Of course they can.

This article is from Times, read the original here:

Can Atheists Be Parents

After six years of childless marriage, John and Cynthia Burke of Newark decided to adopt a baby boy through a state agency. Since the Burkes were young, scandal-free and solvent, they had no trouble with the New Jersey Bureau of Children’s Services—until investigators came to the line on the application that asked for the couple’s religious affiliation.

John Burke, an atheist, and his wife, a pantheist, had left the line blank. As a result, the bureau denied the Burkes’ application. After the couple began court action, however, the bureau changed its regulations, and the couple was able to adopt a baby boy from the Children’s Aid and Adoption Society in East Orange.

Last year the Burkes presented their adopted son, David, now 31, with a baby sister, Eleanor Katherine, now 17 months, whom they acquired from the same East Orange agency. Since the agency endorsed the adoption, the required final approval by a judge was expected to be pro forma. Instead, Superior Court Judge William Camarata raised the religious issue.

Inestimable Privilege. In an extraordinary decision, Judge Camarata denied the Burkes’ right to the child because of their lack of belief in a Supreme Being. Despite the Burkes’ “high moral and ethical standards,” he said, the New Jersey state constitution declares that “no person shall be deprived of the inestimable privilege of worshiping Almighty God in a manner agreeable to the dictates of his own conscience.” Despite Eleanor Katherine’s tender years, he continued, “the child should have the freedom to worship as she sees fit, and not be influenced by prospective parents who do not believe in a Supreme Being.”

The Burkes are now living in Carterville, Ill., near Southern Illinois University, where John Burke has worked for the past year as a speech pathologist. Nevertheless, Judge Camarata ordered the parents to send David’s sister back to the New Jersey adoption agency. Two weeks ago, aided by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Burkes appealed directly to the New Jersey Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case. If they fail in their appeal, Eleanor Katherine may have to leave the only family she has ever known and await adoption by another couple whose religious convictions satisfy the State of New Jersey.

Carbon Monitoring for Action (CARMA)

Check out CARMA, this is a description from the site:

At its core, Carbon Monitoring for Action (CARMA) is a massive database containing information on the carbon emissions of over 50,000 power plants and 4,000 power companies worldwide. Power generation accounts for 40% of all carbon emissions in the United States and about one-quarter of global emissions. CARMA is the first global inventory of a major, emissions-producing sector of the economy.

The database is very searchable, sortable, and exportable. Take a look at how much CO2 your local coal power plant is belching into the air, then compare that to how much is coming from your local nuclear plant! [shameless career plug]

UN declares tasers a form of torture.

I doubt this will amount to anything in the U.S. Good luck getting the police to give up their favorite toy. I haven’t found an official press release from the U.N. but there are several news articles on the net.

A couple things to check out:

I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything and I’ll be getting better about that soon. The end of the summer was very busy with qualifying exams and conferences etc… For now, check out Mark Noonan’s blog Battle Porn Politic’s and read an excellent post on Yucca Mountain from a Nevadan’s perspective.

Also, Barack Obama finally outlined his energy policy, you can check it out here. Haven’t had a chance to read the whole thing yet but the main points seem reasonable. His nuclear policy seems a little vague, though I agree with the issues he raises, my research is focused on some of those issues!

More to come!

Don’t mess with Texas … it’s not nice to pick on retards.

Just as I was starting to enjoy Texas:

I was notified today that the governor of Texas has appointed an ultra-conservative, non-scientist, creationist as head of the board of education. I bitched a lot when Kansas omitted evolution from their curriculum but didn’t think much of it because, come on, it’s Kansas. Now it’s pseudo-personal, I live here. I’m referring to Dr. Don McElroy who is from Bryan (that’s College Station’s next door neighbor) and his pension for teaching religious myth over scientific fact. I find it asinine that in today’s society we still promote teaching ignorance over conscious thought and factual debate. I’m aware that leading a society of gullible idiots is easier than a society of free-thinking individuals (key word there), but leading is inherently not easy … not to mention: what ever happened to the separation of church and state?

The following is an excerpt from a letter Dr. McElroy wrote to his fellow board members. You can read the full letter here

Evolution science is predominantly historical science; it is not observable or testable empirically, it must be inferred. For example, even the empirical research on embryology and the sequences of proteins and DNA only give rise to historical speculations. Thus, the argument for evolution is not deductive, but inductive; in an inductive argument, scientists weigh evidence to see what is most probable to have occurred. On this basis, most scientists hypothesize that Nothing made a spider out of a rock and that we share a common ancestor with a tree. However, other scientists find serious flaws with those hypotheses.

This is the guy Texans want in charge of their children’s education? I know most Texans are generally religious but shouldn’t their children be able to decide for themselves if they want to follow that path?

As for the title of this post, no I don’t think all Texans are retards. Just those that try to force religious dogma on others by hiding scientific fact. As an educator Dr. McElroy should be dedicated to one thing: EDUCATION; not brainwashing.

The Death of Johnny … a moment of silence …

Ok… the moment is over.

Last Thursday, Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev) killed Yucca Mountain Johnny. I’ll admit, I didn’t even know who Johnny was until I heard of his death (kind of sad since I’m a nuclear engineer working with nuclear waste issues). But it turns out that Johnny is was a hard-hat wearing cartoon whose sole purpose on Earth (read the Internet) was to educate young people about nuclear waste. I know what you’re thinking … ‘What a bastard, how dare he!’ It’s preposterous that the federal government (by way of the Department of Energy) would waste our tax dollars on something so asinine as education about nuclear waste. Who even knows what nuclear waste is, save the few handfuls of nuclear engineers out there who make the stuff and the residents of Nevada who are unfortunate enough to be “educated” on the matter by Rep. Berkley?

“No single issue unites Nevadans more than our opposition to becoming the nation’s nuclear waste dump.”

Rep. Berkley (D-Nev)

The Yucca Mountain Repository is hardly a “dump”.This piece of land is the most studied and well-understood geologic feature on the face of our planet. Decades of scientific study, billions of dollars of research, and thousands of man-hours have gone into making sure the location is well-understood and capable of the task. To call it a dump is akin to calling Las Vegas a mole hill. My personal feelings on our country’s course of action concerning nuclear waste aside … the point is, this woman, a representative for the people of Nevada, has deemed it more important to stop educating children about a problem that will outlive all of them than to deal with say … I don’t know … health care. Here is a list of some of the things Rep. Berkley deems worthwhile.

Our children deserve to know the truth about the dangers of nuclear waste, but all they get from Yucca Mountain Johnny is a one-sided tale designed to convince them that it’s OK to turn Nevada into a radioactive garbage dump. While I am sure the Department of Energy will be sad to say goodbye to their nuclear version of Joe Camel, pulling the plug on this website will be a victory for truth and for America’s children. I will be glad when the day comes that we can finally say good riddance to Yucca Mountain Johnny and his pro-nuke waste siren song once and for all. … quoted from Rep. Berkley’s website.

So we’re to believe that because the scientists – the ones working to make Yucca Mountain a real and viable option for our country’s spent nuclear fuel (it’s not all waste) storage – have created a website to educate the populace, that it’s going to be a “one-sided tale”. I’ll agree with that. I should think that it will present nothing more than the science behind Yucca Mountain and spent nuclear fuel so the reader can make an informed personal choice [after looking at the site, I'm convinced that's what they were doing]. There are plenty of anti-nuclear groups out there who do nothing but perpetuate misguided falsehoods about the entire nuclear industry, but there are very few websites touting the benefits and accomplishments of the industry … let alone facts. To suggest that by promoting informed decision-making based on scientific fact is somehow polluting our children’s minds … well that’s just plain idiotic (unless you want all children to grow up to be uninformed congressional representatives from Nevada).

Visit the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management and the Nuclear Engergy Institute and get yourself informed before someone else decides you can’t. Also check out the NEI Nuclear Notes blog.

You can read the full press release from Rep. Berkley’s website here.

Buy Back Alaska!

This is a pretty good idea and it could actually work.  Watch the short video here.

60 Minutes review of nuclear power in the U.S.

Steve Kroft recently did a piece on 60 Minutes about how the U.S. is behind the times when it comes to nuclear power. Although we have almost 25% of all the worlds power reactors, our current fleet is getting old and will need replacing. Something the rest of the world is already working on. More importantly to me is the current status of our spent nuclear fuel reprocessing, it’s non-existent except on a lab scale. Bottom line: The United States must reprocess nuclear fuel, and we must come up with a safe, secure monitored retrievable storage plan. I highly recommend you watch the video (it’s only ~13 minutes long) it’s informative and shows that the U.S. media is finally getting smart about the current nuclear industry instead of talking about Chernobyl and Three Mile Island.

If you have any comments/questions, please post them below.

“How’s Texas?” you ask.

I recently returned to Purdue to visit friends and the first question everyone had was, obviously, “How’s Texas?”
Well, thanks for asking. I found the perfect answer tonight when I got home and read Beto’s latest post alerting me to this atrocity. I know summing up Texas based on the rape of one persons civil liberties is a gross over-generalization, but the Dear Leader did come from this state, and personally I think it’s further evidence that American civil liberties have gone the way of the Dodo.

Barack Obama Austin, Tx Rally

Immediately following last Friday morning’s exam, myself and three friends drove over to Austin to participate in the Barack Obama rally. I’ve been looking forward to seeing him speak for quite some time (since his DNC speech actually). Parking in Austin was ridiculous, we tried to get into two parking garages next to the Town Lake park, and were told there was no event parking allowed; luckily we found a small dirt lot not far from the venue.

The sky was overcast and threatened showers all day. Though it never got to be more than sprinkling, 2 hours of sprinkling is a lot of water. Two bands played, one a post-Katrina arrival to Austin who had a lot to say about how our government made a disaster out of that disaster. A black fraternity from UT did a step routine just prior to Sen. Obama’s appearance? [The question mark isn't a typo] I don’t know of any mulatto fraternities out there but what exactly did that have to do with the presidency? Senator Obama came on stage about three hours after the gates opened, and it started to rain again.

Seeing the man speak was more impressive than I’d imagined. No teleprompter, no cue-cards; just a man and a message. I’ll forgo the details of his speech, they can all be found at his website BarackObama.com. The senator spoke for about 40 minutes telling of his history, plans for the country, and several stories about his life. What was most impressive was that our current president couldn’t have spoken for three minutes without making up a new word and the senator spoke for nearly and hour and made me feel like he was just chatting with friends.

There wasn’t anything about the senator’s speach that changed my mind about voting for him. Though a couple of my friends did decide to vote for him. I highly suggest you check out his website and read up on his plans.

After leaving the rally we went to 6th street in Austin to have dinner and play some foosball. The great thing about Austin is that it makes you forget you’re in Texas, which after only 6 months of living here, has become my primary requirement for enjoying someplace here!