First, the horrific, over the top, original video:
Then, the funny version:
Continue reading Yes, folks, it isn’t just the priests engaged in the whole child abuse in the name of religion thing
Daily Archives: August 4, 2010
California’s Gay Marriage Ban (which was Bad) Is Unconstitutional
Which we already knew, but now the gummit knows it too.
Livingston Parish Saved from Creationists
For now. This just in from the National Center for Science Education:
Creationism won’t be taught in the public schools of Livingston Parish, Louisiana — at least not yet. The Baton Rouge Advocate (August 1, 2010) reports that “The Livingston Parish School Board won’t try to include the teaching of creationism in this year’s curriculum, but has asked the School Board staff to look at the issue for possible future action.” At a July meeting, inspired by the Louisiana Science Education Act, the board formed a committee to explore the possibilities of incorporating creationism in the parish’s science classes. The committee is not expected to report its findings in time for the board to take any action for the 2010-2011 school year; the board’s president Keith Martin explained, “We have decided not to try to hurry up and rush something in for this year.”
Marjorie Esman, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana, told the Advocate that the decision to teach creationism would be not only doomed to failure but expensive. “If they were to do it, they could anticipate that any litigation would result in them not only losing, but having to pay enormous legal fees,” she said. “They would be wasting a huge amount of taxpayer money on a battle they can’t win.” The board’s attorney confirmed that it would be unconstitutional for the schools to teach creationism. Meanwhile, board member David Tate, who broached the possibility of teaching creationism at the previous board meeting, commented, “We don’t want litigation, but why not take a stand for Jesus and risk litigation.”
Put the solar panels back on the white house
Do you remember when, in an act of slap-in-the-face cynicism (that American Environmentalists accepted with little protest) Ronald Regan took the previously deployed (and largely symbolic) solar panels off of the roof of the white house?
Bill Clinton did not restore them. Bush … well, whatever. And Obama has not restored them either.
Time to put them back. Here’s a petition you can sign.
From culture red in tooth and claw …
… emerged Huxley:
No, no, not THAT Huxley, THIS Huxley:
Please visit Cocktail Party Physics for an amazing essay on Thomas Henry Huxley (who is indeed the namesake of the other Huxley). Read: How East London defined “Darwin’s Bulldog” and brought him into conflict with the world’s most dangerous anarchist.
Persistent ethnic differences in test performance may be entirely an artifact of the method used to ‘adjust’ the test
It is well established among those who carry out, analyze, and report pre-employment performance testing that slope-based bias in those tests is rare. Why is this important? Look at the following three graphs from a recent study by Aguinis, Culpepper and Pierce (2010):
The other side of the coin(age): Newton and the Counterfeiter
Did you know that Isaac Newton had two jobs? One, you know about: To figure out all that physics and math stuff so we could live for a while in a Newtonian world. The other was as th big honcho of the Royal Mint. Where they make the money.
Continue reading The other side of the coin(age): Newton and the Counterfeiter
Another bear maneno in Yellowstone
Park mangers say they euthanized “an aggressive, habituated, and human-food-conditioned black bear” Tuesday out of “concern for visitor safety.”
But it was also a result of stupid people making unnatural food available to the bear.
The adult female bear had been seen frequenting the Slough Creek area in the park’s north central area. The bear was 4 – 5 years old and weighed between 100 and 125 pounds. Some observers had mistaken her for a grizzly since it was brown in color.
In mid-July, the bear entered an occupied backcountry campsite in the Slough Creek drainage. Attempts to chase her away failed, and she ate the dinner the camper had prepared for himself.
No Assassination Attempt on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Today.
In Iran, there was NOT an assassination attempt on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Here is a picture of him not being assassinated as his bodyguards don’t react to anything as startled onlookers glance at the cite where there was not an explosion behind them.
(Photograph from Reuters, in The Guardian, which is NOT reporting anything.)
The BBC also reports that nothing happened in Iran today. Aljazeera.net, on the other hand, reports: Iran denies attack on Ahmadinejad.
Happy Birthday Barack Obama
Born on or near August 4th 1961, in Honolulu Hawaii. Or somewhere.
General Mental Ability Testing Overthrown?
Overturning more than 40 years of accepted practice, new research proves that the tools used to check tests of “general mental ability” for bias are themselves flawed. This key finding from the Indiana University Kelley School of Business challenges reliance on such exams to make objective decisions for employment or academic admissions even in the face of well-documented gaps between mean scores of white and minority populations.