Britain is planning a massive DNA database (called the UK Biobank) of 500,000 citizens in order to study disease and its relation to genetics and the environment. Environmental factors include smoking, alcohol, viruses, pollution, exercise and diet. Results are not expected for 20 years or so, not enough time to save me from male-pattern baldness.

OK, my tech-failure induced blog vacation is over. I have found all the posts I lost, and will be reposting them soon. Sorry for the delay.

Scientists at Duke University have discovered rudiments of culture in orangutans, which implies that culture is a common evolutionary trait shared among all the higher primates (assuming you credit humans with culture). Such links also suggest that culture is at least 14 million years old. Examples of behaviors culturally transmitted in orangs include:

• using leaves as protective gloves or napkins
• using sticks to poke into tree holes to obtain insects, to extract seeds from fruit or to scratch body parts
• using leafy branches to swat insects or gather water
• "snag-riding," the orangutan equivalent of a sport in which the animals ride falling dead trees, grabbing vegetation before the tree hits the ground
• emitting sounds such as "raspberries," or "kiss-squeaks," in which leaves or hands are used to amplify the sound
• building sun covers for nests or, during rain, bunk nests above the nests used for resting.

Before you scoff at these things being examples of culture, consider the Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie, and tell me if this is any more advanced than the raspberry.

The Science Channel, in league with CSICOP and Skeptical Inquirer magazine, is running a TV show Monday nights at 8 EST called Critical Eye that scientifically investigates extraordinary claims. Topics include alternative medicine, Big Foot, Atlantis, fortune telling and exorcism. I don't get cable, so I haven't been able to see any of these, but any deflation of the "speaking to the dead" crowd is good news. Reviews anyone?

Thanks to all who noticed my absence and were concerned. I have been out-of-country and wrongly assumed I'd have access to a reliable net connection so I could perform my blogging duties. Guest-blogger Tim stepped into the breach when I couldn't be found (my voice mail doesn't work across the border! :o( ). Thanks, Tim. Blogging will now recommence.

Are industrial chemicals causing cancer, autism and developmental disabilities in our children? Are we in fact poisoning them?

Bill Moyers, reporting on NOW (weekly on PBS every Friday), said "In my lifetime, more than 75,000 synthetic chemicals and metals have been put to use in America. Chemicals, that in many cases, make our lives easier and better. They kill insects and weeds, clean our clothes and carpets, unclog our drains, create produce and lawns, pretty as a picture.

But most of these chemicals have never been tested for their toxic effects on children. And scientists are concerned that recent increases in childhood illnesses like asthma and cancer, as well as, learning disabilities, may be related to the environment - to what kids eat, drink and breathe.

All of us have a stake in their scientific exploration of kids and chemicals.

Some highlights from the program:

To me as a medical detective, the first clue is the increase in the incidence of childhood cancer. That signals that something is going wrong. - Dr. Philip Landrigan

Children have home and garden pesticides in their urine and they're peeing out wood preservatives. Women have termite poisons and toilet deodorizers and flame-retardants in their breast milk. - Dr. Sandra Steingraber

The Centers for Disease Control are attempting to find the cause of "cancer clusters" like one in Fallon, Nevada, where an unusually high incidence of Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia has occured among the community's children. In 20 years this county of 24,000 people had recorded only one case of childhood leukemia. Now, in five years, they've had 15.

The CDC's Dr. Richard Jackson: "Environmental epidemiology, doing epidemic investigations of things in the environment, has been held back by the lack of good measures about what's in people. It's much more difficult than infectious disease epidemiology. Environmental exposures are often much lower, much more long term, it's a different kind of investigation."

One of Nevada's top health officials, Dr. Mary Guinan, comments "We will look for environmental toxins in the body. Not have you been exposed to them? But how much of these toxins have been absorbed into the human body. In fact, into these human bodies. And nobody's ever done that in a cancer cluster before."

Landrigan: I see the cluster of cases of childhood leukemia in Fallon as part of the broad increase in the incidence of various forms of childhood cancer in the United States, leukemia among them - an increase that has been going on for the past 25 or 30 years. Fifty or 60 years ago in this country the major diseases in children were the infectious diseases. Today the major causes of illness in kids are chronic diseases. Asthma is the leading cause of admission of children to hospital; it's the leading cause of school absenteeism. Cancer, after injuries, is the leading killer of children in the United States. Developmental disabilities are common. They affect anywhere from five to ten percent of all children. Things like attention deficit disorder, dyslexia, autism.

We know that chemicals in the environment are responsible for some of these effects. We know, for example, that some cases of development disability in children are caused by exposures to lead, to pesticides, to mercury, to PCBs. We suspect that children who are exposed to pesticides are at greater risk of childhood cancer than other children. But mostly we don't know.

Prior to 1996, all environmental regulation in this country was based on the notion that the entire population consisted of healthy young adults. No provision was made to take into account the fact that children are different. Children are very different from adults. First of all they're more heavily exposed pound for pound. They eat more food, they drink more water, they breathe more air. Then of course kids play on the ground. They live low, they put their hands in their mouths and so they transfer more of any toxic chemicals into their body than we do.

This isn't just food for thought. It's a call to action for parents everywhere in this country. It's a reason to avoid the use of pesticides and chemical cleaning products in the home. It's also a reason to urge policy-makers to regulate the chemical industry much more closely, to encourage the development of cleaner fuels, and to elect government officials who have our children, rather than pork-barrel projects or industry bias, first in mind.

We would like to welcome Timothy Ridge to TRIP! Tim is joining the TRIP team as an occasional guest-blogger. I know Tim through our local Humanist organization, where he will soon be webmaster. I look forward to seeing what he has to say here, and maybe we can look forward to co-projects with him at his static Humanist site.

I am always open to submission of content, if it is one-time or on a more regular basis. I do get unsolicited suggestions for stories, and I run them if they are close to the themes TRIP addresses. I am not very open to participating in the eternal back-and-forth debates between reason and religion, as I find them rather tedious, I have already made up my mind, and no one is ever convinced of the other side's arguments. However, what I do find of value is stories about aspects of reason or religion from the ungodded perspective. My vision for TRIP is not to win debates with the god-ridden, but to firmly establish that a life lived without gods is a valid, defensible, productive choice and must be respected in any open society.

While wandering through Lawrence Kestenbaum's Political Graveyard I found what is most likely an ancestor of mine: George Holcombe, US Congressman from New Jersey!

HOLCOMBE, George, a Representative from New Jersey; born in West Amwell (now Lambertsville), Hunterdon County, N.J., in March 1786; completed preparatory studies and was graduated from Princeton College in 1805; attended the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia; later studied medicine in Trenton, N.J., and was granted a license by the Medical Society of New Jersey; practiced medicine in Allentown, N.J., 1808-1815; held several local offices; member of the State general assembly in 1815 and 1816; elected to the Seventeenth and to the three succeeding Congresses and served from March 4, 1821, until his death in Allentown, N.J., January 14, 1828; interment in the Congressional Cemetery, Washington, D.C.

My wife's grandfather, William Ayres, was a US Congressman from Ohio:

AYRES, William Hanes, a Representative from Ohio; born in Eagle Rock, Botetourt County, Va., February 5, 1916; moved with his parents to West Virginia and later to Lorain County, Ohio; attended the Weller Township High School; was graduated from Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, in 1936; salesman for heating equipment in Akron, Ohio, 1936-1944; during the Second World War served as a private in the United States Army until discharged December 17, 1945; president of the Ayres Heating and Insulation Co., Akron, Ohio, since 1946; elected as a Republican to the Eighty-second and to the nine succeeding Congresses (January 3, 1951-January 3, 1971); unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1970 to the Ninety-second Congress; died on December 27, 2000, in Columbia, Md.

I fear for my offspring. My son can be anything he wants, even a Christian, as long as he isn't a conservative!

OK, if you really feel the need to buy me a present for Christmas, how about a God Detector?

Using the Yo-God God Detector, we don't need to rely on odd turnips or other natural events as a way for God to communicate with us. It gives Him a straightforward way to let us know he exists -- He simply has to move the dial. Once hundreds or thousands of us ask in unison with the Yo-God God Detector, maybe God will respond.

Y'know, I've actually seen one of these in action. It must have been broken.

Jan Haugland of Secular Blasphemy investigates the need for Christians to have faith:

When Christianity was new, this new religion met with opposition and skepticism. Claiming that an executed criminal had been resurrected and was indeed Divine, was obviously beyond what many would accept. While we should not exeggarate the skepitcal climate of the day, it is not a stretch to assume that many people asked the Christians for some evidence supporting this extraordinary claim. Christians had no such things. So, as part of their preaching, they argued that being skeptical, being a doubter, was inheritently sinfull, and that faith -- indeed, blind faith -- was the noblest of virtues.

So, what happened was that a religion made gullability the highest of virtues. And this continues to this day. Only, this obvious fact is hidden behind the word "faith."

Gary Sloan encourages Bush to use the ultimate weapon in the arsenal of a devout Christian: prayer.

Christian doctrine recognizes the universal efficacy of prayer and the infinite power of divine love. The most egregious reprobate is redeemable. Verily, even Saddam Hussein. President Bush should immediately begin to plump for multilateral prayer rallies, not preemptive (and peremptory) strikes. Prayer is safe, feasible, viable, tested, and cost-effective. True, the Pentagon may be piqued and defense contractors may indeed grow antsy. Yes, the National Rifle Association may squawk. Certainly, secularists will ridicule him. Against all opposition, Mr. Bush must be resolute. The benefits of relentless prayer are incalculable. Touched by grace, Saddam will surely give us his oil at a bargain-basement price. Who knows? He may even become the Billy Graham of Baghdad.

I've tried to explain blogs to people as an alternative press, or maybe an alternative clipping service. When asked for examples, I now proudly trot out Trent Lott. I always get blank looks. Seems that people can't take the idea seriouosly that the internet has any effect on real life. Well, now I have proof tha tthe press itself thinks as I do. Time has a story of the Lott Debacle where they mention blogs explicitly:

If Lott didn't see the storm coming, it was in part because it was so slow in building. The papers did not make note of his comments until days after he had made them. But the stillness was broken by the hum of Internet "bloggers" who were posting their outrage and compiling rap sheets of Lott's earlier comments.

Time for the Harper's-like number of the day feature: more than 8,000; the number of pages removed by the US from the 11,800 page Iraqi weapons declaration, before passing the document on to the non-permanent members of the UN security council.

The United States edited out more than 8000 crucial pages of Iraq's 11,800-page dossier on weapons, before passing on a sanitised version to the 10 non-permanent members of the United Nations security council.

The full extent of Washington's complete control over who sees what in the crucial Iraqi dossier calls into question the allegations made by US Secretary of State Colin Powell that 'omissions' in the document constituted a 'material breach' of the latest UN resolution on Iraq.

Last week, Secretary General of the UN Kofi Annan accepted that it was 'unfortunate' that his organisation had allowed the US to take the only complete dossier and edit it. He admitted 'the approach and style were wrong' and Norway, a member of the security council, says it is being treated like a 'second-class country'.

Anyone interested in what we got in exchange for Trent Lott? Nathan Newman has a good accounting of Frist's voting record. I think it can be summed up as Bush's lap dog. And then, there is the killing cats thing:

Frist is an animal lover who said his decision to become a doctor was clinched when he helped heal a friend's dog. But Frist now found himself forced to kill animals during medical research. And his new dilemma was finding enough animals to kill. Soon, he began lying to obtain more animals. He went to the animal shelters around Boston and promised he would care for the cats as pets. Then he killed them during experiments. "It was a heinous and dishonest thing to do," Frist wrote. "I was going a little crazy."

Jody at Naked Writing has found a great quote from Robert Ingersoll that I hadn't heard before. Very appropriate for Human Light:

If abuses are destroyed, man must destroy them. If slaves are freed, man must free them. If new truths are discovered, man must discover them. If the naked are clothed; if the hungry are fed; if justice is done; if labor is rewarded; if superstition is driven from the mind; if the defenseless are protected and if the right finally triumphs, all must be the work of man. The grand victories of the future must be won by man, and by man alone.

I celebrated Human Light yesterday with my family and all my Humanist friends (the offical date is today, the 23rd). It was a four hour party/show complete with readings, speeches, music, dancing, food and a cool science demonstration for the kids. The creators of Human Light are from our Humanist group, so we were guaranteed to have the celebration. But, five other Humanist organizations also celebrated Human Light for the first time this year: Long Island Secular Humanists, Center for Inquiry - West, Secular Humanists of the East Bay, Freethinkers of Volusia/Flagler FL, and Northeastern Wisconsin Humanists! As a brand new holiday, it lacks the established traditions, history, musical canon, etc. that might appeal to the die-hard holiday seasonist. However, these will accumulate with the years, especially as more people participate across the world.

While I personally am grateful and relieved to be free from the Christian/consumerist mad-house that is the holiday season in the US, I do recognise the importance of having a Winter Humanist holiday. For political reasons, if nothing else. Nothing stops a "Merry Christmas!" dead in its tracks like a similarly chirpy "Happy Human Light!" From the Human Light website:

In Western societies, late December is the "holiday season." People wish each other a happy holiday assuming that everybody is celebrating one of the major religious holidays or is at least sharing the spirit of good cheer created by these holidays.

HumanLight allows Humanists to celebrate also.

Humanists are not comfortable with holidays based on supernatural concepts, but nonetheless wish to express their good wishes to others in a spirit of hope, love, and understanding.

HumanLight also gives us the opportunity to let people know that we are here. Our experience has repeatedly revealed that people often feel alone and isolated when they first realize that they cannot accept supernatural explanations or religious guidelines for living. They may not know about the many great thinkers in history who have come to the same conclusions. They may not be aware that there are organizations of like-minded people with whom they can share feelings and experiences, and from whom they can learn.

Steven Pinker is on WNYC's Leonard Lopate Show today at noon, hocking his new book The Blank Slate. You can listen on the web. I am currently three-quarters of the way through the book, and am greatly impressed.

The ACLU is on the case of the immigrant round-up:

"Given the evidence, there is no alarmism in saying this is a round-up," said Lucas Guttentag, Director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project. "Attorney General Ashcroft is using the immigrant registration program to lock up people who already have provided extensive information as part of their green card applications," he said. "Therefore the purpose is clearly not to get information but rather to selectively arrest, detain and deport Middle Eastern and Muslim men in the United States."

Lisa Kadonaga has an article on how her parents, children of Japanese immigrants in Canada, were treated during WWII.

They were only in their teens at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, but that day marked the end of their childhood. Not long after, the fathers were taken away, and then the families were removed from towns and cities like Prince Rupert and Victoria and Vancouver. They were shipped to makeshift camps in the interior of the province, two families to a drafty tarpaper shack. For many of them, their only experience with snow was a couple of flurries per year -- it never stays long on the coast, usually washed away by next day's rain. They saw it now, lying in drifts on the floor, because it came through cracks in the roof and walls.

Towards the end of the war, Mom and Dad left the province. They didn't return -- although the laws were eventually changed to allow those of Japanese ancestry to live there again, and to vote. Shame and rejection, fear of the past repeating itself, and then the passage of time kept them away.

...

My grandfather, when asked why he wanted to come to Canada in the early years of the 20th century, said simply, "To learn about democracy". That was his heart's desire -- to live in, and participate in, a fairer and more peaceful society than the militarized dictatorship Japan was becoming prior to World War Two. He had been hoping to study political science and government at the University of British Columbia. Despite letters from two professors there, his application was denied, because of his country of origin. He became a fisherman, until the government confiscated his boat in 1942, and sent him into exile. He ended up learning a great deal about democracy -- or at least, what isn't democracy.

The question is -- have we?

Also from SFGate:

Gisroo Mohajeri clutched her pregnant belly on the steps of the downtown federal building and uttered a mother's lament: "I feel so guilty," she sobbed.

Earlier this week, Mohajeri had urged her 16-year-old, Iranian-born son to voluntarily register with immigration officials under a new program. But now he faces deportation proceedings.

Mohajeri and relatives of the hundreds of Middle Eastern men and teens who have recently been detained say they feel betrayed by the country that once offered them a safe haven. Even worse for many family members is the feeling that they acted as unknowing accomplices to the U.S. government.

"I blame myself. Why I brought my son here and put him in jail. Why? Just because I followed the law," Mohajeri cried. "I made a mistake."

From SFGate:

Relatives and lawyers of those arrested locally challenge that rationale for the latest round of detentions. One attorney, who said he saw a 16-year- old boy pulled from the arms of his crying mother, called it madness to believe the registration requirements would catch terrorists.

"His mother is 6 1/2 months pregnant. They told the mother he is never going to come home -- she is losing her mind," said attorney Soheila Jonoubi, who spent Wednesday amid the chaos of the downtown INS office attempting to determine the status of her clients.

Jonoubi said the mother has permanent residence status and that her husband, the boy's stepfather, is a U.S. citizen. The teenager came to the country in July on a student visa and was on track to gain permanent residence, the lawyer said.

Many also objected to the treatment of those who showed up for the registration process. INS ads on local Persian radio stations and in other ethnic media led many to expect a routine procedure. Instead, the registration quickly became the subject of fear as word spread that large numbers of men were being arrested.

From the Orange County Register

Mojtava Sabahi of Santa Ana is awaiting the release of his brother, an Iranian with a work permit who has applied for a "green card."

"They told him to go register and he went to register," said Sabahi, 41. "Essentially, they're just arresting a bunch of law-abiding people."

M.M. Traplci and a dozen friends, all originally from Syria, went to the Santa Ana office of the INS in the past few days to register. Traplci, 45, said he was the only one to come out.

"All my friends are inside right now," said Traplci, a stereo installer and 15-year U.S. resident. "I have to visit the family for each one today. Most of them have small kids."

Traplci, of Santa Ana, said none of the men had expected any problem. All have lived in this country for years, and all are in various stages of obtaining their green cards. Most had received INS letters telling them their applications had been accepted. "These people who were at the INS office came from Syria, Iraq, Iran and other countries," he said. "They are everyday people, and they were treated like criminals. "They left their countries because they didn't feel free there. They love it here. Now they are scared here, too."

From the New York Times on the round-up of Arab immigrants:

Lawyers who have sat in on the proceedings said they found them chilling. "When you're in this room and everybody around you is a Middle Eastern man, it really sinks in," said Jacqueline Baronian, an immigration lawyer in New York. "It looks like people are being rounded up, and it's very, very disturbing."

Ms. Baronian and other lawyers said that if a man was found to be violating the terms of his visa, he was turned over to an investigation officer and detained. If the violation is minor, bond is set at $1,500 to $7,500, according to those who have been through the process.

One such man, who would not give his name because he said he was a member of a prominent Iranian Jewish family in Los Angeles, said he came to register last Tuesday and was immediately detained because his pending application for permanent residency had been held up in I.N.S. proceedings for five years.

The man, whose family fled Iran after the 1979 revolution, is an Israeli citizen but came to the United States in 1997 to be reunited with his family.

He spent all of Tuesday in the federal building lockup in Los Angeles, where he said he saw dozens of men in similar circumstances. He then was taken by bus to a jail in Pasadena, where he spent the night. He was later taken to an detention center in Lancaster, about 40 miles north of Los Angeles, where his father-in-law put up $1,500 bail to get him out on Thursday afternoon.

"This was the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to me," the man said. "I am very respected in the business community here and I was just trying to do the right thing, to help solve the problem this country has with terrorism."

He added: "We were treated like animals in Iran and all I want is for my kids to grow up and say they're proud to be Americans. But until the day I die, I'm going to be a foreigner in this country, because of the way I look and my accent."

The DOJ decided to go back on its sealing of documents related to thimerosal links to autism! Kudos to all the organizations and blogs (P.L.A. and WampumBlog!) who kept the pressure up!

"The Bush Administration has overreached in its attempt to seal documents in thimerosal cases and the withdrawal of their motion bears that out," said Michael Bender, director of the Mercury Policy Project. "Unfortunately, this agreement only addresses half the loaf of bread. While the motion's withdrawal may help those involved in current litigation, it leaves unresolved what this means for future cases."

While the groups acknowledge that some information unearthed in court should be kept private -- like trade secrets -- they maintain that scientific studies and information should not qualify. In addition to the documents obtained through discovery from Eli Lilly, these also include unreleased confidential documents from the Centers for Disease Control stating that mercury in children's vaccines is a potential source of neurological damage in children including ADD/ADHD, speech and language delays and other neurological disorders including autism.

"We question the Bush Administration's blatant attempt to hide from the American public documents affecting the health and safety of millions of children -- especially when the material in question is as dangerous as mercury," said Lyn Redwood, Pres. SAFE MINDs. "What are they trying to hide?"

While federal law typically seals documents in individual cases, it has not been applied to omnibus proceedings like the autism cases.

"What's the policy argument for such incredible secrecy?" said Sallie Bernard, executive director of SAFE MINDs. "The timing and the scope of this unprecedented secrecy action by the Bush Administration raises serious questions, considering that lawmakers have pledged to revisit the thimerosal liability shield provision in the Homeland Security Act when they return in January."

"The Bush Administration's secrecy request was premature, highly unusual and went against federal rules that impose severe restrictions on sealing of documents," said MPP director Bender. "The public -- and especially families of autistic children -- have a right to know about what Eli Lilly knew and when they knew it, both now and into the future."

This is chilling. A government requires people to register with them if they are of a certain background, and then rounds them up by the hundreds. Is it a violation of Godwin's Law to say that this sounds reminiscent of the behavior of the Nazis? Not to mention the internment of the Japanese in the US during WWII? I ask you, are any terrorists going to come down to the INS offices to register. NO! Tell me how this helps in the long run?

Hundreds of Middle Eastern and North African men, some just 16, have been hauled into custody across southern California in the past few days, enraging civil liberties groups and drawing comparisons with the internment of tens of thousands of Japanese Americans during the Second World War.

The round-ups in Los Angeles, San Diego and suburban Orange County were part of a counter-terrorism initiative by the Bush administration, requiring men and teenagers from specific countries to register with the immigration authorities and have their fingerprints taken. Several thousand citizens of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Sudan -- many of them accompanied by lawyers -- willingly came forward across southern California to meet Monday's deadline.

However, as many as a quarter of them -- estimates vary between 500 and 1,000 people -- were arrested on the basis of apparently minor visa violations and herded into jail cells under threat of deportation.

Lawyers reported that some detainees were forced to stand up all night for lack of room, that some were placed in shackles, and others were hosed down with cold water before being thrown into unheated cells. They said the numbers were so high that authorities were talking about transferring several hundred detainees to Arizona to await immigration hearings and deportation orders.

...

In one case, a 16-year-old boy was ripped from his mother's arms and told he would never return home. The mother is a legal resident married to an American citizen. Many of the detainees came from Los Angeles' large Iranian Jewish population and are highly unlikely to have any link to militant Islamic guerrilla groups.

Immigration officials said they would not discuss numbers but did not dispute one report putting the number of detainees at between 500 and 700. They acknowledged anyone with a slight visa irregularity was subject to arrest, regardless of personal histories. The detainees' lawyers challenged the government to produce any evidence of criminal behaviour among their clients, let alone a link to international terrorist groups.

The registration scheme was conceived by President Bush's ultra-conservative Attorney General, John Ashcroft, and had already come under criticism for what opponents call blatant discrimination.

Reuters has a story that sounds awful. Read this and tell me you are proud of your government.

Hundreds of Muslim men and boys are being subjected to strip searches in freezing, standing room only detention centers in southern California after being arrested for routine visa irregularities, immigration lawyers said on Thursday.

They estimated that between 1,000 and 2,500 males, some as young as 16, were spending their fourth day locked up in what they called inhumane conditions after voluntarily presenting themselves at immigration offices to register under new anti-terrorism rules.

"The situation in the detention centers is absolutely horrifying. In one center, they were ordered to strip down and given a strip search. They were only given a prison jumpsuit, without any underwear, T-shirts, socks or shoes. They were not given blankets. They are freezing," Iranian-American lawyer Sohelia Jonoubi told Reuters.

...

Community lawyers have been refused access to the detainees who they say are being shuttled round various detention centers in prison buses, shackled and in handcuffs, as the system creaks under the strain.

Families, allowed telephone access to their relatives, reported that the men were forced to sleep standing up, or on concrete floors with no blankets, and some had been hosed down with cold water. Drinking water is said to be scarce and in some cases, detainees must use toilets without doors or walls.

The relatives said that some detainees have been told they will be deported without seeing their relatives again. Others are trying to get out on bail pending a hearing before an immigration judge which could take days or weeks.

Martin Willett, english atheist, has an interesting article on atheists and Christmas. However, I disagree with him in regards to the applicability of his argument in the US. In England, religion is nearly dead and anyone saying that evolution is made up is ridiculed as severely confused. So, Mr. Willett feels he can participate in Christmas as an atheist because it is a good excuse to have a party. It is as good a day as any and he has nothing to prove.

Here in the US, of course, it is a different story. Here we are in the middle of a culture war between the forces of reason and the future, and the forces of wish fulfillment, hatred and the closed mind. Actions by the partisans are full of meaning, intended or not. Christmas has a different tone here: participate in our Christian holiday or you are unamerican. Or worse: if you celebrate Christmas, you are acknowledging some complicity in the Christian message or culture. Everyone loves Christmas! What is wrong with you? An atheist celebrating Christmas here looks like capitulation to the Christians that are trying to take over our country.

So, while I would gladly hang out with Mr. Willett on the 25th of December while in England, I feel like it is my duty as an American and as an atheist to not participate. Instead, I'll crank out some code next Wednesday, and do some blogging. For those unaware of the history of Christmas, or its Victorian roots, I highly recommend The Trouble with Christmas by Tom Flynn. Meantime, here is Mr. Willett's take:

Nothing in any of the gospels fixes the date of Jesus' birth. The early church simply did what it was very good at, stealing and neutralizing the traditions of other religions and cults. Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus as either December 25th, the birthdate and festival of the resurrecting God-man Indo-Iranian Mithras (originally Mithra, the name changes to Mithras for numerological reasons, just as Yesua is Joshua in the old testament and Jesus in the new, so the Greek name has numerological significance), or January 6th, the birthdate and festival of the resurrecting Egyptian God-man Osiris-Aion, born of the virgin Isis (the Black Madonna of so many "Christian" statues).

There were festivals and celebrations at the time of the winter solstice long before there was a Christian church, for a couple of centuries at least before Jesus may have lived. The early Roman Church simply commandeered all shrines and festivals to itself. Places where pagan goddesses gave oracles became shrines of the blessed virgin Mary. Temples to Mithra or Apollo became churches, worship and festivals continued as before only the names and a little of the theology changed. What happened in the Greek and Latin worlds also happened in the Celtic, Germanic and Nordic lands. Old gods had their myths and festivals stolen and dressed up as Christian festivals. Celtic heroes became rewritten as Christian Saints. For the most part the people as a whole didn't seem to mind too much. There were still bonfires, feasts, gift-giving and excuses to get drunk. The change from pagan to Christian simply meant business as usual, slightly fewer orgies but just as much tax and as many idle priests as ever. Many old traditions and superstitions lived on and were Christianized. The people were still as irrational and superstitious as ever.

The Christmas that we celebrate today is a mix of old pagan traditions such as evergreen decorations and feasting coupled with an often neglected Christian gloss and overlaid with more modern secular humanist and consumerist traditions.

US Catholic church attendance has dropped below that of Protestants for the first time. The scandals have had their effect, and many Catholics are responding. Most importantly, 40% of them are giving less money. Oh well, the era of the 0.2 billion dollar cathedral is over.

The decline in church attendance among Catholics is part of a long-term phenomenon that precedes the current scandals afflicting the Church. Gallup data from the 1950s and 1960s show that about three-quarters of Catholics reported attending church within the last seven days, compared with just half or fewer of Protestants at that time. Catholic attendance continued to fall through the late 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s, but remained higher than Protestants' attendance. The more recent data show that Catholics' church attendance was also higher than Protestants' in 2000 and to some degree in 2001. It has only been in the last year than Catholics' attendance has fallen below that of Protestants'.

You may have noticed that Blogger ate my template last night, and things are still not back to normal. So, I'm doing this instead of posting. Sorry. Be back as soon as I find everything. Rule #1 for Blogger: save your template!

Congratulations to New York State for passing the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act:

State senators passed a bill Tuesday that would outlaw discrimination against homosexuals in New York state, 31 years after advocates began lobbying for it.... SONDA would protect people from abuse, harassment and discrimination in employment, housing, education and public services based on their sexual preference. It would become law 30 days after gaining the governor's signature, making New York the 13th state to prohibit anti-gay bias.

Of course, the morons came out of the woodwork afterwords:

Michael Brennan, a Rochester resident who came to Albany to protest SONDA, carried a sign outside the Capitol Tuesday that read "God's plan is marriage between husband and wife."

"This is leading down the road to loss of free speech. Eventually, my convictions will become a hate crime," he said, before he and transgender advocates began arguing. "It will interfere with my ability to teach my grandchildren my values."

"This is a sad day for Christians," said the Rev. Duane Motley of New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms. "Homosexuality is condemned in the Bible. Christian businessmen should have the right to not hire people that they believe are engaged in immoral behavior."

When did it become true that a sad day for Christians usually means that decent, normal people have won?

TomPaine.com has put out a $10,000 reward for information leading to the outing of the person(s) responsible for putting the Eli Lilly exemption into the Homeland Security bill!

In November, as Congress finalized the legislation authorizing a new Department of Homeland Security, two paragraphs suddenly appeared in the bill giving drug maker Eli Lilly & Company something it desired: a shield from lawsuits by parents who claim the company's vaccines caused their children's autism.

The provision diverts those suits from state courts to a federal 'vaccine court' where damages are capped at $250,000 - small compensation for a child's lifetime of medical care. And because any damages awarded by the vaccine court are paid by U.S. taxpayers, manufacturers are relieved of liability.

It's a sweet deal for Eli Lilly, a very special interest that, like most mega-donors, gets what it wants in Washington. Since 2000, the company has given $1.6 million to national parties and federal campaigns, 79 percent of it to Republicans.

Who inserted the provision? Reporters tried and failed to find out. Lilly's lobbyists (laughably) claim ignorance. No one on Capitol Hill is proud enough of his handiwork to claim it.

Democracy requires accountability, so TomPaine.com is offering a $10,000 reward to the first person who proves the identity of the Eli Lilly Bandit - the member of Congress responsible for inserting the company's special provision. Mail submissions to PO Box 53303, Washington, D.C. 20009. The complete terms and conditions of this offer are posted at www.TomPaine.com.

Public officials who work secret deals like this are cowards. They subvert and dishonor a fundamental American principle - open government accountable to the people.

Help us finger the Eli Lilly Bandit.

If you aren't up to speed on all this, TP also has a good collection of Lilly stories.

The New York Times is running a series of articles on the Ten Commandments. As the points out, the essays are tenuously tied to each commandment, if any connection can be seen at all. I guess the thought was that Christmas has something to do with religion in this country. The first story was about a couple losing their daughter to asthma and how they rejected the idea that it was God's will, but still kept the idea of an omnipotent God. (Huh?) The next stories were similarly disjointed and left the reader wondering what the actual message of the writer was supposed to be. As an attempt to make the Ten Commandments relevant to our modern lives, it fails miserably.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation's gilt "Winter Solstice" sign was defaced as soon as the stolen one was replaced.

It apparently was sprayed on both sides with some type of corrosive substance. Anne Gaylor of the Freedom From Religion Foundation announced a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for defacing the freethought message.

While damaging the sign's beauty, the words are still legible....

"We feel very sad about this," said Gaylor, who authored the sign's message.

"It seems to be a reflection of a change for the worse in our society--increased intolerance and right-wing aggression. Our small token Winter Solstice sign was not tampered with for the first five years we erected it, then was stolen last year, and mutilated this year.

"This vandalism was certainly the work of a fanatical religionist who thinks the Capitol belongs only to believers at Christmas. There was a week-long 'interfaith' display last week, the annual nativity pageant with angels everywhere, and the 'tree lighting ceremony' with Christian overtones. A menorah with godly text by it is placed every year. There ought to be room at the State Capitol for the views of atheists and agnostics, too."

Since I have nothing of worth to contribute today, I will instead issue a call to action. Keith Devens has a blog where he demonstrates his singular ability to ignore huge swaths of western science contained in such arcane and inaccessible places as books, magazines, journals, websites, etc.

In my life I've never heard any proof offered for macro evolution, and lots of counter examples I've never heard anybody even try to explain -- for instance, how could multi-cellular organisms evolve from single-cellular organisms, and how could sexual reproduction have evolved? It's irritating to me when people think that I'm the one who's sticking my head in the sand and ignoring "science", when invariably the person who's insinuating this has no clue what he or she is talking about, and has never studied this stuff or thought about it for a minute in his or her life. Sigh.

In short, belief in macro evolution is simply a religious belief. It's not even a new one -- I was surprised to learn that there were Greek philosophers who had a very similar belief system to evolution thousands of years ago.

I suggest that we all, very nicely, answer Kevin's request to see proof of macro evolution. Let's not rise to the bait on his sad "religion" theory, just send him links to all this too-hard-to-find science. Go to the link above and leave the links in comments. Have fun, and please be civil.

In response to my last post, people have recommended the original Solaris movie to me. Thanks for the suggestion. I have actually seen it (and mentioned it before in this blog), and I thought it did a great job of bringing out Lem's theme. I still see the baby/monster crawling past the doorway in my nightmares! That image is pure horror movie trash unless coupled with the idea that Solaris was trying to communicate in that way. Symbols like that hold visceral profound meanings for us, but must be totally meaningless to an alien, especially an alien that doesn't share our shape, scale, ecosystem, etc. Kelvin's wife is not so grotesque on first sight, but the even deeper horror of her presence slowly dawns as the plot progresses. Maybe I should see the new Solaris just so the deeper horror of its (lack of) message can dawn on me as well.

I have been very confused at the reviews I have read about the new Solaris remake. They all indicate that the new film is about the relationship between Kelvin and his dead wife. This confuses me greatly, as that is about as far as you could get from the point of the original book. Lem's book is about communication between humans and aliens, and about the probable ultimate futility of it. And, now I learn that Lem has exactly the same impression I have.

...today, this prickly Polish visionary insists that fans and critics alike have misinterpreted his work. After the release of the Soderbergh version of ''Solaris,'' Lem issued a statement announcing that while he had no intention of seeing the film, he was troubled by its emphasis on romance at the expense of deeper philosophical concerns. Had Solaris merely been the story of love between a man and a woman, Lem wrote, he could have just called it Love in Outer Space.

Very sad. Solaris is one of my favorite books. It doesn't sound like I should see the new movie, in case it colors my attachment to the original. If I were an english major, I'd write something about the parallel between Hollywood/Lem and Solaris/Kelvin. I am not, so you'll have to write that breathy term paper for yourself.

For those of you too distracted by the Repug implosion of the US, I'd like to remind you that the rest of the world is made up of decent, normal people: Canada is ratifying the Kyoto Treaty. Now, if Russia adopts it, it will come into force, and the freeloading US will continue to trash the environment at the expense of the responsible adults that run the rest of the world. (This is mostly hyperbole. I understand some of the technical issues about Kyoto are hard and based on unproven research. However, that is just a smoke screen for US inaction on the global environment. If I saw any action from the Repugs on this I wouldn't complain. But, they think the Second Coming is just a few years away, so they aren't worried. Morons.)

To celebrate the limited victory of the forces of science over creationism in Ohio, I'd like to share an evolutionist's version of Julie Andrews' Favorite Things from the movie The Sound of Music (text only, there will be no singing!). The article is a list of facts inconvenient for the creationist. It is far from comprehensive, but quite long, quite funny and quite damning. I am reminded of Feynman's process for predicting whether some hypothesis is true or not. He said that hypotheses that turn out to be true are the ones that become more demonstrably true the more you look at them. If something looks more and more wrong the more experiments you run, things don't look good. Works quite well, for example, when analyzing our modern Lott. As this list shows, evolution is more demonstrably correct the more we look at it. Some of my favorite things:

Universal Gravitation

Although "just a theory," universal gravitation continues to be, well, universal. It holds true in all places, under all conditions, so it renders the brainless quip about evolution being "just a theory" a bit specious, at best.

Micro-organisms

Why did they have to show up? They're never mentioned in the Bible at all, so creationists have to do some creative rewriting of Genesis to account for their day of creation, and their presence or absence on the Ark.

Ice Ages

Very inconvenient! They have to have occurred since the Flood, since, according to creationists, the surface of the Earth was reworked by the Flood (to create, for instance, the Grand Canyon practically overnight), which would have messed up all those marks of glaciers on the landscape. That means mile-thick ice sheets had to advance and retreat again and again, across half the Northern Hemisphere, with the speed of freight trains.

"When the bugs bite, when the bats wing, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmmmmm...." ~whack!~ No singing!

Y'know. It is 10:30 in the morning here, and I don't think I have heard Trent Lott's daily apology yet. Does any one know where he is going to hold it? After his performance last night, I'd have thought he would have scheduled it early. He's got lots more explaining to do.

I don't consider myself an Anglophile on principle, it just seems to work out that way. Douglas Adams and Monty Python are my examples of the heights of comedy. I love Shakespeare. I listen to Pete Townshend and Portishead. I have an issue choosing between surfing Amazon or Amazon.co.uk. I like PBS stations 'cause they carry British TV (I don't get cable), and I'll stop whatever I am doing to watch The Saint, The Prisoner or The Avengers. I read New Scientist every week. (I am a geek. You knew that.) True to form, I have found another great UK product: New Humanist. Take a quick trip to their subscribe page and sign up to have a free copy sent to you (US requests no problem). It will come along with a subscription form. On getting the magazine, I flipped through it and filled out the subscription form immediately.

I have a problem with US humanist/skeptic/freethinker magazines/newsletters, of which I get many (American Rationalist, The Humanist, Skeptic, Skeptical Inquirer, Free Inquiry, Free Mind, Family Matters and the Secular Humanist Bulletin): they preach to the choir. I don't need convincing. I don't need ammunition against the crop-circle bubbleheads I meet at dinner parties. What I want is a cultural magazine that brings me a well-rounded, cultural view of Humanism. Something that shows that my worldview is a part of a cultural thread that has its roots in antiquity, that engages the best minds of our day, and that has every chance of being the principle that will take humanity into the future.

New Humanist does all that. The issue I was sent (Autumn 2002) has an bio on Rosalind Franklin (whose name would be remembered with Watson and Crick if she hadn't died young), seven extensive book reviews, Hitchens on Orwell, an overview of the London International Festival of Theatre, atricles on the superhero myth, American televangelism, Jewish disbelief, Karl Popper, and US millennialism and foreign policy, and a thoroughly British puzzle. I read the whole thing, including the ads. Perhaps the higher content quality is due to the fact that the magazine is a quarterly, or the fact that it is working on its 118th year. I don't know. But, I do know that I'll let my other ungodded journals lapse before I let this one go.

You may have noticed the comments system that I have established using Haloscan's comments system. The comments link at the bottom of each blog entry is for you to make off-the-cuff snide comments on my pontificating. Works nicely. Tim and Jody have already used it effectively to provide me with extra information that my sub-standard journalistic skills failed to turn up. Please use it for any little thing that crosses your mind. And, yes Tim, the centering is now gone on the comments. Now, will you consider guest blogging for me? I need to get some programming done at work!

Thanks to Tim Ridge who took the extra step of finding and downloading the full PDF of the Ohio Board of Education Standards and searching the text for any weasel-words inviting teachers to criticise evolution. Tim notes that the word criticism only appears once:

Nature of Science
1. Discuss science as a dynamic body of knowledge that can lead to the development of entirely new disciplines.
2. Describe that scientists may disagree about explanations of phenomena, about interpretation of data or about the value of rival theories, but they do agree that questioning, response to criticism and open communication are integral to the process of science.
3. Recognize that scientific knowledge is limited to natural explanations for natural phenomena based on evidence from our senses or technological extensions.

Thanks Tim! Hey, you got a URL for those standards? The PDF I found is here, but I'd like to check that we are talking about the same version, since there seemed to be a host of last-minute changes. There are also HTML pages of the standards, but once again, I am not sure if they are the final versions.

I'd like to personally thank the morons in government (all of them) for letting the national flood insurance program lapse. It seems Congress was too busy to reauthorize it, since they were hard at work destroying our country with the Homeland Security Bill. Please do not get the impression that I have a newly-built condo out on the barrier islands of North Carolina. I am the current steward of (that is, I own) a house that has been on its present site for over 200 years. And rarely, like three years ago, we have a massive flood, and my house goes under. Without the insurance program, my historic house (once the state treasury of NJ!) would not have survived. A personal loss for sure, but a loss for New Jersey heritage as well.

I have to check, but my flood insurance might run out in January, and I'll have to renew it. It has been exactly five years since I bought the house, and I bought it in January. Guess what? I won't be able to get any more until the program is reauthorized by Congress and the President, not possible before February. Any flood losses in those two months are my responsibility entirely. And, I just started refinancing. Guess what? I can't get a mortgage if there is no flood insurance on my house, since it is in a federally designated flood zone.

How could this happen? How could a program that protects 4.4 million property owners with $623 billion in total insurance coverage be allowed to lapse into legal limbo? And more practically, how can property owners and buyers in flood hazard areas deal with the situation?

Congress' failure to reauthorize the flood insurance program is directly connected to its partisan gridlock on virtually the entire federal budget this year. To fund the government into 2003, Congress passed a continuing resolution that authorized operations at the major federal departments. But in an effort to keep the resolution streamlined, congressional leaders eliminated a variety of federal activities that required reauthorizations before Dec. 31 in order to continue functioning.

Thanks again.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation's gilt "Winter Solstice" sign has returned to the State Capitol Building in Madison, Wisconsin. It was stolen from the building last year, even though it was under the watchful eye of security and a host of cameras. The FFRF has a permit to post the sign. The new sign reads, on the front:

At this season of the Winter Solstice may reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.

On the back:

State/Church: Keep Them Separate. Thou shalt not steal.

Turns out we in the US aren't the only ones trying to keep the church's hands off our children. Scotland is in the middle of a debate to eliminate government funding for Catholic Schools. The National Secular Society in the UK has a timeline of the issue. I reproduce the whole thing here.

HOLD A REFERENDUM ON CATHOLIC SCHOOLS IN SCOTLAND SAYS NSS

The National Secular Society is challenging the Scottish Executive to hold a referendum on whether Catholic Schools should be transferred to the community sector. The call comes in a letter to First Minister Jack McConnell from the NSS's Executive Director, Keith Porteous Wood.

The NSS's demand for a referendum comes after a week in which the Catholic establishment in Scotland has been rocked by repeated attacks by secularists urging the Scottish Parliament to phase out sectarian schools.

The row was sparked by plans by the Scottish parliament to outlaw sectarianism and religious hatred. The Newsnight presenter Kirsty Wark got the ball rolling by suggesting that 412 Catholic schools in Scotland (the only publicly funded denominational schools that exist in the country) should be abolished. She said at a prize-giving ceremony that the existence of Catholic-only schools had separated her from her best friend during her school days.

The NSS then joined the fray with a letter to the Scotsman (read it here.)

This prompted the Herald newspaper to take the issue up, and carried comments from the NSS and the Humanist Society of Scotland here.

These comments infuriated the Archbishop of Glasgow, Mario Conti, who wrote a ridiculously hysterical refutation of our criticisms here , which itself was roundly rubbished in the Daily Telegraph by Alan Cochrane here.

The Archbishop's remarks simply inflamed the situation, with more argy-bargy the following day here & here.

The NSS then accused the Archbishop of trying to blackmail the Scottish Executive with his threats of creating a Catholic backlash at the polls here.

Richard Dawkins's argument with Conti was also re-hashed for round two here and a swathe more letters followed here.

The new call for a referendum is expected to create more fireworks this weekend, and Ivan Middleton of the Scottish Humanists has penned an excellent article for the Edinburgh Evening News, due to appear this evening.

You can't vote on science. Yet, the media loves to take polls on the status of evolution in the mind of the US everyman. Would we listen if they took a poll on whether people believe in inertia? It would be convenient, no more deaths in car accidents. Every evolution poll shows us yet again how stupid two-thirds of the US really is, especially in comparison to Europe, and how anemic our educational system is. These things we know. The problem is these polls raise the creationist idiots' morale. Can two-thirds of the US population be wrong? Do you feel enough conviction to contradict them? I do, of course. But, then again, I am educated. And, apparently, a minority.

One last thing on the Ohio Board of Education standard adoption. I wanted to note a good site by Ohio Citizens for Science, which was the source of the congratulations letter from Dr. Eugenie Scott. Also found there an article from the Cincinnati Post on the standards fight with the title Ohio Poll:'Design' theory is religious:

In the on-line survey of college science professors teaching at four-year public and private schools in the state, 93 percent said they were not aware of "any scientifically valid evidence or an alternate scientific theory that challenges the fundamental principles of the theory of evolution." And 90 percent said there was no scientific evidence at all for the idea of intelligent design. Seven percent of the science professors said they thought the theory was strongly or partly supported by scientific evidence. Ninety-two percent of the respondents said they thought that Ohio high school students should be tested on their understanding of the principles of the theory of evolution in order to graduate. And 90 percent said students should not have to be tested on intelligent design to graduate. The researchers said that perhaps their most surprising finding was that 84 percent of the science professors thought that accepting the theory of evolution was consistent with believing in God. Nine percent said it wasn't and the other seven percent said they weren't sure.

Limited victory.

Jody at Naked Writing and I have been trying to figure out if the recent adoption of Ohio school standards regarding teaching evolution was a win for the forces of reason or not. Jody had originally found an article from Americans United for Separation of Church and State that claimed that the approved standards opened the door to creationist intrusion into the classroom, and reacted with appropriate disappointment. I had found other articles claiming victory. Seeing that there was substantial disagreement, Jody searched out some other articles, especially one from the Cleveland Plain-Dealer:

The State Board of Education yesterday unanimously adopted a set of science standards that makes Ohio the first state to require students to examine criticisms of biological evolution. But board members also agreed to a last-minute disclaimer stating that their action should not be construed as support for the controversial concept of intelligent design, the idea that life had to be guided by a higher power. Without the disclaimer, at least a half-dozen board members had intended to vote against the standards because they feared it would give schools a green light to bring religion and philosophy into science classes.

Considering the above research, Jody and I have both decided to claim limited victory. It could have been much worse.

Law isn't archbishop anymore, but he still has friends. In fact, the Pope thinks quite highly of him. We know he follows orders very well.

It's important to make the distinction that he remains a cardinal. He has resigned from being the archbishop of Boston, but he will be a cardinal until he dies. So, he will be given another position in the church. In fact, the pope holds this cardinal, despite all of the problems, in high esteem.

Congratulations to Ohio for joining the rest of Western civilization in the teaching of science in public schools!

On December 10 the Ohio Board of Education unanimously voted to adopt new science standards which will guide public school curriculum and testing across the state. For the first time Ohio's standards will explicitly include the concept of evolution. Local supporters of science education consider the new standards a great improvement over the previous statewide guidelines, especially in their treatment of biological evolution. In a last-minute addition, the board also unanimously adopted a disclaimer stating The intent of this indicator does not mandate the teaching or testing of Intelligent Design. Opponents of evolution education had worked hard all year to dilute or remove material from the new standards which reflect the current scientific understanding of biology, but failed in the end to do so.

No word about this in the main-stream press, but then again, there wouldn't be. The AHA did weigh in, however. Next battleground: Alabama and Louisiana.

The whole US Catholic scandal is not limited to the US. It isn't even that similar things happen in other countries. the policy comes from the top:

The Pope ordered that a defrocked priest convicted of paedophilia in America should move to a new area where his behaviour was unknown – unless his presence in the parish where the abuse took place caused no scandal. Pope John Paul II's decision was revealed yesterday with the release of a document that deepened the crisis over sex abuse by priests in the Catholic Church. Joseph Gallagher, the co-founder of the Coalition of Catholics and Survivors, said that the document, one of thousands from the Boston Archdiocese made public by court order, was the "smoking gun" that uncovered secret Vatican policy of keeping under wraps its problem with abusive priests. Mr Gallagher said: "This would explain why [other] bishops have done the same thing as [Boston's] Cardinal Law – they've moved sexual offenders from parish to parish without notifying the parishioners."

Thou shalt not criticise another Republican Well, Dumbya has just done it. Someone is doing the thinking over there.

President Bush, in rare criticism of a fellow Republican, said Thursday it was offensive and wrong for Senate Republican leader Trent Lott to have said a segregationist candidate for president should have won in 1948. Any suggestion that a segregated past was acceptable or positive is offensive and it is wrong, Bush said to loud and long applause in a speech about his faith-based agenda. Recent comments by Sen. Lott do not reflect the spirit of our country, Bush said.

No call for resignation. So, Dumbya thinks that it is OK to have a racist as number 2 in the GOP, as long as he keeps his mouth shut. And, Lott agrees.

Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi agreed with President Bush on Thursday that it was wrong for him to have said a segregation candidate for the White House should have won in 1948, Lott's spokesman said. Senator Lott agrees with President Bush that his words were wrong and he is sorry, said Lott spokesman Ron Bonjean. He repudiates segregation because it is immoral.

Nothing like a death-bed conversion.

It isn't just the ungodded that can find fault with the individual religions. The higher moral authority of the Episcopal Church is taking the Catholics to task over their gay-bashing:

In what was described as a rare challenge to the Catholic Church, the Boston Globe reports Episcopal bishops in Massachusetts said a steady stream of anti-gay invective from the Vatican is creating a potentially dangerous situation for gay and lesbian Americans. Bishop of Massachusetts, M. Thomas Shaw, head of the largest Episcopal diocese in the United States, joined other Episcopal church officials in warning that the danger posed by anti-gay pronouncements from Vatican officials left them little choice but to speak out.

From Naked Writing.

The latest priest to be convicted of sex-crimes: John Banko of Flemington NJ.

Banko denied the charges when he testified Monday. But during cross-examination, he acknowledged sexual liaisons with men and women. He also told investigators his vow of celibacy made no direct mention of abstaining from sex. Prosecutors said he displayed a pattern of sexually inappropriate behavior toward minors 30 years ago, when he was in Baltimore's St. Mary's Seminary.

You'll notice that I didn't use the traditional title for Banko. I don't use titles for clergy. They aren't my father, they do not tend any flock that I am a part of, and they certainly are not reverend. Disrespectful? Yes. Purposefully. The mantle of respectability that is automatically conferred on purveyors of imaginary friends is something I find ridiculous.

Since Lott won't be stepping down (yet), it is OK to pile on. Turns out that Lott has also been a long-time supporter of racist Bob Jones University.

While a young GOP congressional leader two decades ago, Trent Lott declared that racial discrimination does not always violate public policy as he tried to save the tax exemption of a Christian university that banned interracial dating. In his 1981 friend-of-the-court filing with the Supreme Court, Lott cited court rulings upholding affirmative action programs at colleges and compared them to the dating ban between black and white students at Bob Jones University. If racial discrimination in the interest of diversity does not violate public policy, then surely discrimination in the practices of religion is no violation, he argued, in asking the justices to block the Internal Revenue Service from stripping the school's tax exemption. At the time, he was the Republicans' new whip, the second highest position in the House GOP hierarchy.

I know how much Kerry pays for his hair, but how much does Lott pay? Whatever it is, it isn't enough.

From CNN:

President Bush is enacting by executive fiat key pieces of his divisive faith-based initiative, including one that lets federal contractors use religious favoritism in their hiring. ... By far the most contentious of the changes is Bush's executive order informing federal agencies that religious organizations refusing to hire people of any faith can still win contracts. Additionally, new regulations being unveiled Thursday from the Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Housing and Urban Development also preserve the right of religious groups providing certain government-financed services to hire based on religion. Broadly, Bush's directive tells federal agencies to ensure religious groups are treated equally with others in all respects, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Federal contractors also can no longer be denied federal money for displaying religious icons, such as a cross or a menorah.

It is nice to see a main-stream news organization calling it divisive.