Harvard twins cannot undue FB settlement

Posted on April 11, 2011 by Michael

Good:

A federal appeals court ruled Monday that former Harvard University schoolmates of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg can’t undo their settlement over creation of the social networking site.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Monday that Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss were savvy enough to understand what they were agreeing to when they signed the agreement in 2008. The deal called for a $20 million cash payment and a partial ownership of Facebook. A third classmate, Divya Narendra, was part of the settlement with the twins but did not pursue the second lawsuit seeking to undo the agreement.

Monday’s ruling upholds a lower court decision enforcing the settlement during the six years of litigation that grew so contentious that the dispute was dramatized in the Oscar-nominated film, “The Social Network.”

The settlement is now worth more than $160 million because of Facebook’s increased valuation.

As much as I have a love-hate relation with Facebook, this is good news. It’s nothing but manipulative greed and bitterness to go after more money here.

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Atheist lawsuit in Illinois

Posted on April 9, 2010 by Michael

Rob Sherman has filed a lawsuit over $2.3 billion worth of grants that are being improperly given or may be improperly given to religious organizations in Illinois.

Most of the grants challenged by Sherman, Illinois’ leading atheist, go to religious organizations — houses of worship, parochial schools and religious ministries. Clear, unambiguous language in Article X, Section 3, of the Illinois Constitution says that no grant of money shall ever be made by the State to any church for any purpose. Article X, Section 3, also strictly prohibits public funds from ever being used to help support any parochial school. In addition, Article I, Section 3, of the Illinois Constitution provides that no person shall be required to support any ministry against his consent.

The article isn’t meant to be an objective A, B, and C happened sort of news article, so I feel it does the job of pointing out all that is wrong with these grants in Illinois. Do read it all.

I do, however, have one qualm. After listing a number of different religions involved in the grants, the writer says this:

As you can see, Sherman is not just picking on one faith.

So what if he was? It’s nice to see that no religion is getting a free pass, but if he wanted to pick on one over the others, why not? Christianity is a primary problem in the United States today, so it makes sense to focus on it here. And then there’s Islam; it’s currently going through a mini version of the phase through which Christianity went in the Dark Ages (and, indeed, Christianity caused the Dark Ages), so it is important to pick on that religion if one is in favor of better liberty, better social justice, and better quality of life. So I agree that it’s good that Sherman is hitting all the evidence-less ideologies, but if he had one particular concern over another, I wouldn’t blame him.

Filed under: Atheism/Humanism, News | Tagged: , , , , , , | 1 Comment »