Repudiating Intelligent Design.

The real issue behind Intelligent Design is not the clash between science and religion. It is the promotion of a pseudoscientific "theory" in order to advocate for "required" explicit evidence for divine intervention in creation of the universe. The Vatican Observatory's Father George Coyne remarks that the thinking faithful need not subscribe to this notion:

In a June article in the British Catholic magazine The Tablet, Father Coyne reaffirmed God's role in creation, but said science explains the history of the universe. "If they respect the results of modern science, and indeed the best of modern biblical research, religious believers must move away from the notion of a dictator God or a designer God, a Newtonian God who made the universe as a watch that ticks along regularly."

It's been particularly frustrating during the ID brouhaha to hear little from "scientists of faith" who concur with Coyne. The ID controversy is a very old arguement that has been revisted many times in the last few centuries. This problem is partly the fault of ignorant bullhorns, a cliche'-addicted press, and thoughful believers who left the public square on many issues years ago.

Is Civilized Behavior Now In?

Kids at Ann Arbor's Huron High School, repudiating the examples of the shagging-maned, Birkenstocked-footed, parasite-infested, tie-dye moo-moo bedecked neo-hippies and the black-garbed, impaled and tatooed foul-mouthed anarchists that now represent the apex of free expression, have formed a social club to promote civilized behavior, courtesy, and mutual respect.

Red China Ain't a Green China.

In case you don't remember Soviet-style environmentalism, The WaPo reminds us: Chinese Officials Sought to Hide Toxic Spill.

Can you just imagine these jokers with a fully industrialized society? And remember, they're exempt from Kyoto, jes' like that old evil Earth enemy the US of A...

The Entitled Slob.

Dead Drifts has in earlier entries lamented the "slobifying" of culture and manners. George Will has a summary of our complaint.

I'll Say Anything if You'll Say You Love Me.

The Jackass-in-Chief of the Jackass Party, William J. "Love Me, Please" Clinton, pandered to a Dubai crowd by asserting the United States made a "big mistake" when it invaded Iraq. He then bathed in the adulation of his audience, which, sadly for this man, are what his actions always seem to be about.

I think that an Iraqi citizen who lost a loved one to Saddam's terror during Slick's eight years in office may direct blame in a different direction.

W in Wonderland.

President Bush finally responds to the incessant pounding by the Left and Mainstream Meatpackers on Iraq - and is now accused of (recklessly) escalating the "war of words". What? He's been called liar, Cheney-Rove-Haliburton puppet, Hitler, Dumb as a Stump - and his words are escalating?

Oh, If We Could Tax Stupidity!

Today congresscritters will express their outrage at Big Oil's criminal profitteering from this summer's oil squeeze. You know Big Oil - you've got lots of their stock in your 401(K), and their profits will help pay your bills in your retirement. They're also the big corporations that took it on the chin when crude fell to $15 a barrel in the early '90s oil glut.

You'll see plenty of pyrotechnics today on Capitol Hill, but little substance. It's not Big Oil's fault that Ford, GM and the UAW have been caught completely flat-footed in hybrid vehicle development. Then again, if you remove 3% inflation for twenty years from the price of a gallon of gas you get a price that is less than what we paid in the early '80s. Unlike, for example, college tuition. Again, today's congressional hearing is not about substance, rather it is about theatrics and pandering.

Happy TR's Birthday!

27 October 1858. Have a Bully weekend!

A Man's Triumph.

Men have circumnavigated the globe, explored the seas, air, and space, built magnificent structures reaching to the heavens, and conquered diseases. Yet these triumphs pale to that of an ordinary man surveying his newly cleaned and ordered garage. Time for a victory cigar!

Good Night, and Good Luck.

George Clooney has created a masterpiece, a visually beautiful film, with a superb screenplay. The smoky jazz score wings one back to the 1950s. David Strathairn is magnificent as Murrow, and Frank Langela is a powerful co-star as Bill Paley. Ah - all those lovely cigarettes! Can we be anywhere but in the glorious '50s?

"Good Night and Good Luck" has relevance to our present condition well beyond cliche' Patriot Act allusions. As I was watching the film, I thought of the Dan Rather, Eason Jordan, and Jason Blair affairs, Bill Bennett and the march of PC across college campuses. The "Report it Now" dovetail blog is, sadly, skewed itself: "responsibile" journalism appears to be ...left-leaning "social justice" journalism, and certainly not found in the conservative strata of the blogosphere.

Was McCarthy wrong? There were some communists and communist sympathizers within government. But McCarthy was a juggernaut who exploited the legitmate concern over communism, and as William F. Buckley has observed (the same Buckley that the film's screenplay recalls defending McCarthy) "..McCarthy did more damage to his cause than benefit."

Great movie - find some good friends of a variety of political stripes, go see the movie, then find a damn good coffee shop and argue 'till dawn. Of course, your communist friends will be remorseful that come the Revolution all of the rest of you will need to rounded up, shot or perhaps "reeducated" for the good of the people.

It's That Special Season.

Fall is the trees on fire, crisp air, cider, hunting, football, and...public radio begathons. This morning, Ira Glass, host of NPR's This American Life?, declared that the average American spends over $200 a year supporting the production of TV and radio programs, "many [programs] that you despise". So, Ira suggested, why not give some money to support NPR? But, dear Ira, what if the programming we despise includes much of the NPR programming?

But wait, there is a solution: do give to your local public radio station, but insist that your contribution go only towards local programming production. As we've discussed in Dead Drifts, NPR isn't really public radio, it's a corporation that takes public money (either by direct solicitiation or by legislative lobbying) and then decides for themselves what to fund for production. I don't remember ever getting a ballot from NPR to vote for a program, nor does the NPR website feature a "what kind of program would you like to hear?" form (correction - there is a suggestion box, buried deep in the site). I know what I want - let's rebroadcast the audio from the old Firing Line programs!

Hurricane Delphi.

Delphi Corporation has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. This, coupled with the return of the Ford prodigal son Visteon, is very bad news for the Michigan economy. It may signal that the business model assumed by the huge network of automobile parts suppliers, that has provided wealth and prosperity to many of the working people of this state for generations, is now inoperative. The Detroit News documents Delphi's woes and where things may go.

Eyes on the Ground.

Book TV recently featured a panel discussion featuring Michael Goldfarb, Anthony Shadid, Kayla Williams, and Steve Mumford. All have written first-hand accounts of their experience in post-Saddam Iraq. Certainly none of them would be considered cheerleaders for the White House's post-war administration of Iraq. But in response to a question by a strawhatted antiwar protestor from the audience, who fished for a denounciation of the war and a call for an immediate withdrawl by American forces, they were resolutely committed to staying the course. Their replies had a common theme - a moral obligation to the people of Iraq to stay and finish the job and to give them a chance to reap the benefits of democratic civilization. Perhaps there has been progress in journalism since the their celebrated abandonment of Vietnam.

Regarding Bennett, III.

William Bennett appeared in Bakersfield, Californina, and addressed the controversy regarding his recent remarks on abortion. The Los New York Angeles Associated Presstimes article on the appearance gave the essential account by the Mainstream Meatpackers:

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (AP) -- Former Education Secretary William Bennett on Saturday blamed the news media for distorting his remarks about aborting black babies, saying he had intended to make ''a bad argument in order to put it down.''...

...Dozens of residents marched in protest outside the convention center where Bennett spoke, many saying they wanted to make sure he did not feel welcome in their community. Before the speech, local black leaders met with Bennett for an hour.

''He heard our outrage and our hurt, but he didn't say he was sorry,''
said Irma Carson, a Bakersfield councilwoman. ''We didn't take (his comment) out of context, because there's no context in which those comments would fit.''

Many in the largely white crowd attending Saturday's conference said it was clear to them that Bennett was using an extreme example that did not represent his views to make a point.

Doretha Jones said it was ''obvious'' that Bennett's radio remarks were ''just a discussion of a possibility that could be espoused by human beings who don't have any feelings for babies or for blacks.''

Bennett was education secretary under President Reagan and director of drug control policy under President George H.W. Bush.

A fragment of a single sentence is actually quoted as to what Bennett said at this venue. There is more as to what was said by the angry mobs outside the convention center. A quick check of the web indicated that this was the only account of the appearance that was circulating. Given the stir that his original comments created, one would think that providing an extended quotation might be more enlightening than what the AP wants to say about it. And just to make sure you haven't forgotten, Bennett is a card-carrying member of the Reagan-Bush Cabal.

Regarding Bennett, II.

A good example of the specious reasoning that the Left has applied to Bill Bennett's recent remarks can be found in the Tapped online posting at the Amercian Prospect. For example, Garance Franke-Ruta claims to have read Bill Bennett's mind:

...Implicit in Bennett's statement is the assumption that African Americans contribute only criminality to America, and that if he could he wave his magic wand and bring African Americans' tenure in this nation to an end, that is all that would disappear. That's what's offensive about his statement.

Franke-Ruta also feels the need to tell us all in a pedogogic blather would the horrifying consquences would be for a city like Detroit if the Bennett/Rove/DeLay/Haliburton scheme were to come to pass.

By Franke-Ruta's remarks I realize that a Philosophy and Critical Reasoning distribution requirement must be reinstated at all colleges and universities. Perhaps we could add to the No Child Left Behind program?

Huh?

There are some propositions that are so bizarre and obtuse that you're left almost paralyzed by the mental disorientation. So it is with Richard Cohen's WaPo column that argues for an apology to the notorious Lyndie England from Bush, Rumsfeld, and the United States Army, for leading her to her sorry state.

I think the legal and philosophical precedent that Cohen is citing is Greg "Otter" Stratton's defense of the Deltas to the Faber College Student Court ("...then shouldn't we also condemn all of society?").

Don't Drink the Helmlock, Bill.

Bill Bennett's Morning in America is a different radio-talk show: he tackles extremely thorny issues with a deliberate and unhysterical approach in thinking and Socratic dialogue. As Socrates himself discovered, this is difficult for those with histrionic dispositions. And now Bennett finds with his recent comments on race and abortion. Carefully listen to his comments for yourself, take a deep breath, and think about what is actually being said...

Bennett responded to a caller who suggested that abortion has led to the Social Security crisis. Bennett stated that this was an unknowable proposition: he cited a book Freakonomics which suggested that abortion had reduced the crime rate. He then stated:

"I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could, if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down," Mr. Bennett said in the broadcast. "That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down. So these far-out, these far-reaching, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky."

You can reduce crime by that method (the principal beneficaries would be the equally disproportionate number of same-race victims - white, black, Hispanic, you chose the race), you can also do it by killing all children of single parents, or young men between 15 and 35, or all men for that matter. If you are a racist or sexist you are likely to assert that certain races must therefore be genetically predisposed to crime, or that men must be predisposed to crime, etc. (My hunch - and it is only an unsubstantiated hunch - is that there is a surprising number of people who will, rightly, condemn the racist claim, but will tacitly accept the sexist claim.) Intelligent thinkers know Bennett's plan of philosophical attack: just because one finds a condition with a state of being, it does not follow that this state is a cause for the condition. Nor can good ends - reducing crime or taming a financial crisis - justify any means. Bennett explains:

"Then, putting my philosophy professor's hat on, I went on to reveal the limitations of such arguments by showing the absurdity in another such argument, along the same lines. I entertained what law school professors call 'the Socratic method' and what I would hope good social science professors still use in their seminars. In so doing, I suggested a hypothetical analogy while at the same time saying the proposition I was using about blacks and abortion was 'impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible,' just to ensure those who would have any doubt about what they were hearing, or for those who tuned in to the middle of the conversation. "The issues of crime and race have been on many people's minds, and tongues, for the past month or so--in light of the situation in New Orleans; and the issues of race, crime, and abortion are well aired and ventilated in articles, the academy, the think tank community, and public policy. Indeed the whole issue of crime and race is not new in social science, nor popular literature. One of the authors of Freakonomics, himself, had an extended exchange on the discussion of these issues on the Internet some years back--which was also much debated in the think tank community in Washington.

We will state it again, clearly: it does not follow from discovering a condition within a state of being that it is the state of being that causes the condition.

This is a line of reasoning that can't be compressed into a 15-second soundbite (the length of the bite of Bennett's words as featured on the CBS News website). Here's how the Newspaper of Record - the one with the really tough crossword puzzles - led off their Bennett story:

WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 - The White House distanced itself today from the comments of a prominent Republican who said on a recent radio program that the nation's crime rate could potentially be reduced through aborting blacks...

What a fair, balanced, and thoughtful introduction to this story. The WaPo - via the AP - was no better. Bennett has been called racist, evil, stupid, and so on. Erstwhile champions of free speech now call for his gagging and removal from the airwaves. (from which we learn the meaning of myrmidon.) And the White House sniffs the air and follows these odors. Thinking people, conservative and otherwise , understand the threat to meaningful public discourse here.

This, for me, has been a utterly disgusting confluence of the sewer streams of ignorance, political correctness, and naked partisan opportunism. We are reaping the bitter harvest of a totalitarian culture of political correctness, lousy public education, supressing opportunity for politcal gain, and the trivial "theatricizing" of critical policy issues. Can we have a serious discussion about the disintegration of urban life despite the hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars spent? May we speak freely, and perhaps discover truth? Maybe not; maybe the morons and the morally corrupt have prevailed.

Brown Strikes Back.

Former FEMA head Michael Brown has decided he is not going to be a patsy. He gave a spirited defense of FEMA to a House committee of the Agency's actions during Katrina. And he said the words that others have dared not speak - that the Louisiana and New Orleans governments were disfunctional in the crisis. For an unspun, unfiltered account of this, watch the recorded testimony at C-SPAN.

Where is the truth? It would be cliche' to say that it falls somewhere between FEMA, Louisiana, and New Orleans. For example, Brown did not explain why the response to the Gulf coast in Alabama and Mississippi was similarly sluggish. But what is truly flabbergasting is the boycott by the Democrats of the hearings. Nancy Pelosi's accusations are ridiculous; these hearings are far too publicly visible to be a whitewash - the truth can be discovered in them. For heaven's sakes, if there is any legitimate value for congressional investigations, where partisanship has to be put aside, this inquiry would be the case.

They Neuter Wolverines, Don't They?

Michigan pulls defeat out of the jaws of victory in a 23-20 loss to Wisconsin. The kind of Michigan loss we've come to know and love over the last few years: no ball control in the last five minutes of a close game, leaving them in the hole with 24 seconds left. Ugh.


Conservative Theories Meet Political Realities.

David Brooks addressed the YAF on the history and future of the modern American conservative movement (podcast at C-SPAN's American Perspectives). His thesis: conservatives developed a tremendous structure to analyze and formulate ideas, but lack the political acumen to get them implemented as policy (ending Communism and beginning welfare reform may be exceptions). John Podhoretz, writing in the 10th anniversary issue of The Weekly Standard, recalled:

OH, LORD, the government shutdown of 1995. How I craved it. How utterly sure I was that it would reveal the naked political perfidy of the Clinton administration, which was resisting important entitlement reforms and spending restrictions that the nation surely wanted and certainly needed. And, like so many conservatives in Washington, how I had waited for the moment when, at last, there would be a true confrontation between the Big Spenders and the Rugged Individualists that would finally lift the veil of Beltway secrecy on the rottenness of the federal budget.

Oh, Lord, how wrong I was.

The political and social impact of the government shutdown was
completely the reverse of what I had expected. For it was not Bill Clinton and the Democrats who were blamed for the shuttering of the government, but Newt Gingrich and the Republicans. Americans wanted the federal government up and running, and they didn't like the image (admittedly fed to them by the liberal media) of a petulant GOP having a temper tantrum because it couldn't get its way...

Have conservatives learned the ropes of governance? The runaway spending by the government would suggest - No. Any progress on Social Security? No. Health Care? No. Education? Very little progress. Dismantling the culture of dependency? Not evident in the last month's events.

In The Candidate, Senator-elect McKay turns from the wild crowd of his victory party and asks his campaign manager: "now what?" It's time to learn how to transform ideas into realities.

March of the Comedians.

Kris of Reflections of a Libertarian Republican has a photoessay of today's fete' of the Hard Left in Washington, DC, co-sponsored by our "comrades" at ANSWER. Some of the attendees were Jesse Jackson, congresscritter Cynthia McKinney (D-Neptune), and Cindy Sheehan. And those were the moderate voices...

(LGF suggests the estimates of 100,000 may be dubious; photos of the event at Getty show marching crowds a tad thin and standing crowds possibly huddled to appear larger.)