Microsoft is getting desperate these days: With Apple's last Macworld keynote speech just hours away, Microsoft is again talking up the idea of an "Apple tax" that people pay when they opt for a Mac over a Windows PC. What Gates' Gang doesn't want to think about is something that any car dealer--and most Macintosh …
Some Thoughts on the Teaching of Evolution
It's gratifying for me to see that there are a more than a few who would not uncritically accept Laura Lorentzen's "Why We Must Teach Evolution in the Classroom" in the Summer 2008 edition of the Phi Kappa Phi Forum. Having done the "Masada" deal with that publication myself, I'm glad that there are some …
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The Link Between Roadside Crosses and Safety
The secularists will absolutely, positively, hate this, but... A road-safety expert at the University of Calgary has released a study on how roadside memorials - the clusters of flowers, crosses, and photos that mark sudden tragic death in accidents - affect traffic. Richard Tay set up fake memorials at four intersections with red-light cameras in …
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Young Earth Creationists: Not The Only Source of Bad Decisions in Curricula
Based on what secularists are saying these days, you'd think that "creationists" are the source of all evil in our school curricula. For better or worse, that's not always the case. Case in point comes from Dr. J. David Rodgers, Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Missouri at Rolla. In his 2002 monograph …
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Why Environmentalists Cannot Control Greenhouse Gases
Few things show the inability of environmentalists to properly prioritise what's important than this, from Chattanooga, TN: An air quality permit was approved Friday afternoon for the huge new Volkswagen auto assembly plant at Enterprise South Industrial Park, though - to meet current EPA requirements to deal with paint fumes - greenhouse gas emissions from …
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Is Generation Y That High Maintenance?
In the middle of everything else I do, last Friday I took time to attend the Annual Meeting of the Tennessee Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers in Smyrna, TN. I still do engineering activity (including this, this and this) and it's good to get out and get updated. Engineering meetings can be …
Traffic Accidents Increase on Election Day
This is a good reason to vote early: Could voting for president be hazardous to your health? An analysis of Election Day traffic deaths dating back to Jimmy Carter's 1976 win suggests yes, but the authors say that's no reason not to go to the polls. The study found that on average, 24 more people …
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Apple Settles the Derivative Litigation. But They Didn’t Use a Mac!
Apple shareholders were recently notified by this court document that the "Apple Derivative Litigation" has been settled. A brief summary of this--which relates to backdating of Apple stock options--is as follows: Apple Inc. and several of its officers and directors, including chief executive Steve Jobs, have agreed to settle a stock options backdating case for …
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Palm Beach Gets Mooned. And There are Stars, of Course.
Joyce Reingold notes the following astronomical event later this week: Our Star Watch columnist Mike Lynch also advises we mark our calendars for Friday, 9/19, when — conditions willing — the waning gibbous moon will partially cover the Pleiades between 9:30-11 p.m. “It should be quite a sight to begin your weekend,” he writes. A …
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The New York Times Catches Up on Online Textbooks
The New York Times finally catches up on the subject of online textbooks, many of which are free: It is that fact that can suddenly turn the good guys into bad guys, especially when the prices they charge are compared with generic drugs or ordinary books. A final similarity, in the words of R. Preston …
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