Gay Nigerians face death penalty

From the BBC:

Eighteen men have been remanded in prison following their arrest for alleged sodomy in northern Nigeria, the state-owned news agency, Nan, reports.
The Sharia punishment for sodomy is death by stoning.
The men, reportedly wearing women’s clothes, are said to have gone to Bauchi town from neighbouring states to celebrate a “gay wedding”.

Bauchi state is one of the areas we visited when in Nigera. It’s in the North western section of the country.

More than a dozen Nigerian Muslims have been sentenced to death by stoning and for sexual offences ranging from adultery and homosexuality.
But none of these death sentences have actually been carried out as they were either thrown out on appeal or commuted to prison terms as a result of pressure from human rights groups.
Many others have been sentenced to flogging by horsewhip for drinking.
But there have been two amputations in north-western Zamfara State which pioneered the introduction of the Islamic legal system in the country.

What do you think about all this? Would you support a similar punishment for Sodomy in your country?

Fossils challenge evolutionary record

From the BBC:

Two hominid fossils discovered in Kenya are challenging a long-held view of human evolution.

According to the article,the hominid Homo habilis was previously thought to have evolved into the more advanced Homo erectus, which evolved into us.
Now, habilis and erectus are thought to be sister species that overlapped in time.

“Their co-existence makes it unlikely that Homo erectus evolved from Homo habilis,” said co-author Professor Meave Leakey, palaeontologist and co-director of the Koobi Fora Research Project.

It is still widely believed by evolutionists that the Homo sapien (modern man) evolved from Homo erectus.
The new Homo habilis find was dated to nearly 1.44 million years ago.
Yet, here’s an interesting Q&A from the Creation Evidence Museum in Glenrose:

Q: If fossils are dated, by Carbon 14 decay, to be millions of years old how can homo sapiens be contemporary with a species such a ‘carcharodon megalodon’ or any other prehistoric creature?

Answer: Acceptance of the Gap Theory or any other compromise position between the divinely-inspired creation account of Genesis and the fallible evolutionary assumptions of man is really a question of ultimate authority–God’s Word or man’s word (see Rom. 3:4).
In response to the above question, let me state the scientific truths that: (1) the Carbon-14 dating method is not used–especially by evolutionists(!)–to date fossils which they would consider millions of years old, because it is accurate only to about 4,500 years ago (the calibration range given by the bristlecone pine tree) due to C-14’s relatively short half-life of 5,730 years; and (2) no fossil has ever been scientifically proven empirically to be millions of years old. These supposed absolute dates are founded upon well-known and publicized errors which plague all radiometric-dating techniques, including the unobserved assumptions of no original daughter isotope, a constant decay rate, and a closed system (i.e., nothing entering in or leaching out of the rock sample at all).
David V. Bassett, M.S.
CEM Staff Writer

First this: God created the Heavens and Earth—all you see, all you don’t see. Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness. God’s Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss…
God spoke: “Let us make human beings in our image, make them reflecting our nature so they can be responsible for the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, the cattle, and, yes, Earth itself, and every animal that moves on the face of Earth.”
God created human beings; he created them godlike, reflecting God’s nature.
He created them male and female.
God blessed them:
“Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge! Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air, for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth.”

Bonds has the juice

The San Fransisco Chronicle added an interactive story element to their coverage of Barry Bonds breaking Hank Aaron’s homerun record (bore…. Bonds, not the interactive element).
The paper asked readers what their opening sentence would be if they were covering the story.
I think that’s a great idea – but not as great as this suggested opening…

“Bonds showed the world he has the juice as he cleared 755 and creamed nay-sayers.” – Claudia Bodmer (San Mateo)

Flickr improves web uploading

…And a big “Yesssssssss!” was sent up from Casa de Blundell.

Our “friends” over at Flickr have improved the method of uploading photos from the web.
Acorording to the Flickr Blog, here’s what they’ve improved on…

  • A snazzy new interface! Designed to show you clearer progress for your uploads.
  • More files at once. Only six photos per upload? Ha! Now you can select a bunch of files all at once (using shift-click) and upload them all together.
  • New batch operations. Once your photos have arrived safely, add tags to the batch, or add them all to one of your sets.
  • Magic pixie dust. Helps your photos upload faster!

Anyone give it a try yet? Looks like I for one will enjoy the improvements.

No blogging this weekend

Just an early heads up – our web host is upgrading his machines so CasadeBlundell.com will be down Friday evening through Sunday evening (likely). If everything goes as plan we’ll be back up for sure by Monday morning.
This means casadeblundell.com, casadeblundell.com/jonathan and casadeblundell.com/laurie as well as our casadeblundell.com email accounts will each be down for the weekend.
Thanks for your understanding – if you need to get in contact with us, I guess you’ll need to do it the old fashioned way – by telephone 🙁