The times they are a changin’ … Minnesota Leads in Modernizing Bar Rules: Ladies Night will Be No More.

Today’s subversive activity tip: Let’s play Disability Bingo.

Scott Gavura on vitamins and Steve Wereley on the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill.

The southern end, to be exact:

(Or, so it is called. One could debate the point.)

Here is some data on the impact of outside individuals as targets or important components of blog posts on the You’re Not Helping blog. Sample of the last several blog posts plus all known posts related to Yours Truly.

Clearly, while PZ Myers is not helping, he is not helping at the same order of magnitude of, say The Friendly Atheist. Greg Laden, on the other hand, is Totally Not Helping at All and probably deserves some kind of an award.

While this study is very interesting, the main purpose of the present exercise has been to test the table making facility in emacs org-mode. I would say it works pretty well.

If you want to see something REALLY impressive, check out the PDF exporting abilities of org-mode: YNH_count.pdf

Remember the Saint Paul RNC 8? Here’s the latest news:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Court Affirms Prosecution’s Attempt to Criminalize Activism, Proceeds in Case Against RNC 8

June 10, 2010

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Yesterday, the RNC 8 completed the probable cause hearing, begun last month, a key step in determining whether their charges of conspiracy to riot and conspiracy to damage property will go to trial in October. Judge Teresa Warner is expected to issue a ruling on the defendants’ motion to dismiss the charges due to a lack of probable cause sometime in August.

The probable cause hearing concluded without the testimony of paid FBI informant Andrew Darst, who has successfully evaded a subpoena for the hearing. Darst is currently being paid $1500 per month by the FBI to be on hand for testifying in the case and is legally required to keep a current address with his probation officer. Even so, all attempts to locate Darst have failed and Warner declined to compel him to appear.

“The prosecutors seem intent on using twisted logic to continue pursuing these trumped-up charges,” said Jude Ortiz of the RNC 8 Defense Committee. “We hope that a respect for the right to engage in political organizing will guide the ruling on the probable cause motion and that the charges will be thrown out.”

Read the whole press release here.

And other matters, from the Amazing Atheist:

Who knows, but maybe you can find out on Friday Night when you listen to Skeptically Speaking.
Continue reading What is the evidence for the claims about vitamins and health? →

You can now download a PDF version of Genie Scott’s book, Evolution vs. Creationism, 2nd edition, here.

The Constitution of the United States makes no mention of God and only two references to religion. The first reference is in the body: Article VI “[N]o religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” The second reference is the first line of the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof….” The state constitutions are far less restrained. While looking for voting rights in the state constitutions, I began to collect some interesting trivia from the freedom of religion clauses. The topic was interesting enough that I went back and collected the freedom of religion clauses from all fifty of the state constitutions (all fifty do include it in their enumeration of rights). This task was made easier by stumbling across Know Your Rights!, a site by Ken Lombardi where he has gathered all of the states’ bills of rights.

….. Continue reading “Religion in the states” by John McKay.

Perched heavily on a white stone wall, a cast-iron stegosaurus watched expressionlessly as a backhoe tore up a patch of land that was supposed to have been left green. “We’ve been doing some more research in the last few months which has already indicated we have to add extra parking,” Mark Looy shouted over the rumbling. “The lobby is probably also going to be too small. That outdoor area with the pillars, that’s going to be glass-enclosed now. That becomes a portico, a kind of pre-lobby for people to gather, get their tickets. Our projections are for more than two hundred and fifty thousand guests in the first year, and so we had to do some expansion.”

Continue reading Are you ready for the Rapture? →

The founder of 4chan, a controversial, uncensored online imageboard, describes its subculture, some of the Internet “memes” it has launched, and the incident in which its users managed a very public, precision hack of a mainstream media website. The talk raises questions about the power — and price — of anonymity.

Continue reading The case for anonymity online →