Recent postings on Lambda Delta

September 6, 2008:

• Pope didn't tell frog to hop it after all (newspapers had misrepresented a story involving a sculpture of a crucified frog)
  

September 7, 2008:

• Just a theory (a cute cartoon about creationism)
• Ice age predictions are premature (predictions based on sunspots are speculative)
• Snake oil degrees abandoned (a British university has dropped a degree in homeopathic medicine)
  

September 8, 2008:

• NASA chief Griffin blasts White House in leaked email (he's not happy about the plans for the shuttle)
  
• BC appeal court approved "no go" zones around abortion clinies, rejects appeal by protestors (a failed attempt to challenge "no go" zones around clinics in Vancouver)
  
• Victorian bill to decriminalize abortion (An Australian state reforms its abortion law)
  
• Quirkology (Richard Wiseman's psychology fun website)
  

September 9, 2008:

• headcrabs lol (famous troubleshooter spotted at CERN)
  
• Gay agenda is winning (gay marriage is coming and there is nothing the fundies can do about it)
  
• JK Rowling wins Harry Potter case, Steve Vander Ark to publish new book (big libel case victory for Harry Potter author)
  
• Denied a passport on grounds of midwifery (some Americans of Mexican ancestry can't get passports)
  

September 10, 2008:

• Zapatero set to deliver on promise to fix Spain's anomalous abortion laws (Spain moves a step further away from the Franco era)
  
• What on earth are they up to at CERN?  New York Times gives an exclusive clue (a misprint reveals what's really going on)
  
• Exhibition: Francis Bacon retrospective, Tate Britain (a great British-Irish painter)
  
• When Hot Dogs Attack! (a weird crime, nobody hurt)
  

September 12, 2008:

• Teach magic at school (Richard Wiseman says it teaches social skills and confidence)
  
• Cheap drug could prevent some recurrent miscarriages (prednisolone could prevent miscarriages--early days yet though)
  
• The night they stole the internet (a big theft in Mayfair)
  
• "Sex in confessionals" book angers religious kooks (Bill Donohue is angry.  Again)
  
• Brumby's abortion reform bill passes Victorian lower house (Australian bill passes a big hurdle)
  
• Women boo McCain over Roe v. Wade (He thinks it's bad,  they think he is.)
  

September 13, 2008:

• Examining a creationist case against modern geology (a guy who still hasn't dragged himself into the twentieth century--let alone the twenty-first)
  
• Examining a creationist argument on the fossil record (same guy, second of two posts by me)
  
• Newspapers and blogs misrepresent Dennis Wheeler on climate change (Geographer angry because loads of climate change conspiracy theorists think he's their new best friend--it's all down to misreporting in newspapers)
  

I've moved to Lambda Delta.  Please click here.

From the Associated Press, whose photographer Matt Rourke was arrested and held without charge earlier in the week:

• Warehouse set to process convention arrests August 15, 2008
  
• Police target protesters at GOP convention August 30, 2008
  
• Anti-war protest may be hampered by arrests August 31, 2008
• 9 arrested at Xcel in antiwar march September 1, 2008
  
• 5 arrested in protests at GOP convention site September 2, 2008
  
• GOP convention protest arrests tally nearly 300 September 3, 2008
• Police hope to avoid more GOP convention violence September 4, 2008
  
• Arrests mark last anti-war march of convention  September 5, 2008

From the ACLU newsroom:

• ACLU Calls For Investigation Into Raids And Mass Arrests At RNC September 2, 2008
• Kentucky Photojournalists Released From Jail After Being Held For 36 Hours Without Charges September 3, 2008
• At RNC, Arraignments Begin And Arrests Continue  September 4, 2008
• ACLU Sues St. Paul And Minneapolis For Release Of Educational Materials Seized During Raids September 4, 2008
• ACLU Renews Its Call For Investigation Into Civil Liberties Violations At RNC September 4, 2008

I've moved to Lambda Delta.  Please click here.

Recently I reported on the shift in American attitudes to involvement of churches in political and social affairs.  A majority of American voters now oppose such involvement.  This is mainly due to a shift in attitudes among conservatives towards church involvement in political affairs.

Religious belief is also undergoing a long term decline in America.   Matt Cherry of the Institute for Humanist Studies reports his analysis of two major polls by Pew Research and Harris, concluding that America seems to be following the same trajectory as Western Europe, but forty years later.


In 1986, only 11 per cent of 18-25-year-olds reported their religious preferences as "no religion/atheist/agnostic".  In 2006, that figure had increased to 20 per cent.  Among over-25s, the proportion has risen more modestly from 8 per cent to 11 per cent.

These findings seem to be broadly in line with those of the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS), a government survey carried out in 1990 and 2001.  Between 1991 and 2001, the survey found that the number of those describing themselves as Christians (of any denomination) fell from 88.4 per cent to 81.1 per cent, those reporting adherence to the views of other, non-Christian, religions rose from 3.5 per cent to 5.2 per cent, but those reporting no religious views, atheism or agnosticism rose from 8 per cent to 15 per cent.

• A portrait of Generation Next, Pew Research Center for People and the Press.  Summary of findings.
  
• American Religious Identification Survey data archive, Instititute for Secularism in Society and Culture, Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut
• American Religious Identification Survey data spreadsheet (XLS format), US Census Bureau
• FT Harris poll