Microbiologist: I have published a paper documenting evidence of evolution in E. coli bacteria.

Creationist: I demand to see your data!

Microbiologist: Have you read the paper?

Creationist: Since you refuse to disclose your data, I am going to denounce you as an unethical fraud on Conservapedia!

U.S. Rep. Chris Cannon, one of the nation's most conservative congressmen, lost his bid for a seventh term Tuesday in a Republican primary that focused on whether he was conservative enough for Utah's 3rd District.
...
The lobbying group American Conservative Union said Cannon was nearly perfect on its issues in 2007, scoring 96 percent. But [Jason] Chaffetz repeatedly pounded the incumbent, especially on immigration, and pledged to be even more conservative.

Chaffetz said he wants the U.S. to deport all illegal immigrants and stop granting automatic citizenship to children born here if their parents aren't legal residents.

She said the government regulates such religious authorities' ability to perform marriages because the state didn't create marriage and doesn't create marriages. Rather, legal authorities merely recognize and regulate an institution that already exists and is rooted deeply in the society's history and traditions.

Government is in the marriage business because encouraging the best environment for raising and protecting children is a benefit to society at large, Gallagher noted. That's why the institution has special legal privileges and responsibilities attached to it that aren't given to other intimate adult relationships.

"There's a reason the government has always been involved in marriage but not in baptism or my priest's vow of celibacy," Gallagher, who describes herself as an "orthodox Catholic," said. "Marriage is not a sacrament that has only religious implications, like baptism."

Oddly, I could be persuaded to support this idea. If the government were to allow churches to define marriage and then recognized and enforced those religiously distinctive marriage contracts, gay people could marry in every state of the union and in any nearly every city that had a Unitarian Universalist fellowship, a Quaker meeting, or a United Church of Christ congregation.

Of course, one could just as easily turn around and say that the government will issue marriage licenses to all, but let the religious groups craft a new, additional and exclusive status just for themselves.

Call it "holy matrimony," "covenant wedding," "sacramental union" or "zoop-de-do." Whatever you like. And they can have it all to themselves. But marriage stays a government institution subject to constitutional standards of equal protection and due process.

Think Gallagher would go for that?

Me neither.

A newly discovered batch of well-preserved dinosaur bones, petrified trees and even freshwater clams in southeastern Utah could provide new clues about life in the region some 150 million years ago.

The Bureau of Land Management announced the find Monday, calling the quarry near Hanksville "a major dinosaur fossil discovery."
...
The area has long been known to locals and BLM officials as a dinosaur haven. But no one knew of the site's magnitude until excavation began.

A newly discovered batch of well-preserved dinosaur bones, petrified trees and even freshwater clams in southeastern Utah could provide new clues about life in the region some 150 million years ago.

The Bureau of Land Management announced the find Monday, calling the quarry near Hanksville "a major dinosaur fossil discovery."
...
The area has long been known to locals and BLM officials as a dinosaur haven. But no one knew of the site's magnitude until excavation began.

Actually, they are classical sculptures about war — one called Valor, depicting a male equestrian and a female with a shield, and Sacrifice, a female accompanying the rider Mars.

Of all the evils in Washington that the Texas GOP took aim at this week, removing art with naked people from public view was high on the list for Mr. Hurt, a delegate from Kerrville.
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Mr. Hurt offered statistics: He'd heard that 20 percent of the art in the National Gallery of Art is of nudes.
...
Ridding Washington of naked art didn't make [the GOP platform].

In this, a presidential year, it advocates prayer in school[,] teaching intelligent design with evolution in science classes [and] calls homosexuality contrary to "the unchanging truths" ordained by God. It opposes gay marriage, civil unions and the custody of children by gays.

There's a call to repeal the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, sponsored by the party's presidential nominee[.]

• the availability to parents of built-in content filters


• the fact that U.S. law cannot reach online porn posted overseas anyway


• the fact that COPA "does not cover chat rooms, You Tube and other interactive sites that emerged in the last decade"

In the short walk across stage, Joseph Bryan Shore, 18, elicited more than boos when he allegedly cursed out his family and flipped the bird to the crowd, according to authorities. Immediately after the [high school graduation] ceremony, two police officers took him into custody and charged him with disorderly conduct.
...
The principal of Arab City High School, Patrick Crowder, said he regretted the incident but that he had no choice other than to have Shore arrested.

Newark Public Schools has settled a lawsuit filed by a former student who claimed he couldn't attend his graduation from West Side High School because it was held in the sanctuary of a local Baptist Church.

Bilal Shareef, a Muslim student, said his religious faith prohibited him from entering a building with religious icons, such as pictures of God or images of the cross. He skipped the ceremony held at New Hope Baptist Church in June 2006.
...
The district also agreed not to sponsor or promote religious events, not to hold student events in places of worship and not to hold student events in other religious buildings unless religious images are covered.

A high school newspaper in Northern California has been disbanded after it published a front-page photo of a student burning an American flag, triggering criticism that the administration was stifling free expression.
...
The Redding controversy is the latest example in recent years of high school and college administrators in California attempting to censure [sic] student-run newspapers or punish those who oversee them.

• the availability to parents of built-in content filters


• the fact that U.S. law cannot reach online porn posted overseas anyway


• the fact that COPA "does not cover chat rooms, You Tube and other interactive sites that emerged in the last decade"

In the short walk across stage, Joseph Bryan Shore, 18, elicited more than boos when he allegedly cursed out his family and flipped the bird to the crowd, according to authorities. Immediately after the [high school graduation] ceremony, two police officers took him into custody and charged him with disorderly conduct.
...
The principal of Arab City High School, Patrick Crowder, said he regretted the incident but that he had no choice other than to have Shore arrested.

Newark Public Schools has settled a lawsuit filed by a former student who claimed he couldn't attend his graduation from West Side High School because it was held in the sanctuary of a local Baptist Church.

Bilal Shareef, a Muslim student, said his religious faith prohibited him from entering a building with religious icons, such as pictures of God or images of the cross. He skipped the ceremony held at New Hope Baptist Church in June 2006.
...
The district also agreed not to sponsor or promote religious events, not to hold student events in places of worship and not to hold student events in other religious buildings unless religious images are covered.

A high school newspaper in Northern California has been disbanded after it published a front-page photo of a student burning an American flag, triggering criticism that the administration was stifling free expression.
...
The Redding controversy is the latest example in recent years of high school and college administrators in California attempting to censure [sic] student-run newspapers or punish those who oversee them.

New York City police detectives and Secret Service agents briefly detained and questioned an artist on Wednesday morning as he installed an exhibition with the title, "The Assassination of Hillary Clinton / The Assassination of Barack Obama."

The artist, Yazmany Arboleda, tried to set up the exhibition in a vacant storefront at 264 West 40th Street in Midtown Manhattan, and had finished stenciling letters of the title on the plate glass windows at street level.
...
"I'm renting that space; the space was allocated for an exhibition, and it's my right to put those words up," he said. "They said it could incite someone to do something crazy, like break the window. It's terrible, because they’re violating my rights. If someone breaks a window, they're committing a crime."

He added: "The exhibition is supposed to be about character assassination. It's philosophical and metaphorical."

Speaking to reporters around noon, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said Mr. Arboleda had been questioned because the police wanted to determine his motives. "Obviously, they could be interpreted as advocating harm to protectees," Mr. Kelly said.

[T]he constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.

This isn't shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater — this is yelling "Theater!" in a crowded fire.

Eleven Danes have been summoned to appear before the Jordanian public prosecutor to answer charges of blasphemy and threatening the national peace. They include the cartoonist who drew one of the Mohammed cartoons and editors from 10 of the 17 newspapers that reprinted them.

The group behind the announcement is called The Prophet Unites Us, a union of Jordanian media organisations, organisations and private individuals.
...
Osama al-Bettar, the group's lawyer, said that if the Danes do not appear, the next step will be to inform Interpol and seek their arrest.
...
The case is being brought under changes made to the Jordanian Justice Act in 2006.

Eleven Danes have been summoned to appear before the Jordanian public prosecutor to answer charges of blasphemy and threatening the national peace. They include the cartoonist who drew one of the Mohammed cartoons and editors from 10 of the 17 newspapers that reprinted them.

The group behind the announcement is called The Prophet Unites Us, a union of Jordanian media organisations, organisations and private individuals.
...
Osama al-Bettar, the group's lawyer, said that if the Danes do not appear, the next step will be to inform Interpol and seek their arrest.
...
The case is being brought under changes made to the Jordanian Justice Act in 2006.

The [Kern County, California] office will issue same-sex marriage licenses beginning June 17 as state law requires but will stop solemnizing weddings due to lack of staff and space, Auditor-Controller-County Clerk Ann Barnett announced in a news release Wednesday evening.
...
Julie Poochigian, chief deputy clerk-recorder of Tulare County, said her office plans to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples starting June 17. She said the office has never performed wedding ceremonies for couples.

"Some other counties do that, but Tulare County does not," she said. "We are not staffed to perform the services."

San Diego County plans to comply with a state Supreme Court ruling that allows same-sex marriages but will not force employees to perform the ceremonies if they cite religious or moral objections.

County Assessor-Recorder-Clerk Greg Smith, whose office issues marriage licenses, said he has informed the roughly 115 employees deputized to conduct ceremonies to tell him if they object to same-sex marriages.

The Journey, a megachurch of mostly younger evangelicals, is representative of a new generation that refuses to put politics at the center of its faith and rejects identification with the religious right.

They say they are tired of the culture wars. They say they do not want the test of their faith to be the fight against gay rights. They say they want to broaden the traditional evangelical anti-abortion agenda to include care for the poor, the environment, immigrants and people with H.I.V., according to experts on younger evangelicals and the young people themselves.

"Evangelicalism is becoming somewhat less coherent as a movement or as an identity," said Christian Smith, a sociology professor at the University of Notre Dame. "Younger people don't even want the label anymore. They don't believe the main goal of the church is to be political."

As the general election kicks off, Senator John McCain will tout his reputation as a maverick, an independent, a moderate who will work with both parties to get things done. However, a look at Senator McCain's record paints a very different picture.

• cast a deciding vote against the federal Employment Non Discrimination Act.


• voted three times against expanding the federal hate crimes law to include sexual orientation.


• supports Don't Ask, Don't Tell and does not believe that gays should serve in the military.


• voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibits same-sex couples from receiving federal rights and benefits in any state.


• campaigned for a ban on same-sex relationship recognition in his home state of Arizona — even appearing in a campaign television ad.

The mayor of a Greek island has defied the threat of prosecution to carry out the country's first gay "marriages".

Two men and two women were "married" by Tassos Alfieris in the ceremonies on the eastern Aegean island of Tilos.
...
Although homosexual practices were widely tolerated in ancient Greece, the modern nation is exceedingly hostile towards gays, he adds. The conservative Greek Orthodox Church has expressed strong objections, and the country's Justice Minister, Sotiris Hatzigakis, said he believed gay marriages were illegal.

Two Spanish men have been arrested in The Gambia accused of making homosexual advances to taxi drivers, police say.

Last month, President Yahya Jammeh[] threatened to behead gay people at a political rally and said they had 24 hours to leave the country.

Mr Jammeh's statements have been condemned by gay rights activists but the AP news agency says it was backed by the country's Supreme Islamic Council, which said the president had taken a "principled stand".

The mayor of a Greek island has defied the threat of prosecution to carry out the country's first gay "marriages".

Two men and two women were "married" by Tassos Alfieris in the ceremonies on the eastern Aegean island of Tilos.
...
Although homosexual practices were widely tolerated in ancient Greece, the modern nation is exceedingly hostile towards gays, he adds. The conservative Greek Orthodox Church has expressed strong objections, and the country's Justice Minister, Sotiris Hatzigakis, said he believed gay marriages were illegal.

Two Spanish men have been arrested in The Gambia accused of making homosexual advances to taxi drivers, police say.

Last month, President Yahya Jammeh[] threatened to behead gay people at a political rally and said they had 24 hours to leave the country.

Mr Jammeh's statements have been condemned by gay rights activists but the AP news agency says it was backed by the country's Supreme Islamic Council, which said the president had taken a "principled stand".

The Jewish tradition in which Jesus lived and taught demanded that just rulers make a minimal provision for the poor, including no-interest loans and the distribution of agricultural commodities. (Look it up: Exodus 22:25-27 and Deuteronomy 24:19-21.) The apostle Paul held a high view of government's role in promoting justice and urged the willing payment of taxes — a biblical demand more severe, for some of us, than all those sexual prohibitions.

At least some, if not most, translations of Exodus 22:25 say "excessive interest" or "usury" and not just "interest."

The passage could also easily be interpreted as a call for discrimination: Do not charge one of my people (i.e., another Hebrew) excessive interest. Open season on exploiting goyim, however. (See also Deuteronomy 23:20.)

And the passage says nothing about government-mandated law — just being a good neighbor (and, of course, avoiding God's wrath).

The Jewish tradition in which Jesus lived and taught demanded that just rulers make a minimal provision for the poor, including no-interest loans and the distribution of agricultural commodities. (Look it up: Exodus 22:25-27 and Deuteronomy 24:19-21.) The apostle Paul held a high view of government's role in promoting justice and urged the willing payment of taxes — a biblical demand more severe, for some of us, than all those sexual prohibitions.

At least some, if not most, translations of Exodus 22:25 say "excessive interest" or "usury" and not just "interest."

The passage could also easily be interpreted as a call for discrimination: Do not charge one of my people (i.e., another Hebrew) excessive interest. Open season on exploiting goyim, however. (See also Deuteronomy 23:20.)

And the passage says nothing about government-mandated law — just being a good neighbor (and, of course, avoiding God's wrath).