stcynic
Posts by this author
October 24, 2006
Justice Scalia has been very active lately on the public speaking circuit. In addition to his debate with Nadine Strossen, he also made an appearance, along with Justice Alito, at a conference sponsored by the National Italian American Foundation. The AP reported on that talk and something jumped…
October 24, 2006
The LA Times has a story about some religious right leaders pushing for gays to be purged from the Republican Party. In the wake of the Foley scandal, there are increasing calls to get gay people out of the party entirely.
"The big-tent strategy could ultimately spell doom for the Republican Party…
October 23, 2006
Howard Friedman reports that the judge in the West Virginia "Jesus Picture" case has accepted a settlement agreement agreed to by both sides and dismissed the case. The ADF has previously declared the case a victory, but I can't imagine why. The settlement agreement says that the school agrees not…
October 23, 2006
According to Bishop Ussher's now-famous calculation, God created the earth on October 23, 4004 bc. Which makes today that 6010th birthday for the planet. Unfortunately, she hasn't aged well. She looks like she's about 4.55 billion years old.
October 23, 2006
James Wolcott has another post on Dinesh D'Souza's appalling argument that we should become more like the Taliban in order to make them hate us less. He includes a few quotes from the book that are so stupid they leave your mouth agape as you read them. For instance:
"The left doesn't blame America…
October 23, 2006
Just when you think STACLU can't get any more ridiculous you come across this post by davef, announcing breathlessly that a - gasp! - Muslim has joined the national board of the ACLU. Laila Al-Qatami of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee is joining the ACLU board and, apparently, davef…
October 23, 2006
I just finished reading The Professor, the Banker and the Suicide King, by Michael Craig. If you have any interest in poker at all, I highly recommend that you get this book. I devoured it in about 24 hours and enjoyed every moment of it. Having read many of the gossipy reports about this series of…
October 23, 2006
According to this report:
LGBT faculty and the parents of gay students were excited this week when they discovered on the Oklahoma Public Schools Web site that a new student handbook would include language forbidding bullying on the grounds of sexuality.
But as word spread the section on LGBT…
October 23, 2006
And yet another of his fellow Christians blows the whistle on him.
Gibbs, an attorney with the Gibbs Law Firm in a suburb of St. Petersburg, also is affiliated with the Christian Law Association, a nonprofit organization founded by his father that offers free legal help to churches nationwide....…
October 22, 2006
The ADF has put out a white paper (PDF file) on gay marriage amendments around the country, which shows their fanatical obsession with gay sex in big, bright colors. The white paper would make a terrific test case for a class in political rhetoric, examining how language is used to poison the well…
October 22, 2006
I have a confession to make: I have a passionate hatred for Deepak Chopra. I think the man is a complete and utter fraud. So I'm always glad to see people give him the thorough reeming he deserves so much. Orac has a good one here. Chopra is someone whose funeral I would actually protest outside of…
October 22, 2006
Or just found lying around, according to an anonymous package containing the source code for their voting machines on a disk. That package was sent to Cheryl Kagan, a former Maryland legislator who has been a critic of computer voting machines. These systems are remarkably easy to manipulate and it…
October 21, 2006
Agape Press has a report about a man in Virginia who was fired from his job at a Cargill plant for having a sign on his vehicle aupporting Virginia's anti-gay marriage amendment.
Luis Padilla was reportedly terminated from his employment at a Cargill Foods plant in Harrisonburg because of a…
October 21, 2006
The local paper reports that the prosecution put on an administrator from Pensacola Christian College to talk about her past dealings with Hovind regarding his refusal to pay taxes.
Horton first heard of Hovind's beliefs about taxes in the mid 1990s.
A woman gave Horton a videotape. The woman…
October 21, 2006
ThinkProgress reports on O'Reilly's complaints about the blogosphere recently. After commenting that knows "for a fact" that "President Bush doesn't know what's going on in the Internet", and complaining about bloggers attacking people, he said:
I think - I have to say President Bush has a much…
October 21, 2006
THeath has a great post at House Blend responding to John McCain's statement the other day that he's fine with non-binding ceremonies, but not gay marriage. It includes a list of real life examples of people denied the most basic protections for their dignity and commitment in the most trying times…
October 20, 2006
When I'm looking for a tightly-reasoned, logical, well thought out position, I always turn to Glib Fortuna. Okay, just kidding. But if you're looking for an opinion full of ridiculous, hyperbolic rhetoric, take a gander at this post from our ol' pal Glib. He's discussing who will take over as…
October 20, 2006
When the Science Bloggers had their nerd-off recently, I finished dead last. I could not hold a candle to the sheer geekiness of the rest of the group (especially Orac, the Uber-nerd). But last night I boosted my nerd cred: I knocked Wil Wheaton out of a tournament at Poker Stars (which says…
October 20, 2006
I know, that's like figuring out which day Mike Tyson was the biggest jerk on. But I think it might be true. This story tries to tie every bad guy in their universe together in one single narrative - Bill Clinton, the ACLU, Muslim terrorists and separation of church and state. Here's their claim:
A…
October 20, 2006
The outrage for Maher Arar continues. Arar is the Canadian man who was captured by American authorities on a false tip from Canadian law enforcement, sent to Syria and tortured for 10 months before being released. He is completely innocent, as a Canadian board of inquiry showed recently. And to add…
October 20, 2006
This. Is. Unreal. Try and wrap your mind around these statements:
The top US general defended the leadership of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, saying it is inspired by God.
"He leads in a way that the good Lord tells him is best for our country," said Marine General Peter Pace, chairman of the…
October 20, 2006
Yoo has been on an extraordinary roll lately, one bit of breathtaking hypocrisy after another. Marty Lederman correctly lampoons him for his latest, an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal cheering the MIlitary Commissions Act. Yoo emphasizes the court-stripping component to the legislation, its most…
October 20, 2006
This trial is going to be a lot of fun to watch. The local paper reports that two of Hovind's employees, the ones he says he didn't withhold taxes from or pay taxes on because they were "ministers" and he runs a ministry, testified that they thought they were employees. And they quoted from memos…
October 19, 2006
The ACLU just held their annual conference and one of the discussion panels dealt largely with the Kitzmiller v Dover Area School District case. That panel included many of the plaintiffs in the case and some interesting stories were told about what went on in the community during the case (you can…
October 19, 2006
Yet another anti-gay crime in San Diego, where 6 men were brutally attacked after a gay pride event earlier this year by 4 bat-wielding bigots. This time it happened on a trolley:
Police say that the Trolley was traveling ;through the Encanto neighborhood when a man in his mid 30's began making…
October 19, 2006
The ADF blog is rapidly joining STACLU and the Worldnutdaily as a goldmine for source material. Like most religious right groups, they seem to have a very difficult time applying logic in a consistent manner, especially when the results would make the story they're selling seem less plausible. The…
October 19, 2006
I have a friend who, about 15 years ago, went from being a high school teacher to being the chief lobbyist of a very large company. A couple weeks ago we had a conversation in which he said that if he was still teaching advanced government, now that he's actually worked up close with the…
October 19, 2006
My only regret about STACLU is not discovering them sooner; their usefulness as blog fodder is virtually unmatched. Only the Worldnutdaily comes close, and for most of the same reasons. They've got two delightfully wacky posts up right now. The first, from jonjayray, may have shattered the world…
October 19, 2006
A Kentucky lawmaker is introducing a bill to prohibit public universities in the state from offering any sort of domestic partnership benefits. And he's got that standard issue vacuous reasoning:
Rep. Stan Lee (R-Lexington) filed notice this week that he will introduce the override bill as soon as…