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http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-06-28/german-court-bans-circumcision-of-young-boys/4096998 "Jewish and Muslim groups have protested after a German court banned the circumcision of young boys for religious reasons, in the first ruling of its kind in the country. The court in the western city of...

I got into a conversation with someone today about fluoridation in water. I was initially dismissive, expecting a conspiracy theory rant, but they directed me to the city of Calgary where a scientist has convinced the locals to stop fluoridation. http://www.fluoridation.com/calgaryh.htm His...

http://www.wired.com/politics/law/magazine/16-01/ps_dna "Since the Baton Rouge case, DNAWitness has been used nationally in nearly 200 criminal investigations. In several, the science played a crucial role in narrowing the suspect field, ultimately leading to an arrest. But its success hasn't...

I married into a family of devout evangelical Christians; thankfully my wife is pretty laid back about it. Not want them to forbid the marriage, I pretended to be a more liberal Christian. Thanks to my upbringing I was knowledgeable enough about Christianity to pull it off. Now, after a...

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/07/science/higgs-boson-may-be-indicated-in-new-data.html?_r=1 There's a spike in the data at 125 billion electron volts. Scientists at CERN are confident they'll have it wrapped up this summer.

Can stars be said to evolve? They do reproduce in a fashion, since the nova/supernova of a star can lead to other stars being formed. Their "descendants" do show variation since they're not all exactly the same. Probably a silly question, but I'm just curious.

The wonderfully efficiencies and common sense of governments! "(In November) the EU ruled that bottled water manufacturers could no longer advertise their product as helping to prevent dehydration because of a lack of scientific evidence. "...

... disturbing.

http://www.businessinsider.com/breaking-us-breaks-up-iranian-terror-plot-to-kill-saudi-arabia-ambassador-2011-10 A man approached an undercover agent on the US border to hire Mexican gangs for an assassination plot, claiming he was being bankrolled by an Iranian general. The US has already...

http://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/ops/201111021.pdf " ... the individual mandate was enacted as a regulatory penalty, not a revenue-raising tax, and cannot be sustained as an exercise of Congress's power under the Taxing and Spending Clause. The mandate is denominated as a penalty in the...

Ever since I was a child, I've experience what I call "missing time events". People and objects will suddenly rearrange themselves in my perception. For example, while riding an elevator I would witness the door close without having seen it open, or while traveling someplace I would suddenly...

http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=174335832616442 You gotta love it when woos get lazy and just ask you to think at a problem. Here's a radio interview with the guy...

I got on to this idea from reading the works of the late James P. Hogan. The man writes decent science fiction until you realize he believes all of the ridiculous made up science in his books. Notably, that the natural state of the Earth is careening around the solar system like a pinball...

http://www.ajc.com/news/teachers-to-be-graded-792562.html Certainly a step in the right direction. Like many civil services teaching is poisoned by the seniority system, meaning that after five or ten years you can get away with anything.

I've been watching some old episodes of Red Dwarf, and I got to wondering: Why is a year's worth of programming called a "series"? Why is each series only 8-10 episodes long? Are there a lot more reruns on British TV as a result?

http://calgary.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20101123/CGY_government_health_101123/20101123/?hub=CalgaryHome

Miranda keeps bringing this up, and I can't quite dismiss this entirely. It's certainly true that people with a vested interest in something being true, even a scientific theory, will defend that thing beyond the bounds of rationality. So, when this happens, how are we to detect that an...

After a review of 2009 tax returns, the IRS discovered $32.3 billion in fictional income. After this was removed, the statistics show that the average income fell for the top bracket in 2009...

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/Blood+agency+prevent+from+donating+blood+judge/3500086/story.html Here's a good example of useful discrimination. Gays are, statistically, more a more risky group. They have higher instances of STDs and are more likely to have an STD that isn't currently tested...

Tell me I'm the one who's nuts here: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-immigration-employers-20100904,0,5792545.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+latimes%2Fnews%2Fnationworld%2Fnation+%28L.A.+Times+-+National+News%29 Apparently now...