Arizona bill to ban gay marriage fails

A bill in the Arizona legislature to amend the state constitution to ban gay marriage (which failed via initiative petition in 2006, being rejected by voters) died in the state House after it was similarly amended to ban domestic partner benefits. That's the same reason the initiative, Proposition 107, failed.

More reviews of "Expelled"

Felix Salmon at Portfolio.com offers an interesting review of "Expelled" from a non-scientist.

Robert McHenry at the Encyclopedia Brittanica looks at some of the arguments of "Expelled."

And you can find more information at the NCSE's "Expelled Exposed" web page.

Mike Gravel "Helter Skelter" video

Mike Gravel has dropped out of the Democratic Party process and joined the Libertarian Party process seeking its nomination for president. Here's his latest, uh, "campaign video"...

(Via Huffington Post.)

Bush: 4th Amendment doesn't apply to domestic military operations

A 37-page October 23, 2001 memo by John Yoo titled "Authority for Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activities Within the United States" stated that the Fourth Amendment's prohibitions on unreasonable searches and seizures did not apply to U.S. military operations on U.S. soil in the name of defending against terrorism. The existence of this memo, which has not itself been released, was made public on Tuesday when a March 14, 2003 memo was released, which stated in a footnote that "Our office recently concluded that the Fourth Amendment had no application to domestic military operations."

On Wednesday, the Bush administration indicated that it has disavowed the view of the October 23, 2001 memo.

The March 14, 2003 memo, also by Yoo, was obtained by the ACLU as part of a Freedom of Information Act request. That memo asserts that the President has the right to authorize torture in violation of criminal law:

If a government defendant were to harm an enemy combatant during an interrogation in a manner that might arguably violate a criminal prohibition, he would be doing so in order to prevent further attacks on the United States by the al Qaeda terrorist network. ... In that case, we believe that he could argue that the executive branch's constitutional authority to protect the nation from attack justified his actions.

The fact that Bush wasn't impeached and convicted years ago for high crimes and misdemeanors is astounding to me.

(Hat tip to Dave Palmer on the SKEPTIC list--I've not been reading TPM lately.)

More "Expelled" dishonesty

Science Blogger (and 2007 Arizona Professor of the Year) John Lynch signed up for the Tempe screening of "Expelled" which was supposed to occur at 7 p.m. last night. He received an email on April 2 telling him that it had been cancelled.

But it wasn't cancelled--it was just moved to 6 p.m. (as Lynch had been informed in an earlier email), and went on at Arizona Mills Mall as planned. Apparently the producers just decided to screen out some of the prospective attendees by lying to them, and professors who win awards for the excellence of their teaching are considered undesirables. Lynch noted that others were cc'd on both of the notices he received, and that while those with email addresses containing names like "boughtbythecross," "homeschoolma," and "covenant-dad" apparently didn't receive the bogus cancellation notice.

Lynch's post has links to some comments containing reports of the event from those who still managed to attend.

UPDATE: In Louisville, Kentucky, they also claimed that a screening was cancelled, but a screening for students and staff at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary did take place on the appointed date, and the schedule of events shows the screening as having taken place. Again, "undesirables" were screened out and not informed of the change in venue.

Life Before Death

An interesting series of captioned photographs of people shortly before and shortly after their deaths (all of people who knew they were terminally ill). Most seem to have come to terms with their impending end, but sad are those like Gerda Strech (photos 13-14), who felt she was cheated out of a long-earned retirement, and Roswitha Pacholleck (photos 15-16), who was unhappy until she became terminally ill, only to enjoy every day of her life as she was dying. She vowed that she would volunteer in a hospice if she managed to survive her cancer.

The fact is, we're all already terminal cases. Don't wait until life is near its end to start living it.

(Also via The Agitator.)

Interesting photos of abandoned Antarctic outposts

Robert F. Scott and Ernest Shackelton's Antarctic campsite cabins at Cape Evans on Ross Island have been sitting there since 1913 and 1908, respectively, and are still intact and remarkably well preserved. The Fogonazos blog has the photos.

(Via The Agitator.)

Very bad creationist research

P.Z. Myers recently offered a critique of a biology paper published on the Institute for Creation Research website that was presented at the 1998 International Conference on Creationism in Pittsburgh, by Mark H. Armitage, M.S., then of the ICR Graduate School and now with the Van Andel Creation Research Center of the Creation Research Society (which is right here in Arizona, just north of Chino Valley, named after a deceased co-founder of Amway).

Myers observed:

Notice anything missing? Right, no results. That's a metaphor for the whole creationist movement right there. There are some photos imbedded in the methods section, but it's like a random set of random photos of random parasites this guy found in his fish; there's nothing systematic about it, and the photos aren't even very good — the SEMs are way too contrasty.

Since he has no data, he has nothing to evaluate, and his discussion is a rehash of review papers he has read that highlight the complexity of the trematode life cycle (and it's true, it is complex with a series of hosts), and that every once in a while raise a pointed question, such as, "What allows this cercaria to resist digestion within the fish stomach…?", which I would have thought would be reasonable kinds of questions for a grad student to actually, you know, study. If this had been my grad student, anyway, I would have told him to knock off the pointless microphotography and focus on one of these questions and try to answer something.

...

This paper is completely unpublishable by any legitimate science journal. I doubt that it could get past an editor, who typically screen out the obvious crackpottery, and no reviewer would be fooled by it; it's experiment-free and even its few observations are incoherent and pointless. Its conclusion reveals that the author doesn't even understand the theory he claims to be criticizing.

Myers' full critique is well worth reading, and if creationists read it, they might learn something about how science actually works.

Armitage responded to Myers with a sarcastic email that didn't bother addressing any of the actual criticism, prompting Myers to completely dissect Armitage and show him further to be an arrogant ignoramus. A commenter points out that Armitage managed to get a bad geology paper published in American Laboratory in 1997 (very similar to one which he had already published in the Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal in 1994, but which he failed to reference in the 1997 paper), which has similarly been completely shredded by a real geologist.

It's amazing that there are people who think creationists like Armitage are scientists.

UPDATE (April 3, 2008): Eamon Knight mentioned Armitage's CV, a version of which can be found here.

UPDATE (April 5, 2008): Armitage cc's P.Z. Myers on a response to an email, and demonstrates further cluelessness. The guy has actually written a book titled Jesus is Like My Scanning Electron Microscope.

Another "own goal" from Michael Behe

Intelligent design advocate Michael Behe scored another "own goal" like he did in the Dover trial, this time in the law suit by the Association of Christian Schools International and Calvary Chapel Christian School against the University of California. ACSI and Calvary were arguing that the UC system was unfairly refusing to accept transfer credits from certain courses taught at Christian schools which used inadequate materials in their curriculum.

Behe testified in court on behalf of the plaintiffs that "it is personally abusive and pedagogically damaging to de facto require students to subscribe to an idea . . . . Requiring a student to, effectively, consent to an idea violates [her] personal integrity. Such a wrenching violation [may cause] a terrible educational outcome."

The judge cited this reasoning in his decision in favor of the University of California:

Yet, the two Christian biology texts at issue commit this "wrenching violation." For example, Biology for Christian Schools declares on the very first page that:

(1) "'Whatever the Bible says is so; whatever man says may or may not be so,' is the only [position] a Christian can take . . . ."

(2) "If [scientific] conclusions contradict the Word of God, the conclusions are wrong, no matter how many scientific facts may appear to back them."

(3) "Christians must disregard [scientific hypotheses or theories] that contradict the Bible."

Good job!

(Via Dispatches from the Culture Wars and Pharyngula.)

Judeo-Christian means Christian

At least for Shirley Dobson (wife of James Dobson of Focus on the Family) and the National Day of Prayer Task Force, that is. On an application to be a coordinator for the Task Force, it claims:

The National Day of Prayer Task Force was a creation of the National Prayer Committee for the expressed purpose of organizing and promoting prayer observances conforming to a Judeo-Christian system of values.

Sounds open to Jews and Christians, but not Muslims, right? But when you look further at the application, you see that you must be willing to sign the following statement of belief in order to be a coordinator:

I believe that the Holy Bible is the inerrant Word of The Living God. I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the only One by which I can obtain salvation and have an ongoing relationship with God. I believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, his virgin birth, his sinless life, his miracles, the atoning work of his shed blood, his resurrection and ascension, his intercession and his coming return to power and glory. I believe that those who follow Jesus are family and there should be unity among all who claim his name.

(Via Ed Brayton's Dispatches from the Culture Wars blog, where one commenter points out that they are probably open-minded enough to be willing to accept anyone of any religion or even an atheist, so long as they're willing to sign that statement of belief, and another commenter suggests the alternate term "Christeo-Mormon.")