Danny Jowenko Dies in Car Crash

It wasn't long ago that I blogged about Danny Jowenko, the controlled demolitions expert who unhesitatingly identified the collapse of WTC 7, the third building to come down on 9/11, as a controlled demolition. Now I'm afraid that I must pass on the bad news:

WTC 7 Expert Witness Danny Jowenko Dies in Car Crash.

Genetic Switch for Limbs and Digits Found in Primitive Fish

Cool article at Mike Gene's blog:


Genetic Switch for Limbs and Digits Found in Primitive Fish

Saved Whale Says Thank You

Cool video at Jerry Coyne's blog:

Saved Whale Says Thank You

Fascinating Salon Article on Anthrax Attack

DOJ casts serious doubt on its own claims about the anthrax attack

"Voodoo Economics"

Way back in 1980 (how it seems like only yesterday to me), Ronald Reagan ran for his party's nomination on the threefold promise of cutting taxes, increasing military spending and balancing the budget.

George H.W. Bush, who was running against him, called Reagan's promise, "Voodoo economics."

It was the truest thing he ever said.

So here we are 31 years later, most of it lived in terms of voodoo, with our government on the edge of economic collapse. I expected it sooner than this. But I knew that 2011, the year the first of the baby boomers turned 65, would be the year that we would discover voodoo doesn't really work all that well.

I suggest increasing taxes on the wealthy, simply because our government needs to increase its revenue, and the wealthy are the ones who can most easily afford to help out.

We could also increase revenue by increasing tariffs on imports. No doubt this would result in trade wars. But since we import much more than we export, I don't see how this would really hurt us all that much. We would simply buy more domestic products, which would increase domestic employment, which would increase tax revenues, which would decrease the deficit. A win-win-win situation.

VJ Torley's Recommended Reading List

VJ Torley, who has a PhD in philosophy, offers this as his recommended reading list for good religious philosophy. I haven't read most of it, so I wanted to post it here for easy reference. Things get buried so quickly over at Uncommon Descent.

Background, Foreground, and ID

Something Jay Richards wrote a while ago (I think it was here, though I 'm not sure) that I finally got a handle on. I remember him talking about trying to determine if something is designed and focusing on the foreground instead of the background. I don't remember him offering an example, which I think would help. I just happen to have one:

We can look at a painting and focus on different aspects of it to determine what was designed (by humans) and what wasn't. First, we can focus on the material of the canvas, and decide whether that was designed. Then we can focus on the paint, and determine whether that also was designed. Then we can focus on the actual pattern of the paint on the canvas and determine whether that was designed as well. We might decide that the actual pattern of the paint wasn't really designed by anyone (it was caused by some open paint cans spilling there contents on the canvas , when a tornado caused the shelf to fall over). This does not mean that we don't think the canvas and the paints were designed.

Likewise, when Theists want to determine what God designed, we can focus on the laws of the universe, or on the material that makes up the universe, or on the various objects in the universe. We might decide that God created the laws and the material, but that the objects in the universe were produced secondarily by the laws and the material, not directly by God. Or we might decide that God also directly produced some or all of the objects in the universe as well.

ID typically focuses on the foreground of the origin of life and its development and argues that it was designed by somebody (most IDists are Theists and usually think that God is that Somebody). But if someone could show that ID is mistaken, this does not mean that arguments that God created the laws of the universe, or the material that makes up the universe, are mistaken. But if ID is correct, then there is additional evidence for God. Not only must the existence of the laws of the universe and the material in it be explained, but also the origin and development of life.

So when I hear theistic evolutionists or Thomists object to ID, that somehow it puts at risk the case for God, my answer will be: you've lost your focus. The case was whatever strength it was before ID came on the scene. ID cannot weaken it. It can only strengthen it.

I Doubt I'll Ever Be a Whacko about This

ID whacko, yes. 9/11 Truth whacko, of course. Maybe an anti-vaccine whacko, someday. But an ant whacko? I doubt it.

Maybe a Beatles whacko, though.

Thorsen Fraud

HT: Scootie Royale

Well thanks to an article tying a chief researcher (whose research rejects any link between vaccines and autism) to money laundering, I now wonder whether there is such a link. I may need to expand my level of whacko-ness.

Scootie the Anti-skeptic

I've found a fellow IDist and 9/11 Truther: Scootie Royale. Of course, he's also a climate warming denialist and anti-vaccines. But he should be fun-reading, anyway.

9/11 Experiments: The Great Thermate Debate

Another interesting video:

9/11 Experiments: The Great Thermate Debate