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Monday, October 31, 2005
The Wisdom of Mother Basil: Mother Basil would not have liked the intelligent design people. She would have felt that they bring religion into disrepute. What kind of religion is it that wants to enter the science class?Good for Mother Basil. How about a little something to cheer you up as you get off the subway today? As for the small size of the weapons and the notion that they can be detonated by one person, those claims also been authoritatively dismissed. The only U.S. government official to publicly admit seeing a suitcase-sized nuclear device is Rose Gottemoeller. As a Defense Department official, she visited Russia and Ukraine to monitor compliance with disarmament treaties in the early 1990s. The Soviet-era weapon "actually required three footlockers and a team of several people to detonate," she said. "It was not something you could toss in your shoulder bag and carry on a plane or bus". Glenn Reynolds, with some much needed clarity, on the Libby case and its implications. Here: and here. Thursday, October 27, 2005
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
From the House Divided Against Itself Dept. Interesting:
This is becoming a little farcical. Update: it gets even better. From Rosemary Righter at the Times in London: Since the euphoria of their first chance at the vote last January, thousands of Iraqis have lost limbs and lives at the hands of terrorists and insurgents bent on inciting civil war. They have chafed under a weak, bickering Government that most Iraqis would say has done precious little to improve their lives. Yet even more people voted this time than in January.God Bless them. Monday, October 24, 2005
From the Times' coverage of Michael's Behe's cross examination in the Dover Case: Under sharp cross-examination by a lawyer for parents who have sued the school district, he said he was untroubled by the broadness of his definition of science and likened intelligent design to the Big Bang theory of the origins of the universe because both initially faced rejection from scientists who objected for religious and philosophical reasons.I've been told by people who know and have debated him that Michael Behe is a nice guy. One cannot resist, however, feeling he must have an ego the size of Jupiter to compare Intelligent Design to the Big Bang theory. The Big Bang is science. Intelligent Design is smoke and mirrors. Indeed, from the outset the whole ID movement has been about rhetoric, not science. Behe's position just proves it. There were specifically scientific reasons for the development of the Big Bang theory back in the late 1920s and early 1930s, ones that can be referenced and looked up to this day in any good library. To summarize, Georges Lemaitre convinced Einstein and his contemporaries in 1930, that the universe had to be expanding. He did this by essentially showing that Einstein's 'static' model, a temporally infinite, 4-dimensional model of the universe, and Dutch astronomer Willem De Sitter's essentially flat, empty model of the universe, were two bookends of a larger, dynamic model of the universe. Shortly after this, Lemaitre realized that an initial static Einstein state could not be sustained indefinitely. The laws of physics couldn't support it. The expansion therefore had to wind back to some temporal, spatial origin, a point he liked to call the Day Without Yesterday. While this bothered Arthur Stanley Eddington and others because of the implications (the world began with a bang), no one dismissed Lemaitre's work the way Michael Behe's work has been dismissed by his own contemporaries, because the physics and mathematics behind Lemaitre's paper were so solid. And one can see by the number of papers by colleagues his own work generated. Indeed, in the 1960s Roger Penrose and Stephen Hawking showed that any relativistic model of the cosmos has to have its origin in a singularity. Such scientific fecundity cannot be attributed in any way, shape or form to the patchwork pseudo-philosophizing that goes by the name of "Intelligent Design." The "theory" has not inspired a single scientific paper or experiment. Friday, October 21, 2005
It's been way too long since I last cited the always excellent Victor Davis Hanson:
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Hanna Rosin is covering the Dover case on "intelligent design" in the Public Schools. And here is an excellent update on the status of Darwin's theory. One of the most dishonest things about the "intelligent" design crowd is their repeated insistence that there are "problems" with Darwin's theory. What's next? Are the public schools supposed to teach students about the "problems" with Einstein's theory? With Newton's? Friday, October 14, 2005
Thursday, October 13, 2005
After more than twenty years as one of the nicest restaurants up in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, The Clam Shell, is...well, there's no other way to put it—selling out to Walgreen's. Sheesh. Now, it's a family owned restaurant, and hey, a good offer is a good offer. So, you can't blame them. But there are already two huge pharmacies, Brooks and RX up there, more than enough for a small town. Who needs another Walgreen's and where the hell are we starved-for-food-and-drink hikers supposed to go now? Thursday, October 06, 2005
Rafat Ali: @ We Media: Gore's A Blowhard: No, that's not me saying that, but everyone I spoke to after his speech this morning said so...someone said that now we know [why] he never won: he is boring as hell. Here's another one I heard: Gore to Web: TV rocks; Web to Gore: Drop Dead. Plus his point about TV being the dominant medium for the next decade didn't go down well with the converts here...Like we didn't know this? Tuesday, October 04, 2005
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