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JISHOU, HUNAN — Oklahoma’s anti-Sharia law violates the US Constitution, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled.
The ruling states that the law — which amended the state constitution — violated the Establishment clause of the First Amendment by singling out one religion, Islam. In addition, the court noted that the proponents of the law, which passed November 2010 in a state referendum, could not identify one occasion in which Sharia was used in Oklahoma.
Too bad courts can’t comment on the stupidity of laws, too.
Oklahoma’s Islamophobic factions took the lead nationally in pressing for such a law, creating a nontroversy about “creeping Sharia” and Muslim infiltration of the USA. After the Sooner State’s successful ballot initiative, other states jumped on the bandwagon, fabricating Muslim threats from whole cloth.
The 10th Circuit got to the heart of the matter in its ruling: “Sharia? What Sharia?”
Appellants do not identify any actual problem the challenged amendment seeks to solve. Indeed, they admitted at the preliminary injunction hearing that they did not know of even a single instance where an Oklahoma court had applied Sharia law or used the legal precepts of other nations or cultures, let alone that such applications or uses had resulted in concrete problems in Oklahoma. See Awad, 754 F. Supp. 2d at 1308; Aplt. App. Vol. 1 at 67-68.
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JISHOU, HUNAN — David Barton is a loon, a dangerous loon.
I’ve blogged before about David Barton’s peculiar version of American history. He teaches that the USA was deliberately conceived as a Christian nation, despite considerable evidence to the contrary. Barton misquotes the Founding Fathers, twists and quotemines historical documents, and when all else fails outright lies about history to support his cockeyed ideas.
The Religious Right adores him. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), who is vainly trying to be the presidential nominee of her party, invited Barton to teach the Constitution to newly minted Representatives. Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who at one point was considering a presidential run, famously said:
`“I almost wish that there would be, like, a simultaneous telecast, and all Americans would be forced–forced at gunpoint no less–to listen to every David Barton message, and I think our country would be better for it. I wish it’d happen.”
The Atlantic Monthly had a lengthy analysis of Barton’s appeal and his peculiar methods of historical research. There is no doubt that Barton’s religious belief drives his interpretation of history, but what kind of beliefs does he have?
Here’s a clue. Right Wing Watch posted this excerpt of Barton’s appearance last year on televangelist Kenneth Copeland’s “In God We Trust” video series. Barton is talking about the need for Christians to get involved in public affairs.
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JISHOU, HUNAN — Six pm came and went, and nothing unusual happened, despite Harold Camping’s prophecy of the Rapture today. It is raining, but cats and dogs, not fire and brimstone. No one rose up into Heaven, either.
Draw your own conclusions. And enjoy your weekend — maybe it will be rapturous in an entirely different way.
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JISHOU, HUNAN — I hear tell that the Rapture will happen this Saturday. I’m not clear if the prophet, Harold Camping, has worked out the exact time of the event, but since China is 12 hours ahead of Eastern Time, I’ll give you a heads up.
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LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY — There are perhaps 300 Muslims who live in Wyoming, where the livestock outnumber the people in general. Yet, a state representative there (he’s a Republican, in case you couldn’t guess) has proposed a ballot measure to forbid state judges from using Islamic law (sharia) or “international law” in deciding cases.
He calls it a “pre-emptive strike.” Just in case those 300 Muslims rise up and try to impose religious law on Wyoming’s people … and livestock.
Voters in another hotbed of Islam, Oklahoma, approved a similar measure last year. It was later struck down as unconstitutional by a federal judge. Despite the futility of trying to have a similar referendum in Wyoming, Rep. Gerald Gay wants to waste everyone’s time anyway.
I can’t decide if these guys are insane, or are playing to the crazies to garner votes. Maybe both.
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JISHOU, HUNAN — Just a few days ago, the Internet was in a hub-bub about the discovery of a strain of bacteria that thrives in an arsenic-laced environment.
Several biologists, however, are not so convinced, and have pointed out weaknesses in the scientific paper announcing the discovery. Carl Zimmer at Discover magazine just published a summary of some of these objections.
The late astronomer and author Carl Sagan once wrote that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” In other words, if you claim you saw a UFO zipping across the sky from your backyard, your photographic “proof” had better not look like blurry shot of a modified dinner plate. Briefly, that’s what critics of the arsenic-loving bacteria paper are saying. They believe the authors’ methodology and analysis is flawed, so they want further evidence that these bacteria have really incorporated arsenic into their DNA, for example.
This is how science works. Even Newton and Einstein, whose theories of gravity and relativity are now considered foundations of modern physics, had their critics when they were first published. Science is all about testing and verification of hypotheses. Peer-reviewed journals, like Science, run submissions past a panel of editors, who judge in part whether the authors of the paper did an acceptable job of supporting their conclusions. Then, once it’s published, scientists reading the paper get to pick it over, too, as they are doing now with the “arsenic aliens.”
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xkcd nails the argument against alt-med and alt-science nonsense. If it all really worked, somebody would be using it for practical purposes.
 Print it and keep it in your wallet Click on the image to see the original, so you can read the mouse-over comment there.
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