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Those sneaky christians scored again…  now Bush supports both the teaching of creationism ( the principle that god threw this shit together 6000 years ago and laid in a few dinosaurs to confuse us) AND "intelligent design" (the principle that god threw this shit together a real long time ago and the dinosaurs were real, hence Texaco gasoline).

Know what’s spooky?  Some adult Americans actually believe that this is the choice we face in articulating an understanding of the multiverse.

BTW… the article continues with an overview of the new Deometry curriculum:

The Odessa school system is also considering replacing its current high school math curriculum with a new approach that emphasizes God’s role in the study of quantity, structure, change and space. One likely course offering: Deometry, in which students of the field once known as geometry (from geo meaning earth and metro meaning measure) accept as their starting point that God created the earth, before embarking on their study of lines, points and circles. Educators are reportedly also debating the best way to incorporate the role of the Creator into other high school classes, including home economics, gym and drivers ed. 

Thanks to Norm for the link.  I guess.

I don’t know why "Intelligent Design" bothers me so much.  It seemed a reasonable approach to posit a metaphysical first cause in the ignorant Lutheran days of my pre-adolescence.  It all has to start somewhere, I thought.  Most of the other fourth graders in my set agreed with me in those rock skipping afternoons by the river when we would lose ourselves in discussions of the relative merits of GM versus Chrysler and catechism versus Sunday school.

Okay.  I really do know why it bothers me and the matter is complicated.  First, "Intelligent Design" is a disinformation technique, a propagandist’s approach to the introduction of religious beliefs to the public educational systems.  It is, in other words, a lie.

People who lie usually have a reason for it.  The first sentence of this post is a lie, stated for some light-weight rhetorical purpose and quickly acknowledged.  The people who promote the big lie of "Intelligent Design" do so to thwart public policy and democratic process, to pervert religious principles by rationalizing that the end justifies the means, to ultimately betray their own god by denying her place and her name in the structure of their political arguments.

Yet I am not a big fan of "Inherit the Wind" arguments either.  Spencer Tracy dropped the ball when he got into a pissing contest about the length of a biblical day.  We were very much in tune with Tracy’s arguments in the fourth and fifth grade, but since then the kids who were cannon-balling off the old 4-ton Bridge with me have pretty much come to the reasonable conclusion that it’s not about denying literalism in order to come to terms with biblical inconsistency, it’s simply a matter of dismissing theism.  Of course some of those kids grew up to cling to primitive xian beliefs and advocate that "Intelligent Design" be taught to public school children, but when I think of them I’m heartened by these words from Betty Bowers:

Jesus told us that the poor will always be with us. But this simple statement of a thoroughly annoying fact should not be construed as a direction to actually acknowledge them when they wander into your field of vision. I am reminded of the last time this passage from Matthew was quoted to me. It was by dear Juanita after she informed me that she was resigning from Golden Door Spa. As she carefully scraped the deep-cleansing Italian mud off my troublesome t-zone area, she said: "For you have the pores always with you; but me you will have not always."

If, like me, you would like to encounter the bizarre Bush-led Christian Jihadist movement and their Trojan horse issue of "Intelligent Design," you might consider signing up for membership in the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Today, we are all Hibakusha.
- Kofi Annan

Sgt. Kevin Benderman chose to put his weapon down; he chose not to kill but to love his fellow human beings; he chose to put his career and physical freedom in jeopardy; he chose to speak truth in the face of power and adversity; he was harassed, humiliated, accused, tried, convicted, and sentenced to jail.  He kissed his wife goodbye, and he kept his head high as he walked to his fifteen months of confinement.  I have never seen a freer man.

– Camilo Mejia

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A Portside report from David Swanson details concerns regarding Comcast censorship of email from the After Downing Street coalition.  The censorship disrupted organizing for the group’s July 23 events by blocking emails that contained links to the coalition’s web site.  No spam was involved.   Workers’ communications with each other were blocked.   I haven’t heard before of political censorship of email based on content by a service provider.

More information can be found on Brad Blog, and at People Link.

There have been a number of civilian contractors killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.  I wonder if there is ionformation breaking them down by vendor and by job title.  A road builder or an electrical engineer has a job that is qualitatively differnt from a team leader in a heavy weapons squad of mercenary security personnel.  If soldiering is in the job description, why do American newspapers call these people "contractors?"  Is it a Tony Soprano thing?  Are we that inured to mob speak that we understand that "having a contract" means sealing someone’s doom?  That couldn’t be it.  Could it? Bush, Rove, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and the neocon chickenhawks are all thugs at heart, but do they talk that way?  And have they influenced the media to talk that way?  Let’s call a mercenary a mercenary.

1. If you knew George W. Bush or his political faction had something to do with the recent terrorist bombings in London would you urge congress to investigate?
2. Did the terrorist bombings in London distract you from the results of the G8 summit?