New York Times Home Sales Drop to Lowest Level in 8 Months
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"Existing home sales dropped to their lowest level in eight months in November and the total number of homes for sale rose, an industry group reported today, suggesting that the housing market was continuing its slow but steady slowdown."

"Real estate agents and other housing experts have said recently that it is taking longer to sell homes in several of the hottest housing markets on both coasts and sellers have been forced to reduce asking prices. New home builders, which make up about 15 percent of the national housing market, have said they are offering more incentives to convince vacillating buyers."

Smart Money Don't Buy the Bubble Talk

"JUST BECAUSE THE HOUSING market has been on fire for several years, doesn't mean homeowners are about to get burned. In fact, housing costs are now only a bit above historic norms, and are not extreme even in boomtowns like Miami and San Diego, according to Todd Sinai.

Tell that to someone on the market for a new home and they'll think you've been renting an apartment on Mars for the past five years. But Sinai makes his academic home at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, where he is an associate professor of real estate."

USA Today As risky home loans rise, house-price 'bubble' inflates

"As any savvy Realtor can argue, surging prices by themselves might not prove the existence of a housing bubble. In communities that are growing rapidly, demand for housing exceeds supply. Prices naturally rise.

Nevertheless, one sure sign of bubble trouble is the irrationally exuberant lending industry. Almost one third of all new home loans made in July, August and September included an introductory period in which the borrower could choose to pay only the interest and no principal."

redux [12.10.05]
The UCLA Daily Bruin Anderson Forecast predicts looming crash

"The housing bubble is bound to pop, creating a sharp decline in real estate costs that could trigger a recession, several economists at the UCLA Anderson Forecast said.

The business school issued its quarterly economic forecast Wednesday, an evaluation considered by many to be one of the leading independent economic forecasts in the nation."

redux [11.25.05]
NPR - All Things Considered Fewer People Line up to Buy U.S. Homes

"Across the country, homes are beginning to take longer to sell, a sign that the hot real-estate market of the last decades is starting to cool. In the Boston metropolitan area, which has seen a faster appreciation of home values than most of the country, homes prices are not rising as fast they used to. Fred Thys of member station WBUR reports."

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Housing bubble's burst could cost 1 million jobs

"Much of the nation has had a lovely real estate boom for the past five years, but the house party is almost over, and the cleanup won't be pretty."

""The demographic story behind the housing market boom, as we always thought, was a giant hoax," Merrill Lynch & Co.'s North American economist, David Rosenberg, wrote in a recent report."

"A final nightmare scenario: The center predicts that a federal bailout of the mortgage market is likely if housing crashes. So, if corporate pension funds continue to falter and this dire prediction does come true, the feds could conceivably end up holding your mortgage and your pension."

Washington Post Bernanke: There's No Housing Bubble to Go Bust

"Ben S. Bernanke does not think the national housing boom is a bubble that is about to burst, he indicated to Congress last week, just a few days before President Bush nominated him to become the next chairman of the Federal Reserve.

U.S. house prices have risen by nearly 25 percent over the past two years, noted Bernanke, currently chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, in testimony to Congress's Joint Economic Committee. But these increases, he said, "largely reflect strong economic fundamentals," such as strong growth in jobs, incomes and the number of new households."

redux [08.25.05]
New York Times Be Warned: Mr. Bubble's Worried Again
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"Today, nine years after his lunch with Mr. Greenspan and five years after the markets finally did crash, Mr. Shiller is sounding the same warning for real estate that he did for stocks. In speeches, in television and radio interviews and in a second edition of his prophetic 2000 book, "Irrational Exuberance," he is arguing that the housing craze is another bubble destined to end badly, just as every other real-estate boom on record has.

These, in short, are his second 15 minutes of gloom. He predicts that prices could fall 40 percent in inflation-adjusted terms over the next generation and that the end of the bubble will probably cause a recession at some point."

USA Today Home prices 'extremely overvalued' in 53 cities

"Single-family home prices are "extremely overvalued" in 53 cities that make up nearly a third of the overall U.S. housing market, putting them at high risk of price declines, according to a study released today."

"The highest-risk markets are in California; Southern Florida; parts of the Boston area; the Long Island, N.Y., counties of Nassau and Suffolk; and Ocean City, N.J."

""For the U.S. as a whole, I expect we're going to have an orderly correction. But that doesn't mean it's going to be equally orderly in all places," DeKaser says."

BusinessWeek Is A Housing Bubble About To Burst?

"But this time something important is different: Interest rates are inching up. It was the Federal Reserve-engineered decline in rates that inflated the housing bubble. But starting with a quarter-point increase in the funds rate on June 30, the Fed has begun what promises to be a prolonged tightening cycle. Even if the Fed's hikes are measured, higher mortgage rates will inevitably make houses less affordable. If 30-year fixed-rate mortgages rise just one percentage point, to 7.2% from their current 6.2% -- well within the range of forecasts -- house prices would have to fall 11% to keep new buyers' monthly mortgage payments from rising. If fixed rates went to 8%, prices would need to fall 20% to keep payments level.

Rising rates will hurt more than in the past because the market is more dependent on heavily leveraged buyers."

National Housing Institue The Housing Bubble: A Time Bomb in Low-Income Communities?

"These data indicate that the housing bubble has even affected the lower-income homes. While the price declines may be smaller than for higher cost housing, many lower-income homebuyers may still see the price of their homes fall by 20 to 30 percent when the housing bubble bursts. This could mean, for example, that a home bought today for $160,000 sells for $120,000 to $130,000 in two or three years, if the housing bubble bursts.

Price declines of this magnitude will be devastating for families who have struggled to afford the homes they purchase. While some homeowners may live in their houses long enough for inflation to eventually restore home prices to current levels, few would be happy to sell their house in twenty years for the price they paid today."

The Economist In come the waves

"NEVER before have real house prices risen so fast, for so long, in so many countries. Property markets have been frothing from America, Britain and Australia to France, Spain and China. Rising property prices helped to prop up the world economy after the stockmarket bubble burst in 2000. What if the housing boom now turns to bust?

According to estimates by The Economist, the total value of residential property in developed economies rose by more than $30 trillion over the past five years, to over $70 trillion, an increase equivalent to 100% of those countries' combined GDPs. Not only does this dwarf any previous house-price boom, it is larger than the global stockmarket bubble in the late 1990s (an increase over five years of 80% of GDP) or America's stockmarket bubble in the late 1920s (55% of GDP). In other words, it looks like the biggest bubble in history."

The Economist Wealth from worship

"AT CHRISTMAS, many people do things they would never dream of the rest of the year, from giving presents to getting drunk. Some even go to church. Attendance soars, as millions of once-a-year worshippers fill the pews. In Britain, where most weeks fewer than one person in ten goes to church, attendance more than triples. Even in America, where two-fifths of the people say they go frequently, the share climbs in December.

Some of the occasional churchgoers must wonder whether they might benefit from turning up more often. If they did so, they could gain more than spiritual nourishment. Jonathan Gruber, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, claims that regular religious participation leads to better education, higher income and a lower chance of divorce. His results* (based on data covering non-Hispanic white Americans of several Christian denominations, other faiths and none) imply that doubling church attendance raises someone's income by almost 10%."

The Times Societies worse off 'when they have God on their side'

"RELIGIOUS belief can cause damage to a society, contributing towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide, according to research published today.

According to the study, belief in and worship of God are not only unnecessary for a healthy society but may actually contribute to social problems."

"“In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies."

Slate The Chronicles of Narnia Rap

"If you haven't seen Saturday Night Live's Chronicles of Narnia rap, then you don't have any friends. Or at least any friends with Internet access. The two-minute video, which debuted on SNL last Saturday before resurfacing as a much-forwarded "digital short," has accomplished what seemed impossible a week ago—making Saturday Night Live a cultural touchstone for the first time since Christopher Walken pleaded for "more cowbell." The popularity of the Narnia rap might augur a reawakening at SNL—in fact, there are already T-shirts that parrot the song's catchphrases. It's more significant, though, for what it says about the state of rap."

"People aren't forwarding this video because it's a parody of what's bad about rap; they're sending it around because it's an ode to what can be great about it. Instead of auguring a new day for SNL, maybe it points up what's missing in mainstream rap—an awareness that it's OK to be goofy."

The New York Times Nerds in the Hood, Stars on the Web
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"It is their obliviousness to their total lack of menace - or maybe the ostentatious way they pay for convenience-store candy with $10 bills - that makes the video so funny, but it is the Internet that has made it a hit. Since it was originally broadcast on NBC, "Lazy Sunday" has been downloaded more than 1.2 million times from the video-sharing Web site YouTube.com; it has cracked the upper echelons of the video charts at NBC.com and the iTunes Music Store; and it has even inspired a line of T-shirts, available at Teetastic.com."

The Village Voice SNL Narnia-Rap Skit: Better Than Actual Rap?

"Given all this constant, epic failure, a digital video where two white cast-members rap about eating cupcakes and going to see Narnia should be a horrendous idea, the epitome of haha-we're-white irony-mining and blackfaced-up wiggity-wiggity posing, like the rapping Santa I saw at Walgreen's this weekend (he raps over "Getting Jiggy With It").

But there's nothing insulting or racist about "Lazy Sunday," the short in question. For one thing, and this is remarkable, "Lazy Sunday" is a pretty good rap song."

Terry Heaton TV News in a Postmodern World 2006: The Unbundled Awakening

"I believe history will look back at 2006 as the year of an unbundled awakening in the media world, ushering in an era of creativity the likes of which we've not witnessed in recent history, especially in the advertising community. Unbundled media is clearly what people want, and when that kind of energy bubbles up from the bottom, media companies of all sorts have no choice but to respond. This is currently happening in the worlds of entertainment, education and information and one day will be realized in every institution of our culture.

Beyond what is happening in media itself is the unbundled awakening that's taking place in our homes, schools, and offices. The Pew Internet & American Life Project reported earlier this year that half of all teens in this country — and 57% of those who use the internet — have created a blog or webpage, posted original artwork, photography, stories or videos online or remixed online content into their own new creations. This awakening of creativity among our youth — and their ability to do something with it — is the essence of what's known as Web 2.0. We've moved past the early adopter stage with young people, and that will continue to flourish next year."

The New York Times TV Stardom on $20 a Day
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"AMANDA CONGDON is a big star on really small screens - like the 4½- inch window she appears in on computer monitors every weekday morning or the 2½ inches she has to work with on the new video iPod. Ms. Congdon, you see, is the anchor of a daily, three-minute, mock TV news report shot on a camcorder, edited on a laptop and posted on a blog called Rocketboom, which now reaches more than 100,000 fans a day.

"In case you're wondering, it has occurred to Mr. Baron and Ms. Congdon that they just might be sitting on a gold mine. At a cost of about $20 an episode, they reach an audience that some days is roughly comparable in size to that of, say, CNN's late, unlamented "Crossfire" political debate show."

redux [01.20.04]
Wired News Here's the Price of Fame: $218.32

" Tarnation may be the first feature-length film edited entirely on iMovie, and it cost $218.32 in videotape and materials. Despite its low budget, the film has already earned a high profile. Both John Cameron Mitchell, the actor and director of Hedwig and the Angry Inch , and independent film maverick Gus Van Sant have signed on as executive producers."

""People assumed that one day film would be as accessible and inexpensive as writing, and now it practically is," Van Sant said."

Linux Journal The New Economy Hack: Turning Consumers into Producers

"Apple is giving consumers tools that make them producers. This practice radically transform both the marketplace and the economy that thrives on it.

Ignore for a minute that Apple's stuff is closed-source, that it has any kind of technical or market-category agenda. Instead, look at what it does to supply and demand, production and consumption. It turns consumers into producers. It changes the marketplace by flooding it with new producers, new products and demand for new means of distribution."

The New York Times Spy Agency Mined Vast Data Trove, Officials Report
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"The National Security Agency has traced and analyzed large volumes of telephone and Internet communications flowing into and out of the United States as part of the eavesdropping program that President Bush approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to hunt for evidence of terrorist activity, according to current and former government officials."

"Since the disclosure last week of the N.S.A.'s domestic surveillance program, President Bush and his senior aides have stressed that his executive order allowing eavesdropping without warrants was limited to the monitoring of international phone and e-mail communications involving people with known links to Al Qaeda.

What has not been publicly acknowledged is that N.S.A. technicians, besides actually eavesdropping on specific conversations, have combed through large volumes of phone and Internet traffic in search of patterns that might point to terrorism suspects. Some officials describe the program as a large data-mining operation."

redux [12.22.05]
Defense Tech New Tech Behind NSA Snoop Case

"There's more to the NSA domestic spying case than the current storyline -- that much is clear. The idea that the Bush Administration needed to bypass the courts to get wiretaps quickly makes no sense; under the current system, you can start eavesdropping, and get a warrant later. The notion that disclosing the surveillance would somehow tip off potential terrorists is laughable, too; Al Qaeda types know they're being monitored.

That's all assuming, of course, that the wiretaps in this case are the same as in any other. But maybe they're not. Maybe there's something different about this surveillance."

"[Maybe] the NSA wiretaps were using a new kind of capability; one that terror suspects might not have know about; one that might have even made the FISA court uncomfortable, somehow."

Salon Uncle Sam is listening

"Most likely, Bush wanted a whole new surveillance paradigm. You can think of the FBI's capabilities as "retail surveillance": It eavesdrops on a particular person or phone. The NSA, on the other hand, conducts "wholesale surveillance." It, or more exactly its computers, listens to everything. An example might be to feed the computers every voice, fax, and email communication, looking for the name "Ayman al-Zawahiri." This type of surveillance is more along the lines of Project Shamrock, and not legal under FISA. As Sen. Jay Rockefeller wrote in a secret memo after being briefed on the program, it raises "profound oversight issues."

"The fundamental issue here is security, but it's not the security most people think of. James Madison famously said: "If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary." Terrorism is a serious risk to our nation, but an even greater threat is the centralization of American political power in the hands of any single branch of the government."

Washington Monthly What is the NSA up to?

"So what's the nature of the secret NSA bugging program? Why did the Bush administration feel like they couldn't continue to seek warrants via the usual FISA procedures? Take a look at the following quotes and you can see a single thread that starts to emerge."

"It seems clear that there's something involved here that goes far beyond ordinary wiretaps, regardless of the technology used. Perhaps some kind of massive data mining, which makes it impossible to get individual warrants? Stay tuned."

International Herald Tribune Limits found in bird flu drug's use

"The first scientific study of humans with bird flu who have received the anti-viral drug Tamiflu has found that the bird flu virus can rapidly become invulnerable to the medicine.

If the drug is overused, used improperly or even used very widely, the current research suggests that Tamiflu - also known as oseltamivir - will quickly become impotent against the disease, leaving doctors with little else to offer ill patients."

redux [12.05.05]
WorldNetDaily Has feared mutation of avian flu arrived?

"Officials in at least two nations now suspect the avian flu bug has mutated into a virus that is being transmitted from human to human – a development world health authorities have estimated could result in the deaths of tens of millions.

Thai health officials have expressed concern that the country's two latest confirmed victims may be the beginning of the much feared human-to-human transmission."

All Headline News U.S. Prepares Local Governments For Flu Pandemic

"With the threat of the avian bird flu and Europe reeling with the effects of the disease, U.S. policy makers are stepping up their efforts to prepare the nation for a pandemic.

Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt met today with senior state and local officials to establish a uniform federal-state influenza-pandemic planning process. Officials from every U.S. state, territory, Puerto Rico and tribal governments participated. The officials were advised to plan broadly."

NPR Grim Scenario Predicted for Pandemic Flu

"A federally financed study used supercomputers to predict what might happen if a virulent and easily spread new strain of flu entered the United States. The study was done by researchers at Emory University and Los Alamos National Laboratory.

They assumed the pandemic virus would leak into the country despite efforts to screen travelers for flu symptoms. If each infected person spread the virus to two others, large outbreaks of flu would occur all over the country within about two months after the virus began to spread. The national epidemic would peak around day 85, with about 4.5 million people falling ill that day. In the end, 122 million Americans may have gotten sick, more than four times the toll in a usual flu season."

The Sunday Times Doctor says bird flu drug is ‘useless’

"A VIETNAMESE doctor who has treated dozens of victims of avian flu claims the drug being stockpiled around the world to combat a pandemic is “useless” against the virus.

“We place no importance on using this drug on our patients,” she said. “Tamiflu is really only meant for treating ordinary type A flu. It was not designed to combat H5N1 . . . (Tamiflu) is useless.”"

"Van, who has also treated patients with Sars, the respiratory condition linked to birds, said avian flu had a frightening effect on its victims and the only way to keep patients alive was to “support” all their vital organs, including the liver and kidneys, with modern technology such as ventilators and dialysis machines."

Chicago Sun-Times Many companies admit no planning for pandemic

"If a super-flu sweeps the globe, who will haul away the garbage? Keep the factories running? Stock and sell groceries? Keep electricity flowing?

Most U.S. companies haven't planned for how to stay in business during a flu pandemic, when their workers might be too sick or scared to show up and their supply chains disappear, a major new survey of some of the nation's largest companies shows."

redux [10.17.05]
The Economist The spreading bird-flu menace reaches Europe

"European countries are introducing emergency measures to contain the spread of a deadly strain of bird flu—which has already led to the deaths of millions of birds and 60 people in Asia—after confirmation that it has arrived inside the EU's borders. The disease is a serious threat to the world’s sizeable poultry industry but its spread round the globe also increases the chances of it mutating into a form that causes a human pandemic.

Guardian Unlimited Bird flu could kill more than 50,000 in UK, warns chief medical officer

"A bird flu pandemic is inevitable but unlikely to strike Britain this winter, the chief medical officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, said yesterday in an attempt to talk up the government's preparedness for the infection, but talk down its imminence.

He said contingency planning was based on an estimate that a new strain of flu mutating from infection in the bird population could kill about 50,000 people in the UK, compared with about 12,000 flu-related deaths in a normal winter."

redux [10.10.05]
Times Online America 'faces worst disaster in its history'

"A PLAN drawn up by the Bush Administration to combat a pandemic bird flu outbreak reveals that America is grossly unprepared to deal with what would likely be the worst disaster in US history.

The 381-page draft plan, leaked by health officials who claim that it contains fundamental failures, predicts that a full-scale outbreak could kill as many as 1.9 million Americans and put 8.5 million in hospital at a cost of more than $450 billion (£256 billion)."

The Boston Globe Europe bracing to battle bird flu

"Europe is bracing for bird flu and the potentially catastrophic pandemic the virus might bring.

Public health officials on the continent, spurred by grim warnings from the World Health Organization, are hoping that the disease spreading westward from Asia will afflict only domestic poultry. But as a strain of the avian disease was detected in Europe for the first time over the weekend, governments were seeking ways to cope with a virus that epidemiologists consider likely to transform into a human pathogen that could trigger a global outbreak of deadly influenza similar to one that killed millions in 1918."

USA Today U.S. health secretary warns of future bird flu pandemic

"Leading a multinational team of medical experts to mobilize Southeast Asian nations against bird flu, Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said Monday the likelihood of a flu pandemic in the future is "very high."

Leavitt, accompanied by the director of the World Health Organization and other top health professionals, is visiting Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam to seek their collaboration in preparing for the anticipated public health emergency."

CNN Bush military bird flu role slammed

"A call by President George W. Bush for Congress to give him the power to use the military in law enforcement roles in the event of a bird flu pandemic has been criticized as akin to introducing martial law.

Bush said aggressive action would be needed to prevent a potentially disastrous U.S. outbreak of the disease that is sweeping through Asian poultry and which experts fear could mutate to pass between humans."

The Boston Globe Bush's risky flu pandemic plan

"Of all these proposals, the use of the military to attempt to contain a flu pandemic on US soil is the most dangerous. Bush says he got the idea by reading John Barry's excellent account of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, ''The Great Influenza." Although quarantine was used successfully in that pandemic, on the island of American Samoa, Barry in his afterword suggests (sensibly) that we need a national plan to deal with a future influenza pandemic."

"Planning makes sense. But planning for ''brutal" or ''extreme" quarantine of large numbers or areas of the United States would create many more problems than it could solve."

The New York Times Danger of Flu Pandemic Is Clear, if Not Present
[requires 'free' registration]

"But scientists say that although the threat from the current avian virus is real, it is probably not immediate.

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said a bird flu pandemic was unlikely this year."

"Dr. Jeffery Taubenberger, chief of the molecular pathology department at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, said, "I would not say it's imminent or inevitable." Dr. Taubenberger said he believes that there will eventually be a pandemic, but that whether it will be bird flu or another type, no one can say."

Defense Tech New Tech Behind NSA Snoop Case

"There's more to the NSA domestic spying case than the current storyline -- that much is clear. The idea that the Bush Administration needed to bypass the courts to get wiretaps quickly makes no sense; under the current system, you can start eavesdropping, and get a warrant later. The notion that disclosing the surveillance would somehow tip off potential terrorists is laughable, too; Al Qaeda types know they're being monitored.

That's all assuming, of course, that the wiretaps in this case are the same as in any other. But maybe they're not. Maybe there's something different about this surveillance."

"[Maybe] the NSA wiretaps were using a new kind of capability; one that terror suspects might not have know about; one that might have even made the FISA court uncomfortable, somehow."

Salon Uncle Sam is listening

"Most likely, Bush wanted a whole new surveillance paradigm. You can think of the FBI's capabilities as "retail surveillance": It eavesdrops on a particular person or phone. The NSA, on the other hand, conducts "wholesale surveillance." It, or more exactly its computers, listens to everything. An example might be to feed the computers every voice, fax, and email communication, looking for the name "Ayman al-Zawahiri." This type of surveillance is more along the lines of Project Shamrock, and not legal under FISA. As Sen. Jay Rockefeller wrote in a secret memo after being briefed on the program, it raises "profound oversight issues."

"The fundamental issue here is security, but it's not the security most people think of. James Madison famously said: "If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary." Terrorism is a serious risk to our nation, but an even greater threat is the centralization of American political power in the hands of any single branch of the government."

Washington Monthly What is the NSA up to?

"So what's the nature of the secret NSA bugging program? Why did the Bush administration feel like they couldn't continue to seek warrants via the usual FISA procedures? Take a look at the following quotes and you can see a single thread that starts to emerge."

"It seems clear that there's something involved here that goes far beyond ordinary wiretaps, regardless of the technology used. Perhaps some kind of massive data mining, which makes it impossible to get individual warrants? Stay tuned."

Salon Survival of the unfittest

"In a remarkably unequivocal decision Tuesday, a federal judge ruled that teaching intelligent design in public science classrooms in Dover, Pa., is prohibited by the constitutional separation of church and state. In the decision, Judge John E. Jones III declared that the school district's claim that I.D. is a scientifically valid alternative to evolution is simply wrong. "Intelligent design is nothing less than the progeny of creationism," he writes.

But despite Jones' ruling, the Discovery Institute, the Seattle-based engine of the I.D. movement, is claiming victory. "Anyone who thinks a court ruling is going to kill off interest in intelligent design is living in another world," says John West, associate director of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, in a press release. "Americans don't like to be told there is some idea that they aren't permitted to learn about.""

The Seattle Times Judge's stinging decision against intelligent design may have broad impact

"Backers of intelligent design argue that biological systems are so complex they could not have arisen by a series of random changes. The complexity of life implies an intelligent designer, they assert. Most of the movement's public spokesmen take care not to say publicly whether the designer they have in mind is God. On that basis, they argue that their concept is scientific, not religious.

Jones, a churchgoing conservative jurist appointed to the federal bench by President Bush in 2002, used much of his 139-page ruling to dissect those claims, rejecting them at every turn as a violation of the separation of church and state."

"The judge excoriated school-board officials for lying in their testimony and for not bothering to understand what intelligent design was about before making their decision. He rebuked what he called the "breathtaking inanity of the board's decision.""

redux [10.18.05]
MSNBC Witness says design claim isn’t founded on faith

"The concept of "intelligent design" relies not on religious belief but on the powers of observation, a leading proponent testified Tuesday in a trial over the concept's place in public schools.

"Intelligent design requires no tenet of any specific religion," Lehigh University biochemistry professor Michael Behe said. "It does not rely on religious texts, messages from religious leaders or any such thing

Instead, Behe testified, it comes from making observations of nature, and concluding that the natural world was designed and didn't gradually evolve."

redux [09.25.05]
MSNBC ‘Intelligent design’ faces first big court test

"The Pennsylvania case “is probably the most important legal situation of creation and evolution in the last 18 years,” said Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, which opposes challenges to the standard model of evolution.

“This will be the first legal challenge to intelligent design, and we’ll see whether they have been able to mask the creationist underpinnings and basic orientation of intelligent design,” she said. Regardless who wins, “it will have quite a significant impact on what happens in American public school education.”"

redux [08.24.05]
New York Times In Explaining Life's Complexity, Darwinists and Doubters Clash
[requires 'free' registration]

"Mainstream scientists say that intelligent design represents a more sophisticated - and thus more seductive - attack on evolution. Unlike creationists, design proponents accept many of the conclusions of modern science. They agree with cosmologists that the age of the universe is 13.6 billion years, not fewer than 10,000 years, as a literal reading of the Bible would suggest. They accept that mutation and natural selection, the central mechanisms of evolution, have acted on the natural world in small ways, for example, leading to the decay of eyes in certain salamanders that live underground.

Some intelligent design advocates even accept common descent, the notion that all species came from a common ancestor, a central tenet of evolution."

"Nonetheless, many scientists regard intelligent design as little more than creationism dressed up in pseudoscientific clothing. Despite its use of scientific language and the fact that some design advocates are scientists, they say, the design approach has so far offered only philosophical objections to evolution, not any positive evidence for the intervention of a designer."

redux [08.10.05]
The Boston Globe God vs. Darwin: no contest

"In some ways, evolutionary theory is more compatible with conservative ideas than with leftist ones. Indeed, proponents of applying evolutionary theory to human social structures tend to be viewed by the left with suspicion, particularly on biological explanations for sex roles. As several commentators have pointed out, it's conservatives who reject the notion that complex organization requires deliberate central planning -- in economics. Why should biology be different?

Is evolutionary theory a vehicle for anti-God ideas? One of the more extreme ''theo-conservatives," National Review writer David Klinghoffer, has even argued that evolution should be regarded as a doctrine of the ''religion" of secularism. But this is nonsense; plenty of people who follow traditional religions do accept evolution. Yes, some champions of evolution such as British scientist Richard Dawkins are militant atheists, but there were militant atheists long before Darwin."

Time Magazine Let's Have No More Monkey Trials

"To teach faith as science is to undermine the very idea of science, which is the acquisition of new knowledge through hypothesis, experimentation and evidence. To teach it as science is to encourage the supercilious caricature of America as a nation in the thrall of religious authority. To teach it as science is to discredit the welcome recent advances in permitting the public expression of religion. Faith can and should be proclaimed from every mountaintop and city square. But it has no place in science class. To impose it on the teaching of evolution is not just to invite ridicule but to earn it."

redux [07.29.05]
Science & Theology News Accessible ‘Endless Forms’ shows the evolution of evolution

"The [ intelligent design ] people argue that the world is just too complex to have come about through blind law — intelligence must have intervened. However, evo-devo [ evolutionary development ] today is starting to fill in the gaps — the gaps that, in the opinion of Michael Behe and his friends, demand miracles. Existence is a miracle and life is a miracle, but increasingly it seems that the gaps do not need special miracles. Regular science can do the job.

More generally, I would go back to where I came in. The best of all arguments against the critics of science is the wonderful world that the best science reveals and explains. Offense is the best defense. Richard Dawkins is surely right when he argues against the cramped little medieval world of Genesis taken literally, and for the wonderful land of evolutionary studies. Sean Carroll’s book on evo-devo is a great passport to that land. "

Science & Theology News The problem with Darwinian solutions

"To sum up, developmental geneticists have found that the genes that seem to be most important in development are remarkably similar in many different types of animals, from worms to fruit flies to mammals.

Initially, this was regarded as evidence for genetic programs controlling development. But biologists are now realizing that it actually constitutes a paradox: if genes control development, why do similar genes produce such different animals? Why does a caterpillar turn into a butterfly instead of a barracuda?

If evo devo actually resolved the problems raised by these questions, then more power to it. Yet the real problem here is that Darwinian biologists like Carroll and Darwinian philosophers of biology like Ruse are pretending that evo devo has resolved fundamental problems of evolutionary biology when in fact it hasn’t.

Harris Interactive: The Harris Poll Nearly Two-thirds of U.S. Adults Believe Human Beings Were Created by God

"Earlier this year, the State Board of Education in Kansas reignited an old debate – whether or not creationism should be taught in public schools – and shone the spotlight on a new theory, intelligent design. While many in the scientific community may question why this issue has been raised again, a new national survey shows that almost two-thirds of U.S. adults (64%) agree with the basic tenet of creationism, that "human beings were created directly by God."

At the same time, approximately one-fifth (22%) of adults believe "human beings evolved from earlier species" (evolution) and 10 percent subscribe to the theory that "human beings are so complex that they required a powerful force or intelligent being to help create them" (intelligent design). Moreover, a majority (55%) believe that all three of these theories should be taught in public schools, while 23 percent support teaching creationism only, 12 percent evolution only, and four percent intelligent design only."

redux [03.17.04]
The Cincinnati Post Science teachers wary: Fear new lessons based on religion

"The new lesson plan will serve to help students analyze the theory of evolution, supporters say. Critics -- including the Ohio Academy of Science, the National Academy of Sciences and the faculty senate of Case Western Reserve University -- said the lesson plan includes elements of intelligent design, a theory that life is so complex that a higher being must have created it. The lesson plan refers students to printed materials and Web sites on the intelligent design concept."

""I've been teaching 32 years, and in all those years we have pretty much taken the stance that the kids have to understand there is more than one theory, but we are qualified, because of our training in the scientific method, to teach scientific theories," said Brandon, a biology teacher and department chairwoman at Norwood High School. "If they want to know about non-scientific theories, I advise them to go to their rabbi, their minister or their priest."

redux [02.03.04]
NPR: All Things Considered Georgia Wrestles Evolution Question

"NPR's Ari Shapiro in Atlanta reports that Georgia is considering whether its public school science instruction would drop any mention of evolution. Instead students would hear the term "biological changes over time." That's brought a torrent of criticism that the plan would offer an inferior education that would cost the state economically."

redux [04.15.03]
Guardian Unlimited The battle for American science

"As prescient observers of the events north of Atlanta last year realised, these aren't the old wars of science versus religion. The new assaults on the conventional wisdom frame themselves, without exception, as scientific theories, no less deserving of a hearing than any other. Proponents of [ Intelligent Design ] - using a strategy previously unheard of among anti-Darwinists - grant almost all the premises of evolution (the idea that species develop; that the world wasn't necessarily created in seven days) in order to better attack it.

"It's not that I don't think Darwinian evolution can't explain anything," says Professor Michael Behe of Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, the movement's foremost academic advocate, when asked how he accounts for the very visible evolution of, say, viruses. "It's just that I don't think it can explain everything. Bacterial resistance to antibiotics, for example, is one of the things it can explain.""

The Daily Times Creationism vs. evolution central debate behind rejection of textbooks

"Treadway said he had reservations about the approach to the theory of evolution in the three texts. He said he does not want people to believe he is against evolution, but wants it to be taught as a theory along with creationism.

"With the overwhelming references to evolution, I don't feel comfortable with (adopting these texts),'' Treadway said."

The Univeristy of Southern Mississippi: The Student Printz - Opinion Evolution: Put up or Shut up!

"Kent Hovind, a creation scientist from Pensacola, Fla. is coming to the Polymer Science building room 101 April 3 from 6 to 9 p.m. to speak about creation, evolution, and dinosaurs. There might be a debate, but probably not. I mean, who would want to defend the idea that we came from a rock? After the presentation, there will be a question and answer session.

This is not religion versus science. They must both be accepted by faith. Although they are both only theories, one is right and the other is wrong. While you must decide for yourself which view is correct, you should first learn what the creationist worldview is, before passing judgment."

redux [06.27.02]
Scientific American 15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense

"When Charles Darwin introduced the theory of evolution through natural selection 143 years ago, the scientists of the day argued over it fiercely, but the massing evidence from paleontology, genetics, zoology, molecular biology and other fields gradually established evolution's truth beyond reasonable doubt. Today that battle has been won everywhere--except in the public imagination.

Embarrassingly, in the 21st century, in the most scientifically advanced nation the world has ever known, creationists can still persuade politicians, judges and ordinary citizens that evolution is a flawed, poorly supported fantasy."

redux [04.13.02]
The New York Times 'Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics'
[requires 'free' registration]

"Before we get to the scientific arguments of the neo-creos, a word should be said about their motivation. Just what do they have against Darwinism? Unlike the old-fashioned creationists, they are not especially worried about evolution conflicting with a literal reading of Genesis. Then why can't they join with the mainstream religions, which have made their peace with Darwinism? In 1996, for example, Pope John Paul II said that the theory of evolution had been ''proved true'' and asserted its consistency with Roman Catholic doctrine. Stephen Jay Gould, though agnostic himself, salutes the wisdom of this papal pronouncement, arguing that science and religion are ''nonoverlapping magisteria.'' But the neo-creos aren't buying this. They think that belief in Darwinism and belief in God are fundamentally incompatible. Here, ironically, they are in agreement with their more radical Darwinian opponents. Both extremes concur that evolution is, in the words of Phillip Johnson, ''a purposeless and undirected process that produced mankind accidentally'' and, as such, must be at odds with the idea of a purposeful Creator."

redux [09.23.01]
The New York Review of Books Saving Us from Darwin

"Intelligent design awkwardly embraces two clashing deities - one a glutton for praise and a dispenser of wrath, absolution, and grace, the other a curiously inept cobbler of species that need to be periodically revised and that keep getting snuffed out by the very conditions he provided for them. Why, we must wonder, would the shaper of the universe have frittered away thirteen billion years, turning out quadrillions of useless stars, before getting around to the one thing he really cared about, seeing to it that a minuscule minority of earthling vertebrates are washed clean of sin and guaranteed an eternal place in his company? And should the God of love and mercy be given credit for the anopheles mosquito, the schistosomiasis parasite, anthrax, smallpox, bubonic plague...? By purporting to detect the divine signature on every molecule while nevertheless conceding that natural selection does account for variations, the champions of intelligent design have made a conceptual mess that leaves the ancient dilemmas of theodicy harder than ever to resolve."

redux [02.05.00]
Slate Is Natural Selection the Result of Design?

Steven Pinker: "Warm rooms are a goal of thermostats, thermostats a goal of people, people a goal of their genes. Darwin, and then Dawkins, made it scientifically respectable to talk about genes as having goals, because natural selection makes them act as if they do. But natural selection itself, being a product not of a teleological process but of the physics and mathematics of replicating systems, has no right to have a goal in the way that genes or people or thermostats do."

Robert Wright: " A system can be entirely mechanical, complying with the laws of physics and mathematics, yet be teleological, designed to realize a purpose. In fact, that seems to be true of all teleological systems I know of, including genes and people and thermostats."

redux [09.05.01]
The Third Culture Science and the Psychology of Beliefs

"The one thing we've learned from the last three decades of research is that science is socially and culturally embedded and thus biased. Still, it's the best system we have for understanding causality in all realms, in all fields. So despite the fact that it's loaded with biases, there is a real world out there that we can know and the best way to know it is through science. The reason for that is because there's at least a method, an attempt to corroborate one's own subjective perceptions. There's a way to find out if you and I are seeing the same colors when we see red. There's actually a way to test these things, or at least try to get at them. That's what separates science from everything else."

redux [09.13.00]
Scientific American A New Paradigm for Thomas Kuhn

"Kuhn wrote: "The very existence of science depends upon vesting the power to choose between paradigms in the members of a special kind of community." Fuller has confidence in the intelligent good sense of ordinary folks and properly calls for "the right to be wrong." But do statements such as "the universe is light-years wide," "the earth is billions of years old," "all life is related by common descent," "organisms are composed of cells that contain double-helix DNA," and so on really have no greater claim on "reality" than the Genesis stories of creationists or the popular consolations of astrology? If the answer is no, as Fuller comes dangerously close to asserting, then most scientists would throw in the towel and get jobs flipping burgers.

Fuller underestimates the highly evolved "fitness" of the methodologies, sociologies and conceptual paradigms of normal science. The deprofessionalization of science and the establishment of a citizen marketplace of ideas are not likely to happen without the sociopolitical equivalent of an asteroid impact, and no such potential upheaval looms on our intellectual radar screens. Certainly, science studies lacks the weight to do it."

San Jose Mercury News Rights group says U.S. tortured prisoners in secret

"The United States operated a secret prison in Afghanistan as recently as last year, torturing detainees with sleep deprivation, chaining them to the walls and forcing them to listen to loud music in total darkness for days, a human rights group alleged Monday."

""We're not talking about torture in the abstract, but the real thing," said John Sifton, terrorism and counterterrorism researcher at Human Rights Watch. "U.S. personnel and officials may be criminally liable, and a special prosecutor is needed to investigate.""

redux [12.07.05]
The Independent 'Rendition' does not involve torture, says Rice

"Attempting to stem fierce European criticism of US treatment of suspected terrorists, the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, admitted that Washington had carried out "renditions" of suspects - but never in violation of other country's sovereignty, and never where it was believed that the individual might be tortured."

"A major part of the statement was aimed at dispelling the impression - fostered by Vice-President Dick Cheney recently - that Washington had an ambiguous attitude to the use of torture. The US, Ms Rice said, "does not tolerate, permit, or condone torture under any circumstances"."

Washington Post Wrongful Imprisonment: Anatomy of a CIA Mistake

"Coats informed the German minister that the CIA had wrongfully imprisoned one of its citizens, Khaled Masri, for five months, and would soon release him, the sources said. There was also a request: that the German government not disclose what it had been told even if Masri went public. The U.S. officials feared exposure of a covert action program designed to capture terrorism suspects abroad and transfer them among countries, and possible legal challenges to the CIA from Masri and others with similar allegations."

"Members of the Rendition Group follow a simple but standard procedure: Dressed head to toe in black, including masks, they blindfold and cut the clothes off their new captives, then administer an enema and sleeping drugs. They outfit detainees in a diaper and jumpsuit for what can be a day-long trip. Their destinations: either a detention facility operated by cooperative countries in the Middle East and Central Asia, including Afghanistan, or one of the CIA's own covert prisons -- referred to in classified documents as "black sites," which at various times have been operated in eight countries, including several in Eastern Europe."

BBC News Rendition: Tales of torture

" Syrian-born Maher Arar, 34, was picked up by US immigration in September 2002 as he passed through New York's JFK airport. He was heading home to Canada after a family holiday in Tunisia. After days of questioning, he says he was placed on a private jet, shackled, bound, and flown to Syria.

Mr Arar has told the BBC that he was repeatedly tortured during 10 months' detention in Syria - often whipped on the palms of his hands with metal cables - before being released after intervention by the Canadian government."

ABC News AP Poll: Most Say Torture OK in Rare Cases

"Most Americans and a majority of people in Britain, France and South Korea say torturing terrorism suspects is justified at least in rare instances, according to AP-Ipsos polling."

""I don't think we should go out and string everybody up by their thumbs until somebody talks. But if there is definitely a good reason to get an answer, we should do whatever it takes," said Billy Adams, a retiree from Tomball, Texas."

redux [12.01.05]
The Seattle Times EU grows impatient on secret-prison issue

"European indignation over the CIA's alleged use of kidnappings, secret flights and clandestine prisons on European territory mounted Wednesday as leaders in Britain and Germany pressed the U.S. government for an explanation.

The European Union cited possible "violations of international law" by the United States in its request that the Bush administration clarify media reports and "allay parliamentary and public concerns" about secret CIA prisons and the transporting of al-Qaida suspects in Europe, according to a letter from British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice."

redux [11.02.05]
Washington Post CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prisons

"The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement.

The secret facility is part of a covert prison system set up by the CIA nearly four years ago that at various times has included sites in eight countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan and several democracies in Eastern Europe, as well as a small center at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, according to current and former intelligence officials and diplomats from three continents."

"It is illegal for the government to hold prisoners in such isolation in secret prisons in the United States, which is why the CIA placed them overseas, according to several former and current intelligence officials and other U.S. government officials. Legal experts and intelligence officials said that the CIA's internment practices also would be considered illegal under the laws of several host countries, where detainees have rights to have a lawyer or to mount a defense against allegations of wrongdoing."

redux [07.01.04]
NPR: All Things Considered Abuses Possible at Secret U.S. Prisons

"As horrific as the Abu Ghraib abuses were, experts say that at least they occurred at a facility that officially exists. That's in sharp contrast to the secret detention facilities that U.S. military and intelligence officials run for high-level terror suspects. They range from the notorious "Hotel California" in Afghanistan to floating detention facilities on U.S. warships. NPR's Mary Louise Kelly reports."

redux [06.14.04]
The Observer Secret world of US jails

"The United States government, in conjunction with key allies, is running an 'invisible' network of prisons and detention centres into which thousands of suspects have disappeared without trace since the 'war on terror' began.

In the past three years, thousands of alleged militants have been transferred around the world by American, Arab and Far Eastern security services, often in secret operations that by-pass extradition laws. The astonishing traffic has seen many, including British citizens, sent from the West to countries where they can be tortured to extract information. Anything learnt is passed on to the US and, in some cases, reaches British intelligence."

redux [05.28.04]
The New York Review of Books The Logic of Torture

"What is difficult is separating what we now know from what we have long known but have mostly refused to admit. Though the events and disclosures of the last weeks have taken on the familiar clothing of a Washington scandal—complete with full-dress congressional hearings, daily leaks to reporters from victim and accused alike, and of course the garish, spectacular photographs and videos from Abu Ghraib—beyond that bright glare of revelation lies a dark area of unacknowledged clarity. Behind the exotic brutality so painstakingly recorded in Abu Ghraib, and the multiple tangled plotlines that will be teased out in the coming weeks and months about responsibility, knowledge, and culpability, lies a simple truth, well known but not yet publicly admitted in Washington: that since the attacks of September 11, 2001, officials of the United States, at various locations around the world, from Bagram in Afghanistan to Guantanamo in Cuba to Abu Ghraib in Iraq, have been torturing prisoners."

The Washington Post Bush Says NSA Surveillance Necessary, Legal

"In opening news conference remarks, Bush said the warrantless spying, conducted by the National Security Agency, was an essential element in the war on terror.

"It was a shameful act for someone to disclose this important program in a time of war. The fact that we're discussing this program is helping the enemy," he said."

The New York Times Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts
[requires 'free' registration]

"Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials."

"While many details about the program remain secret, officials familiar with it say the N.S.A. eavesdrops without warrants on up to 500 people in the United States at any given time."

redux [09.14.01]