Company sued for potentially ending the world

An NPR story on a Hawaiian botanist's lawsuit against CERN to try to prevent the Large Hadron Collider from being turned on for fear that it will destroy the earth. This is worth listening to in order to hear Rudy Rucker read from one of his novels, Spaceland.

Evasion and ad hominem from Kevin Miller

Wesley Elsberry has been in an extended exchange with Kevin Miller, co-writer of "Expelled," in which Miller makes it clear that he's unwilling to look at or attempt to address any actual evidence. Instead, he falls back on supporting postmodernist claims that everything is subject to interpretation. But he doesn't give any reasons to support his purported interpretation, and ultimately descends into namecalling.

IL state legislator says it's dangerous for children to know atheism exists

Atheist Rob Sherman was at the Illinois General Assembly to argue against Gov. Rod Blagojevich's unconstitutional grant of $1,000,000 to the Pilgrim Baptist Church when this exchange took place between him and Rep. Monique Davis (D-Chicago):

Davis: I don’t know what you have against God, but some of us don’t have much against him. We look forward to him and his blessings. And it’s really a tragedy — it’s tragic — when a person who is engaged in anything related to God, they want to fight. They want to fight prayer in school.

I don’t see you (Sherman) fighting guns in school. You know?

I’m trying to understand the philosophy that you want to spread in the state of Illinois. This is the Land of Lincoln. This is the Land of Lincoln where people believe in God, where people believe in protecting their children.… What you have to spew and spread is extremely dangerous, it’s dangerous–

Sherman: What’s dangerous, ma’am?

Davis: It’s dangerous to the progression of this state. And it’s dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists! Now you will go to court to fight kids to have the opportunity to be quiet for a minute. But damn if you’ll go to [court] to fight for them to keep guns out of their hands. I am fed up! Get out of that seat!

Sherman: Thank you for sharing your perspective with me, and I’m sure that if this matter does go to court—

Davis: You have no right to be here! We believe in something. You believe in destroying! You believe in destroying what this state was built upon.

(Via Friendly Atheist.)

UPDATE (April 6, 2008): Rep. Davis, like Barack Obama, attends the Trinity United Church of Christ, formerly led by Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

UPDATE (April 7, 2008): Pharyngula has commented on this (lots of good comments there). It's worth noting that Rep. Davis is a legislator in the Land of Lincoln, and Lincoln was the U.S. president whose religious views were closest to atheism (he may actually have been an atheist, at least for part of his life; he definitely rejected Christianity). Illinois is also the state where noted agnostic orator, Robert Ingersoll, was attorney general after the Civil War.

UPDATE (April 9, 2008): Monique Davis is ranked "worst person in the world" by Keith Olbermann.

UPDATE (April 10, 2008): Monique Davis has apologized to Rob Sherman, who accepted it.

Grade "Expelled"

Movies.go.com is another site that now lists "Expelled" with an April 18 release date, and includes a poll on how good you think the movie is likely to be. With 474 votes, the ratings are:

A - Sizzlin': 11%
B - Cool: 1%
C - Decent: 1%
D - DVD-only: 2%
F - Vile: 85%

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.)