Expelled: The Film Sucks!
2008-04-20 05:44:00 Derec, one of the members of the Internet Infidels Discussion Forums, went and saw the movie today and just like what is predicted by people everywhere– the film sucks! Literally! So I went and saw it today. No, I didn’t give Ben Stein any of my money - I bought a ticket to a different movie ...
To Hell with Expelled!
2008-04-18 08:27:00 Hurry, hurry, hurry!! Step right up! Step right up and feast your eyes on the world’s foremost one time carnival To Hell with Expelled! Where every stinkin’ big-top size lie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed propaganda film shamelessly promote gets fully exposed for who they really are! No pushing. No shoving. There’s room for all! The ...
Tomorrow is the deadline!
2008-04-16 19:51:00 You have until tomorrow at 8PM EST to get your submissions in for To Hell with Expelled Blog Carnival. And please, no pro Expelled posts. I had to delete a pro Expelled post which claims the movie is all about free speech and asks, “What is wrong with presenting both sides of the issue since ...
Who?s Persecuting Who?
2008-04-01 01:37:00 There is a big buzz going on over the ordeal of those who are advocates of evolution being persecuted by creationists who, whenever they are exposed to be rightfully wrong on everything they claim about from human evolution to dinosaurs, whiningly claims they are persecuted by the very same people creationists are persecuting themselves– evolutionists, ...
PZ got EXPELLED!
2008-03-21 17:52:00 You guys has got to check out PZ Meyer’s experience in going to see the creationist propaganda film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed– he never got to see the film! Those creationist Pharisees have kicked him out, right in front of this individual, yet are too dull to notice Richard Dawkins coming into the theater to ...
Stuff like this makes me real mad!! >:-(
2008-03-21 00:16:00 Last night, Dinochick gave out this article that really made my blood boil! 2 creationists are giving out tours at a real prestigious museum in Colorado, mentally abusing the minds of children with stupid lies, the most brain dead of idiocy, and nonsense beyond nonsense. How can any museum ever, EVER allow such things to ...
There is No Joy in Creationism Part 3
2008-02-15 01:44:00 Don’t you just hate when it seems you’re the only one in the whole family who rejects creationism while everyone else embraces it without a second thought? A lot of times it feels to be the case when one Saturday night I threw into a screaming hissy fit when mom showed me a book from ...
Dude From ?Ferris Bueller? To Release Even Funnier Movie [Culture Wars]
2008-02-08 21:42:00 Popular character actor and mendacious old fool Ben Stein has a little movie coming out about how “BIG SCIENCE” doesn’t want you to know the truth about evolution. Stein salutes the scientists who are bad enough to question Darwinism in his upcoming documentary Expelled, about an unscrupulous Nixonite hack who parlays his unlikely pop cultural ...
Florida legislators pushing for evolution to be taught as ?just a theory?
2008-02-07 02:36:00 Remember what I said about having to be a right-wing Christian nutter in order to be a public school administrator or council member in Florida? Well apparently it also applies to legislators in the state. Marc Caputo of the Miami Herald writes: Top state legislators say they’re ready to join the fight over putting the word ”evolution” in ...
The Darwin Fish has been discovered in Canada
2008-01-19 08:43:00 Alright, so this isn’t really new news, but it’s new to me and surely to a sizeable proportion of others. And it’s HUGE. Randy Boswell of the Ottawa Citizen reports that a few years ago researchers discovered an extinct Canadian fish with foot-like fins. This fish, Tiktaalik roseae, “has been hailed as an “evolutionary icon” because it represents ...
More Hysteria over SB 777 [Dispatches from the Culture Wars]
2007-12-07 17:16:00 The religious right’s histrionics over SB 777, the new law in California that prohibits discrimination in public schools on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, just keep getting more and more ridiculous. This article at the Worldnutdaily about Christian parents pulling their kids out of public schools so they don’t catch The Gay is a perfect example. Take a look at this spin: Parents in California have started reacting to the state’s newly mandated homosexual indoctrination program by pulling their children out of classes, and state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell is warning districts they’ll lose money if that happens. Read the rest of this post… | Read the comments on this post… Original post by http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/-ScienceblogsCombinedFeed/~3/196-666982/more_hysteria_over_sb_77-7.php
Philadelphia Scouts Miss Deadline [Dispatches from the Culture Wars]
2007-12-07 17:02:00 In the ongoing saga over the Boy Scouts in Philadelphia, the city had given the Cradle of LIberty Council until Monday to either execute a lease at fair market value on the city building they occupy or agree to vacate the premises by June of 2008. The Scout council failed to give them an answer by Monday, according to the Worldnutdaily: “If I do not receive an executed lease, signed by the Boy Scouts, to remain as tenants paying a fair market rent, we will begin looking for alternative tenants that can take over the property June 1, 2008,” Romulo Diaz, the city solicitor, said earlier. He, according to Philadelphia media reports, is an open homosexual. The Scouts, however, “do not feel obliged to respond to that date,” Jubelirer told the Associated Press. “We didn’t feel it was urgent to respond.” Read the rest of this post… | Read the comments on this post… Original post by http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/-ScienceblogsCombinedF...
Karl Rove LIes Through His Teeth [Dispatches from the Culture Wars]
2007-12-04 17:09:00 Rove may be out of the White House, but he’s still lying for Jesus Bush. Check out this post with a transcript from the Charlie Rose show where Rove tries to claim that it was Congress who rushed through the resolution authorizing the Iraq war in the fall of 2002, that the administration didn’t think it was appropriate to do so during the midterm election. Rove says: Because, we didn’t think it belonged within the confines of the election. There was an election coming up in a matter of weeks. We thought it made it too political. We wanted it outside the confines of it. It seemed to make things move too fast. There were things that needed to be done to bring along allies and potential allies abroad. Yeah. That would be a lot more credible if the White House website didn’t include press releases that declared President Urges Congress to Pass Iraq Resolution Quickly dated September 24, 2002. Read the comments on this post… Original post by http://feeds.f...
Journalistic Objectivity [Dispatches from the Culture Wars]
2007-12-04 17:02:00 My new gig with the Center for Independent Media has been quite interesting, if for no other reason than to stimulate my thinking about the differences between blogging and journalism and how to find a balance between them that maintains integrity. Notice that I say integrity, not objectivity; the concept of objectivity has become so attenuated that it is no longer useful at all in such discussions. Sometimes that balance can be difficult to strike, but here’s one thing I am absolutely certain of: the mere repetition of “both sides” in a dispute is not “objectivity”, nor does it have any integrity. Glenn Greenwald hits the nail on the head in this essay about the Washington Post passing on blatant lies about Barack Obama in one of those ridiculous forwarded emails you’ve probably gotten declaring that Obama is secretly a Muslim. Read the rest of this post… | Read the comments on this post… Original post by http://feeds.feedburner.co...
Culture Wars, really
2007-12-03 06:11:00 Got an e-mail today from a friend who sent me what is an excerpt from something that Ben Stein said on the CBS morning commentary several years ago. This is not the first time I’ve been sent this diatribe and it won’t be the last. It talks about the “War on Christmas” and how he, ...
Crackhouse Bashing from The Kentucky Courier Journal
2007-12-03 00:48:00 I’ve just got word from the scienceblogs grapevine that there is an article by James K. Willmot published in The Kentucky Courier Journal that openly condemns Ham and his Crackhouse for brainwashing children into believing his stupid lies, There is a great educational injustice being inflicted upon thousands of children in this country, a large percentage ...
Culture Wars, really
2007-11-27 22:11:00 Got an e-mail today from a friend who sent me what is an excerpt from a Ben Stein said on the CBS morning commentary several years ago. This is not the first time I’ve been sent this diatribe and it won’t be the last. It talks about the “War on Christmas” and how ...
Little’s Latest [Dispatches from the Culture Wars]
2007-09-05 11:16:00 Michael Little, Stuart Pivar’s attorney, left a comment on a post below that I’m moving up here to answer. He’s been threatening to sue me for repeating some things that Peter Irons passed on to me from a conversation he had on the phone with Little after the complaint against PZ Myers became public. That is an empty threat, of course; one cannot be proved guilty of libel for passing on information that they do not know to be false. Little is disputing Irons’ recollection of their conversation. In the interests of fairness (and having a bit of fun), here’s what Little has to say: I did not make those comments to Mr Irons. What I said to Mr Irons was: ‘that I was initially skeptical as to MY abilities to take on his( Mr Pivar’s) suit and that Mr Pivar was insistent that I had the ABILITIES to evaluate it.’ Read the rest of this post… | Read the comments on this post… Original post by http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/-Science...
Moonie in Congress? [Dispatches from the Culture Wars]
2007-09-05 11:09:00 A Republican State Rep from Arizona, Mark Anderson, is considering a run for Congress against incumbent Democrat Harry Mitchell. This will be worth keeping an eye on. Read the comments on this post… Original post by http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/-ScienceblogsCombinedFeed/~3/152-509328/moonie_in_congress.php
The Redacted Declaration of Independence [Dispatches from the Culture Wars]
2007-09-05 11:02:00 A great post about a student submitting an FOIA request to the White House to receive a copy of the Declaration of Independence. The document was, of course, heavily redacted to take out those parts that might be inconvenient to the Bush administration. The introduction now reads: When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to assume among the powers of the earth, the Laws of God requires that they should Read the whole thing, it’s quite amusing. Read the comments on this post… Original post by http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/-ScienceblogsCombinedFeed/~3/152-498379/the_redacted_declaration-_of_in.php
Police Misconduct and DUIs [Dispatches from the Culture Wars]
2007-09-04 11:23:00 The Seattle paper has an astonishing series about police officers caught driving drunk and getting off light, often times just being let go by their fellow officers. Not astonishing in the sense of surprising, but some of the stories are so incredibly blatant, including cops showing up for work drunk, having driven to the station, and having virtually nothing done to them. Read the comments on this post… Original post by http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/-ScienceblogsCombinedFeed/~3/152-047421/police_misconduct_and_du-is.php
At Least We’re Not This Bad [Dispatches from the Culture Wars]
2007-09-04 11:16:00 The US has had some major problems with political leaders taking absurd positions clearly contrary to scientific knowledge, but at least we haven’t quite stooped to this level. This is about the South African health minister: At news conferences, she has made plain her mistrust of antiretroviral medicines, repeatedly espousing a diet heavy on garlic, beetroot, lemon and olive oil as more effective in treating HIV/AIDS. The comments have earned her ridicule and the nicknames “Dr. Beetroot” and “Dr. Garlic.” South Africa’s stand at the international AIDS conference in Canada last year included garlic and other foodstuffs, prompting international scientists to write an unprecedented joint letter of protest to President Thabo Mbeki. Read the rest of this post… | Read the comments on this post… Original post by http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/-ScienceblogsCombinedFeed/~3/152-047423/at_least_were_not_this_b-ad.php
More Christian Nation Nonsense [Dispatches from the Culture Wars]
2007-09-04 11:09:00 Remember James Goswick, the Christian Nation apologist and David Barton disciple I wrote about a couple weeks ago? Well he’s got a post on his blog objecting to the following statement I made about Jefferson, which can be found in this post: “The Declaration was written by a man who believed in a very different “creator” than Barton. Remember, Jefferson explicitly condemned the Old Testament God as “cruel, capricious, vindictive and unjust” and rejected the notion that Jesus was divine or part of any trinity.” Goswick responds: Read the rest of this post… | Read the comments on this post… Original post by http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/-ScienceblogsCombinedFeed/~3/152-047424/more_christian_nation_no-nsense.php
Greenwald on Craig and Vitter [Dispatches from the Culture Wars]
2007-09-04 11:02:00 One of the most obvious things about the various scandals involving politicians favored by the religious right over the last few months is the clearly hypocritical manner with which the family values crowd treats those who cheat on their wives with men and who cheats with other women. The entire religious right is demanding that Larry Craig step down, but few demanded that of David Vitter, who admitted to cheating on his wife with prostitutes. There are two obvious reasons for this. First, because they really do think that being gay is the very definition of horrible, while adultery is seen as a minor sin. So much for “family values.” I dare say that far more families are destroyed by heterosexual adultery. Second, because if Craig resigns his replacement will be chosen by a Republican governor; if Vitter resigns, his replacement will be chosen by a Democratic governor. Glenn Greenwald sums it up nicely: Read the rest of this post… | Read the comments on this po...
Rodda on Mansfield, Part 3 [Dispatches from the Culture Wars]
2007-08-30 11:02:00 Chris Rodda continues to eviscerate any credibility that Stephen Mansfield might have had with the third part of her review. In it, she debunks one of the most infamous of all the Christian Nation myths, the “Jefferson attended church in the Capitol building” story. There are two parts to the story, often conflated in the telling and retelling. The first involves an anecdote from the Rev. Ethan Allen. Here is how James Hutson of the Library of Congress tells the story: Jefferson, according to Allen, was walking to church one Sunday “with his large red Prayer Book under his arm when a friend querying him after their mutual good morning said which way are you walking Mr. Jefferson. To which he replied to Church Sir. You going to church Mr. J. You do not believe a word in it. Sir said Mr. J. No nation has ever yet existed or been governed without religion. Nor can be. The Christian religion is the best religion that has been given to man and I as chief Magistrate of t...
Haggard Needs Money [Dispatches from the Culture Wars]
2007-08-27 11:09:00 Ted Haggard is asking his former victims followers to send money to support him and his wife as they pursuit degrees in counseling and psychology. And it looks like he has his next scam in the works: The couple and two of their sons planned to move Oct. 1 to the Phoenix Dream Center, a faith-based halfway house in Phoenix, where Haggard and his wife would provide counseling, the e-mail said. “It looks as though it will take two years for us to have adequate earning power again, so we are looking for people who will help us monthly for two years,” the e-mail said. “During that time we will continue as full-time students, and then, when I graduate, we won’t need outside support any longer.” Read the rest of this post… | Read the comments on this post… Original post by http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/-ScienceblogsCombinedFeed/~3/148-796831/haggard_needs_money_1.ph-p
Great Article About Ellery Schempp [Dispatches from the Culture Wars]
2007-08-27 11:02:00 The Associated Press has a terrific article about Ellery Schempp, who 50 years ago as a high school student bravely stood up against mandatory Bible reading in his public school and paved the way for an important court ruling that helped to break the Christian hegemony that so clearly existed at the time (and for which the religious right will never forgive him). Schempp is 67 now and he’s the subject of a new book called Ellery’s Protest by NYU law professor Stephen Solomon. Read the whole article, it’s fascinating. Read the comments on this post… Original post by http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/-ScienceblogsCombinedFeed/~3/148-796833/great_article_about_elle-ry_sch.php
The Magic of White House Wishful Thinking [Dispatches from the Culture Wars
2007-08-23 11:02:00 Once again, the White House attempts to change the rules in midstream. The Bush administration is now arguing that the White House Office of Administration, which provides the administrative services to the White House including IT services, is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. AP reports: Opening a new front in the Bush administration’s battle to keep its records confidential, the Justice Department is contending that the White House Office of Administration is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. The department’s argument is in response to a lawsuit trying to force the office to reveal what it knows about the disappearance of White House e-mails. Read the rest of this post… | Read the comments on this post… Original post by http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/-ScienceblogsCombinedFeed/~3/147-311242/the_magic_of_white_house-_wishf.php
RIP Max Roach [Dispatches from the Culture Wars]
2007-08-17 11:23:00 The jazz world lost one of its most legendary masters, drummer Max Roach. If there is a pantheon, a Mt. Rushmore of jazz, Roach is surely in it. He debuted at 16 years old with Duke Ellington’s band; by the age of 18, he was on the way to being the rhythmic force behind every major innovation in jazz for decades to come. In the 40s and early 50s, he powered the be bop movement with his unique polyrhythms and syncopations. In the 50s and 60s, he was the man behind Miles Davis and cool bop. Then it was Clifford Brown and hard bop. After that, it was free jazz. He was the drummer on the legendary Massey Hall performance by The Quintet, made up of Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, Bud Powell and Dizzy Gillespie (a CD I’m listening to as I write this) - now that’s an all-star lineup. He was also a major civil rights leader, recording We Insist! Max Roach’s Freedom Now Suite on the 100th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. Max Roach was a true giant, an irr...
More Christian Curses [Dispatches from the Culture Wars]
2007-08-17 11:02:00 Pat Robertson has prayed for Supreme Court justices to die. The Haredi nutballs in Israel have called down curses on gay rights protesters there. Now a Baptist minister in California is calling on his followers to pray for a curse upon Americans United for Separation of Church and State: Specifically, Rev. Wiley Drake of the First Southern Baptist Church of Buena Park, Calif., is asking his supporters to use “imprecatory prayer” to curse Americans United and its leaders. The argument centers on whether Drake violated federal tax law by “electioneering” when he recently endorsed the presidential candidacy of Republican Mike Huckabee. Americans United on Tuesday asked the Internal Revenue Service to investigate. Today, Drake told us by telephone that he has called for prayers aimed at smiting the AU and its leadership not because they oppose him personally, but because “they are attacking God’s people.” Here’s what Drake actually said in...
Threats to Federal Judges [Dispatches from the Culture Wars]
2007-08-15 11:02:00 At the American Bar Association’s annual meeting last week in San Francisco, there was a panel of judges who had all been the target of threats after issuing controversial rulings. That panel included George Greer, the judge in the Terri Schiavo case; New Jersey Supreme Court Justice Roberto Rivera-Soto, who participated in that state court’s ruling requiring civil unions for gay couples; and Eileen O’Neill, a former Texas judge who once found Randall Terry and other anti-abortion advocates in contempt of court for refusing to follow a court order not to harass doctors in Houston. They could also have had Judge Jones from the Dover trial, who was subject to death threats as well. Here are some examples of what they went through. From Judge Greer: Read the rest of this post… | Read the comments on this post… Original post by http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/-ScienceblogsCombinedFeed/~3/144-396472/threats_to_federal_judge-s.php
Worldnutdaily Edits Norris Column Too [Dispatches from the Culture Wars]
2007-08-14 11:23:00 The NCBCPS is clearly in a panic since I revealed that the front page of their webpage contained this statement from a Chuck Norris column: Your first step to get God back into your public school This matters because the court is likely to apply the Lemon test, including a purpose prong analysis, and when they see that the organization that put the curriculum together has openly advocated it as a way to “get God back into schools”, that reveals a clear religious motive rather than a sound pedagogical one. Read the rest of this post… | Read the comments on this post… Original post by http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/-ScienceblogsCombinedFeed/~3/144-025368/worldnutdaily_edits_norr-is_col.php
Rowe and Babka on Locke [Dispatches from the Culture Wars]
2007-08-14 11:09:00 There’s an interesting exchange of comments between my two friends, Jon Rowe and Jim Babka, one a Christian and one a non-believer of some sort (I’m not sure exactly how Jon would label himself in this regard), about John Locke, the Bible and much more at Positive Liberty. I think it shows the value of intellectual honesty, of not trying to project one’s views on to thinkers from the past. And I should note that Jim Babka is a genuine Christian libertarian, as opposed to those theocrats like Gary North, who borrow the language of libertarianism while advocating a liberty-free world. Read the comments on this post… Original post by http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/-ScienceblogsCombinedFeed/~3/144-025371/rowe_and_babka_on_locke.-php
Gotta Love the Worldnutdaily [Dispatches from the Culture Wars]
2007-08-14 11:02:00 One of the most amusing things about the Worldnutdaily is their zeal for selling things to you. Anytime they’ve got a story or a column even faintly related to a book or video they sell in their shop, they’ll post a link to that item immediately after the link to the story or column. But sometimes that results in odd contradictions. For instance, on Monday’s commentary page the first item was a column by Joseph Farah. Here’s the headline: When the Salt Loses Its Savor Exclusive: Joseph Farah laments widespread exodus from America’s Protestant churches by misled youth Followed immediately by an ad for a book they sell: SPECIAL OFFER Holy moly! Incredible Christian spike Big discount on book showing fantastic growth of faith Widespread exodus from churches! Incredible Christian spike as faith grows! We report, you decide. Read the comments on this post… Original post by http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/-ScienceblogsCombinedFeed/~3/144-025372/gotta_lo...
Worldnutdaily Defends Sali [Dispatches from the Culture Wars]
2007-08-12 11:23:00 Some hack named Bryan Fischer has a column at the Worldnutdaily defending Idaho Rep. Bill Sali for his ignorant comments about the Hindu prayer and a Muslim in Congress somehow damaging the country by making God mad. He starts by responding to Sali’s critics…kinda: Sali has been called everything from a “brainless bigot” to “stark raving mad” to “ugly and dangerous” to “spectacularly stupid,” and he has been compared to a “deranged person shouting at pigeons on a street corner” by hate-filled, vitriolic left-wing bloviators on blogs such as The Carpetbagger Report and Daily Kos. Certainly the role of religion in American history is worth dialogue and debate. But you’d never know it by listening to the screeching voices of secular fundamentalists, who, in their hatred for all things Christian, don’t want to discuss but only to destroy anyone who would dare defend the historic role of Judeo-Christian ...
Homosexuality: Nature or Nurture [Dispatches from the Culture Wars]
2007-08-12 11:07:00 PZ links to this article detailing much of the research so far on the question of whether homosexuality is genetic or not. And while such research is interesting, I agree 100% with what PZ says about it in his post: First, I’ll confess to my own position on that nature-nurture debate: it’s both and it’s neither, and the argument is misplaced. There is no template on the Y chromosome that triggers a sexual response when Pamela Anderson enters the visual field, but there almost certainly are general predispositions that are a product of genetics, development, and learning. Even if there were no genetic component at all, it shouldn’t matter in social policy or in our interactions with other people: my own heterosexuality is fairly strongly fixed and was acquired before I was really aware of it, and I’m willing to see other’s homosexuality, no matter what its source, as equally fixed, and changing it as both undesirable and unjust. I think it’s ...
Getting God Back in Schools [Dispatches from the Culture Wars]
2007-08-12 11:00:00 You gotta love this. I’ve said many times that our best allies in the fight to keep the wall of separation between church and state in place are those who are trying to tear that wall down. Try as they might to pretend that they’re just trying to preserve religious freedom or to teach about the Bible in an objective and scholarly manner, they simply can’t keep themselves from blurting out their real motivations. After all, that’s how you raise money. The NCBCPS is now featuring a column by Chuck Norris pushing their curriculum, originally published in the Worldnutdaily, right on their front page (and yes, I have it archived; as the trial gets closer, it will almost certainly disappear). In the column Norris, who is on the advisory board of the NCBCPS, declares that this curriculum is “Your first step to get God back into your public school.” In asking people to demand the curriculum in their local schools, he writes: Read the rest of this post&h...
Bad Science Writing [Dispatches from the Culture Wars]
2007-08-10 11:23:00 Few things annoy me as much as seeing how the mainstream media reports on new finds in science, particularly advances in evolution and even more especially any new hominid find. It’s as though there is a single template for all such stories, all with a title along the lines of New Find Challenges What We Though We Knew About Human Evolution or New Fossil Rewrites Story of Human Evolution. And today we have another perfect example of this phenomenon. The AP says Fossils Challenge Old Evolution Theory. Reuters says New Fossils Reveal Different Theory on Human Evolution. PA News goes with Evolution Doubt After Fossils Find and their first sentence follows the template to the letter: “A fossil discovery in Africa has shaken the human ancestral tree and forced a rethink of the way people evolved.” All three articles contain essentially the same nonsense. Read the rest of this post… | Read the comments on this post… Original post by http://feeds.feedburner...
China to Monks: No More Reincarnating [Dispatches from the Culture Wars]
2007-08-10 11:16:00 Without permission, that is. Here’s a weird story from a British newspaper: Tibet’s living Buddhas have been banned from reincarnation without permission from China’s atheist leaders. The ban is included in new rules intended to assert Beijing’s authority over Tibet’s restive and deeply Buddhist people. “The so-called reincarnated living Buddha without government approval is illegal and invalid,” according to the order, which comes into effect on September 1. The 14-part regulation issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs is aimed at limiting the influence of Tibet’s exiled god-king, the Dalai Lama, and at preventing the re-incarnation of the 72-year-old monk without approval from Beijing. Read the rest of this post… | Read the comments on this post… Original post by http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/-ScienceblogsCombinedFeed/~3/142-741999/china_to_monks_no_more_r-eincar.php
The Daily Show on Bob Allen [Dispatches from the Culture Wars]
2007-08-10 11:09:00 Bob Allen, the Florida Republican Congressman caught soliciting oral sex from an undercover cop. The Daily Show has a great time with his “the blacks made me do it” defense: Read the comments on this post… Original post by http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/-ScienceblogsCombinedFeed/~3/142-742000/the_daily_show_on_bob_al-len.php
Klingenschmitt Redux [Dispatches from the Culture Wars]
2007-08-10 11:02:00 Our old friend Gordon Klingenschmitt has a column at Worldnutdaily throwing his usual irrational temper tantrum about the DOD inspector general’s report on the Christian Embassy situation. This quote tells you all you need to know about this guy: So, if left-wing activist Mikey Weinstein wants congressional hearings, count me in, too. Let them haul us Christians before the tribunals to give an account for our public faith-speech. Only let us wear our uniforms to testify before Congress like Lt. Col. Ollie North did bravely, to their embarrassment. Let us testify about Jesus Christ before Congress and the entire world. We may surrender our wrists to their nails, right there on C-SPAN, but we’ll never be ashamed to speak publicly of our Lord and Savior. This is a guy absolutely frantic to strike the martyr pose, and if the facts don’t support him he’ll do it anyway. Read the comments on this post… Original post by http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/-Science...
Madison and Majoritarian Tyranny [Dispatches from the Culture Wars]
2007-07-23 11:02:00 “The United States isn’t a democracy, it’s a republic.” So goes the oft-repeated cliche. But what exactly does it mean? The American Heritage dictionary defines republic as A political order whose head of state is not a monarch and in modern times is usually a president or as A political order in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who are entitled to vote for officers and representatives responsible to them. It defines democracy, on the other hand, as government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system. Going by the dictionary definitions, then, this old cliche is a tautology; republic and democracy are essentially synonyms. The key to the American system, at least in theory, is not that it is a republic rather than a democracy (because it is both) but that it is is liberal democracy, which is a system in which ...
Saying Goodbye to a Father [Dispatches from the Culture Wars]
2007-07-10 21:29:00 A member of the ScienceBlogs family recently lost his father and has written a beautiful essay about the experience. It brought tears to my eyes because there were so many elements to his experiences that echo my own. He delivered the eulogy at his father’s funeral, as I did at my mother’s (for that full story, go here). And in describing his father he used the very same Emerson quote that I used to describe my father in a tribute I wrote to him on his 70th birthday. The thought of losing my dad, who just turned 72 and is thankfully in very good health, is unfathomable; to read about EM’s similar feelings toward his dad was very moving. His description of the last few moments, of telling someone you love that it’s okay to go, that you’ll take care of one another and you’ll be okay, brought a flood of memories coming back. I have said those words, first to my uncle and, a year later, to my mother. I urge you all to read it, but keep a box of kleene...
Culture Wars in Kenya
2007-06-22 18:00:00 The National Museum of Kenya is home to the bones of the famous Homo erectus man, discovered by anthropologist Richard Leaky. But the bones may soon become banned.
By: Evolution Minute
God's Wrath, Christ's Peace, and the Culture Wars
2007-06-18 21:36:00 Catholic theologian James Alison's essay "Wrath and the gay question: on not being afraid, and its ecclesial shape" is not only the best explanation of the Atonement I've seen in a long while, but also represents (to my mind) a more helpful direction for gay-affirming Christians than merely hunting for proof-texts that support our position and explaining away those that don't. Alison contends that human societies constantly seek self-definition by scapegoating outsiders. When Christ, the only completely innocent person, voluntarily assumed the scapegoat role, he exposed the sinfulness of that entire system. Never again could we in good faith believe that spiritual purity depended on exclusion. If community must be founded on sacrifice, Christ was the sacrificial victim and the entire human race became a single community, united by our responsibility for his death and by his equal love for us all. Yet Alison also finds fault with the liberal "many fla...
By: Reiter's Block
Culture wars: Target vs. Halal meat
2007-03-15 02:15:00 More culture wars to write about. The never ending stream of people that come to this country wanting Americans to change their cultural standards to accommodate their belief systems. (h/t: Atlas Shrugs) No people - seems those that immigrate to the United States do not want to integrate into our communities and culture - they ...
A Quagmire In The "Culture Wars"
2006-10-27 19:33:02 I once asked awhile ago who it was who started the so-called ?culture wars,? and I never received an answer. And somehow, based on this bit of theorizing by Amy Sullivan that appeared on yesterday?s editorial page of USA Today, I don?t think I?m going to get an answer anytime soon, seeing as how it is utterly full of tripe (this is actually a companion of sorts to the hit piece by CNN?s Candy Crowley the other day).Despite my objections, I should give USA Today credit for putting this into a blog and allowing readers to post comments to the story online (would that Philadelphia?s ?newspaper of record? did the same thing).Why Democrats are losing the culture warRepublicans? edge: Seeing the problemAnd by the way, as nearly as I can determine, the ?problem? is that Democrats/liberals/progressives-/whatever don?t bend over backwards for people who will never agree with them the same way that ABC producer Mark Halperin did yesterday).By Amy SullivanOn the surface, solid majorities of Ame... |
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