I do not follow too closely the extreme right commentariat, having neither the time nor the stomach to wade through all that ranting. But Roy Edroso of the Village Voice is made of sterner stuff and in an interesting article has carefully chronicled the right wing reaction to the Supreme Court verdict on the Affordable Care Act. [Read more…]
A recent post about accommodationists and new atheists revolved around the question of whether science and religion were incompatible and if so, what one should do about it. The question of what constitutes religion and incompatibility perhaps needs to be clarified a bit. [Read more…]
The scandal involving Barclays bank and its finagling of the LIBOR rate has been huge news in the UK but not much here. For those interested, Matt Taibbi has been posting frequent updates explaining what is going on. The latest revelation indicates collusion between Barclays and the British government to lie about interest rates. This should not be surprising. What is surprising is that it is coming out in public. [Read more…]
South African Oscar Pistorius has qualified to compete in the 4x400m relay at the London Olympics. Modern technology is amazing. There is no way in looking at him walking running that would tell you that he had prosthetics for both legs below the knee, unless you look closely. [Read more…]
The new French government has said that it would implement one of its campaign promises and make same sex marriage and gay adoption legal, starting in 2013. The prime minister told parliament that “Our society is evolving, lifestyles and mentalities are changing.” [Read more…]
Juries are almost always told that it is their job to judge the facts of the case before them and it is only up to the judge to interpret the law. But that is wrong. Juries can judge both the facts and the law and have the right to acquit someone of a crime if they feel that the law under which the person was convicted is an unjust one, even if the facts of the case clearly show that the person is guilty. Such a result is known as ‘jury nullification’. [Read more…]
In response to my two earlier posts where I condemned the practice of circumcision (see here and here), commenter TGAP Dad took issue with my response to a comment in the second post in which I said that “The only reason people do it is because parents want to indelibly mark their religious beliefs on the child”, pointing out that in his own experience growing up in an almost exclusively Christian community, circumcision was still routinely practiced, disproving my statement since Christianity does not require the practice as a religious identifier. [Read more…]
A press release from CERN cautiously announces the discovery of what may be the long-sought Higgs boson, with a spokesperson being quoted as saying, “The results are preliminary but the 5 sigma signal at around 125 GeV we’re seeing is dramatic. This is indeed a new particle. We know it must be a boson and it’s the heaviest boson ever found.” [Read more…]