stcynic
Posts by this author
October 2, 2006
The Rutherford Institute is suing a school in Greenbelt, Maryland after the vice principal threatened a 7th grader with punishment because she was reading her Bible while eating lunch in the school cafeteria. I just don't understand how a school administrator could be this stupid. Even if you don't…
October 2, 2006
So I'm flipping the channels and come across a D. James Kennedy sermon, which is always good for a laugh or two. The sermon was about tolerance of intolerance and it included all the typical martyr-mongering we hear from the religious right about how persecuted they are because they don't get to…
October 2, 2006
When I saw this story the other day, I almost posted about it and said that I'd be $100 that it would turn out to be a bunch of nonsense. The claim is that the head of the College Republicans at Oakland University was beaten up by his political enemies:
Justin Zatkoff, the executive director of the…
October 2, 2006
The indispensible John Gorenfeld has another great post at Talk to Action about the Rev. Moon and his close ties to social conservatives, in this case Utah Senator Orrin Hatch. Those ties go much deeper than you might expect. He includes video footage of Hatch praising Moon and his wife and details…
October 2, 2006
Let the scrambling begin. The AP reports:
Rep. Thomas Reynolds (news, bio, voting record), head of the House Republican election effort, said Saturday he told Speaker Dennis Hastert months ago about concerns that a fellow GOP lawmaker had sent inappropriate messages to a teenage boy. Hastert's…
October 1, 2006
I've been gathering information on the new internet gambling bill. No one can know for sure just how draconian it will be until the Treasury department writes the regulations to implement it, but here's what I am tentatively concluding at this point: the bill will fail to achieve its purpose. It…
October 1, 2006
I am absolutely livid right now. Our Republican overlords last night slipped in a ban on all financial transactions that might be involved in internet gambling into a totally unrelated bill and got it slipped through.
Lawmakers stayed up late as well, making sure to throw our country back into the…
September 30, 2006
Today should be fun. I'm going to watch my dad drive a race car at 170 miles per hour or so. It's a birthday gift that he's really excited about. So I'll be gone most of the day for that. See ya on the flipside.
Update: Sadly, we drove two hours down there and it was rained out and had to be…
September 30, 2006
Raw Story reports that Rep. Mark Foley has been caught sending suggestive emails to a 16 year old congressional page. Foley is one of the many "family values" Republican legislators who is secretly gay (though not so secret anymore, he was outed publicly a couple years ago). I don't care that they'…
September 30, 2006
Award-winning art teacher takes her class on a trip to Dallas Museum of Art. Principal not only approves the trip but encourages the teacher to do it. Parents all sign permission slips for the kids to go. The kids see a statue of a nude person at the museum. Award-winning teacher gets fired.…
September 29, 2006
This is quite a shock. Dick Armey, a former Congressman who was always on the side of the religious right, is now out of politics and telling the truth:
In the interview, Armey responded pointedly when Sager asked why he thought Christian conservatives seemed more powerful now than in the 1990s.
"…
September 29, 2006
I found this on Pam Spaulding's blog and I think it was made by someone who comments here once in a while (M.T. Rational XXXIV). It's....Gaypocalypse Now.
September 29, 2006
Jack Balkin says no:
First, the MCA puts the President in an interesting position: the U.S. is still bound by Geneva, but there is no way for individuals to enforce violations of Geneva (except that grave breaches of Common Article 3 can still be prosecuted under the War Crimes Statute). However,…
September 29, 2006
Famed libertarian legal scholar Richard Epstein testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee a few days ago about the detainee bill that was just passed and awaits Bush's inevitable signature. What he said is very important.
Far more is at stake than lawsuits haggling over prison…
September 29, 2006
Jon Rowe has an excellent post once again blasting David Barton for his utterly irrational historical revisionism in regard to religion and the constitution. He points to a document I've never seen before, an affidavit that Barton filed in the McCreary ten commandments case. You have to read this…
September 29, 2006
The case against a British minister for handing out leaflets at a gay pride event has been dropped. Unfortunately, the police are clearly engaging in doublespeak to justify the arrest in the first place.
South Wales Police force has defended its handling of the case, saying the CPS decison not to…
September 29, 2006
It's been a couple weeks since Glib Fortuna said something really stupid (or at least since I'd noticed it), which may be a record for him. But he's back with another utterly clueless post about HR 2679. He's accusing the ACLU of being disingenuous for arguing that this bill deprives "citizens" of…
September 29, 2006
Think Progress has video of Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, chief sponsor of the Marriage Protection Act, speaking at last weekend's Values Voters Summit. It includes gems like this:
Musgrave declared that gay marriage "is the most important issue that we face today." She told the audience that "when you're…
September 28, 2006
So ESPN finally aired the final table of the World Series of Poker main event last night and I have to say that Jamie Gold is the most irritating person to win it since Hellmuth. Unlike Gold, however, Hellmuth is a really good poker player. No matter who wins the championship, there's a fair amount…
September 28, 2006
Timothy Sandefur gave a speech about his new book and about the state of property rights in America, particularly with regard to eminent domain and regulatory takings, at the Cato Institute recently. You can listen to that speech in mp3 format here.
September 28, 2006
Jay at STACLU is upset that the ACLU filed suit in Kentucky over a state law restricting the right to protest at military funerals, a bill aimed solely at Fred Phelps and his gang of the insane and idiotic. A Federal judge just overturned that law. But look at the way Jay frames the issue:
How…
September 28, 2006
The more reports come in about last weekend's Values Voter Summit, the worse it gets (which is not a surprise, of course). Here's Bishop Wellington Boone:
But I want to tell you something is, they don't know, we're driven by God to deal with this stuff, and I want to say to you that, in this regard…
September 28, 2006
Kent Hovind's attorney has filed motions to dismiss all of the counts against him. Counts 1-12 and 58 (12 counts of failing to pay FICA and withhold income taxes on employees and one count of threatening a Federal agent) are discussed in this motion, while counts 13-57 (46 counts of "structuring")…
September 28, 2006
Ew. Just ew.
He may have played nerdy eighth-grader Samuel (Screech) Powers in the sitcom "Saved by the Bell." But former TV geek Dustin Diamond can now take his place with Colin Farrell, Tommy Lee and Kid Rock as the star of his very own sex tape.
Everyone who remembers Diamond as a lovable putz…
September 28, 2006
I just looked at the roll call for the votes on HR 2679 and I was quite surprised and disappointed to see Fred Upton's name on the yea list. Upton is a Republican congressman from the 4th district in Michigan, where I grew up and where my parents still live. He's been in office since 1986 and has…
September 28, 2006
Found this youtube video via Pam Spaulding. It's about Rod Parsley's Reformation Ohio and Center for Moral Clarity and their theocon agenda. The video is put out by Equality Ohio.
September 27, 2006
From the "cops that have nothing better to do with their time" department comes this story from Hillsborough County, Florida. The Sheriff's department launched a major investigation into allegations that strippers in the area were getting too close to customers during lap dances. $6000 and 92…
September 27, 2006
Folks, if you're a reasonably literate person scientifically and you're new to the evolution/ID debate and you're looking for a perfect example of the utter vacuousness of ID arguments, I urge you to read this column by Jonathan Wells in the Worldnutdaily. Even by ID standards, the irrationality of…
September 27, 2006
Which is hardly a surprise. The House will pass virtually anything, as history attests. But this bill is going nowhere fast in the Senate, just like Rep. Hostetler's other court-stripping legislation that passed the house and then died. Congress is about to go on break until November 7th. When they…
September 27, 2006
The Oakland Press published an editorial on its website on Saturday about Dick DeVos' statements advocating the teaching of intelligent design in public school science classes. Their editorial stance is essentially to dismiss it as a non-issue brought up by a "frenzied media" or by "anonymous…