The Episcopal Church has filed a lawsuit seeking to regain control of church property from the breakaway Diocese of Fort Worth.
The lawsuit was filed Tuesday in Tarrant County district court. Defendants include Fort Worth Bishop Jack Iker, who led the theologically conservative diocese to split from the national church over issues including gay clergy and women in the priesthood.
Monthly Archives: April 2009
Science Rock Stars
Lynn Fellman, the Ira Flatow of the Twin Cities, has a guest post at Quiche Moraine about her recent trip to the Origins Symposium.
Rusty-red rocks against an electric blue sky were an exact color match for the mix of brilliant intellect I knew to be in Phoenix on Monday. I had just flown into Sky Harbor Airport from Minneapolis, and any Minnesotan will tell you that we don’t waste a day like that indoors. It was a sparkling spring morning alive with color and radiant sunshine. But I happily joined 3,000 other science fans inside a dark auditorium for a full twelve-hour day of physics, cosmology, biology and more.
I am so excited!!!
Texas is going to secede from the union! Seriously! The governor of Texas has laid down the gauntlet, and unless we get rid of that Black Guy as president and that Damn Woman as speaker of the house, it’s vamoose for Texas!
And I couldn’t be happier. Texas should not be part of the Union. Why? Well, there are a lot of reasons, but here are the top three:
- Texans are stupid. They bring our total national average down too much.
- Texans are regressive. Two steps forward, ten steps backwards, politically. I’d rather not live in the middle ages, thank you very much.
- Texans smell bad, look funny, and have kooties. I know that looks like three reasons but I think they may be linked.
Good bye, Texas!
(I can’t wait to see how this affects immigration policy in the US and the new Lone Star Country.)
You know, I got interviewed on the phone by a reporter from Texas this morning and I’m still washing my my ear out.
Louisiana: Not so sure about evolution
“Just in time for the bicentennial observance of Charles Darwin’s birth, a new survey of Louisiana residents shows 40 percent of the respondents believe evolution is not well-supported by evidence or generally accepted within the scientific community,” the Baton Rouge Advocate (April 14, 2009) reports. The Louisiana Survey, sponsored by the Manship School of Mass Communication’s Reilly Center for Media & Public Affairs at Louisiana State University, asked (PDF), “Do you think the scientific theory of evolution is well supported by evidence and widely accepted within the scientific community, or that it is not well supported by evidence and many scientists have serious doubts about it?” Of the respondents, only 38.8% preferred the correct option, with 40.3% thinking that evolution is not well supported and 20.9% listed as saying they don’t know. The survey also asked, “When teaching students about human origins, would you generally favor or oppose teaching creationism along with evolution in public schools?”; 57.5% of the respondents said that they favored teaching creationism, 31% said that they opposed teaching creationism, and 11.4% were listed as saying they don’t know.
How I learned to be an anti-Semite
I am not an anti-Semite. But I did learn how to be one in school. Catholic school, that is, which I attended for first, second, and third grade, in that order.
Continue reading How I learned to be an anti-Semite
My worst nightmare
…. well, ok, not really the worst. But pretty bad. Only read this if you don’t have any phobias related to cartoons, small pets, or zeppelins.
The Dog
I told you this Obama dog thing was going t be big. Here’s an overview of the situation from NPR. And, you may recall this:
Many of you heard the question at President Elect Obama’s first news conference, which was mainly about the economy, regarding what kind of dog the girls would be getting as per a deal apparently made some time ago. The only safe answer to that question would have been to give the secret signal that cuts the power feed to the cameras, then have the reporter bagged and dragged out of the room and appropriately disciplined. But no, instead, Obama answered the question and he even discussed details … the dog needs to be hypoallergenic, yet also from a shelter, and so on … so now we all know. …
Obama Re-Education Camps Worry Bachmann
… so, I’m guessing that the “Re-Education Camps” .. also known as AmericCorps … are a good idea.
This concern on the part of Wackaloon Congresswoman Bachmann (WCB) is is probably valid, to the extent that AmericCorps is in any way educational. Education is always bad for Republicans. This is why in the late days of the Bush Administration and the ultra dumbed down Palin-McCain campaign, high-IQ Republicans were running away from the party. This is why Republicans push for teaching bad science in the schools. This is why … oh, never mind, I’m sure you totally get it.
Anyway, here is a piece in the Star Tribune regarding Bachmann and her wacka-wacka-loonery regarding AmeriCorps.
Rep. Michele Bachmann has appeared on various broadcasts with dire warnings about the program: “The real concern is that there are provisions for what I would call reeducation camps for young people, where young people have to go and get trained in a philosophy that the government puts forward and then they have to go to work in some of these politically correct forums,” the Republican said. “It is a dream come true for people who want to transform our country from a free-market economy to a centralized, government-planned economy.”
I’ve had experience with a group like this once. I was sitting in a plaza in Havana many years ago when a kid in the obligatory Communist Party red neckerchief walked up and told me to get my feet off the park bench. I didn’t like it one bit. So I decided to see if I could uncover some subversives currently working in Minnesota’s AmeriCorps underbelly to see what they were up to.
She had her feet on the park bench!?!!? Hey, Michele, when you travel to foreign lands, you really ought to recognize that things might be different there, and it is not your place to make up new rules for the locals, or to come back home and ridicule the people you visit. Get a brain. Maybe go take an anthropology course. But not mine, please.
Anyway, go read Jon Tevlin’s column in the STRIB.
Check it out: Caloplaca obamae
“I discovered the new species in 2007 while doing a survey for lichen diversity on Santa Rosa Island in California,” said Kerry Knudsen, the lichen curator in the UCR Herbarium. “I named it Caloplaca obamae to show my appreciation for the president’s support of science and science education.”
Anonomizing your on line activities and time in the clink
If you carry out illegal on line activities and do so using a proxy to anonomize your activities, the crime could be considered “sophisticated” and thus a higher form of felony.
A key vote Wednesday on new federal sentencing guidelines would classify the use of proxies as evidence of “sophistication,” increasing sentences by about 25 percent – which could mean years or even decades longer behind bars, depending on the crime. It’s akin to judges handing down stiffer sentences when a gun is used in a robbery.
Yet digital-rights advocates are worried. Although they aren’t absolving criminals, they complain that the proposal is so broad, it could lead to unnecessarily harsh sentences for tech neophytes who didn’t know they were using proxies in the first place or who were simply engaging in a practice often encouraged as a safer way of using the Internet.
“It sends a bad message about protecting your own privacy,” said John Morris, general counsel for the Center for Democracy and Technology. “This is the government saying, ‘If you take normal steps to protect your privacy, we’re going to view you as a more sophisticated criminal.'”
What does it mean to be free?
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Mandy the Polar Bear Lady: Suicide?
It is being suggested, according to this article (which was pointed to by this blogger), that the woman who leaped into the Berlin Zoo polar bear enclosure a couple of days ago was seeking her own death, having become depressed over her job situation. She was an out of work teacher.
It has also been revealed that during the incident, the Zoo staff had already broken out rifles and issued them to staff snipers, who were prepared to kill one or more polar bears.
I didn’t think they had out of work teachers in Germany.
Mandy remains in critical condition in hospital.
Flashback to an earlier Zoo Animal Eats Person story: Tatiana Is Telling us Something, and The Physics of Tatiana. And, while we are on the topic of bears: Cave Bears More Carnivorous Than Previously Thought.
Michele Bachmann Running Scared?
The voice of the Republican Party appears to be unable to converse.
Originaly from Dusty Trice, via the D.B. web site.
More Pirate Activity
Over the last several hours pirates have attacked a US freighter on the way to Mombasa (carrying humanitarian aid). These pirates did not use the usual method of operation. Rather, they ran at the ship with guns blazing and fired rocket propelled grenades right away. The bridge of the ship was apparently badly damaged but none of the crew were hurt.
The US Navy is bearing down on the situation, and have placed armed seamen on board the freighter. The same destroyer that currently is carrying the recently freed US captain is now escorting the freighter to its port.
Elsewhere, news sources are reporting that an additional fifty hostages have been taken by pirates in the region.
Facebook Users Get Worse Grades in College
Facebook users have lower overall grades than non-users, according to a survey of college students who also ironically said the social networking site does not interfere with studying.