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stcynic | August 29, 2005I just discovered that Jim Lippard, scourge of Amway and Scientology and all around brilliant guy, has started a blog. This is sure to be one worth reading on a daily basis.
stcynic | August 27, 2005A federal lawsuit has been filed by an association of Christian schools against the University of California system accusing them of discrimination because they won't recognize the validity of some courses at Christian secondary schools that use creationist textbooks:
The Association of Christian Schools International, which represents more than 800 schools, filed a federal lawsuit Thursday claiming UC admissions officials have refused to certify high school science courses that use textbooks challenging Darwin's theory of evolution. Other rejected courses include "Christianity's Influence in…
stcynic | August 27, 2005Some of you no doubt noticed that for the last few hours, you couldn't leave a comment or do anything here. That's because I was trying to upgrade to Movable Type 3.2 and screwing it up royally in the process. Reed Cartwright, the computer genius who does all of the software work for the Panda's Thumb came to my rescue, as he always does. The funny thing is that he emailed me this morning, before I started, saying he was available to help if I wanted to upgrade, and I'd already downloaded the new version to try to upgrade it. So as you can tell, he's used to me screwing up such things and…
stcynic | August 26, 2005We have witnessed a speciation event right here on this blog. In the last 24 hours, this blog has gone from being a "marauding marsupial" to being a "large mammal" in the TTLB ecosystem. In this case, however, the event was in fact the result of an intelligent designer. More specifically, it was the result of someone more intelligent than I am telling me that if I added my sitemeter code to the individual entry pages it would more accurately count the number of hits I get each day (because a lot of people who visit my blog follow a link to a specific entry rather than to the front page of the…
stcynic | August 20, 2005As I mentioned yesterday, I got to see Vinx perform last night at an outdoor jazz festival. As always, it was a show that leaves you exhilirated. Vinx is one of those rarest of musicians whose work is completely unique. No one else sounds like him and his music is really impossible to describe or categorize. He usually performs with just percussion and voice, though last night he also had a guitarist with him on some of the songs. What makes it most incredible is that he has the ability to use percussion to create melody and harmony with his voice. I would never have thought that was possible…
stcynic | August 19, 2005I'm off for the rest of the day. I have business to take care of in the afternoon, then I'm off to Lake Idlewild for a jazz festival. An old acquaintance of mine, Vinx, is performing there tonight. He's an absolutely incredible musician and singer. The jazz festival is on an island out in the middle of a lake, admission is free, and they have BBQ there as well. Jazz and BBQ by the lake sounds a lot like heaven to me.
stcynic | August 16, 2005Via Sandefur, I found this absolutely incredible display of chutzpah on the part of the city government that won in the Kelo case. Would you believe they are charging those who fought their takover rent for staying in their own homes while they fought in court to prevent the city from taking them?
Those who believe in the adage "when it rains, it pours" might take the tale of the plaintiffs in Kelo v. New London as a cue to buy two of every animal and a load of wood from Home Depot. The U.S. Supreme Court recently found that the city's original seizure of private property was constitutional…
stcynic | August 16, 2005In their usual breathless marketing style, the Worldnutdaily is offering a new version of Bishop James Ussher's classic Annals of the World. The front page of WND declares:
Real history, untampered with by 'them'
And yes, the emphasis and the scare quotes are in the original. They further declare:
Considered not only a literary classic, but also an accurate reference, "The Annals of the World" was so highly regarded for its preciseness that the timeline from it was included in the margins of many King James Version Bibles throughout the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries.
There's just one tiny…
stcynic | August 15, 2005Via Jim Babka's blog, I learn that Harry Browne, former Libertarian presidential candidate, is very sick and is hospitalized. I don't know any details at this point, but I certainly wish Harry a speedy and thorough recovery. Get well soon, Harry. We need your voice on behalf of liberty.
stcynic | August 12, 2005I'm heading out of town for a weekend of business meetings so there'll be nothing new for a while. I probably will have some time to jump on and leave a comment or two tomorrow, however. Hope everyone has a great weekend.
stcynic | August 10, 2005Okay, this is quite amusing. Someone posted a link over on Theodore's blog to my previous little dig at him and his crying need to bring up his Porsche (turbo, even) as proof that he isn't bitter toward women. And this was his response:
Do better than what? The guy didn't say anything. He clearly missed the point of the Porsche comment, which was to skip the usual red herring whenever a topic critical of feminism is broached.
Perhaps I should have just explained that I have Real Ultimate Power and I pork hot babes without even thinking twice about it. Perhaps then Mr. Braydon (sic) would…
stcynic | August 9, 2005Readers of the Worldnutdaily are by now familiar with a columnist who goes by the pseudonym Vox Day. His real name is Theodore Beale and his rich father is on the board of directors of the Worldnutdaily, which is the only explanation for how he got his position as a columnist there. It's bad enought that he actually puts his membership in Mensa in his bio, but on top of that his writing is just so bad. For an example of just how insipid his writing is, look at this column in which he rails about the evils of women's rights. He annoys me right off by invoking Bill Simmons (the infamous and…
stcynic | August 9, 2005One recurring argument that anyone involved in the evolution debate encounters frequently goes like this:
Darwinism is impossible. If Darwinism is true, then you have to believe that the big bang exploded and the result was the universe around us. That's like a tornado blowing through a junkyard and building a 747. Explosions only destroy, they can't create.
Leaving aside the fact that this isn't even an accurate description of the big bang, any even modestly educated person must shake their head at what on earth this has to do with the theory of evolution. One searches the work of Darwin in…
stcynic | August 8, 2005I think some of my readers will find this quite amusing. Over on In the Agora, the comments after a post about Bush's statement on teaching ID in schools has spawned about 100 entries. About half way down the discussion is joined by someone with the nickname "lawyerchik" and it really gets funny. She trotted out the old "2nd law of thermodynamics" argument and it went rapidly downhill from there. After getting hammered from piller to post, she declared victory. It's quite like the Black Knight from the Holy Grail as he got his limbs cut off but kept shouting, "It's just a flesh wound". Anyway…
stcynic | August 8, 2005The Pew Research Center and Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, one of the most objective and reasonable organizations studying the subject, has released a massive poll of American attitudes on various legal issues and the results are fascinating. The poll was conducted before the John Roberts nomination was announced and it covered a wide range of ongoing legal controversies including abortion, affirmative action, gay marriage and much more. Here are some of the interesting results.
On abortion, the normal 2/3 (65%) of the public says that Roe v Wade should not be overturned; that result…
stcynic | August 6, 2005No, not the sitcom. A couple hours ago I was flipping channels and I see my friend Nick Matzke on the screen. Nick works for the National Center for Science Education and is a contributor to the Panda's Thumb. I had the good fortune to meet him a couple years ago at a conference at Berkeley (and the misfortune of trying to shove three of us into the front of his tiny pickup for a ride back to the hotel after eating an enormous dinner). He was on Fox News being interviewed by Tony Snow, along with Stephen Meyer of the Discovery Institute. I only caught the last minute of it, but enough to see…
stcynic | August 3, 2005I have just received a surprising and surely too generous gift from a reader named Damon Katz. In appreciation for the work I do here, he has given me a $100 Amazon gift certificate, along with the admonition that I should use it for something fun rather than something intellectually related. It's an incredible kind gesture and it is very much appreciated. Most importantly, it's nice to know that my writing is viewed as worthwhile and important by my readers. Thank you so much, Damon.
stcynic | August 1, 2005For a perfect example of why I tend not to take either the pedestrian left or pedestrian right at all seriously, compare these two statements. From Democrats.com:
Bush has violated the public trust, not just by stealing the election, but also by selling America out to a neo-Nazi-esque secretive group calling itself the Federalist Society...
They are a meanspirited, anti-American club of mostly white, mostly male ultrarightwingers who have since 1979 (when they helped ram Reagan into office)worked relentlessly behind the scenes, backed by untold stores of money and power, to tear America as…
stcynic | August 1, 2005It appears for now that President Bush's plans for social security reform are on the back burner. The idea proved to be politically unpopular, according to many polls, but I've never quite understood why. I've also never quite understood why privatization is viewed as such a bad idea by those who regard themselves as liberals. This essay will explain why.
The first thing that must be noted is that there is a genuine crisis in the social security system. For the first 50 years, Social Security (SS) was essentially a break even proposition. The amount of money taken in was roughly equal to the…
stcynic | July 28, 2005Well, the new group blog at Positive Liberty has hit the ground running. I posted my essay about the 9th amendment and unenumerated rights over there as well, which drew the attention of Randy Barnett at the Volokh Conspiracy (to whom I once again owe thanks for his unexpected praise). That send hundreds of new people over to the site, helping to sustain the boost in readership that began with Jason's brilliant "How not to make me ex-gay" post. They've bombarded my post with a few dozen messages, some more serious and worthy of responding to than others. I suspect I may well spend today…