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THE year 1866 was signalised by a remarkable incident, a mysterious and puzzling phenomenon, which doubtless no one has yet forgotten. Not to mention rumours which agitated the maritime population and excited the public mind, even in the interior of continents, seafaring men were particularly excited. Merchants, common sailors, captains of vessels, skippers, both of Europe and America, naval officers of all countries, and the Governments of several States on the two continents, were deeply interested in the matter. For some time past vessels had been met by "an enormous thing," a long…

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…

Looks like even some Republicans are breaking ranks: The Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday voted 15-9 to recommend a bill -- over the objections of the Bush administration -- that would authorize tribunals for terror suspects in a way that it says would protect suspects' rights. The bill was backed by Republican Sens. John Warner of Virginia, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Sen Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. It differs from the administration's proposal in two major ways: It would permit terror suspects to view classified evidence against…

I have posted an update on the ongoing battle over new science standards in Michigan on the Michigan Citizens for Science webpage. The Detroit Free Press weighed in with an editorial slamming the legislature for interfering with the Board of Education's job, which I fully agree with. I also give a brief history of the attempts to weaken science education in Michigan and a brief rundown of how they want to change the standards.

But not from the Federal government. The Nevada state government decided that they have control of a state military cemetary, not the Department of Veterans Affairs, and they approved the symbol. The DVA has been dragging their feet not only in this case, but in many others, for nearly a decade now, refusing for some reason to approve a Wiccan symbol for headstones when they have nearly 30 others for every imaginable religious group.

From am e-mail I got today: While Iraq dominates the headlines, the other issue that Americans are grappling with as they head to the polls this fall is the economic uncertainty that affects all American workers. While the numbers on the economy look good, most American workers haven't participated in the economic growth of the past 5 years and rightfully feel that their income and, more importantly, their security, are eroding away. Today's New York Times features an article on the launch of a new advocacy group called United Professionals. Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed…

After reading this, I wish I was in Texas so I could vote for Kinky Friedman for Governor: Independent gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman called Wednesday for the decriminalization of marijuana to avoid further clogging state prisons with nonviolent offenders... "We've got to clear some of the room out of the prisons so we can put the bad guys in there, like the pedophiles and the politicians," said Friedman, a humorist and author. Hear, hear!

Last night I saw went to the 2006 UNSW CSE Revue: The teXt Files: Close Encounters of the Nerd Kind. An awesome show, especially if you are a nerd, with sketches on the X files, Stargate, role-playing games, computer games, Numb3rs, making fun of Arts students, an audience paricipation where they built their own hardware and software and a big song and dance number called "Nerdy": You get me so excited every time that we roleplay No one can emulate the features that you've got on display Tried to establish a connection but you didn't reply But I don't care 'cause you're my new case…

Raw Story has acquired a set of talking points that the NSA gave to members of the Senate Intelligence Committee to guide them in their press interactions. Some of the talking points urge Senators to imply that they have personal knowledge of plots foiled by the wiretap program, or that the Senators--seven of whom responded by writing the NSA a letter blasting the move--had other personal knowledge that the program was legal or necessary. "I have personally met the dedicated men and women of the NSA," one point reads. "The country owes them an enormous debt of gratitude for their superb…

David Bernstein quoted this at Volokh and it cracks me up. It's a fashion editor complaining about not being able to take makeup on airplanes: "Everybody is bummed because it's a really long flight and looking good is part of the industry," says Jane beauty director Erin Flaherty. "you're seeing all of your colleagues on the plane. I thnk everybody is going to have their most oversized sunglasss on. They should screen people in the airport better. It sems like such an ignorant solution. The terrorists got exactly what they wanted. I'll take an inflated sense of self-importance for $1000, Alex.

Last night, around 1 in the morning, I was woken up by a lot of strange noises coming from downstairs. I couldn't quite place the noises, but there were definitely animals involved. I scraped myself out of bed and went to take a look. It turns out that my cat had brought home a playmate - a Kolea. The kolea is the Hawaiian name for the Pacific Golden Plover. This is a smallish seabird, but it's a tough one. Their annual migration involves nonstop overwater flight from Alaska to Hawaii, so they've got stamina. They also have a very sharp beak. This turned out to be a bad thing for the cat.…

And now, a guest post from a regular reader, Pierre in D.C.: Sci-Fi channel. Its name evokes Star Trek reruns, Battlestar Galactica cliffhangers, a forum for sometimes innovative television but also mediocre low-budget series shot in Vancouver. But for some, it also means something else entirely ... Some years ago, it featured Crossing Over. John Edwards was shown seemingly reading the thoughts of peoples past, and relaying them to an audience of emotionally-wrought decendents of those that have passed on. Of course, he used the technique of cold reading, which involves rapidly guessing a…

For those who still want to peddle the "why doesn't the media tell the truth about all the good things going on in Iraq" line, check out this story. Remember last month when the Pentagon claimed that the number of deaths in the Baghdad area had dropped dramatically since they launched a security initiative in the city? They lied: The U.S. military did not count people killed by bombs, mortars, rockets or other mass attacks when it reported a dramatic drop in the number of murders in the Baghdad area last month, the U.S. command said Monday. The decision to include only victims of drive-by…

I had a long phone conversation the other day with a friend who is a devout Christian. I remarked that it's always difficult for me to strike a balance in my writing in terms of justifiably criticizing the Christian right while not sounding as though I am generally anti-Christian (which I'm not). I write a lot about some of the utter stupidity I see , in particular, from the more political forms of Christianity (the war on Christmas, creationism, claims about the founding fathers, reconstructionism). As a result, I tend to attract a lot of people who, in my view, take things entirely too far…

From Slovakia: A Slovak driver who crashed into a bus shocked rescuers who found him unconscious and half naked with a vacuum pump on his penis. Police said the 42-year-old man, driving an old Citroen in the Slovak town of Levice, had ignored a "give way" sign. "It's very likely he had auto-sex while driving, it is a matter of investigation. After the accident he was found lying in the seat, his pants were off and it (the pump) was placed on his penis," police officer Peter Polak told Reuters. If only he could get extradited to Oklahoma...

It's been five years and a day since the terrible reality of international terrorism came crashing down on our heads. In that time, our nation has changed a great deal, and not all for the better. I say that we have changed, and not that we have been changed for a reason: many of the changes are things that we have, collectively, inflicted upon ourselves. Some, right about now, will want to argue with that. A few will insist that all of the changes were caused by the enemy without, by the terrorists, and that we had nothing to do with it. Others will be able to be honest enough with…

In 2004 Chris Mooney wrote on Op-Ed Seductions: Two of the most striking recent incidents involve the same author: James Glassman of Tech Central Station and the American Enterprise Institute. Some essential background on Glassman's operation comes from this article by Nicholas Confessore in The Washington Monthly, which depicts Tech Central Station as a strange hybrid: It quacks like a pro-free market journalistic Web site, but it runs articles that closely favor the interests of the site's corporate sponsors. In fact, Tech Central Station is published by a lobbying shop, the DCI Group.…

Western societies are losing their souls to scientific rationality and frightening believers in the developing world who still fear God, Pope Benedict told an open-air Mass in Germany yesterday. Benedict -- on the second day of a visit to his native Bavaria-- said that spreading the word of Jesus Christ was more important than all the emergency and development aid that rich churches like those in Germany gave to poor countries. He also stressed the role of faith in fighting AIDS "by realistically facing its deeper causes," indirectly confirming the Church view that pre-marital abstinence and…

PZ Myers, to no one's surprise, has now taken to going after Ken Miller, the Catholic cell biologist who has been one of evolution's most eloquent and powerful defenders for the better part of the last decade. But he does so based upon a rather obvious misinterpretation of something Miller said in a recent speech in Kansas. He first quotes a review of the talk by Pat Hayes of Red State Rabble: Showing a slide of the cover art of "The Lie," an anti-evolution tract by Ken Ham, that prominently features a serpent tempting us with a poisoned apple labeled evolution, Miller said creationists…