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Projection / Prediction

I'm now hopelessly confused about the distinction between climate projection and prediction. I used to be happy with what I thought was the case: that given the range in model results, and no good way of knowing the best, calling them predictions seemed too precise; so use a weaker word like projection instead. But. The IPCC glossary says "A climate prediction or climate forecast is the result of an attempt to produce a most likely description or estimate of the actual evolution of the climate in the future, e.g. at seasonal, interannual or long-term time scales" That isn't a very good…

Alarmist global warming claims melt under scientific scrutiny?

So says the Chicago Sun-Times. Oh dear. But what are these claims? For example, Gore claims that Himalayan glaciers are shrinking and global warming is to blame. Does he? I suppose he might, though I don't remember it myself. Whats the rebuttal? Yet the September 2006 issue of the American Meteorological Society's Journal of Climate reported, "Glaciers are growing in the Himalayan Mountains, confounding global warming alarmists who recently claimed the glaciers were shrinking and that global warming was to blame." Curious language for J Climate, no? Makes one suspicious. No ref, of course.…

Medal For Planting Spruce On Barrows

The top official in charge of protecting and making accessible the archaeological record in Sweden is titled Riksantikvarie, "Antiquarian of the Realm". In English, this title is usually translated as "Custodian of Ancient Monuments". How should a person act in practice as custodian of ancient monuments? Everybody understands that you need to keep people from damaging sites & monuments through digging, ploughing, dynamiting, covering, and graffiti. But you can't just declare a site out-of-bounds and leave it to its own devices: pretty soon it will become so overgrown that it is…

Three Days Digging in a Cave

Few Swedish caves contain any known archaeology, and those that do mainly feature Mesolithic and Neolithic habitation layers. The Pukberget ("Devil's Mountain") cave near Enköping is a rare exception. In the mid-20th century a fox hunter crawled into the cave and felt his way around. His questing hands encountered something on a ledge which he put in his coat pocket. When he came out into the open air, he saw that he'd found a bronze spearhead and a horse tooth. Both are now in the Museum of National Antiquities. The spearhead dates from the Late Bronze Age, about 700 BC. I've spent the…

More boring

Following my previous post there has been discussion in the comments on "which graph to believe". Sadly this becomes ideological, for some. I think the major point is that the HPS '97 graph (the one here) just isn't used anymore by anyone, except the septics who want to see a MWP. The graph has never been explicitly disowned, but the authors of it have published plenty more since then, all only going back 500 years (and AFAIK no-one else before or since has tried to use boreholes back that far), and showing a different timing of the cold bit. Naturally, if you're paranoid, this is because…

Yet more sports commentary

Roger Pielke Jr has another post promoting the whole Hockey Stick schtick. My "sceptic guide" entry on that is still here, and I don't have much more to say about it still to this day. But as for the meta discussion... I think it is self-serving and a real disservice to humanity for Roger to still be fanning the flames on this issue, but it certainly seems he has found the audience and following he must have been seeking if one is to judge be the plethora of "me too" comments he has received. I don't have much more to observe than that, but Michael Tobis has a more lengthy and well thought…

Efficient hydrogen production?

Hydrogen powered cars have such an immediate and naive appeal. I mean just imagine nothing but water vapour coming out of your exhaust pipe! What could possibly be wrong with that? Well as with most deus ex machina solutions to our oil dependence, this one has some rather glaring and inconvenient difficulties, in a very similar way to biofuels. Specifically, the problem with hydrogen powered vehicles is not with the burning of the fuel, but its production. Because there is no earthly source of ready to go hydrogen, this product is actually better thought of as energy storage, rather than…

Sea Level in the Arctic is Falling

This is just one of dozens of responses to common climate change denial arguments, which can all be found at How to Talk to a Climate Sceptic. Objection: According to the latest state of the art satellite measurements from over the Arctic, sea levels are falling! Guess all that ice isn't melting after all. Answer: Yes, a new study using Europe's Space Agency's ERS-2 satellite has determined that over the last ten years, sea level in the Arctic ocean has been falling at an average rate of around 2mm/year. This is very new and very interesting news, though it is preliminary and not published…

Les Kinsolving: The World's Nanny

Every once in a while you come across something so ridiculous that it makes you laugh out loud. For me, it usually happens while reading the Worldnutdaily. And this column by Les Kinsolving provides more than a few chuckles. He's got gays on the brain, you see, and it appears to be making him a bit paranoid. I love this line: This latter article has no mention of what would happen to our armed forces recruiting if Don't-ask-don't-tell were abolished. Army recruits would be subject to the orders of sodomist sergeants in their barracks. Submariners would be under the orders of freely identified…

Asserting the Untestable

Joseph Farah has a column at the Worldnutdaily about the drought in Lubbock and the resolution from the city council there to ask residents to pray for rain. It's standard religious right rhetoric - the media is full of pagans who laugh at Christian faith, but they all have their own religions like worship of money, government, etc. But what I find interesting is this prediction at the end: It makes sense to me to pray. But oddly, or maybe not so oddly, this UPI story appeared under the newstrack heading "quirks." Evidently, some editors at UPI consider prayer "quirky." I don't. In fact, I…

Gay Arab Linguist Kicked Out of Army

You gotta hand it to the military for having their priorities straight. With a long track record of white supremacist groups stealing military equipment and giving it to their KKK buddies, they still won't do anything to break up a network of such people operating at military bases around the country - but even while facing a shortage of Arabic translators that endangers our troops and impedes our intelligence gathering, they still find the time to boot a gay Arabic linguist out of the military. A decorated sergeant and Arabic language specialist was dismissed from the U.S. Army under the "…

Dembski Reiterates Responsibility for Coulter's Errors

In what looks like a fit of bravado, Dembski has once again reiterated his responsibility for any mistakes in the evolution chapters of Ann Coulter's new book. He's essentially saying "bring it on": In April I announced on this blog Ann Coulter's then forthcoming book GODLESS (go here). There I remarked, "I'm happy to report that I was in constant correspondence with Ann regarding her chapters on Darwinism -- indeed, I take all responsibility for any errors in those chapters." Jim Downard, rather than simply taking me at my word, instead wants me to elaborate on my correspondence with Ann (go…

STACLU Misses the Joke

Bartholemew sent the information about what is going on in Indian River Schools in Deleware, where a Jewish family has been so badly harrassed that they had to leave town, to Jesus' General, who naturally ran with it (for those who don't know, Jesus' General is sort of the Stephen Colbert of the blogosphere, but specifically targeting the religious right, which makes for amusing satire). He sent a message to Nedd Kareiva, the STACLU founder, who actually published the address and phone number of the Jewish family in the midst of that harrassment: Dear Mr. Kareiva, Please allow me to be the…

The End is Near

There are bad ideas, there are really bad ideas, and then there's "who in their right mind allowed this to happen" ideas. The three most frightening words in the English language are no longer "starring Carrot Top". They've been replaced - and believe me, I wish I was kidding - by Bolton Sings Sinatra. Yes, Michael Bolton has made an album of Sinatra songs. Ladies and gentlemen, the 7th seal has been opened; Armageddon is upon us. And not a moment too soon. This is the second time Bolton has done an album of remakes. The first one was called The Classics and found him destroying most of the…

DI Responds to Cobb County Ruling

The Discovery Institute has responded to the Cobb County ruling with their usual empty rhetoric. "A final ruling in this case will be at least as important, if not more important, than the Dover school district case last year," added Luskin, a co-author of "Traipsing Into Evolution Intelligent Design and the Kitzmiller vs. Dover Decision". "Eventually it's likely that a decision will be handed down from this federal appellate court governing legal decisions in multiple states, whereas the Kitzmiller decision was from a trial court with no legal force outside of the parties in that local case…

The Da Vinci Code

I'm finding great amusement lately in the fevered and over the top reaction of many conservative Christians to the Da Vinci Code movie coming out. It's like watching the Islamic reaction to The Satanic Verses, only without the death threats (so far). Folks: it's a novel. A book of fiction. It's being made into a movie, also a work of fiction. Only idiots think it's real. And your insanely hyperbolic reaction is only driving up the grosses on the film. The most amusing reaction so far that I've seen is from Pat Buchanan in the Worldnutdaily. Buchanan's column is titled "Whose God may we mock…

This is Insane

The Afghani Christian man, Abdul Rahman, who was just released from jail after charges of apostasy were dropped against him, has been granted amnesty by Italy. Why not by the US? Your guess is as good as mine. With the whackos threatening to kill him anyway, the US military should have taken the man into protective custody, flew him to the US and given him amnesty. But Italy granted amnesty and the Afghani parliament - you know, the government we set up, the one that relies on our protection in order to exist - is demanding that the man be prevented from leaving the country. Afghan lawmakers…

Unless you plan to do something really bad, why do you insists being anonymous?

(I'm sorry, I'm doing it again. I'll try to stop, honest. Grammatical errors are in the original, don't blame me guv). Via Bruce Schneier an interesting article about Spear Phishing Attack Against the Financial Times. What's so lovely about it is that they've used genuine FT email text, and segued straight from warning people about not clicking links in emails straight into providing a link in the email to lure people in. And apparently it worked, somewhat. Meanwhile (ah, you knew this was coming, I'm sure) anonymous contributor "Abzats" has an essay at WUWT entitled Peer Evil – the rotten…

What's the similarity between economics and climatology?

Answer: both are complex disciplines. But because they deal with every-day events, amateurs regularly assume that they know enough to dismiss the entire field. Suppose you wanted to know what was wrong with climatology: how far is it really understood, what can it usefully describe and what not, what can it usefully predict: who would you ask? Not, I hope, one of the many "climate skeptics" whose meaningless ranting echoes around the wub. If you really wanted to know, you need to ask a climatologist. Preferrably, I'd admit, one slightly outside the mainstream and prepared to be forthright.…

mt on Pierrehumbert on Paul Ryan on global warming

mt quotes Ray Pierrehumbert: "The most explicit statement of Ryan’s climate change views appears in this 2009 op-ed, and since he still features it on his official website, we can take it as an indication of his beliefs..." writing in Slate. Some of what Ryan writes is indeed std.denialist_lies: The CRU e-mail scandal reveals a perversion of the scientific method, where data were manipulated to support a predetermined conclusion. The e-mail scandal has not only forced the resignation of a number of discredited scientists... rant, rant, rant... which self-condemns Ryan as a fool. But...…

Costs of adaption

Someone's PR folk mailed me CARE and climate change Into Unknown Territory: The limits to adaptation and reality of loss and damage from climate impacts, and the report itself. You know what its like: the first big pic is a poor person with a baby in a dry landscape with a dead cow skeleton; the next is a poor person up to her neck in water (although... there are some green shoots in the dry landscape, and green on the horizon. Never mind; you see what they are aiming at). But I didn't get far before the language became odd: The World Bank estimates that even in a 2°C world, adaptation costs…

Agnotology as a Teaching Tool: Learning Climate Science by Studying Misinformation

ABSTRACT: Despite the existence of a clear scientiï¬c consensus about global warming, opinion surveys ï¬nd confusion among the American public, regarding both scientiï¬c issues and the strength of the scientiï¬c consensus. Evidence increasingly points to misinformation as a contributing factor. This situation is both a challenge and an opportunity for science educators, including geographers. The direct study of misinformation--termed agnotology (Proctor 2008)--can potentially sharpen student critical thinking skills, raise awareness of the processes of science such as peer review, and…

Texas Academy of Science getting death threats over Pianka

The Pianka situation is getting very, very ugly. I've been chatting with a member of the Texas Academy of Science, and people there are getting death threats over it. Here's one example of the kind of email they're getting: While Heinrich Himmler's "final solution" was limited to exterminating the Jews, Dr. Eric R. Pianka promotes a FINAL SOLUTION for 90% of earth's population. In accepting the 2006 Distinguished Texas Scientist award, Heir Pianka was interrupted with applause and received a standing ovation. "Soylent Green is people." And the way cinema's futurist society dealt with over…

The Bottleneck Years by H. E. Taylor - Chapter 17

The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 16 Table of Contents Chapter 18 Chapter 17 Microbugs, Sept. 25, 2055 A couple of ConSec guys appeared and we climbed back into the paddywagon for the ride home. We didn't talk. As I entered the kitchen, I was enveloped in a wave of unreality. It all seemed so fantastic. How are you supposed to feel when you are plucked out of your daily life, threatened, spun in the air, examined and then plunked back down to carry on? Olivia and I sat at the kitchen table sipping coffee. "Can I see it?" She held her hand out. When I gave her Carman's…

A Mystery Solved

From the time George W. Bush first appeared on the national scene there has been one big question: Does he actually believe all the Evangelical Christian rhetoric he uses, or is he just playing religious voters for fools. As reported last night by Keith Olbermann, it's the latter: OLBERMANN: When President Bush touched on Iraq at his news conference this morning, he may have been revealing more than he knew. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The stakes couldn't be any higher, as I said earlier, in the world in which we live. There are there are--there…

Weep For the Future

The Daily Howler has this disturbing report about the Q&A session from a recent presentation by Ann Coulter. Try to believe that a sentient human being actually asked the following question: QUESTION FROM SOMEONE EZRA KLEIN DOESN'T KNOW (7/28/06): Hi. My name is --, I'm a sophomore at Bucknell University and a summer intern at the Clare Booth Luce Policy Institute. In your book, Godless, you completely tear apart the theory of evolution and I was just wondering how scientists can still believe in such an implausible theory, especially since you don't disprove it based on Biblical facts…

Daeschler on Colbert

Who was the guest on yesterday's episode of The Colbert Report? It was Ted Daeschler, a paleontologist at The Academy of Natural Science in Philadelphia. He was part of the team that discovered the fish-tetrapod transitional form Tiktaalik roseae. Not only did he appear with Colbert, but he was there to discuss paleontology and evolution. He even brought a plaster cast of Tiktaalik. This is no surprise coming from Colbert. Both he and Jon Stewart routinely have scholars on their shows to have at least somewhat serious discussions of important issues. In this they differ from virtually…

182-183/366: Dunking and Monkeying

Thursday was a travel day, the less said about which the better. So, while I do have a couple of cell-phone snaps from the day, I'm just going to ignore it, and give you two better photos from Friday and Saturday. These go nicely together, as you can see in the composite that's the "featured image" for this post. 182/366: Dunking Dude: The Pip hanging on the rim at the Girl Scout carnival. Friday night, the local Girl Scouts had a "nickel carnival" as a fundraiser for... something or another. SteelyKid is a scout, and Kate's helping lead her Brownie troop, so they had to go, and I brought…

Informed opinion on the Gonzalez situation

Who best to talk about the Gonzalez tenure case? Since he's an astronomer, how about another astronomer? Phil is unimpressed: So when ISU denied Gonzalez tenure, I applauded them. Faculty members are de facto representatives of the University, and having one advocate for a provably wrong antiscientific load of crap... well, it seems counterproductive. Denying someone tenure on that basis alone is, in my opinion, perfectly valid, and in fact should be demanded. It will feed their martyr complex a little more, but it's true — when you're trying to peddle weird pseudoscience and you don't have…

Sports Technobabble

Over in Twitter-land, Rhett Allain drew my attention to this "Sports Science" clip from ESPN, about a wild 4th-and-25 play in the Arkansas-Ole Miss game. This is nominally because I've been writing about big hits and bouncing balls over at Forbes, but really, I think Rhett's just working on a "misery loves company" theory, here: It's a cool play, but as science, this leaves a lot to be desired. It's less "sports science" than "sports technobabble"-- mostly, they seem to be going for a science-y air by quoting lots of largely irrelevant numbers. I'm not sure why it matters how far most of…

Weekend Diversion: Faster-Than-Light Marshmallows?

"I think a strong claim can be made that the process of scientific discovery may be regarded as a form of art. This is best seen in the theoretical aspects of Physical Science... The theory of relativity by Einstein, quite apart from any question of its validity, cannot but be regarded as a magnificent work of art." -Sir Ernest Rutherford Einstein's theory of relativity -- and in particular, the notion that no form of matter or energy can exceed the speed of light in vacuum -- has been one of the most thoroughly tested and most successfully robust scientific theories of all time. Have a…

Weekend Diversion: MidSouthCon 30 Is Coming!

"The question I always get is, 'Why didn't you throw Dr. Smith off the Jupiter?' I get that all the time." -Mark Goddard Here at Starts With A Bang, we focus on the promises, possibilities and physical groundings of our Universe, while very rarely venturing into fiction and fantasy. But, very often, it's the fantastic imaginings of fiction and fantasy that help inspire new directions in science. Have a listen to German guitar great Peter Ratzenbeck's tune, Sunday's Fantasy,while you sink your teeth into this. Later this month -- from March 23rd to the 25th in Memphis, TN -- I'll be the…

Weekend Diversion: Inside a Russian Rocket Factory!

"I don't run away from a challenge because I am afraid. Instead, I run toward it because the only way to escape fear is to trample it beneath your feet." -Nadia Comaneci Whether it's a new task, a new subject, a new place or a new person, life is full of wonderful new experiences, if you've got the courage to go out and pursue them. One way to do that, as Thao with the Get Down Stay Down would tell you, is to Travel.But there are some places I always thought travel -- for everyone -- would be impossible. And one of those places is, well, this. This (and all images) credit: Lana Sator, 2011…

How have events shaped the Clinton-Trump race?

It is unfortunate that "all the pundits" are now saying that Clinton will now win no matter what, and that Trump will likely suffer more scandal before the end of the process. This is unfortunate because a weak get out the vote effort is probably worth a couple of points on election day. It is unfortunate because some Trump scandals increase, rather than decrease, his numbers. He could suddenly gain a couple of points if he says or does just the wright/wrong things. It is unfortunate because, for whatever reason, Hillary "My Middle Name is Target" Clinton has turned into the Teflon…

Hurricane Nicole Leaving Bermuda Battered

Update, MID PM Thursday Nicole blew up to a category 4 storm by some reports, but I think was Category 3 at as it raked Bermuda. As far as I can tell, Bermuda suffered 115+ mph winds, The center of the storm was about 10 miles east of Bermuda (which is causing people to say, incorrectly, that the storm missed Bermuda by 10 miles, which is not true). Since the storm went to the right of the islands, things were not as bad as they could have been. But, Nicole is a very very powerful storm. It will e a while before we get a bead on the damage there, but I've heard that power outages are…

Update: Super Typhoon Meranti Heads For Mainland China

Wed AM Update: Meranti passed near the southern tip of Taiwan, and apparently it was pretty windy and nasty there. But, Taiwan has invested heavily in infrastructure with the idea of being hit with giant typhoons now and then, so things were not as bad as they could have been. apparently Meranti is now a category 5 equivalent heading for China. The storm is expected to weaken only a bit as it makes landfall (see this post on what landfall means) so this is going to be a direct hit by a major hurricane. There are some pretty densely populated areas in the storm's path. There are also many…

Sewage by any other name would smell just as putrid

William Dembski doesn't think the way you or I do. When we encounter a problem in biological science, we try to think of experiments and observations that would help us resolve the question: Dembski thinks of public relations and commercial opportunities. Thoughts from Kansas catches him admitting that ID has experienced a setback, and what does he think of? Broadcasting infomercials, and a commercial venture to sell ID-themed toys. (Those are Josh's comments in brackets below.) For some time now I've been wanting to complement Darwinalia, Inc. [apparently to be stupid plush toys or something…

Weekend Diversion: Two Great Covers!

"We want our sound to go into the soul of the audience, and see if it can awaken some little thing in their minds... 'Cause there are so many sleeping people." -Jimi Hendrix One of the greatest challenges in music is to take a great original song and cover it, adding your own twist or flavor, and produce something that's even better. Most of you have heard the Four Tops' song It's the Same Old Song, which has its own interesting story. It's The Same Old SongBut this past week, I discovered a cover of it by Iron & Wine, which kind of, well, awakened something inside of me listening to it.…

Weekend Diversion: A little Sun for everyone

Beauty is a form of genius - is higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation. It is of the great facts in the world like sunlight, or springtime, or the reflection in dark water of that silver shell we call the moon. -Oscar Wilde Yesterday was the spring equinox for the Northern Hemisphere, and my city was lucky enough to have a glorious day, clear skies, warm weather, and I spent most of the day outside. I had the type of day that Dan Tyminski pines for in this song, Some Early Morning. But yesterday -- the equinox -- was special for another reason that you don't often hear about…

Gigagalaxy Zoom!

The Milky Way is a mysterious swath of darkness and light through the night sky. In places where light pollution is low enough to see it, its beauty is unmistakable. Well, the above image is what you might see with your naked eye. But even a small telescope can get you so much more. The darkest skies, with your naked eye, can provide you with the opportunity to see a few thousand stars. But get yourself a small telescope? You're talking about tens of millions of stars, almost instantly. A small telescope, taking a large number of pictures and stitching them together, produced this image of a…

The Great Pacific Invasion

When the big tsunami hit Japan in 2011, many objects were washed out to sea. This flotsam provided for a giant "rafting event." A rafting event is when animals, plants, etc. float across an otherwise uncrossable body of water and end up alive on the other side. With this particular event, I don't think very many terrestrial life forms crossed the Pacific, but a lot of littoral -- shore dwelling and near shore -- animals and plants did. Even though the Pacific ocean is one big puddle and you would think that any organism anywhere in it could just go to any other part of the ocean, like in the…

Harvey The Hurricane Is A Significant Event UPDATED

Harvey the Hurricane will hit Texas roughly between Corpus Christi and Victoria (but stay tuned for exact details). Harvey is passing over water that is significantly warmer than usual, owing to global warming. This storm was too disorganized to even, under normal conditions, to have a name, just a day or so. But, when this storm hits Texas late this week (maybe by the time you are reading this) it is likely to be a Category III storm. Then, after landfall, the storm will hang around that area for a while dumping huge amounts of rain on the Texas flatness. The target area may have 15 inches…

Suck it, Ptolemy!

When you go outside at night, on a clear night away from all lights, you see the sky the same way the ancients did: full of stars. Now, if you looked up periodically, you would find that the sky appears to rotate! Some constellations rise while others set, and one point -- either due north or due south depending on your hemisphere -- appears to not move at all. With the advent of time-lapse photography (and go here for a fantastic video), we can see that the sky does something like this: So there's some pretty good evidence, right away, that either the Earth is rotating or the entire sky is…

The coolest trick for eclipse photography ever

Although many of the best sites for eclipse viewing -- such as Shanghai, China -- were clouded out during this early morning, an old high school friend of mine in Taiwan had a chance to view an outstanding partial solar eclipse, which is something that most of us will get to see in our lifetimes. While a total eclipse is typically only visible in a small region on Earth (where the blue swath is, above), a partial eclipse covers a much larger area (everywhere covered in red), where the Moon partially passes in front of the Sun. When I was 15, I got to experience an 88% partial eclipse. With…

Second Light: Herschel and Hubble together

Just a few weeks ago, the Herschel Telescope was launched into space and successfully deployed. Herschel is larger than the Hubble Space Telescope, but instead of measuring visible light, it measures far-infrared light. This means that, when you look at any object in the Universe, the Hubble Space Telescope sees (mostly) visible light, or light between 400 and 700 nanometers. What gives off visible light? Stars, mostly, as well as some types of heated gas and dust. On the other hand, the light that Herschel sees is much cooler, between 55,000 and 672,000 nanometers. Longer wavelengths mean…

Brightest thing ever?

Those of you who keep up with your news may have seen this headline on CNN last week: Star Explodes Halfway Across Universe. What they're talking about is a Gamma-Ray Burst, which was so bright that, despite being 7.5 billion light years (that's 2.3 Gpc) away, it was still visible on Earth with the naked eye. From the article: The aging star, in a previously unknown galaxy, exploded in a gamma ray burst 7.5 billion light years away, its light finally reaching Earth early Wednesday. This is the sort of thing that the SWIFT satellite was designed to detect, pinpoint, and then tell Earth-based…

More on the Mohammed Caricatures

Here's an "I have some good news and some bad news" scenario for you regarding the now-infamous caricatures of Mohammed that have Muslims around the world throwing a temper tantrum. A French newspaper reprinted the caricatures and took a stand for freedom of the press: France-Soir reprinted 12 caricatures of Muhammad and proclaimed on its front page: "Yes, we have the right to caricature God". It also showed a new cartoon of Christian, Jewish, Buddhist and Muslim gods floating on a cloud over Earth. "Don't grumble Muhammad ... we have all been caricatured here," a smiling Christian God tells…

Dembski's Lack of Intellectual Honesty

It has now been 5 days since I posted absolute, undeniable proof that Dembski's claims concerning why Jeff Shallit didn't testify at the Dover trial were false. That proof was in the form of a motion filed by the defense and Judge Jones' ruling on that motion, which proves incontrovertibly that Dembski's claim that Shallit was pulled from testifying because his deposition was an "embarrassment" to the ACLU is false. In point of fact, it was the defense who went to great lengths to keep Shallit from testifying. I finished that post with the following statement: So we have now conclusively…

Another Nuisance Suit from Caldwell

Larry Caldwell is back with yet another nuisance suit, this one claiming that because the Understanding Evolution website references statements from religious groups saying that evolution is not in conflict with their beliefs, this violates the establishment clause. Here's Caldwell's loony take on it: "In this stunning example of hypocrisy, the same people who so loudly proclaim that they oppose discussion of religion in science classes are clamoring for public school teachers to expressly use theology in order to convince students to support evolution," said Larry Caldwell, president of…

France Considers Adding Discrimination to Authoritarianism

This story just keeps getting worse. In New Delhi on Friday, French Foreign Minister Dominique De Villepin said that the French government would consider exempting Sikhs from the new law banning religious clothing and symbols: After meeting a delegation led by chairman of the National Minorities Commission Tirlochan Singh, Villepin said: "We understand perfectly that we need to solve this problem taking into account the specificity of Sikh community, which is very well respected in France. There are traditions between France and the Sikh community. We know the price the Sikh community paid…