die. Image credit: NASA and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA); Acknowledgment: W. Sparks (STScI) and R. Sahai (JPL). But the Sun is a very common type of star, and shares certain properties with the vast majority of them. In…

First they came for the pirates…

Morgan Smith is six years old and is going to have a birthday party with a pirate theme. His parents hoisted a Jolly Roger up the flagpole, and…boom, some officious titzypritzel goes bustling off to the city council to complain. Down goes the flag. Now there is what a deranged bureaucrat might call a "happy ending": A Stafford Borough Council spokesman said: "A planning application has been made for a Jolly Roger flag to be flown at a property in Stone. "The application is currently under review and will include planning officers looking at the impact the flag has on the area, with the…

BNSF Oil Train Derailment: 10 cars burning

It is reported that ten cars exploded or burned when a BNSF oil train derailed near a small town in North Dakota. Look at the picture above. Huxley's day care is very close to these tracks, close enough that the day care home would be totally within that zone of buring fiery debris. There are reports here and here. From the Star Tribune: Oil train derails, catches fire in central North Dakota, prompting evacuation of small town An oil train derailed and caught fire early Wednesday in a rural area of central North Dakota, prompting the evacuation of a nearby town where about three dozen…

Militant atheists are a cliché

Jeffrey Shallit explains why. It is rather peculiar, when you get right down to it: isn't it remarkable how just criticizing religion gets people flustered and cowering in a corner? Now look at this otherwise unnoteworthy article by Associate Press religion reporter Rachel Zoll, about the reaction to recent books by atheists Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens. Notice anything, well, trite about the title? Yes, it's the "militant atheist" platitude. Atheists must never be described as intelligent, thoughtful, friendly, questioning, or thought-provoking. Instead, they must be…

Students and schools behaving badly

This is an ugly story, and it's ugly on both sides. First, rude students make a nasty, mocking video of one of their teachers and post it to YouTube, which is bad enough; these are kids who definitely need some discipline. But then the school district suspends the students for 40 days in punishment. Forty days is almost a quarter of the school year. They deserved a harsh response, but kicking them out of school just deprives them of the education they need, and they're probably going to regard it as a vacation. I must confess, though, that what first caught my eye about the story is that it's…

Introduced Into The House: H.R.861 - To terminate the Environmental Protection Agency.

Representative Mat Gaetz (Republican, Florida) introduced HR 861, "To terminate the Environmental Protection Agency" which is said to defund and remove from existence the Environmental Protection Agency. Details are unclear, but the idea is to have states and local communities regulate their environmental pollution. The EPA centralizes research programs, policy guidance, and regulatory procedures. To ask each community to do this amounts to a huge tax increase, because the same effort would have to be repeated many times across the country. The reason we have a national EPA is because…

Tropical Storm Nicole

The 14th named storm has just appeared in the Atlantic. The average number of named storms in the Atlantic, based on a fairly long climatology, is about 10.1. An average of 5.9 become hurricanes. So, this year are more than average named storms. But is it more than predicted? On average, the expert forecasts suggested anywhere from 12 to 18 named storms. We are well past the midpoint of the 2016 season, and are just about to reach the midpoint of these forecasted ranged, and there is still plenty of time left for a few more storms. The largest number predicted, as the upper end of the…

Phyllis Schlafly Is Dead

You may have heard the name, you may have an idea of who she was. This recent item on the Rachel Maddow show (long, but worth every second) puts her in context. Watch it: Schlafly was one of the key architects of the modern right wing movement. She is one of the worst people in the world, at least in the context of American society and politics. She pretty much single handedly a) defeated the Equal Rights Amendment and b) managed the propaganda campaign that makes a lot of otherwise not-too-stupid people think, even today that the ERA is a bad idea. She was a white supremacist who urged…

Ft McMurray Fire and Climate Change: Michael Mann Comments

This is a segment of The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann, in which climate scientist Professor Michael Mann provides important perspective on the link between climate change and other disasters such as tornadoes. (See also: The Meaning of the Fort McMurray Fire). Michael Mann is the author of The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines, and Dire Predictions, 2nd Edition: Understanding Climate Change (a visually rich summary of the most recent IPCC report) as well as the forthcoming book combining climate science and political cartooning, The Madhouse Effect: How…

You can have him

Hey, theistic evolutionists, you have a new pal and representative: Dinesh D'Souza. Doesn't that just make you want to reevaluate your philosophical foundations? Don't worry too much about it. D'Souza is a spectacular twit of a theistic evolutionist. He reveals his endorsement of evolution because he likes Sam Brownback (Strike 1!). He's not at all informed about the debate because he thinks there are only two possibilities — you either accept evolution, or you're a Young Earth Creationist (Strike 2!). And he endorses a particularly shallow form of NOMA—"Evolution provides a convincing…

I was in a movie!

Barney: Next they're gonna show my movie. Bart: You made a movie ? Barney: I made a movie? I wonder why there was a picture of me on the cover of Entertainment Weekly. Earlier this year, a documentary film challenge was issued internationally. The goal was to make a movie about one of this year's two themes: hope or fear. A group of Oregon filmmakers, The Cingulate System, called me up at work and asked if they could interview me for their film about Dark Matter. The challenge was to make a documentary, from scratch, in under a week. The film premiered April 8th right here in Portland…

Afraid of the Dark?

So I gave a public lecture last (Monday) night called, "Afraid of the Dark: How We Know What We Can't See" and videotaped it. Now, I'm pretty good at what I'm doing right now (research in theoretical cosmology), but I'm really good at public speaking and teaching, and here is me telling a public audience all about dark matter, how we know it exists, what makes it different from normal matter, and what I'm trying to do to find it/discover its nature for a good 40 minutes. (The intro and question/answers are cut out). It was a lot of fun; the audience was wonderful, and actually kept me for…

Fantastic Mathematics Wall Calendar For 2018

I love the The Mathematics Calendar 2018. Math Calendar sample days It has an equation or other statement about math for every day, often linked to that day (like, the January 13th entry is "the sixth prime number"). Some entries are little mat quizzes for you to fugue out. Some are funny jokes, like the entry for Thanksgiving (any guesses as to what that might be? Hint: It is a formula.) The level of difficulty of understanding the reference or solving the problem ranges from suitable for a smart 7 year old (Huxley has figured some out) up through college level. Also, the picture that…

Please. Tell me more about your faith. It intrigues me.

Stephen Jossler has made a dazzling breakthrough in reconciling science and religion. He believes evolution occurred by natural mechanisms during the whole of the history of the earth (science!), except during the Triassic period, when a creator god intervened to create the diversity of life during that 40-50 million year interval. Before: genetics. During: God. After: genetics again. It sounds crazy, but then… Everything about the Triassic period points to divine involvement. Let me ask you this: Could some kind of random genetic chance make the population of shelled cephalopods grow…

American superiority…RESTORED!

Earlier, I was mildly perturbed that Canada was leading my country in the cheesy science "museum" race; this is, of course, a race to the bottom. Scott Hatfield has come to my rescue, though, and sent in some photos of Carl Baugh's double-wide "Creation Evidence Museum" which is surely one of the tackiest examples of creationist silliness in the country—although, when you get right down to it, Ham's opulent exhibit is just this same thing with buckets of money thrown at it. You also might be able to find a picture of Scott in here if you've been wondering what he looks like. Hint: he's not…

More on "Theistic Rationalism" and the Founders

Jon Rowe has another post up about the Founding Fathers and theistic rationalism, a subject on which he and I have both written a good deal. It includes a long quote from Gregg Frazer, a historian who did his dissertation on that subject and is the man who invented the term as a description of the views of 8 leading framers of the Declaration and the Constitution (Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, Adams, Washington, Hamilton, Morris and Wilson). It is interesting to note that Frazer himself is a theologically conservative Christian, so much so that he believes in a literal 6 day creation. All…

UC Lawsuit Documents

Allow me to express my enormous gratitude to Christopher Patti, legal counsel for the University of California. Not only did he see my blog post about the Caldwell suit and immediately email me the judge's ruling in that case, he was also kind enough to send me two filings on the ACSI's discrimination lawsuit against the UC that I've been dying to get my hands on. The ACSI, you may recall, has filed a suit because the UC refused to grant credit for a few courses taught at some Christian schools. In particular, they refused to recognize the validity of a high school science class that used a…

Friday Night Report

Back at my brother's house for the evening after the first few hours of the conference. Rob Pennock and I met at the exhibit hall and got our booth set up with our banners and posters and a very nice set of hominid skull casts. We have chimpanzee skull, A. africanus, H. habilis, H. erectus, H. neanderthalensis and H. sapiens. As expected, they drew some attention, including several people who wanted to take pictures of them. The exhibit hall was only open for 2 hours tonight and tomorrow morning the real conference starts, so it will be much busier then. After about an hour, Rob went around…

Holocaust Denier Jailed

David Irving, the famous holocaust denier from the UK, has been sentenced to 3 years in prison in Austria. It is illegal to deny the holocaust in that nation. I agree entirely with this: A few Austrians, such as Lothar Hobelt, an associate professor of history at the University of Vienna, believe it should never have been set up at all. "This is a silly law by silly people for silly people," he said. "In fact, having a law that says you mustn't question a particular historical instance, if anything, creates doubt about it, because if an argument has to be protected by the force of law, it…