So, what else can we do to piss off the muslims? I know, let’s hire female contractors to give POW’s lap dances and pretend to smear them with menstrual blood.

It’s ironic that we’re such a prudish society ourselves when our interrogators think themselves innovative by using this appalling tactic (irony liberally applied). Imagine, for example, if we were at war with the Dutch and used this technique; meanwhile, they’d enjoy the show and wait for us to expense their trip to the hash bar.

Two weeks after a federal judge ordered Cobb County to remove evolution disclaimers from science books, a state lawmaker has introduced a bill requiring that only “scientific fact” to be taught in public schools. To Republican State Rep. Ben Bridges of Cleveland, that rules out the theory of evolution.

“A theory can be wrong. If it’s wrong, or possibly could be wrong, don’t teach it. Teach it with facts. If you’ve got facts to back it up, that’s great,” Bridges told 11Alive News Reporter Jon Shirek.

Story at News11
————
Sounds fine to me, perhaps Bridges should read the explanation of Evolution is both a Law and a Theory.

“Biologists consider the existence of biological evolution to be a fact. It can be demonstrated today and the historical evidence for its occurrence in the past is overwhelming. However, biologists readily admit that they are less certain of the exact mechanism of evolution; there are several theories of the mechanism of evolution.”

Or read Stephen Hawking’s explanation:
“a theory is a good theory if it satisfies two requirements: It must accurately describe a large class of observations on the basis of a model that contains only a few arbitrary elements, and it must make definite predictions about the results of future observations.” He goes on to state…”Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis; you can never prove it. No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory. On the other hand, you can disprove a theory by finding even a single observation that disagrees with the predictions of the theory.”
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In addition, a Religious belief cannot be a scientific theory because by definition, it is supported by faith - and not scientific evidence. If past evidence supports it, and it can be used to predict future events reliably, then it’s no longer a matter of faith - and becomes a scientific theory.

Public schools have a responsiblity to train the students in generally accepted scientific fact and theory. The student can discount the concepts if they like, but should at least understand them. Otherwise - guess what, the rest of the world will continue to be smarter then your kids. If I have to pay to send ‘em to school, they should at least come out smarter then they went in.

Anybody notice 2600’s most recent magazine cover?

…
A February 2004 report issued by Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) encapsulated the ways that Wal-Mart squeezes and cheats its employees, among them: blocking union organizing efforts, paying employees an average $8.23 an hour (as compared to more than $10 for an average supermarket worker), allegedly extracting off-the-clock work, and providing inadequate and unaffordable healthcare packages for employees.

Miller’s report’s innovation was in documenting how Wal-Mart’s low wages and inadequate benefits not only hurt workers directly, but impose costs on taxpayers. The report estimated that one 200-person Wal-Mart store may result in a cost to federal taxpayers of $420,750 per year – about $2,103 per employee. These public costs include: $36,000 a year for free and reduced lunches for just 50 qualifying Wal-Mart families. $42,000 a year for Section 8 housing assistance, assuming 3 percent of the store employees qualify for such assistance, at $6,700 per family. $125,000 a year for federal tax credits and deductions for low-income families, assuming 50 employees are heads of household with a child and 50 are married with two children. $100,000 a year for the additional Title I [educational] expenses, assuming 50 Wal-Mart families qualify with an average of two children. $108,000 a year for the additional federal healthcare costs of moving into state children’s health insurance programs (SCHIP), assuming 30 employees with an average of two children qualify.

Alternet - The 10 Worst Corporations of 2005

WASHINGTON, DC—As the nation approaches the one-year anniversary of the Super Bowl XXXVIII tragedy, an FCC study shows that millions of U.S. children were severely traumatized by the exposure to a partially nude female breast during the Feb. 1, 2004 halftime show.

“No one who lived through that day is likely to forget the horror,” said noted child therapist Dr. Eli Wasserbaum. “But it was especially hard on the children.”

The tragic wardrobe malfunction occurred approximately 360 days ago, during Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake’s performance of “Rock Your Body,” when Timberlake tore Jackson’s costume, accidentally revealing her right breast.

“By the time CBS cut to an aerial view of the stadium, the damage was done,” said Wasserbaum, who has also worked extensively with orphaned and amputee children in Third World war zones. “I’ve found that children can be amazingly resilient, but this event was too much for many of them to take. The horrible image of that breast is likely to haunt them for the rest of their lives.”

The Onion

A couple days ago, I called up Dell to send them to send me another laptop keyboard. My “L” key had started to stick, and I wanted to head it off before I wasn’t able to type at all.

Today the order arrived, new keyboard and they thoughtfully included a screwdriver, just in case I didn’t have one. The bag is pretty funny, not only is this screwdriver Refurbished, but it’s also a Static Sensitive device.

Just watched Closer, which is beautiful, well acted, well shot, well written - and I hate it.

Somebody else give it a review, I despise this thing the way the people who believe in the spirit of Christmas hate Bad Santa. Jude Law, your lame worthless character gets lucky enough to have this beautiful woman who wants nothing more then to make you happy. And what do you do, you cheat on her, abandon her, get dumped, talk her into taking you back, then turn into such an ass that she gives up on you.

Damn, this is like the fourth *shit happens* movie I’ve seen this week after Million Dollar Baby, The life Aquatic, and Friday Night Lights.

Somebody tell Hollywood to go back on it’s Prozac.

Or quick, go Option poor brave Alyson Degnan’s story (start at the bottom for chronological sadness).

— update — 3 hours later, they’ve done 30% of the basement

Last story pointed something out to me. If you want to actually see the daily comics, you need to either manually go to the website or pay some stupid fee. Hey, guess what - of course there’s a script that’ll do it for you. There’s also another one that will automagically parse and email it to you.

Proving once again, that for every artificially stupid thing somebody’s doing on the internet, someone else automated a way to route around it.

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