Cobb County’s school officials have settled the lawsuit with Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, and will not place anti-evolution disclaimers on textbooks used in their science classes. It appears that they’ve chosen to settle rather than suffer a Dover-like defeat in the courtroom. More at Dispatches from the Culture Wars.

Radley Balko describes an outrageous case of eminent domain extortion in Port Chester, NY: With the blessing of officials from the Village of Port Chester, the Village’s chosen developer approached [entrepreneur Bart] Didden and his partner with an offer they couldn’t refuse. Because Didden planned to build a CVS on his property–land the developer coveted for a Walgreens–the developer demanded $800,000 from Didden to make him “go away” or ordered Didden to give him an unearned 50 percent stake in the CVS development. If Didden refused, the developer would have the Village of Port Chester condemn the land for his private use. Didden rejected the bold-faced extortion. The very next day the Village of Port Chester condemned Didden’s property through eminent domain so it could hand it over to the developer who made the threat. ...

This time it’s Christopher Beard, an executive staff member at Ted Haggard’s New Life Church in Colorado Springs, voluntarily resigning for a past incident of “sexual misconduct." There’s no word on whether this is another gay incident, but it apparently does not involve Haggard or a minor. The two previous incidents involved Paul Barnes, head of Grace Chapel in Denver, and, of course, Ted Haggard. (Hat tip: Pharyngula.)

I just came across this letter from Paul LaClair at the Observer (Kearny’s newspaper) editor’s blog site, which corrects some misconceptions that have occurred in some of the reporting and commentary on this issue, as well as point out some additional details about Paszkiewicz and the school administrators’ response that have not been reported elsewhere, such as: * After receiving a reprimand on September 25 in response to Matthew LaClair’s initial complaint, Paszkiewicz made a statement in class that implied that the student who complained had misrepresented his words. (I.e., he lied.) At this point, Matthew LaClair requested a meeting with administrators and produced the recordings. * Subsequent to this, the LaClairs have asked for further corrective action, but none has been forthcoming. * The school’s attorney has been evasive and even suggested that the LaClair’s go ahead and sue. The letter is well worth reading in its entirety. You can find it here. ...

David Paszkiewicz, the U.S. history teacher at Kearny High School in New Jersey who has been using his classroom to spread his religious views and has been defended by his students and fellow residents of Kearny, has now made the New York Times. The principal is quoted as saying that he is unaware of any previous problems, but there have been comments left at my blog stating that Paszkiewicz has been doing this for many years. The principal also claims that corrective action was taken–a reprimand was supposedly given back on September 25–but Paszkiewicz’s classroom style doesn’t appear to have changed much in later classroom recordings (I have heard some samples from September 26, 27, 29, and October 3 and 4). The New York Times article makes it clear how bad Paszkiewicz has been–even conservative legal groups have no interest in defending him: ...

The Discovery Institute has been trying to criticize last year’s Dover decision on the grounds that Judge Jones followed common judicial practice by copying text from the winning side’s Proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law in setting out the facts of the case in his opinion. Now, it turns out that the Discovery Institute’s David DeWolf, John West, and Casey Luskin (the first two of which are the authors of the critique of Judge Jones just referred to) submitted a paper to the Montana Law Review about the Dover case that was virtually identical to content in the DI’s book, Traipsing Into Evolution, published in March 2006. This violated the journal’s requirement that all submissions be original content, not previously published elsewhere, and the authors were forced to rewrite and resubmit–after this was brought to the journal’s attention by a third party. The DI authors intentionally concealed this information. More details at Dispatches from the Culture Wars. UPDATE (December 20, 2006): The editor of the Montana Law Review has responded, pointing out facts that absolve the DI folks of any deception.

Einzige has posted the latest graph for notices of trustee’s sales in Phoenix, and concludes: It would seem, now, that the question is no longer “Is there a housing bubble?”, but “How big is the pop going to be?" Check it out here. Historical Comments Einzige (2007-01-06): A bit of an update, in lieu of putting up a whole new graph (which I will do in February): December saw a slight dip in the numbers, with the total getting to “only” 1407 notices recorded–79 less than November. ...

From the December 2, 2006 issue of The Economist (subscription required for full article): Gay marriage is legal in Belgium, Canada, Netherlands, South Africa, Spain, and the U.S. (Massachusetts). Gays have the same rights as married heterosexuals, but only in civil unions or partnerships rather than marriage in Britain, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, and the U.S. (California, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Vermont). Gays have civil unions or partnerships with lesser rights than heterosexual marriage in Argentina (1 state), Czech Republic, France, Germany (3 states), Hong Kong, Ireland, Luxembourg, and the United States (Hawaii, Maine). UPDATE (December 18, 2006): Stephen Frug has pointed out that even in U.S. states which have legal gay marriage or legal gay civil unions, they are still not equivalent to marriage, in part because of the U.S. federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) signed into law by Bill Clinton. As a result of a provision in this law, the spouse of former Rep. Gerry Studds (D-MA), the first openly gay federal lawmaker, has been denied his pension benefits. UPDATE (December 19, 2006): The December 9 issue of The Economist (p. 66) points out that the inclusion of Hong Kong on the list of countries with gay civil unions is a mistake. Hong Kong “is reviewing its laws in this area,” but doesn’t currently allow them.

From a Richard Cheese email bulletin: I hope you will please tell your friends in Chicago to listen TONIGHT (Thursday 12/14) to WLUP 97.9 FM’s Jonathon Brandmeier radio marathon show…my Richard Cheese & Lounge Against The Machine band will be performing LIVE VIA SATELLITE on The Loop from 9PM-10PM. And Friday night (tomorrow), our “Christmas In Las Vegas” holiday song will be featured on NBC-TV’s “LAS VEGAS” series! Be sure to tune in early at 8:59PM (7:59PM Central) or you’ll miss it! It’s on during the first five minutes!!!More Richard Cheese information at www.richardcheese.com.

I figured as much from his performance at this year’s Skeptics Society conference, where he refused to defend the scientific claims in his book State of Fear, but here’s how he’s responded to Washington journalist Michael Crowley’s critique in The New Republic–by putting Crowley as a character into his most recent novel, as a child rapist with a small penis: Alex Burnet was in the middle of the most difficult trial of her career, a rape case involving the sexual assault of a two-year-old boy in Malibu. The defendant, thirty-year-old Mick Crowley, was a Washington-based political columnist who was visiting his sister-in-law when he experienced an overwhelming urge to have anal sex with her young son, still in diapers. Crowley was a wealthy, spoiled Yale graduate and heir to a pharmaceutical fortune. … It turned out Crowley’s taste in love objects was well known in Washington, but [his lawyer]–as was his custom–tried the case vigorously in the press months before the trial, repeatedly characterizing Alex and the child’s mother as “fantasizing feminist fundamentalists” who had made up the whole thing from “their sick, twisted imaginations.” This, despite a well-documented hospital examination of the child. (Crowley’s penis was small, but he had still caused significant tears to the toddler’s rectum.) ...