STEVE CROWDER: Hollywood’s Comedic Skin Gets Thinner and Thinner.

KATRINA: “The Louisiana Governor froze.”

HUFFINGTON POST: Rove Suspected In Swedish-U.S. Political Prosecution of WikiLeaks. Chumps! More disinformation! Assange was Rove-Cheney’s tool. They manipulated the leak, which really hurts their enemies — notice that we’re learning things that mostly embarrass the State Department, Michael Moore, and the Chinese — and they let lefties lionize Assange, and now that the hook is set the other shoe’s dropping. It’s all so obvious what’s going on and. . . . oh, somebody’s knocking at my door; strange, it’s so late at night. Gotta go.

MARKDOWNS ON shoes, boots, and accessories.

THIS IS BAD: Lousy food “safety” bill passes — by unanimous consent? An unforced error from the GOP.

IN THE NEW YORK TIMES, MORE ON RANDY BARNETT’S “REPEAL AMENDMENT:” Amendment Would Enable States to Repeal Federal Law. “The repeal amendment reflects a larger, growing debate about federal power at a time when the public’s approval of Congress is at a historic low.”

IS THERE ANYTHING THEY CAN’T DO? What should you do in a small plane when the pilot is incapacitated? Why, reach for your iPad and fire up the auto-pilot app, of course.

TRANSPARENCY FOR THEE, BUT NOT FOR ME (CONT’D): Lawyers cry foul over leak of Julian Assange sex-case papers. Heh.

TRANSPARENCY FOR THEE, BUT NOT FOR ME: Most Commenters at ABA Meeting Oppose Disclosure and Auditing of Law School Graduates’ Employment Data.

UH OH: Thousands Of Protesters Storm Government Building After Rigged Elections in Belarus – Opposition Candidate Beaten to a Pulp.

HMM: Astronomer Sues the University of Kentucky, Claiming His Faith Cost Him a Job.

In 2007, C. Martin Gaskell, an astronomer at the University of Nebraska, was a leading candidate for a job running an observatory at the University of Kentucky. But then somebody did what one does nowadays: an Internet search. That search turned up evidence of Dr. Gaskell’s evangelical Christian faith.

The University of Kentucky hired someone else. And Dr. Gaskell sued the institution.

Whether his faith cost him the job and whether certain religious beliefs may legally render people unfit for certain jobs are among the questions raised by the case, Gaskell v. University of Kentucky.

Regardless, this will likely be a major millstone around the University of Kentucky’s neck as it tries to oppose budget cuts in a legislature whose constituents are far more likely to identify as Christians than as astronomers.

UPDATE: Reader Michelle Dulak Thompson writes:

It sounds as though Dr. Gaskell thinks all that business in Genesis about the universe arising ex nihilo in a great burst of light isn’t all a bunch of hooey. Self-evidently you can’t hire someone like that.

There’s this nagging recollection in the back of my mind, though, of some other astronomer or two having something of the same idea. Only the name they gave it is slipping me . . . Large Blast? Great Boom? Something like that.

Seriously, the Big Bang was controversial when first proposed precisely because it did look a little too much like the Genesis account for some people’s comfort. It looks that this guy’s difficulty with the search committee was less about astronomy than evolution — but since the job he was up for didn’t have anything to do with evolution, they had no business raising the subject. Do they also ask every applicant whether s/he believes in the Virgin Birth?

He says he believes in evolution. But what’s funny is that they didn’t want to hire him because they feared bad publicity. Oops. Now they’ve got an article in the New York Times saying that he wasn’t hired because they worried that he’s “potentially evangelical.” That’s going to play well. In Kentucky. When budgets are being cut anyway.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader emails:

Hi, Glenn,

Regarding your post on Martin Gaskell, the astrophysicist who’s suing the University of Kentucky, I actually know him professionally, and we’re both in the same Christian Astronomers group. He’s a serious scientist (most of our conversations have been on our field of quasars and galaxy evolution), and even his religious opinions are perfectly mainstream. Mainstream not only for the country in general, but even among religious scientists. He’s absolutely not any Young Earth Creationist, for example.

What makes me really scratch my head about U. Kentucky’s search committee is that the “lecture” they dug up online (I gather it’s this one: incolor.inetnebr.com/gaskell/Martin_Gaskell_Bible_Astronomy.html ) is his way of explaining to religious non-scientists that they don’t have to hold to a literal six-day interpretation of Genesis 1, and they don’t have to reject modern science on this score. He covers the wide variety of orthodox interpretations of Genesis, and then he shows how various findings of astrophysics could correspond to the statements in the verses. It’s *exactly* the kind of talk many of my colleagues and I have given to Sunday school classes. It’s pretty standard stuff, in that sense. It’s scientific outreach to religious groups, and these talks are even something the National Science Foundation is encouraging. (I just saw some email discussion of that today.)

A funny idea just came to me: His science is on solid ground among astronomers, and the *only* place there’s any room for quibbling might be in whether one thinks he’s interpreted Scripture correctly, considering the variety of opinions there. Does the University of Kentucky want to put itself in the role of judging religious orthdoxy in their hiring decisions?

If my Sunday school presentations (not anything I do in my research or in the classroom) are grounds for rejecting me for a job, then thank goodness I’ve gotten tenure, and I hope I don’t have to change jobs for a long time.

Sincerely,
Tim Hamilton
Assoc. Prof. of Physics
Shawnee State University

Good grief. They told me if I voted Republican, University scientists would be vetted for religious orthodoxy — and they were right!

A SUGGESTION THAT DON’T ASK DON’T TELL REPEAL may not be so good for the Democrats. If it were, would they be downplaying it?

ED DRISCOLL: It’s Still The Demography, Stupid.

THIS WEEK in the future.

THE CARNIVAL OF NUCLEAR ENERGY IS UP!

AT AMAZON, recommended gifts under $25.

Also, recommended gifts from $25 to $50.

FIRST NISSAN LEAF OWNER reports on battery range. Not quite up to expectations, except at low speeds. “Still, even if you commute 25 miles each way at high speeds the car would still work for you if you could charge it every night. If you are commuting more than that you have my sympathy.”

UPDATE: Reader Chris Link emails: “A friend was figuring out where to open an office when he went solo with his law practice. It occurred to him if you worked 48 weeks a year, every minute of your commute equals an eight hour workday behind the wheel.” Hmm. That’s 240 workdays times 2 (driving in and back) = 480 = 8 hours. That’s a good reason to keep your commute as short as possible, all right. Unless you enjoy commuting, as I suppose some do.

SPENDING TAXPAYER DOLLARS TO divert websurfers away from anti-ObamaCare sites.

CLAYTON CRAMER ASKS: Why do Jews think Christians are anti-semitic? Yeah, your evangelical types seem to like Jews better than a lot of Jews do, in my experience.

A ONE-DAY ONLY SALE: 75% off coats, jackets, vests, parkas and other outerwear. (Bumped up, because it’s today only).

JOANNE JACOBS: Out of control schools in D.C.

CHANGE: House follows Senate, passes noise bil for electric cars and hybrids. As long as I can get that Jetsons-style bleebling sound.

UPDATE: Yeah, this is what I mean! Thanks to reader C.J. Burch for the link.

And reader Art Welling writes:

I am working with some of my students to build an electric car (go-cart of unGodly speed). One thing I noticed on the second test run, and we fixed at once…. the darn thing is silent as a ghost. I had visions of cars backing out in front of this cart, having never heard it coming along at ludicrous speeds.

I had the boys wire a horn circuit and install a horn. Two horns, actually. Loud ones.

All that said, is there really NOTHING more important for those highly paid legislators to deal with down in that swamp on the Potomac?

Look at it this way: While they were passing this, they were, briefly, doing no harm elsewhere.

PUBLIC VS. PRIVATE RETIREMENTS: Government workers get better deals — paid for by taxpayers. Alas, I don’t get one of those gold-plated retirement deals, just a standard defined-contribution plan. On the other hand, this may explain why Tennessee looks to remain solvent. . . .

WE DON’T HAVE TO SUFFER, WE’RE THE BEST BATCH YET: R.I.P. Captain Beefheart: The Legendary 1980 Profile by Lester Bangs. Speaking of which, I watched Almost Famous with the Insta-Daughter (who’s in a big classic-rock phase) the other night, and Philip Seymour Hoffman was awesome as Lester Bangs.

IN THE MAIL: Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight of Terra.