Day: May 23, 2005

CNN:

President Bush’s job approval rating dropped near its all-time low and Congress received poor marks as well in a national poll released Monday.

Forty-six percent of 1,006 adults polled over the weekend said they approved of the overall job Bush is doing, according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll.

Over the past year, Bush’s rating has hovered near 50 percent, with a low of 45 percent in March and a high of 57 percent just after his second inauguration and the State of the Union in February. The 46 percent figure is down about 4 percentage points since a poll taken at the beginning of May…

Republican leaders in the Congress got bad marks too.

When asked to choose, 58 percent of respondents in the split part of the poll said Republican leaders were behaving like “spoiled children” on the matter while 31 percent picked “responsible adults”…

On a separate question asked of half the respondents, 48 percent said they favored the Democrats in the dispute and 40 percent favored the GOP.

We should never forget that it is not Senate Majority Bill Frist who is leading the charge to destroy the institution of the US Senate. Neither is it the heads of the Family Research Council or other Talibani-American groups. While all these folks are complicit in the disaster that is about to befall all of us, it is George W. Bush – and therefore Karl Rove – who is ultimately responsible for what is about to happen.

DailyKos:

Key undecideds:

Arlen Specter: (Pennsylvania)
DC Office:
202-224-4254
Philadelphia Office:
215-597-7200
Pittsburgh Office:
412-644-3400

John Warner: (Virginia)
DC Office:
(202) 224-2023
Richmond Office:
(804) 739-0247
Norfolk Office:
(757) 441-3079

Mike Dewine: (Ohio)
DC Office:
(202) 224-2315
Cleveland office:
(216) 522-7272
Columbus office:
(614) 469-5186

Chuck Hagel: (Nebraska)
DC Office:
(202) 224-4224
Omaha Office:
(402) 758-8981

Remember, be courteous. And ideally, calls should come from constituents.

Our nation’s capitol is over-run with superannuated geeks, most of whom are Republican, but among these guys there is no greater nerd than Grover Norquist, right, head of Americans for Tax Refom, a group that promotes abolishing taxation and the government it funds.

Middle-aged, bearded and paunchy, Norquist is obsessed with an intense loathing of taxation in any form or amount. Not surprisingly, he has ascended during the Bush-Rove era to become one of the leading lights on the conservative Right – in part because of his efforts to strong-arm the city’s lobbying industry into hiring Republicans.

Word comes in today’s New York Times that Norquist and his anti-tax organization have been snared in the investigation of Jack Abramoff, the $750 per hour lobbyist who is accused of defrauding his clients – a roster that includes Indian tribes – and of illegally making gifts to members of Congress, including House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.

A Congressional committee investigating whether Mr. Abramoff defrauded Indian tribes has subpoenaed records from Mr. Norquist’s group, Americans for Tax Reform, after he refused for six months to turn them over voluntarily.

As the investigation widened to include Norquist, it has also snared the Bush cabinet secretary mandated with giving corporate interests unfettered access to the natural resources of the United States:

The Justice Department is reviewing records of an advocacy group Mr. Norquist started with Gale A. Norton, now secretary of the interior, after reports that Mr. Abramoff instructed Indian tribes to give it $250,000.

Forcing native people to give money to a group whose mandate is the destruction of the land they revere is another prime example of the death of irony in these times.

If he did commit a crime, Norquist, like Abramoff and certainly Norton, will never face charges from the Bush Justice Department. These are the same folks, after all, whose non-investigation into the source of White House leaks that led to the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame has produced no results after umpteen years.

Norquist has an interesting take on why he’s being investigated:

In interviews, Mr. Norquist dismissed any suggestion of wrongdoing on his part and said that the only reason he is “getting dragged into this” is because Senator John McCain, the head of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, which is investigating Mr. Abramoff, holds a grudge against Mr. Norquist for campaigning for President Bush in the 2000 Republican primaries.

“McCain hates me,” he said.

Writing on AlterNet, David Morris offers some suggestions for high school science teachers to comply with the edict to teach “intelligent design” as an alternative to evolution while teaching meddling school board administrators a lesson in unintended consequences. Morris notes that many school boards across the country require science teachers to offer a critique of evolution and suggest alternative theories about the origin of life. He suggests approaching the task with creativity and impish subversion.

Then there’s the question of male homosexuality. From a Darwinian perspective, it’s a puzzle. The theory of natural selection should guarantee the disappearance of males that don’t reproduce. But they keep hanging around, in considerable numbers, in every culture and every era.

Evolutionists have their theories. Psychologist Louis A. Berman argues that it has to do with embryonic development. Medical doctor Lorne Warneke suggests that homosexuality actually offers a natural advantage. Homosexuals instill a more cooperative impulse that helps perpetuate the kinship group and tribe.

A good science teacher will follow the school board’s guidance and propose intelligent design as an alternative explanation for male homosexuality. Could there be an intelligent power that has created and nurtured male homosexuality? Does that mean God is gay?

Morris tackles the female organism (useless in Darwinism, but makes sense in intellgent design — if the designer is female) and the origin of life on the planet (intelligent design meets evolution when Erich von Daniken’s space aliens mate with our ancestors) using sex and spacemen — topics sure to garner the attention of adolescents.

It’s an interesting suggestion — take one’s frustration at having to teach mumbo-jumbo and critique accepted science and turn it into a creative synthesis that just might make students more aware, and dare we suggest, smarter.