But Myles Allen, a lecturer on atmospheric physics at Oxford University, said assessing a “safe level” of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was “a bit like asking a doctor what’s a safe number of cigarettes to smoke per day”.^[1]

I wonder if the good professor is aware that we need at least some carbon dioxide, but we do not need any cigarettes.

1. Mr. Richard Black. “Stark warning over climate change” BBC News 2006-01-30. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4660938.stm

TheFactIs.org provides some interesting details on South Dakota’s attempt to overturn Roe.^[1] I am including it below as is authorized by their copyright notice.

State Legislative Taskforce Provides Roadmap for Overturning Roe

A new report from a South Dakota legislative taskforce may provide a roadmap for challenging and overturning Roe v. Wade. The taskforce’s report enumerates six assumptions of fact made by the Supreme Court in their 1973 decision and concludes that “it is clear that the most essential assumptions made by the Roe Court are incorrect . . .”

The 71-page document was prepared at the request of the South Dakota Legislature which created the taskforce to study abortion. The taskforce was asked to study a number of issues surrounding abortion including the practice of abortion since its legalization, what current science can tell us about the characteristics of the unborn child, the degree to which women who undergo abortions are truly informed about the procedure, and any adverse health affects on women having abortions.

The taskforce spent considerable time hearing testimony from embryologists and other scientists in order to answer whether “the human being, from the moment of conception, [is] a whole separate living member of the species Homo sapiens in the biological sense.” In deciding Roe, the Supreme Court said that at this “point in the development of man’s knowledge” it was unclear whether or not a fetus was a human being.

One doctor, Dr. David Fu-Chi Mark, “explained that the new recombinant DNA technologies that have developed over the past twenty years provide scientific evidence about the unborn child’s existence and early development and her ability to react to the environment and feel pain prior to birth.” Dr. Bruce Carlson testified that “The wholeness (or completeness) of the human being during the embryonic ages cannot be fully appreciated without an understanding of how the genetic information is packaged, and how the information becomes unfolded and cascades into visible structures.”

Regarding whether or not the fetus is human life, the report took special note of the testimony of those who support legal abortion. “No credible evidence was presented that challenged these scientific facts. In fact, when witnesses supporting abortion were asked when life begins, not one would answer the question, stating that it would only be their personal opinion.”

The report also concluded that a South Dakota Planned Parenthood facility which provides a significant portion of that state’s abortions did not provide sufficient information to the mothers who received abortions there. “Based on their testimony, it is admitted that the Planned Parenthood facility in Sioux Falls does not disclose any information about the unborn child and that it does not disclose to the pregnant mother in any way that the child, the second patient, is already in existence.” Of particular concern to the taskforce is “that the women who come to Planned Parenthood sign a ‘consent’ to have an abortion without first speaking to the doctor. These consent forms are filled out before the doctor sees the patient.”

In its final section the report states that the “state, the mother, and the child all have interests that justify changing the laws of the state of South Dakota to protect the child’s life, first and foremost, to protect the mother-child relationship, and to protect the mother’s health.”

1. TheFactIs.org. “State Legislative Taskforce Provides Roadmap for Overturning Roe” Culture & Cosmos Volume 3, Number 25. 2006-01-25 http://www.thefactis.org/default.aspx?control=ArticleMaster&aid=1466&authid=12

Scientists looking at the differences between 14Th Century skulls and modern skulls were surprised to find significant differences.^[1] I would like to consider, briefly, something the article does not. If skulls have changed noticeably in the last 650 years, how much more must they have changed in the last 2000 years? In the last 10,000 years? When does that change become significant enough for fossil finders to decide a new species has been discovered? Should that difference really denote a new species?

1. Ms. Rebecca Morelle. “Time changes modern human’s face” BBC News (online). 2006-01-25 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4643312.stm

I find it interesting that Mr. Richard Stallman is hesitant to believe that the president of Iran might be a fanatic, when he never hesitates to believe the worst of the United States, particularly the republican party thereof.^[1] It is, from what I gather, sadly typical of the political left.

1. Mr. Richard Stallman. “Oil on Euros” “Political notes from 2005: November – February” 2006-01-23 http://www.stallman.org/archives/2005-nov-feb.html#23%20January%202006%20%28Oil%20on%20Euros%29

• Google Talk works with other jabber servers.^[1]
• Google Talk is to become compatible with AIM.^[2]
• Sametime is to be compatible with AIM, Yahoo, and Google.^[3]
• Yahoo is to be compatible with MSN.^[4]

This is going to be nightmare-ish. I am seriously going to start getting reports about how user A can talk to user B, but user C cannot. Now, in addition to the varied authorization and privacy controls across the varied protocols, I will have to worry about if users A, B and C are using mutually compatible protocols, when in all likelihood none of users A, B or C even realize they are using a protocol or protocols.

1. Google. Google Talk Developer page on “Service Choice”. viewed 2006-01-24 http://www.google.com/talk/developer.html#service
2. Mr. Saul Hansell. “AOL and Google Formalize Partnership to Include Shared Selling of Ads” The New York Times (online). 2005-12-21 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/21/technology/21aol.html?ei=5089&en=87fa3740fb426e06&ex=1292821200&adxnnl=0&partner=rssyahoo&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1135189793-we2js80BjoKJQmvuvAPGBQ&pagewanted=print
3. Reuters. “You’ll Get Mail, From I.B.M.’s Customers” The New York Times (online). 2006-01-24 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/24/technology/24blue.html?ei=5088&en=1f6fac6f90b59e73&ex=1295758800&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=print
4. This was announced on the Yahoo Messenger Home page. It does not seem to be now.

This log, through its various iterations and post formats, capabilities, and backend software, has now been up for exactly one year. Is that good, bad, or indifferent? I do not know.

The Associated Press reported last year that in some states sexual abuse is the main reason public school teachers lose their licenses. Colorado public schools are not exempt from the abuse problem. Professor Charol Shakeshaft of Hofstra University, among others, argues that up to 15 percent of all public school students nationally are the victims of sexual misconduct by a staff member, ranging from kissing to sexual intercourse, by the time they finish high school.

The evidence also suggests that from 1 percent to 5 percent of the teaching profession and up to 25 percent of all public school districts have problems of sexual abuse.^[1]

Why then, is the Church the focus of a sexual abuse scandal, and not the varied school districts? It is because the public school system, as part of the government, enjoy partial or complete immunity from lawsuits in most areas. There are greater limits on how long after the alleged abuse the report can come, and on how much you can get in damages. Basically, it does not make financial sense to sue the schools, but it does to sue the Church.

Beyond that though, I strongly suspect that part of it is simply that a parent suing the school district would make local news, perhaps even state news, but would not garner national news focus. You would not see the ripple effect as case after case comes to light before a national media, because the national media would never report it as heavily. Thus, it is left to a relative backwater like Catholic News Agency to publish this study. Imagine if this was just before the scandal started, and a report came out claiming “that up to 15 percent” of all Catholic School children had been abused. This would have been a headline story across the country. Yet when it is about the public school system, no one hears about it. Was the priority really to “protect the children” or to attack the Church?

1. Catholic News Agency. “Teacher says potentially far more lucrative, to sue the Catholic Church, or any church or private organization, than it is to sue the local public school district” www.catholicnewsagency.com 2006-01-23. http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=5813

For all those who would tout the state as a check on the flaws in some parents, look at the sort of thing that can still happen after the state takes over. After removing her from abuse in a prior home, they totally ignored reports of abuse in her new home.^[1]

Admittedly, some parents go wrong. The adoptive ones in this very case did afterall. But I do not see why we should trust a flawed, human institution, made up of flawed human beings, to do a better job than the parents do. I think this case rather emphasizes why. Time and time again, various people in contact with this little girl contacted the State to ask for intervention. Time and time again the State failed, but because these people trusted the State to determine and to act, nothing was done.

1. Mrs. Michelle Malkin. “Blogging for Haleigh” www.michellemalkin.com 2006-01-21 http://michellemalkin.com/archives/004337.htm

Dr. Vij Sodera’s One Small Speck to Man: the evolution myth looks to be a tome worth owning. Unfortunately, for ease of wish listing, it is not available (at least not yet) from Amazon. You can read about it (and order it) here.^[1]

1. Mr. Dennis Wagner. Review of One Small Speck to Man: the evolution myth. The ID Update. 2006-01-21 http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/literature/2006/01/21/one_small_speck_to_man_the_evolution_myth

South Dakota is considering stepping up to the plate in the fight to overturn Roe v. Wade.^[1] The state legislature has before it a bill to criminalize abortion. Though it has been vetoed once already, it was because of some technicalities, and lawmakers think that this version of it might become law.

Obviously such a bill will quickly be declared unconstitutional, if it does pass. These lawmakers believe that with Chief Justice John Roberts and possibly soon Judge Samuel Alito, on the court, things may have changed enough to overturn Roe v. Wade. By my count, we are still one vote short, but I wish them luck none-the-less.

1. Jodi Schwan. “SD Legislature To Consider Abortion Ban” Keloland TV. 2006-01-22 http://www.keloland.com/NewsDetail2817.cfm?Id=0,45410