Month: August 2005

In his never-ending pandering to Christian conservative groups, George Bush today told a group of Texas journalists that intelligent design should be taught alongside evolution in schools. Bush, who is a living argument that not all humans have reached the same plateau of evolution, said in an Associated Press wire story:

“I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought,” Bush said. “You’re asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, the answer is yes.”

Let’s take that assertion to its logical conclusion. Then should Marx’s “Manifesto” and Mao’s “Little Red Book” and Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” be taught alongside the Constitution and Bill of Rights? Astrology alongside astronomy and physics? Alchemy alongside chemistry?

It seems that for every logical good idea (evolution), there’s its counterpart — an illogical bad idea (intelligent design). Christian conservatives say that the universe is too complex to be explained by evolution and could only be the product of the mind of an infinite God. To me, those two alternatives are not incompatible, while the notion that the world and all that’s in it was made in six days 6,000 years ago is just silly.

I give you an example that for me can support either argument — the plaster bag worm. We get these in my house. They are about a quarter-inch long and look like a little bag of plaster, except when the skinny red thing snakes out of one end of the bag. They eat one thing — spider webs.

Now whether (a) over millions of years of evolution, this critter was naturally selected to eat spider webs because there are spider webs everywhere, or (b) God makes the spider, then says, “Holy shit, We need something to eat the universe’s spider webs or We’ll be overrun by gossamer threads,” doesn’t matter because the plaster bag worm simply exists, and that’s enough for me.

• Bolton booed at UN: Bush’s new UN ambassador John Bolton received a less than welcoming reception when he arrived for work yesterday. Crooks & Liars has the video.
• Bush has confidence in treason suspect: President Bush says he has confidence in Karl Rove, even though Karl is under suspicion for giving away state secrets during war time. More proof that Republicans only take sex scandals seriously.
• No Justice Sunday for Frist: Sen. Dr. Frist (R-Pandering) has been disinvited from addressing the Konservative Kristian Konclave “Justice Sunday” on August 11. Frist spoke at the premiere event last month but is in a bad odor with the Talibanis because he changed his position on stem cell research in order to appear more “moderate.” (And a little less ridiculous at the medical conventions?)

Robert Parry in Consortium News:

Right-wing columnist Robert Novak’s new attack on former Ambassador Joseph Wilson – that he was “discarded a year ago by the Kerry presidential campaign” – recycled a disputed report from Talon News correspondent Jeff Gannon, who was unmasked earlier this year as a pro-Republican operative working under an assumed name.

In an Aug. 1 column, Novak cited the Kerry campaign’s supposed rejection of Wilson to further denigrate the former ambassador, who has become a bete noire to Republicans since he charged in an opinion article on July 6, 2003, that the Bush administration “twisted” intelligence on Iraq’s nuclear weapons program…

Novak’s column also resumed the Right’s long-running assault on Wilson’s credibility. Near the end of the column, Novak wrote that “Joseph Wilson was discarded a year ago by the Kerry presidential campaign after the Senate [intelligence] committee reported that much of what he [Wilson] said ‘had no basis in fact.’”

However, Novak’s sentence appears to be wrong on both its points. The Senate Intelligence Committee did not conclude that Wilson’s statements about the Iraqi intelligence “had no basis in fact.” That was a phrase that Novak culled from “additional views” of three Republican senators.

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Take that, country club Republicans! The California Supreme Court ruled 6-0 on Monday that country clubs – and all businesses – that offer discounts to opposite sex spouses must do the same for same sex partners.

The ruling will affect a broad range of businesses, including banks and mortgage lenders, auto insurers and health clubs. Lenders will have to consider domestic partners’ joint income in making loans, and insurers will have to offer the same multiple-driver discounts they give married couples.

The ruling stated, “A business that extends benefits to spouses it denies to registered domestic partners engages in impermissible marital status discrimination.”

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• Gore’s Current TV launches: Al Gore’s Current TV launched today – programming will be in “pods,” roughly two to seven minutes long, covering topics like jobs, technology, spirituality and current events. An internet-like on-screen progress bar will show the pod’s length.
• Novak whines: Rightwing propagandist Bob Novak has been mum on his role in revealing the identity of secret agent for the better part of two years. Now one of sources at the CIA has said he warned Novak not to publish Valerie Plame’s name. Novak says the CIA guy didn’t warn him enough.
• Yet more dirt on Dukester: Did scandal-prone GOP Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham and his cronies create a shell company that was awarded an IRS contract – and then pocket most of the contract’s $3.5 mil?

CBS News reports that “President Bush [has] installed embattled nominee John Bolton on Monday to be U.N. ambassador, using a recess appointment to circumvent a resistant Senate. ”

Bolton is a GOP political hack who famously bullied local election officials in Florida during the Gore vs. Bush fiasco. He went on to carry water at the State Department for President Bush by bullying CIA analysts when the administration was “creating its own reality” (formerly known as “lying”) about the reasons for going to war in Iraq.

More recently, Bolton lied to the Senate in the paperwork related to this nomination when he said he had not been interviewed by investigators about the CIA leak scandal.

He’s also wanted by the Fashion Police in 30 countries for his unintentionally retro 70’s look.

All in all, this appointment is just one more piece of evidence that George W. Bush is the worst president in U.S. history.

BuzzFlash: [What] is your reaction to the now-public evidence that Karl Rove was a participant in one way or another in the outing of a CIA operative specializing in tracking weapons of mass destruction? What’s the role of the President of the United States in holding such treachery accountable, whatever the legal outcome might be?

Senator Reid: What it shows me is that the President is not a person of his word. He said almost two years ago that if anyone in his Administration was caught being involved in this, they would be fired. There is no question Karl Rove is involved in it. Evidence is heavy. The President, after finding that Rove’s involved, changes his standard from “being involved” in it to having committed a crime. Well, crimes are hard to prove, and then you go through the appellate process. What does this mean? It means the President is not a credible person.

— Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, interviewed by Buzzflash, August 1, 2005

Yesterday, candidate for Congress Paul Hackett, a Democrat, demonstrated to the people of Ohio’s 2nd District that his opponent had blantantly lied during an interview with a local television. Jean Schmidt, the GOP candidate, told a reporter that she did not know – had never met -Tom Noe, the notorious GOP donor and rare coin dealer who has somehow “lost” at least $13 million in state funds that he invested in coins.

The Hackett campaign offered documentary proof in the form of minutes from meetings of government committees on which both Schmidt and Noe served as evidence that Schmidt, reputed to have a “file card” memory, is at the very least an acquaintance of Noe’s.

Yet the Cincinnati Enquirer, the regional paper of record in southern Ohio, has buried this revelation 16 paragraphs into its main article on the campaign today – under a benign sounding headline: “Candidates take it easy in final days: Volunteers hit streets to get word to voters.”

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