Vatican Official Refutes Intelligent Design

The Vatican's chief astronomer said Friday that "intelligent design" isn't science and doesn't belong in science classrooms, the latest high-ranking Roman Catholic official to enter the evolution debate in the United States.

The Rev. George Coyne, the Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory, said placing intelligent design theory alongside that of evolution in school programs was "wrong" and was akin to mixing apples with oranges.

"Intelligent design isn't science even though it pretends to be," the ANSA news agency quoted Coyne as saying on the sidelines of a conference in Florence. "If you want to teach it in schools, intelligent design should be taught when religion or cultural history is taught, not science."

….

In a June article in the British Catholic magazine The Tablet, Coyne reaffirmed God's role in creation, but said science explains the history of the universe.

"If they respect the results of modern science, and indeed the best of modern biblical research, religious believers must move away from the notion of a dictator God or a designer God, a Newtonian God who made the universe as a watch that ticks along regularly

Full article @ yahoo news

The American Taliban won't care they think the pope is the anti-christ anyway...... well even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Congress helps themselves

"The Republican-controlled Congress helped itself to a $3,100 pay raise on Friday, then postponed work on bills to curb spending on social programs and cut taxes in favor of a two-week vacation."

and

"Lawmakers automatically receive a cost of living increase each year, unless Congress votes to block it."

They're cutting programs and lining their own pockets? Have they no decency? Why are we tolerating this???

Last night the House voted 215 to 217 to pass the budget reconciliation bill - a bill that makes massive cuts to student loans, school lunch programs, Medicaid, food stamps, and foster child programs. This bill is going to be closely followed by a tax cut bill, which will ensure the $70 billion in tax cuts to the wealthiest few continues. So - the Waltons of Wal-Mart get a tax cut, while NH college students get another $6000 added to their debt.

Both Charlie Bass and Jeb Bradley were initially against the budget cuts, but changed their tune when drilling in ANWR was taken off the bill by House leadership. The Senate still is strongly in favor of ANWR - and it will be put back in, no matter what these NH Congressional ninnies were told.

PLEASE CALL BASS/BRADLEY TODAY The 1-800 number is still working. That number is 1-800-426-8073.
Here's a sample message:
We are disappointed that early this morning, Rep. _____ voted for the House budget reconciliation bill that included harmful cuts in Medicaid, child support, food stamps, and other programs for vulnerable Americans. Members of Congress who voted for those cuts said they were necessary to reduce our deficit. Given Rep. ______'s apparent concern for our nation's deficit, we certainly hope and expect that he will vote AGAINST the tax cutting bill that may be considered on the House floor today. The tax cutting bill will increase our deficit and more than one-third of the $57 billion price tag comes from extending the tax cuts on capital gains and dividends whose benefits go overwhelmingly to the wealthy and which don't expire until 2008. It would be unconscionable for Rep. _____ to vote to cut taxes on the wealthiest Americans on the same day that he voted to make it harder for the nation's neediest to get health care, buy food, and get the child support they are owed. Of course, by holding the votes so close together, at least Rep. _____'s constituents can more easily judge where his priorities lie.

Call, email, fax - whatever - but let Bass/Bradley know that you strongly disapprove of his vote in favor of the budget - and that NH voters have long memories.

W.A.T.C.H.'s annual "10 Worst Toys" list nominates representative toys with the potential to cause childhood injuries, or even death. W.A.T.C.H.'s annual "Toy Conference" has generated extensive national press and media coverage. Because of these efforts, and the positive response from both the media and the public, there have been many toy and product design changes. Founder Edward M. Swartz and W.A.T.C.H. have fearlessly exposed potentially dangerous toys to the general public. As a result, children’s lives have been saved.
Please Click on Image to Learn More
Baby Serena - Baby I'm Yours	Camouflage Water Bomb Fun Kit	Splatmatic Pistol Splat Paintball Shooter	Animal Alley - Ponies	City Blocks
The Lord Of The Rings - Return Of The King Uruk-Hai Crossbow Set Including Electronic Light 'n' Sound Sting Sword	Air Kicks Kickaroos Anti-Gravity Boots	Fisher Price's Little Mommy Bath Baby Doll	Fantastic 4 Electronic Thing Hands	Star Wars - Revenge Of The Sith Energy Beam Blaster

George Bush, Dick Cheney and Condoleeza Rice are flying on Air Force One.
The President looks at Cheney, chuckles, and says, " You know, I
could throw a $1,000 bill out the window right now and make somebody very
happy".

The Vice President shrugs and says,"Well, I could throw 10 $100 bills out
the window and make 10 people very happy".

Not to be outdone, the Secretary of Defense says, "Of course, I could throw
100 $10 bills out the window and make a hundred people happy".

The pilot rolls her eyes and says to her co-pilot, "Hell, I could throw the
three of them out the window and make 56 million people really happy."

Documents released yesterday revealed that Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito wrote in 1985 that he personally believed the Constitution did not protect a woman’s right to an abortion:

Boston Globe:

President Bush's Veterans Day broadside against Senator John F. Kerry, delivered in a major speech on the war in Iraq, was greeted with quiet cheer by those in the senator's camp who are laying the groundwork for his possible run for the presidency in 2008.

By singling out Kerry as the Democrats' leading Iraq war critic, aides to the Massachusetts Democrat said, the president confirmed Kerry's continuing prominence in national politics, something the senator and his aides have fought hard to maintain.

''Kerry is clearly one of the national leaders of the Democratic Party," said Jenny Backus, a Kerry political strategist. ''John Kerry has articulated a clear strategy for Democrats, and there's nothing more dangerous for Republicans than a united Democratic Party."

True, there's nothing more dangerous to Republicans thana united Democratic Party. Kerry isn't the one to do the uniting or lead a unified caucus. As nice as Kerry's conversion to the "let's get out of Iraq" camp might be, Kerry had his opportunity to lead on the war just a year ago and failed miserably.

Remember this from August 10, 2004?

On Friday, Bush challenged Kerry to answer whether he would support the war "knowing what we know now" about the failure to find weapons of mass destruction that U.S. and British officials were certain were there.

In response, Kerry said: "Yes, I would have voted for the authority. I believe it was the right authority for a president to have."

from daily kos

It sure was sweet for Bush to throw Kerry a bone like that... must be a kind of belated thank you for the way Kerry ran his campaign.

interesting interview on NPR, on the Sternberg affair.

One of the interesting aspects was the reporter who did it: Barbara Bradly Hagerty. She's NPR's religion reporter. In general, assigning a religion reporter to these stories is a bad, bad idea—creationism stories are about attempts to insert religious thinking into the secular business of science and education, and they don't understand why we would find that objectionable. It's like sending a known neocon sympathizer to investigate the administration's rationale for war, and we just know that no responsible news organization would ever be insane enough to do that.

Digging a little deeper into Hagerty's background, one also discovers something interesting: connections to Howard Ahmanson.

More troubling still is her association with Howard Ahmanson's Fieldstead and Co. and Fieldstead Foundation. Ahmanson is a California millionaire who uses his trust fund to finance right-wing Christian, anti-gay, anti-evolution groups and politicians. He was previously associated with Christian Reconstructionism, which advocates a Biblically-based governement for the U.S.

from pharyngula via the news blog

As you may recall, Target is letting its pharmacists refuse to fill your order for emergency contracptive pills (Plan B, as it's called) simply because they find your prescription immoral. Target is now saying that they'll fill your prescription in a "timely manner" at another pharmacy, or at their pharmacy at a later time (presumably when their holier-than-thou employee is on break).

I don't know about you, but when I go to the pharmacist, I don't want him sending me to another Target 40 miles away simply because he has religious issues with my prescription. It's none of his business what prescription I'm getting filled, and short of there being a glaring mistake in my prescription a la "It's a Wonderful Life" - i.e., instead of allergy pills someone gave me cyanide - it's none of his damn business passing religious judgment on my prescriptions, my illnesses, my prefered form of treatment, or me.

I already have a priest, and he doesn't work at Target, thank you.

But Target feels otherwise. In fact, Target is now claiming - quite incredibly - that its employees' religious fanaticism is covered the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Yes, apparently Target employees are allowed to not sell you things based on THEIR religion. That's an absurd, and rather dangerous, legal statement from Target.

So let's ask Target if they also support the following Target employees:

- Check out clerks who verify how fat you are before selling you that package of potato chips?
- Pharmacists who don't want to fill prescriptions for Jewish customers who killed Christ.
- Pharmacists who don't want to help customers who worship a "Satanic counterfeit" (read: "The Pope," in fundie-speak).
- Pharmacists who only dispense HIV medicine to "innocent victims" of AIDS.
- Pharmacists who want proof that women seeking emergency contraception were really raped, and that they didn't "deserve it."
- Pharmacists (or cashiers) who are Christian Scientists - can they refuse to sell any medicine, even aspirin, to anyone?
- Pharmacists who won't sell birth control pills to unmarried women, condoms to unmarried men, or any birth control at all because God doesn't want people spilling their seed.
- Can fundamentalist Christian employees refuse to interact with gay people in any way, shape or form since gays are sinners, abominations, biological errors, and very likely pedophiles?



from america blog via the news blog

[title stolen from the news blog]

That's the headline on a New York Daily News story reporting on how SUVs have made New York City streets increasingly dangerous, especially for pedestrians.

According to the Daily News...

1) Pedestrians are twice as likely to be killed when they're hit by an SUV than when they're hit by a car.
2) While the total number of pedestrian deaths in NYC has fallen by 18% in the last five years, the number of deaths by SUV have surged 27%.
3) SUVs made up about 15% of the cars in New York last year—but caused 26% of pedestrian deaths from passenger vehicles.
4) When a car and an SUV collide and someone dies, 81% of the time the victim is the car driver.

When is someone going to take the logical and urgent next step, and file a class action lawsuit against the manufacturers of SUVs? Irresponsible and dangerous in ways that their manufacturers surely knew, they have degraded the quality of all our lives.

from huffington post

What is on the Sony CDs?

The CDs involved are loaded with a relatively new kind of content protection created by British company First 4 Internet. When a listener puts the album into a computer's CD drive, it pops up a license agreement. If the listener accepts, it installs the copy protection rootkit onto the hard drive.

The rootkit element of the software is used to hide virtually all traces of the copy protection software's presence on a PC, so that an ordinary computer user would have no way to find it. The software acts to limit the number of copies that can be made of the CD and prevents a computer user from making unprotected MP3s from the music.

from ZDnet


The Sony BMG software installs itself deeply inside a hard drive when a CD is played on a PC. The technology uses rootkit techniques to hide itself. Experts blasted the cloaking mechanism, saying it could be abused by virus writers. The first remote-control Trojan horses that take advantage of the veil provided by Sony BMG have surfaced.

from Cnet.com

Now the Legalese Rootkit: Sony-BMG's EULA
November 09, 2005

If you thought XCP "rootkit" copy-protection on Sony-BMG CDs was bad, perhaps you'd better read the 3,000 word (!) end-user license agreement (aka "EULA") that comes with all these CDs.

First, a baseline. When you buy a regular CD, you own it. You do not "license" it. You own it outright. You're allowed to do anything with it you like, so long as you don't violate one of the exclusive rights reserved to the copyright owner. So you can play the CD at your next dinner party (copyright owners get no rights over private performances), you can loan it to a friend (thanks to the "first sale" doctrine), or make a copy for use on your iPod (thanks to "fair use"). Every use that falls outside the limited exclusive rights of the copyright owner belongs to you, the owner of the CD.

Now compare that baseline with the world according to the Sony-BMG EULA, which applies to any digital copies you make of the music on the CD:

1. If your house gets burgled, you have to delete all your music from your laptop when you get home. That's because the EULA says that your rights to any copies terminate as soon as you no longer possess the original CD.

2. You can't keep your music on any computers at work. The EULA only gives you the right to put copies on a "personal home computer system owned by you."

3. If you move out of the country, you have to delete all your music. The EULA specifically forbids "export" outside the country where you reside.

4. You must install any and all updates, or else lose the music on your computer. The EULA immediately terminates if you fail to install any update. No more holding out on those hobble-ware downgrades masquerading as updates.

5. Sony-BMG can install and use backdoors in the copy protection software or media player to "enforce their rights" against you, at any time, without notice. And Sony-BMG disclaims any liability if this "self help" crashes your computer, exposes you to security risks, or any other harm.

6. The EULA says Sony-BMG will never be liable to you for more than $5.00. That's right, no matter what happens, you can't even get back what you paid for the CD.

7. If you file for bankruptcy, you have to delete all the music on your computer. Seriously.

8. You have no right to transfer the music on your computer, even along with the original CD.

9. Forget about using the music as a soundtrack for your latest family photo slideshow, or mash-ups, or sampling. The EULA forbids changing, altering, or make derivative works from the music on your computer.


So this is what Sony-BMG thinks we should be allowed to do with the music on the CDs that we purchase from them?

from the news blog


SONY is now facing lawsuit but they are still holding out.

Although Sony has done some minimal damage control -- last week it released a patch that revealed the once-hidden files -- it continues to refuse comment and makes it extremely difficult to obtain an uninstaller.

Sony has yet to post any links to the patch or uninstaller on its Web site.

In other Sony BMG news, a slew of security firms warned Thursday of the first appearance of malware that uses Sony's rootkit to hide from anti-virus programs.

Dubbed "Backdoor.Rycos" by Symantec and "Stinx.e" by Sophos, the Trojan arrives as an attachment to an e-mail purportedly from a British business publication. If the attachment is launched, the Trojan copies itself as "$sys$drv.exe" to the hard drive. Any file beginning with "$sys$" is automatically cloaked by the XCP rootkit.

"Sony's DRM copy protection has opened up a vulnerability which hackers and virus writers are now exploiting," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos, in a statement Thursday. "We wouldn't be surprised if more malware authors try and take advantage of this."

The Trojan opens a backdoor on the compromised PC, and takes commands from its controller to, for instance, install additional files or delete data.

...

"What Sony is saying with this software is that 'Our intellectual property is more deserving of protection than your intellectual property,'" Kamber told the Post.

from yahoo news

Hahaha:

Newsweek Poll conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International. Nov. 10-11, 2005. N=884 registered voters nationwide. MoE ± 4.

"To begin, suppose the elections for U.S. CONGRESS were being held TODAY. Would you vote for the Republican Party's candidate or the Democratic Party's candidate for Congress in your district?" If other/unsure: "As of TODAY, do you LEAN more toward the Republican or the Democrat?" Options rotated

Republican	Democratic	Other/Unsure
36	53	11

full post @ daily kos

Argh:

Bush might want look back to successful predecessors for pointers. Other presidents have recovered from ratings slumps like the one Bush is in right now: Dwight Eisenhower came back after the Sherman Adams scandal; Ronald Reagan rebounded after Iran-Contra; Bill Clinton triumphed after Monica Lewinsky.

But Clinton never had a serious ratings slump because of the Lewinsky scandal. According to Gallup his lowest post-Monica revelation job approval rating was a shocking 57%.

Monica was a scandal for the media, not the country. It's time they came to understand that.

From atrios

This is the latest wingnuttery spin on bush's abysmal approval ratings... thought you would like the counter info if you didn't already have it.

John Edwards:

I was wrong.

Almost three years ago we went into Iraq to remove what we were told -- and what many of us believed and argued -- was a threat to America. But in fact we now know that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction when our forces invaded Iraq in 2003. The intelligence was deeply flawed and, in some cases, manipulated to fit a political agenda.

It was a mistake to vote for this war in 2002. I take responsibility for that mistake. It has been hard to say these words because those who didn't make a mistake -- the men and women of our armed forces and their families -- have performed heroically and paid a dear price.

from atrios