Michael Crichton is an asshole

I figured as much from his performance at this year's Skeptics Society conference, where he refused to defend the scientific claims in his book State of Fear, but here's how he's responded to Washington journalist Michael Crowley's critique in The New Republic--by putting Crowley as a character into his most recent novel, as a child rapist with a small penis:

Alex Burnet was in the middle of the most difficult trial of her career, a rape case involving the sexual assault of a two-year-old boy in Malibu. The defendant, thirty-year-old Mick Crowley, was a Washington-based political columnist who was visiting his sister-in-law when he experienced an overwhelming urge to have anal sex with her young son, still in diapers. Crowley was a wealthy, spoiled Yale graduate and heir to a pharmaceutical fortune. ...

It turned out Crowley's taste in love objects was well known in Washington, but [his lawyer]--as was his custom--tried the case vigorously in the press months before the trial, repeatedly characterizing Alex and the child's mother as "fantasizing feminist fundamentalists" who had made up the whole thing from "their sick, twisted imaginations." This, despite a well-documented hospital examination of the child. (Crowley's penis was small, but he had still caused significant tears to the toddler's rectum.)

This appears to me (a non-lawyer) like libel per se and atrocious writing, but Crowley looks like he's only going to point out Crichton's assholishness rather than sue.

UPDATE (November 5, 2008): Many people are visiting this page today after the announcement of Crichton's death. A number are searching with the keywords "Michael Crichton atheist." Michael Crichton was an atheist according to a number of sites online (but not the Celebrity Atheists wiki), but that has nothing to do with his behavior described above.

DefCon's campaign against "Left Behind" game gives it more publicity

As I suggested might be a consequence, the DefCon campaign against the "Left Behind" game has generated media attention, which may cause the sale of more copies than would otherwise have occurred. Which is a pity, considering that it is such a bad game on every level.

Personally, I don't see why simulated religious violence is inherently worse than any other kind of simulated violence, and find DefCon's campaign misguided and not remotely connected to their stated purpose of defending the U.S. Constitution.

UPDATE (November 23, 2007): DefCon has announced that its funding has run out, as pointed out by vjack at Atheist Revolution.

Discovery Institute's latest attack on Dover decision

After a year of careful analysis of Judge Jones' decision in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, the Discovery Institute has determined that the Judge made considerable use of the plaintiff's Proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law when writing the section on intelligent design as science in his decision for the plaintiff. Somehow, they think that this common practice of using the Proposed Findings of Fact from the winning side in crafting a decision makes Judge Jones a puppet of the ACLU, even though he's a conservative justice appointed by George W. Bush.

The Discovery Institute has issued a press release touting their findings as though it discredits the decision's reasoning. This press release demonstrates that they are still smarting over the loss in Dover, still spending their time doing things that have nothing to do with scientific research, and that they have as much credibility on legal matters as they do on scientific matters.

More by attorney Timothy Sandefur at the Panda's Thumb. This press release by the DI was telegraphed by a talk given by Michael Behe earlier this month in Kansas.

UPDATE (December 13, 2006): Ed Brayton analyzes the DI report in more detail, including responding to its claims that Judge Jones incorporated "errors" from the ACLU into the decision.

UPDATE (December 14, 2006): More responses:

Timothy Sandefur, "Is John West Dishonest or Just Ignorant?" and "Casey Luskin--Not Too Bright" at the Panda's Thumb.

UPDATE (December 20, 2006): Wesley Elsberry has looked at how much of the plaintiff's Proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law was actually used in Jones' decision (and how much of that section of the decision came directly from the plaintiff's filing). Ed Brayton summarizes at Dispatches from the Culture Wars.

Casey Luskin has attempted to respond with a defense, but as Ed Brayton shows, he just keeps digging a deeper hole.

Special rights for religions

A school in Virginia was threatened with a lawsuit by the Christian legal group Liberty Counsel if they didn't permit a Baptist church to send home flyers with students. The school permitted this to happen, and in order to comply with the First Amendment, they permitted other religious groups to do the same. Now that a local Unitarian Church has sent home a flyer advertising a look at the history of December traditions (apparently including the contributions of Christianity, Judaism, and pagan religions) and "a Pagan ritual to celebrate Yule," there is outrage.

It's hypocrisy to suggest that gays who seek to be able to marry and not to be fired because of their sexual orientation are demanding "special rights," while actually demanding that one religion be given special privileges that others must be denied. That hypocrisy is on display at the WorldNetDaily.

There are two reasonable, constitutional policies for the school--permit all religious groups to submit flyers for distribution, or not permit any of them to do so. (In my opinion, schools shouldn't be sending home anything with students that isn't from the school itself.)

More at Dispatches from the Culture Wars.

Kids say the darndest things

(Via Bitchasaurus.)

Democrats plan to remove earmarks from spending bills

The Republicans dumped the job of straightening out the government's remaining spending bills for 2006 on the Democrats, who have responded by declaring that they will remove all of the earmarks from them:

"'There will be no congressional earmarks,' Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., and Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., said Monday in a statement announcing their plans, which were quickly endorsed by incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and soon-to-be Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev."

Looks like the Democrats are, for the moment, going to be more fiscally responsible than the Republicans. Not hard, given how the Republicans have spent money while they've been in power, but this is great news.

Another closeted gay evangelical leader in Colorado resigns

Paul Barnes, founding paster of Grace Chapel in Denver, resigned on Sunday in a videotaped confession shown to members of the church. Grace Chapel has about 2,100 members.

(Hat tip to Talking Points Memo.)

Orac uncovers the real cause of the WTC tower collapses on 9/11

Over at Respectful Insolence, Orac has followed up a post about those who believe that the Towers were taken down by missiles disguised as planes by flying hologram generators with one in which he identifies the real cause of the building collapses--loose trains. The evidence is at least as compelling.

(But seriously, if you're curious about 9/11 conspiracy theories, read this, and check out the further sources at the bottom. Also check out Popular Science's book on the subject, and Skeptic magazine's vol. 12, no. 4 (2006) issue.)

Kolbe suggested former page not reveal incriminating information about Mark Foley

A former House page who was sent an instant message by Mark Foley asking him his penis size forwarded it to Arizona Rep. Jim Kolbe back in 2001. When the scandal broke, that former page called Kolbe and asked him what he should do. He says Kolbe told him that "it is best that you don't even bring this up with anybody.... There is no good that can come from it if you actually talk about this. The man has resigned anyway."

The House ethics committee found out about it anyway, prompting Kolbe to call the former page and leave a message saying, "it looks like you did some talking."

More detail and excerpts from the House ethics committee report at TPM Muckraker.

UPDATE (December 9, 2006): Here's Kolbe's response.

Time to stop using Microsoft Word

For the second time this year, Microsoft has issued a notice of a remote code execution vulnerability in Word for which there is no patch. Their suggested workaround is "Do not open or save Word files that you receive from un-trusted sources or that you receive unexpectedly from trusted sources. This vulnerability could be exploited when a user opens a specially crafted Word file." If you rely on exchanging Word documents for your business, this means shut down your business or risk infection with zero-day malware that can compromise your systems.

Secunia has rated this as "extremely critical," their most serious vulnerability rating.

The last time this happened was in May, and it took Microsoft 26 days to come up with a patch, during which time there were attacks on various enterprises from systems in China.

This problem affects Word 2000, 2002, and 2003 for Windows, Microsoft Works 2004, 2005, and 2006, Word Viewer 2003, and Word 2004 for Macintosh.

I recommend switching to OpenOffice and Macintosh. If you must use Windows in a business environment, this presents a strong argument for not giving users administrative rights on their own machines (or at least not on the user they login as to use Word) in order to limit what damage can occur from the exploitation of a vulnerability like this.

UPDATE (December 15, 2006): There have now been three such Word vulnerabilities discovered in the last two weeks!