April 24, 2009
Shorter Longer Martin Cothran:
If you ignore all the comments Pat Buchanan has made claiming that the Jews (not just Israel, but the Jews per se) are a shadowy force secretly controlling world affairs, geofinance, and Hollywood, and if you ignore his invocation of the blood libel, and you ignore…
April 24, 2009
We don't torture. Or at least, we shouldn't, and anyone who did, or who authorized it, or constructed elaborate legal fictions to justify it, should have the courage of their convictions to stand trial. They broke the law: laws of this nation, and moral laws that precede the Bill of Rights, let…
April 23, 2009
Martin Cothran is upset wroth. I pointed out that his defense of Pat Buchanan against charges of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial are fallacious, and he replies with a post that show no actual signs of having read what I wrote.
Cothran's continued defense of Pat Buchanan against charges of anti-…
April 22, 2009
Praise Jebus, I'm not in Texas watching the hearings as Don McLeroy is considered for reappointment as chairman of the Texas Board of Education. Yeah, Don "Someone's got to stand up to the experts" McLeroy.
Praise Jebus also that Texas Freedom Network was there watching. And wouldn't you know…
April 22, 2009
I highlighted a story the other day in which Secretary of Energy Stephen Chu revealed that his security detail does not allow him to bike or ride public transit to work. I pointed out that New York's Mayor Bloomberg rides the subway to work, and he's not the only transit-riding mayor.
Berkeley's…
April 22, 2009
Martin Cothran, presumably upset that I keep pointing out that the supposed logic teacher prefers logical fallacies to honest data, has now sunken to defending Holocaust denial. In replying to his repetition of a screed by Pat Buchanan, I noted that not only was Barack Obama rightly dismissive of…
April 21, 2009
Martin Cothran, Discovery Institute blogger, Focus on the Family stooge, and generally unpleasant person, quotes Patrick Buchanan on Yom HaShoah. Buchanan, in addition to being a failed presidential candidate, is a conspiracy loon and a anti-Semite and Holocaust denier. In any event, Buchanan is…
April 20, 2009
Project Steve member, Nobel Prize winner, and Secretary of Energy Steven Chu talks to the Times:
Was anyone in your family impressed when you won the Nobel Prize in Physics?
Probably, but who knows? I called my mother up when they announced the Nobel Prize, waiting until 7 in the morning. She said…
April 17, 2009
He sure wishes the Texas Board of Education would've listened to him.
April 17, 2009
I wonder if I was the first person to invent matzo brei with bacon.
April 17, 2009
John Cronan, Third Engineer of the Maersk Alabama, explains how the crew kept pirates from taking over the ship:
We are American seamen. We are union members. We stuck together, we did our jobs. And that's how we did it.
Or as they like to say:
When the union's inspiration through the workers'…
April 15, 2009
Lindsay Beyerstein rightly thinks there's "Enough dead teen pirate porn already." While we're all glad that Captain Phillips was safely recovered, Lindsay raises some important questions:
Two days after the rescue, the banner headline on the front page of the Washington Post should not read "3…
April 15, 2009
On Passover, we celebrate freedom. "Once we were slaves in Egypt," we tell children at the table, "but now we are free." As Rabbi Michael Lerner points out, "Egypt, mitzrayim in Hebrew, comes from the word tzar: the 'narrow place,' the constricted place." Ours is a freedom not just from the…
April 7, 2009
Discovery Institute honcho Bruce Chapman is upset. In answering a question from a reporter identifying herself as "from a little country, Austria, from Austrian Television," Obama quipped:
It was also interesting to see that political interaction in Europe is not that different from the United…
April 7, 2009
John B, of Blog Meridian, notes that an Oklahoma legislator is pushing a bill requiring a Ten Commandments be placed in the state Capitol. Given that Jews, Catholics, and Protestants all define the commandments differently, an enterprising journalist enquired which version he would be endorsing…
April 2, 2009
The Sunday before I went to Texas, the girlfriend and I spent a pleasant day in Sonoma Valley, tasting wines and enjoying the spring weather. Then we headed back for a going away party for some friends who are bound for rainier climes.
On our way back from Sonoma, we passed the scene of an…
April 2, 2009
I'll try to post a synopsis of the Islam and Evolution Symposium I participated in at McGill one of these days, but until then you can get a taste of it by viewing the presentations online. Especially interesting for those of you obsessed with all things Josh, my presentation.
In short, a great…
March 30, 2009
American auto manufacturing is on death's door, the economy is in the shitter, and creationism is about to be forced into textbooks across the nation. Thus, it makes sense that Larry King wants his viewers' opinions on Madonna's adoption plans.
March 30, 2009
For those in Canadia, you might stop by the Redpath Museum auditorium tomorrow for any of the events in McGill University's symposium on Islam and Evolution. I'll be presenting at 11, and it promises to be a fascinating day of talks and discussion among panelists.
March 30, 2009
John West is gloating about the new Texas science standards, and in doing so, he's lost track of the truth:
Evolutionists typically cast themselves as the champions of secular reason against superstition, but in Texas they tried to inject religion into the debate at every turn.
Indeed, this past…
March 28, 2009
Berlanga and Nuñez voted against the final TEKS, the other 13 voted to approve them. Texas has new science standards. Those standards are better than the old ones, but those old standards really did suck. As the Fordham Institute put it, giving the standards an F in 2005, "Thematic unities, so…
March 27, 2009
Craig offers to amend ESS 4:
Earth in Space and Time. The student knows how Earth-based and space-based astronomical observations reveal differing theories about the structure, scale, composition, origin, and history of the universe.
to read:
4) Earth in Space and Time. The student knows how Earth…
March 27, 2009
Dunbar jumped in line, and is trying to reinsert a new 7(B), slightly varied from the one just stricken.
"analyze and evaluate the sufficiency of scientific explanations concerning any data of sudden appearance, stasis, and the sequential nature of groups in the fossil record."
Allen likes it…
March 27, 2009
Lawrence Allen proposes to strike the noxious 7B from Biology standards. That standard states: "analyze and evaluate the sufficiency or insufficiency of common ancestry to explain the sudden appearance, stasis, and sequential nature of groups in the fossil record."
McLeroy claims that evolution…
March 27, 2009
Gail Lowe: "I think you need to use your brain." Delivered to Mavis Knight who objects to a large amendment offered with no particular background.
Now we're slowly working through the grades. 6th grade right now.
March 26, 2009
Dunbar offers a new amendment to the fraught 3A, formerly the "strengths and weaknesses" language. It would now read:
analyze, evaluate, and critique scientific explanations in all fields of science by using empirical evidence, logical reasoning and experimental and observational testing, by…
March 26, 2009
Bob Craig is proposing amendments to Earth and Space Science. These largely track recommendations from a panel of the ESS writers, in response to amendments offered by the Board last January.
The first strikes "differing theories" and replaces it with "information about," in:
4) Earth in Space and…
March 26, 2009
Terri Leo just offered an amendment to add a standard to Biology 9:
D) analyze and evaluate the evidence regarding formation of simple organic molecules and their organization into long complex molecules having information such as the DNA molecule for self-replicating life.
It passed, with…
March 26, 2009
Barbara Cargill is amending 3rd grad standards to alter the list of objects students must use to understand how pushing and pulling changes an object's position. Much discussion between Cargill, Chairman Don McLeroy, and reputed Sarah Palin lookalike Terri Leo about how and when children are to…
March 26, 2009
I'm currently taping the Texas Board of Education as they consider amendments and motions regarding state science standards. The first big fight related to language in the standards on the books now which refers to "strengths and weaknesses," and to change that to a requirement that students "…
