Fair To A Fault: Secularist Chastised For Bashing Religion In School

The next time someone says to you that religion is under attack by the courts in the schools because of the separation clause, consider this high school history teacher who has been found guilty of insulting Christians in class.

James Corbett, a 20-year teacher at Capistrano Valley High School, was found guilty of referring to Creationism as “religious, superstitious nonsense” during a 2007 classroom lecture, denigrating his former Advanced Placement European history student, Chad Farnan.

The problem with this is that, basically, Mr. Corbett only told the truth, and appears to have talked almost exclusively about Creationism, not Christianity. The judge made the immediate connection between the two, however. U.S. District Court Judge James Selna's claim that he can find "no secular purpose" in Corbett's statements is either thick-witted or disingenuous---it would seem to be a teacher's job to point out to students something that is, well, idiocy. However, I expect an appeal on this, because it is also clear that the judge in question has something of a bias here. But it's instructive---rather than take the idea of Creationism as what it has lately been packaged, namely Intelligent Design, and examine it as a claim of "science" as its advocates insist it is, Selna understands immediately that this is a bogus proposition. That, in fact, Intelligent Design is a religious idea in a new wrapper. Corbett's dismissal of Creationism can only then be an attack on religion. Which, by the letter of the law, is a violation of the separation clause. Those who advocate against secularism and insist religious ideas have no defense in this modern state should look at this as an example---not in their favor, because it still won't allow for the introduction of religion into public schools---of the fact, oft-stated, that the Constitution requires even-handed exclusions. Secularists can't even say nasty things about a bogus idea that has only association relevance to religion. You can't even bring it up to say it's wrong. Personally, I do think this is a bit idiotic, but---what's that old phrase---it is fair to a fault.

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Scamming the Nigerian scammers

Paul Kinsella is a fascinating fellow. Though he is not with any branch of law enforcement, he has taken it on himself to delve into the tactics of the Nigerian scammers. You know, they might as well be called Nigerian spammers. And, believe it or not, though most of us simply delete those emails, over the course of a year many people fall for the scam and they lose substantial money in the process. Kinsella is featured in "Master Baiter," a detailed and entertaining article written by Nicolas Phillips and published in this week's Riverfront Times. Kinsella, a 37-year old Illinois native as well as a father of two, scams the scammers with gusto. And he loves to tell them that they've been scammed by him. Kinsella has often tried (and sometimes succeeded) in convincing the scammers that he wants to work with them to rip off victims. Check out Kinsella's website (419hell.com)to see many of the flavors of the scams, along with the people running them. Quite impressive. He must spend incredible numbers of hours running his operation. The payoff? He has learned of the identities of 26 potential victims and prevented 14 of them from actually paying the money. To see the FTC's warnings about the Nigerian scams, go here. Kinsella is multifaceted. He intentionally dropped 100 fake-lost-wallets to see how honest people were (74 were returned), resulting in a lot of publicity. He's also a cartoonist and . . . oh yeah, consider this other service he offers:

He also created AfterLifeTelegrams.com, which works like this: For $5 a word, you write a telegram to a deceased loved one. Kinsella then arranges for a terminally ill person to memorize the message and pass it along.

As I learned from my days working as an Assistant Attorney General, it takes a scammer to catch a scammer. Check out the article in the RFT. It's full of facts, figures and entertaining vignettes about Kinsella, the Nigerian scams and much more.

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Tit-ical Mass

As mentioned before on this blog, boobies are Kind of A Big Deal. For some reason, individuals and Facebook alike have a strong negative reaction to the public display of nipples and the fatty tissue surrounding them. An unprovoked showing of a female breast especially leaves individuals a-titter. Usually, for the protection of children and society, women are expected to keep their goods locked up. Ah, but I live in Ohio- such an enlightened state. Ok, ok, we are actually ranked dead last for gay rights protection, but when it comes to breast exposure protection, we are totally progressive. Except that women don't stroll around Ohio topless very much. Barring the rare drugged-out music festival where a handful of women prance about with painted breasts, one can hardly tell that Ohio law protects bare female nipples at all. The social taboo against bare-breast-baring holds a heavy weight over those women who might otherwise go topless, apparently. The only way to make this legal right truly exercisable is to strip female breasts of their social trappings, so to speak. This was the idea that birthed Tit-ical Mass, an impromptu breast walk that occurred in Columbus last Friday.

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Republicans Are Crap Weasels

Republicans Are Crap Weasels and Even If You Tell Them, It Won’t Change Anything! Lo, and behold, the lowly crap weasel! This creature is of indeterminate numbers, and stinks to high heaven because of its singularly smelly style of smearing itself with its own squishy fecal matter. Such is the current Republican Party in America. No one can know how many Republicans there are in America as the numbers dwindle as they cover themselves with banners supporting Wall Street (not Main Street), torture, more tax breaks for the rich, Oil Companies and their other corporate masters, and vote with near unanimity against every attempt by President Obama and the Democratic Party to right the economy, fight our enemies (not US citizens’ rights) and restore integrity to our foreign policy. Curiously, the Urban Dictionary definition of “crap weasel” also applies to the GOP;

“Any worthless individual [sic] who tries to steal credit for someone else's work; also someone who tries to pass blame on others.”

I mean, who can forget that only three GOP members voted for the stimulus plan. And, the three GOP Senate members who voted for the plan will likely now have far right primary opposition in their upcoming elections. Thank you Senators Specter, Collins and Snowe!

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Avoid Swine Flu, the Science-Guy way!

Swine flu has captured the attention of the nation, including calls from European health officials to restrict travel to the US. It's all rather overblown, because almost everyone* has the ability to avoid the flu and it's symptoms. Just follow the directions in the video, courtesy of Bill Nye, the Science Guy! * the exception is immune-compromised individuals.

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