It’s been a while since I’ve done a weekly question. If you want to answer the question and skip the back story, click here.

Pharoah_omega sent me this interesting news link about the Georgia Guide Stones. I’d never heard of these stones but apparently they are a Stonehenge-like structure made of granite that sit on private land just north of Elberton, Georgia. Engraved on them are 10 guidelines or ‘commandments’ written in English, Russian, Hebrew, Arabic, Hindi, Chinese, Spanish and Swahili.

Since these commandments are not the ones found in the Bible, there is, of course, a Christian group that wants the stones removed because they are ‘Satanic’. This group has given themselves the oh-so-clever name of “The Resistance” and is more of a Christianity-meets-conspiracy-theory kind of group. They are the same ultra-sensitive group that has railed against the new Starbucks logo.

So what are these Satanic Commandments?

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Michael Schermer has re-posted an editorial he wrote a couple years back. It’s brief and gives six reasons why Christians and/or conservatives should embrace the theory of evolution.

1. Evolution fits well with good theology
2. Creationism is bad theology
3. Evolution explains original sin and the Christian model of human nature
4. Evolution explains family values
5. Evolution accounts for specific Christian moral precepts
6. Evolution explains conservative free-market economics

Reasons 3, 4, and 5 boil down to “behavioral evolution confirms many of your religion’s moral beliefs.” Reasons 1, 2, and 3 are interesting. For the first reason, he writes:

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This talk gives such great perspective on our ability to understand the universe. Insight like this is why Dawkins is one of my intellectual heroes.

Awhile back, I posted about a Foreign Policy Magazine poll were you can vote for your favorite intellectuals. Well, the results are in (and have been in for over a month, actually).

Here are the top five vote-receivers:

1. Fethullah Gülen – Moderate Islamic philosopher
2. Muhammad Yunus – Economist and Nobel Laureate (Peace Price) for microcredit program
3. Yusuf Al-Qaradawi – Muslim scholar and Founder of al Jazeera
4. Orhan Pamuk – Novelist and Nobel Laureate (Literature)
5. Aitzaz Ahsan – Lawyer and Human Rights activists who worked to restore Pakistani’s Supreme Court

It’s disappointing, but not surprising that two of the top intellectuals are religious thinkers. Spots 6, 7, and 8 also fit this mold. Sure, they contribute to humanity by making some religions a little less horrible, but that alone shouldn’t be enough to be considered the world’s top intellectuals. Reducing the negative consequences of believing impossible things is good but still believing in those impossible things is not. In fact it’s downright anti-intellectual. At least one person critical of Islam, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, made the list at number fifteen.

More disappointing is the utter lack of scientists. The first scientist, Richard Dawkins, appears on the list at number nineteen. The list is definitely dominated by religionists, writers, and other humanities experts. Despite the supremacy of science’s ability to explain the world, the first culture (the humanities) still reigns supreme in the minds of far too many people.

Here’s how the intellectuals I voted for wound up:

• 29. Peter Singer
• 57. Steven Pinker
• 19. Richard Dawkins
• 71. J. Craig Venter
• 46. Steven Levitt

As has been written about before on this blog, biofuels are a bad idea. They make no sense economically and environmentally. The ethanol mandate (currently 9 billion gallons required a year) amounts to unwise government interference in the market. Finally, some politicians are starting to take notice.

The New York Times has an article about Rick Perry‘s opposition to the ethanol mandate. Why? He’s the Governor of Texas (Republican). As such, he responds to the needs of his constituency. In this case, Texas ranchers, who have been hurt by high feed costs resulting from competition from ethanol. So Perry has requested that the Environmental Protection Agency (E.P.A.) reduce the current mandate by 50% instead of increasing it by 17% in 2009 as planned. The deadline for a decision from the E.P.A. is today though they’ll likely take more time.

Perry is not alone in his concern. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX) has introduced legislation that would freeze the mandate at its current level. John McCain (R-AZ) and ten other Republican Senators have cosponsored the bill. While I prefer Perry’s plan to cut the mandate, it’s still nice to see some Republicans taking steps in the right direction.

Add to this pressure the fact that Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board Ben Bernanke suggested removing the tariff on Brazilian ethanol (made with sugarcane, which is over seven times more efficient than corn-based ethanol). A pattern seems to be emerging. American Ethanol is no longer the darling of Washington politics. I suspect the main reason they were ever overly pandered to is because the ethanol capital, Iowa, is the first primary state.

The above image was created and is licensed by Todd Ehlers.

George Dyson, a historian who specializes in the history of science, has written a thought-provoking short story entitled Engineers’ Dreams. It’s simultaneously historical and science fiction that speculates on possibilities imagined since the advent of computing. It’s a bit technical, but well worth the read. Let me know your thoughts on it.

As an added bonus, I’m including a talk he gave about the history of the computer on TED. Enjoy!

The above image was created and is licensed by Today is a good day.

Wired is running a different journalistic take on the recent rise in gas prices. It’s not a take that many are unfamiliar with. The article blames the oil corporations for manipulating prices. This, of course, elicited accusations of liberal bias. I can understand why. Blaming greed and ‘evil’ corporations is often a knee-jerk reaction of many liberals. Still, even knee-jerk reactions can be right occasionally.

Before taking aim at the Exxon Mobile in particular, the author of the article, Howell Raines, takes the media to task. He accuses them of uncritically accepting oil companies’ line that prices are a result of supply-and-demand dynamics. One journalist he interviewed claims that this is because of the number of young, Reganomics-era journalists in newsrooms. The interviewee says, “Younger reporters come out of a mind-set that the market rules, taxes are evil, and government ought to let these people in the oil industry go about their business.”

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This priceless gem (language warning) was brought to my attention by shaze. It’s olde-timey religion set to olde-timey music and a must-hear.

Less than one day after dismissing the idea that the media has a liberal bias, it looks as though I may have to eat some of my words. That evening, NPR ran this story about how network news coverage is heavily bias in favor of Barack Obama.

The Tyndall Report has monitored news coverage of presidential candidates since 1988. This election cycle, they claim that there is an unprecedented bias in favor of one candidate. As evidence, they point out that there has been “41 stories by the three network newscasts on Obama between May 2 and July 2; in comparison, there are 17 stories about Republican Sen. John McCain.”

That is certainly unbalanced. But is it really unfair? The first thing I thought as I read the article was that the dates Tyndall chose seem arbitrary. Why a two month period? Why start on the 2nd? I suspect those dates were chosen to “pad” the stats. I bet they looked for the time period in which the coverage was most unbalanced. Furthermore, I noticed that the time period overlaps with the last weeks of the hotly contested Democratic primary. Of course Obama (and Clinton) would be mentioned more than McCain for much of that time period. I also wondered why Tyndall limits his data to just the three major television news networks.

In their own defense, the networks pointed out that not only was coverage of Obama due to the primary, but also that they don’t set the number of interviews, the candidates do. Obama has made himself more available. Furthermore, the public knows less about Obama than they do about McCain so they have an obligation to inform them. Lastly, the networks claim that future coverage will balance out as we approach the election.

One last note, even Tyndall points out that even though Obama has received more coverage, it has not all been positive coverage. “Obama is the center of attention in this election, and we can just predict that will happen all the way through to November. This is a test for Obama to see if he has the chops to become president.”

As the media keeps on telling us, the media has a liberal bias. The media giant Clear Channel, owner and operator of numerous radio and television stations and owner of countless billboards is no exception. In fact, their bias is so pinko-leftist that they censored advertisements critical of the Bush administration… again.

The first was an ad featuring Cindy Sheehan in which she accurately describes Bush administration as lying about its justification for going to war. Remember all those WMDs we were supposed to find and the claims that the war would be short, on the order of months and that Iraqi oil would cover the costs? Lies, all them.

Now comedian/actor/writer/etc. Harry Shearer has had an ad censored by Clear Channel. The ad is a promotion of his new CD, Songs of the Bushman, which is critical of the Bush administration. Initially, they eagerly agreeing to take Shearer’s marketing money – a good thing in a capitalist society. But once they saw the cover art (upper-left), Clear Channel ended the sale via a curt email that described the art as “not acceptable” – a bad thing in a free society. So of course I have to include this unacceptable image in this post.

Of course Clear Channel has every right to not run the advertisements. That’s part of freedom too. But in light of such censorship, it’s absurd to continue to believe that the media has a liberal bias.