1. Bible bashing dying out in Kansas

Comment #103405 by grolaw on December 25, 2007 at 1:13 pm

Comment 25 shows the KC, MO Moorish-influenced city Plaza with the Christmas lights in place. Just off that Plaza is a Frank Lloyd Wright church - albeit that it is a Unitarian church. I'd bet quite a tidy sum that the majority of citizens don't realize Moorish = Muslim. I live here.

Comment 24 ascribes KC as a "refuge" from the fundies. That's true if you define a "refuge" to be where there are only 10-20 churches per square mile. Mega churches in the high-dollar suburbs are doing well - very, very well.

The primary industry, just across the state line (in Kansas) is INSURANCE. Yes, the industry that Michael Moore exposed in Sicko has a major hub in the Kansas City metropolitan area. Nice that the growth in immoral insurance correlates with increasing numbers of mega churches. Now, is there a causal link?

2. Look Forward to Anger

Comment #52357 by grolaw on June 26, 2007 at 8:49 pm

Rage Boy needs IM neurolyptics. Let's not forget to protect him from EPS with an anticholinergic drug, too.

3. Evolution: God as Genetic Engineer

Comment #49151 by grolaw on June 10, 2007 at 4:30 pm

Dimwit Behe (he, he, he) is in dire need of some integrity.

4. Cigarette Smoke Alters DNA In Sperm, Genetic Damage Could Pass To Offspring

Comment #47391 by grolaw on June 4, 2007 at 10:53 am

Yet another example of how a product, tobacco, used as directed will injure the user. If that isn't the prima facie example of the legally "defective product" I don't know what is.

5. Angry atheists are hot authors

Comment #44458 by grolaw on May 24, 2007 at 9:25 pm

Consider: Monica Goodling considers herself a "good Christian" while invoking her 5th Amendment right not to incriminate herself.

Her testimony disclosed "caging lists" that disenfranchised Black, or Hispanic or poor or military voters (as implemented by Tim Griffin - now the US Attorney for the Northern District of Arkansas). To top it off, the DOJ liaison to the White House (a 33 year-old woman) has the memory of a chronic pot-head - if you were to believe her testimony.

Her religion obviously does not prohibit her breaking the law. One of the top ten (10) people in the DOJ has the memory of an Alzheimer's patient? I think not.

Only 150 more Regent Law School Grads still working in the DOJ/Executive branch. God's little criminals.

Is there any doubt why Prof. Dawkins and Sam Harris are best sellers? People are disgusted with self-satisfied little religious bigots.

6. Hitchens on Falwell

Comment #41840 by grolaw on May 17, 2007 at 7:09 am

Hitch has his places. This is one of them. A hack attacking a fraud is a good match.

7. Why Christopher Hitchens is not Great

Comment #40855 by grolaw on May 15, 2007 at 5:20 am

Thor:

BFD that Hitch has a trade and a baccalaureate - Hitch is just another writer. Hitch is both a writer and a brute - his favorite style is attack-mode.

Dawkins and Harris are both academics, both in hard science. Harris has more than just the B.A. from Stanford - he specialized in religion and is integrating that study into his neurology Ph.D.

The critical reasoning and analysis of the scientists is quantitatively different from those employed by a mere journeyman hack. Hitch is an opportunist - Dawkins and Harris have other motivations than money driving their work and an honest comparison of these books leaves Hitch's effort a distant third.

Answer this question: would Hitch have written this book in the absence of Dawkins' and Harris' preceding volumes (and, successes)? I'd say that he just hopped on a hot topic to make a fast buck.

His gutless attack on his former friend Sidney Blumenthal, well documented by both men, was done for no other reason but to harm an innocent "friend" for Hitch's personal intrinsic and extrinsic profit.

The social compact does not apply to Hitch - according to Hitch. Were I on a life raft together with Hitch - he'd be the first one I jettisoned - because he is a human embodiment of Hardin's Tragedy of the Commons. He takes all he can whenever he can; he makes messes and lets others clean them up.

Hitch's work is the text equivalent of a shock jock. Dawkins and Harris construct nuanced, multilayered studies of the subject.

Hitch is FAR from the top intellectual in the western world. I could name hundreds who eclipse him - but let me suggest comparison to Douglas R. Hofstadter (a Pulitzer Prize winner for his First Book). Hofstadter is a professor of Cognitive Science, a best selling author and the mentor to dozens of post-docs. Hitch - he drinks and thinks about Hitch.

Shall I put Mjölnir down now, Thor? Or, do I have to whack Hitch a few more times with it?

8. Why Christopher Hitchens is not Great

Comment #40649 by grolaw on May 14, 2007 at 4:14 pm

Christopher Hitchens is a jerk. And, so are a lot of other people. I have bought three of Mr. Hitchen's books and this was one of them.

Sam Harris did a cleaner job disemboweling Christianity in his, Letter to a Christian Nation. Both Dr. Dawkins and Mr. (when are you going to complete that Ph.D., Sam?) Harris' major books on the subject are far, far better works.

Hitch likes to go for the gut - he slashes and bashes and generally makes a big mess (the Rabbi completing a Brit milah orally is a pretty low gut-shot - it would be nice if Hitch had figures about the frequency of such things...) and then he walks away and finds new targets.

The "reviewer" could have done a better job - Hitch is far from being truly knowledgeable about the subject matter. I think that Sam Harris has an encyclopedic knowledge of the field (and, well he should have - he has a Stanford B.A. in Philosophy) and Dr. Dawkins is a close second.

Hitch is nothing more than a debate bully itching to draw blood. Well, the subject matter could use some roughhousing...Hitch has his place.

9. When Seeing Is Disbelieving

Comment #36639 by grolaw on May 1, 2007 at 9:29 pm

That shipboard costume show, including the codpiece, was just obscene. 139 troops had been killed prior to that fateful day and today we stand at 3351 US Troops dead +650k Iraqi civilians and untold thousands injured along with billions and billions of dollars squandered.

Damned high price to pay for W's Oedipal lust....

10. We aim to misbehave

Comment #35027 by grolaw on April 26, 2007 at 3:28 am

The US employment discrimination laws have been systematically weakened by court decisions - and there are only a few thousand of us in the employment discrimination field - because it takes years and years of dedicated work and there is never a certain outcome.

It matters not that the US Supreme Court has gutted the Americans with Disabilities Act, pregnancy discrimination is rampant, that the narrowed scope of comparators under the Equal Pay Act and the wholesale attack on Federal Sector workers have left more than half of the workforce mere wage slaves. What matters is that nobody has a free minute to rest, contemplate the legal and political landscape and realize that time has come for us to misbehave.

I aim to misbehave.

11. Gay hate church to picket VT gun rampage funerals

Comment #33681 by grolaw on April 21, 2007 at 5:18 am

Ridicule is far more effective than any other weapon.

WHAT FRED PHELPS WANTS IS THE SPOTLIGHT. It's that simple. Deny him his press at the "demonstration" and have the press point out the fact that they segregate into male and female only hotel rooms (where many are in fact married to each other). Yes, it is, no doubt a cost-saving measure - but casting a light upon their unisex hotel practices would put the "spotlight" where Fred Phelps can least tolerate it - his own family's odd behavior. Steal the spotlight and they will quickly fade away.

12. Gay hate church to picket VT gun rampage funerals

Comment #33412 by grolaw on April 20, 2007 at 3:47 am

Fred Phelps, the head of WBC, is a disbarred attorney (stole from his trust) and has been all over the place with this kind of barbarity because he is receiving outside funding.

Whatever else they may be, I have found one easy way to make them go away - engage any of them (though the younger women are easier targets) and discuss how difficult it mist be to have to travel so far to give their message. That hotels are expensive - how do they afford to come to XXX place and tell us the truth. Invariably you will hear how they travel together and how the women and men are segregated in different hotel rooms.

Ask if it isn't difficult to be separated from spouse and the response is always "no" not when doing "god's work" - ask if spouse is in the other hotel room and spouse always is (these people are all extended family of Fred Phelps).

Then point out that it seems very gay to segregate married couples into "boys and girls" at the hotel. Act shocked as you realize that this is a gay hate group masquerading as straight and tell them that they should read their own signs!

I've had several of them run away from me - and I never raised my voice or gave them any reason to believe that I wasn't on their side until I point out the implications of their strange lifestyle. They are so homophobic that they simply can't take any analysis that suggests they might be gay!

I'm an attorney in Kansas City. A slippery slope argument leading them into questioning their sexual identity drives them totally over the edge - every time.

13. The Salem Hypothesis

Comment #27171 by grolaw on March 23, 2007 at 10:46 am

A previous post states: "Engineering is technology." I agree to the extent that engineering is applied technology. Most engineers that I interact with are U.S. Patent Lawyers and their fields of expertise are EE (both power and circuit), Chem. and Civil.

The wars - and I do mean wars - between the Biotech Patent Lawyers (usually Ph.D. - albeit that a few of us opted for master's only programs - mine is in Endocrine Physiology and woefully dated) and the Engineer Patent Lawyers - are fierce.

An odd aspect of the law in the US is that Patent Lawyers had to have "science" degrees, and their Juris Doctorate to sit for the Patent Bar. At the time I sat for the Patent Bar (1990) a science degree was defined as any engineering field except computing, chemistry and biology.

The Patent Law field was dominated by engineers who would not accept a non-engineer patent lawyer into their firms unless the non-engineer held an advanced degree. My triple major baccalaureate (Biology, Chemistry and Art History) was sufficient to qualify me to sit for the patent bar - and pass, but not to obtain a job with a patent law-firm! The engineers all held baccalaureate degrees, but required more from non-engineers.

The upshot: the patent lawyers who are engineers tend to be very religious and I have been to any number of "law-firm retreats" where a full day was devoted to nothing but attending "revival" meetings of the Baptist flavor.

I'm located in Missouri, US and this is the heart of the Bible Belt. The overt religiosity of senior-partner engineer patent lawyers and their mandatory attendance at overtly religious firm functions soured me on the field - at least here in the central US.

As far as I can remember from the three patent firms I worked for, every engineer was religious to some degree or another and every firm was controlled by engineers because they held the most seniority/partnership share.

None of this religiosity violates U.S. employment discrimination law - because the firms were "partnerships" and not "employers" as defined by Title VII 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e et seq. This kind of overt religious discrimination (mandating participation in religious activities as a part of the job) would be actionable in another type of employment setting - and, yes, that is one of the bad aspects of being an attorney - we all can look up the law and find ways to get around it.

The fairly good news I hear from my colleagues in California is that there are now some solid Biotech Patent firms populated by Ph.D./J.D. counsel with a much less overt religion. The bad news is that the only hire newly-minted Ph.D.'s....

14. Why there are almost no genuine atheists

Comment #24659 by grolaw on March 7, 2007 at 11:25 pm

Stirring the pot. As both a scientist and an attorney, I can say that Lawyers - especially law professors - love to argue inconsequential detail as though it were the ultimate revelation that turns the case to their client's ends.

Put simply, there are atheists. The term, as Sam Harris and Prof. Dawkins elucidate, need not exist. Harris suggests in his Letter to a Christian Nation that there is no need for a term describing a non-alchemist. When did we find a need to distinguish between "true" and "not-so-true" atheists? Only in a specious proposition made by a lawprof....

Defining the terms prior to argument and then arguing those terms it is a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.

The lawprof stands exposed as the fakir he, no doubt, is.

Cobras, and Dispholidus typus should be placed in the lawprof's shorts for a quick review of neurotoxic effect on anencephaly in lawyers. Owing to the few functioning neurons present in law professors' brains, this usually has no adverse effect. It is fun to watch....

15. Massachusetts Atheists?

Comment #20494 by grolaw on February 3, 2007 at 7:12 am

Counselor Crib is correct regarding the MA Statute. I am also a practicing attorney and simply wish to add one point:

There are no provisions in any state that I know of to "sweep off the books" all outdated and unenforceable laws.

We carry all sorts of outmoded statutes because our courts should not enforce the unenforceable and because the cost of completely overhauling a whole state's statutes and code of regulations would be grossly prohibitive. (*And, what a mess we would have if we undertook such a project - certain political types would always find ways to insert or delete special provisions for their political allies...*)

16. [Warning: Graphic] Children's foreheads slashed in Muslim saint's name

Comment #20167 by grolaw on January 31, 2007 at 5:18 pm

Fact: perfectly normal tissue is lacerated.
Fact: the laceration is subject to infection.
Fact: the administration of the laceration causes pain.
Fact: the children subjected to this practice cannot consent.

Fact: we would be better off without bodily mutilation - be it circumcision or this practice.

Fact: no rational parent would willingly harm their child.

Ergo, these parents are irrational and their children pay the price.

How do we stop the process? Simple - there are standards of care contained in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted in November 1989 - we could educate people to follow them - perhaps by bribing them with food and luxury goods.

Or, there is the American Solution: bomb them. If you kill all the parents and children then the religion dies with them. Somebody named Hitler tried that and Pol Pot made a shot at the same target (along with Stalin and all of the others).

Cutting a foreskin, slashing a head and female "circumcision" are all aberrations that unfortunately inflict insufficient harm to make the practice self-eliminating through natural selection.

17. The Nodder

Comment #16797 by grolaw on January 8, 2007 at 8:48 pm

Obviously, this is pure propaganda. Any person who could suffer such a radical "injury" from nodding could not possibly have the endurance to type this whole letter after his wrists locked up with carpal tunnel within the first ten words.

This has to be a clever ruse to dissuade readers for fear of neck damage - Pat Robertson disinformation, no doubt.

18. Let's Hope It's A Lasting Vogue

Comment #15634 by grolaw on January 1, 2007 at 6:20 pm

I always question certain authors and it is my experience that Christopher Hitchens is as likely to bite us in the ass as he is to provide some relevant information. I'd trade ten Christopher Hitchens for one Sam Harris.

I fear that Hitchens will simply give further ammunition to the deists because he is a jerk. Ask Sidney Blumenthal.

He did do a nice job illuminating the BS that Mother Theresa embraced- the best friend poverty ever had. But he has that nasty edge that serves to infuriate rather than illuminate - though the Good Dr. Dawkins has been accused of not tolerating fools well - Hitchens has a way of biting the hand that feeds him.

Time for a reality-based society in the USA is long past due - we are reveling rather than reviling the death of Saddam Hussein - wrapped in religious dogma more appropriate to the 1st Century than the 21st.