March 12, 2010
From the Texas Freedom Network via Ed Brayton:
9:45 – Here’s the amendment [Cynthia] Dunbar changed: “explain the impact of Enlightenment ideas from John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Thomas Jefferson on political revolutions from 1750 to the present.” Here’s Dunbar’s replacement standard, which passed: “explain the impact of the writings of John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and Sir William Blackstone.” Not only does Dunbar’s amendment completely change the thrust of the standard. It also appalling drops one of the most influential political philosophers in American history — Thomas Jefferson.
It’s impossible to make this crap up. Replacing Jefferson with Aquinas and Calvin? Deleting explicit mention of the Enlightenment? And of political revolutions?
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History & Philosophy | 
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Posted by John M. Lynch
March 12, 2010
Accipitridae / Accipitrinae / Ictinia plumbea / Plumbeous Kite
(source)
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Posted by John M. Lynch
March 6, 2010
Wilkins has a good post with much to agree with:
Look, I don’t care if atheists are aggressive or not. Certainly being excluded themselves, they have the right to be loud and proud. I think they should speak out at every turn. But does that require that they must denigrate and belittle those who don’t entirely agree with them? Must they turn into what they themselves despise? It seems, sadly, this is the human condition. But don’t pretend to be the vanguard of rationality when you are just as irrational and tribal as everyone else. The term for that is not “rational”, but “hypocritical”.
Read on.
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Posted by John M. Lynch
March 5, 2010
Accipitridae / Accipitrinae / Ictinia mississippiensis / Mississippi Kite
(source)
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Posted by John M. Lynch
February 26, 2010
Accipitridae / Accipitrinae / Harpagus bidentatus / Double-toothed Kite
(source)
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Posted by John M. Lynch
February 24, 2010
Article in the Guardian on the International Flat Earth Society:
Zeteticism, Shenton says, emphasises experience and reason over the ”trusting acceptance of dogma”
Sound like any other group we know?
Some more information here.
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Posted by John M. Lynch
February 19, 2010
Jane Maienschein and I will be answering questions after the screening. More details here.
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Posted by John M. Lynch
February 19, 2010
Accipitridae / Accipitrinae / Helicolestes hamatus / Slender-billed Kite
(source)
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Posted by John M. Lynch
