Category: The Dish

Some creationists are protesting a museum in Kenya that will display some blasphemous bones:

Bishop Boniface Adoyo, the head of the 35 Kenyan evangelical denominations, is leading opposition to the exhibition. “I do not dispute that as humans we have a history, but my family most certainly did not descend from the apes,” he said. The bishop was invited to view the new Human Origins gallery before it opened this month, and said that he would call on his flock to demonstrate outside the museum if evolution was described as anything other than merely a theory.

Harry Potter!

This term has seen the seven to 11 year olds learning subtraction with the help of a Potter-esque "spell", writing their own plays based on the best-selling books and even keeping fit by pretending to get on and off imaginary broomsticks.

And the poorly-ranked school has soared in the rankings.

I’m not opposed to cap-and-trade emissions controls, and was touting them over two decades ago to Margaret Thatcher’s think-tank. But a serious carbon tax seems to me the only way to create the incentives for the private sector to solve or at least treat our ruinous oil-addiction. In that vein, here’s some encouraging news:

J. Craig Venter says he expects biology to largely replace what has been created by the oil industry. If anyone can comfortably make a statement like that to a room full of venture capitalists, it’s Venter. The genomics guru, who has had his own genome sequenced and has a new memoir out he’s looking to plug, detailed his vision for “designing and synthesizing life” and its applications for energy to a group of VCs down on Sand Hill Road on Tuesday.

Venter explained his genome sequencing work, which has been his focus for the past 15 years, as “bringing biology into a digital world.” He previously jump-started the race to produce the first full transcription of a human genome, and his team is now close to creating the first new artificial life form by building a synthetic chromosome and inserting it into a living bacterial cell.

How does all this apply to clean tech? Venter’s startup, Synthetic Genomics, is commercializing the research to create biofuels, which Venter says are far better — more energy-efficient, more hardy, and easier to blend in the existing fuel system — than traditional biofuels ethanol and butanol.

More here.

And the enviro-left blows a gasket. It seems to me that if environmentalists actually care about the planet, they should be engaging in dialogue with those who want to do the same thing, even if they differ on policy. Here you have an impeccably credentialed conservative puling the GOP to a more eco-friendly position. And they can’t hurl enough vitriol in his direction.

Benazir Bhutto’s niece puts the boot in.

Dreher whores it out for blog love.

Among Clinton’s donors, some were pardoned by her husband.

An odd advertising decision.

An encouraging sign:

Evangelicals, particularly younger evangelicals, are undergoing a shift in attitudes. Many have little interest in the self-destructive purity of the prophet or the raw pragmatism of the kingmaker. They remain culturally conservative, but uncomfortable with a harshly judgmental tone in their politics. They find the model of the religious right too narrow and are increasingly motivated by a broader range of social concerns, from disease in Africa, to the environment, to racial reconciliation. And they want to be a witness to these values instead of a tool in the power games of others.

The social and cultural witness to certain values is a long way from the use of politics to impose them on others. It seems to me that our society needs Christian witness – on charity, on caring for the environment, on protecting the vulnerable, on seeking peace, on opening dialogue – as much as it doesn’t need Christianist intolerance, politicking and campaigning. It’s especially important, it seems to me, that Christian witness also regain humility and an indifference to power. Forsaking a partisan identity is critical to this. On abortion, for example, serious and sustained efforts to highlight the life of the fetus, and to appeal to the conscience of a free people to make a free choice against it is a more authentic Christian witness than taking control of one political party in order to ban it.

Tony Blankley says the war is all over bar the shouting. No word on when the troops come home.