The Progressive Puppy

Young Earth Creationist Don McLeroy Loses His Bully Pulpit

Like most evangelical Christians, Don McLeroy believes that the planet is only 6,000 years old.  Back in 2007, Texas Governor Rick Perry appointed him to head the state board of edukasHun. (That same board - whose members are attorneys, homemakers and real estate agents - recently put the age of the universe to a vote.) 

McLeroy is a small-town dentist and young earth creationist.  He regards every story in the Bible as indisputable fact.  During his two-year stint at TSBOE, he undermined science education by urging school districts to embrace Intelligent Design Theory, which the scientific community categorically rejects.  As an educational leader, McLeroy has been a disaster of Biblical proportions, working tirelessly to restrict classroom discussions on evolution and approving health textbooks that shun age-appropriate sex ed and preach his beloved "abstinence-only" mantra.  (One wonders how many teens contracted STDs because information was withheld from them under McLeroy's tenure.)  

Fortunately for Texas, McLeroy will in the future be spending more time pulling wisdom teeth and less time extracting scientific knowledge from high school curricula.  Eugenie Scott writes on the National Center for Science Education:  The Texas Senate voted not to confirm Don McLeroy in his post as chair of the Texas state board of education on May 28, 2009. Although the vote to confirm him was 19-11, a two-thirds approval was required...  The Senate seldom rejects gubernatorial appointments. The Senate's blocking of McLeroy will force Gov. Rick Perry to appoint a new board leader...  A major concern of the senators voting against McLeroy's confirmation was his attempts to undermine the treatment of evolution in the state science standards. Eliot Shapleigh (D-District 29), for example, questioned his endorsement of a book that describes parents who want their kids to learn about evolution as "monsters," scientists as "atheists," and clergy who see no conflict between science and faith as "morons."

Of course anyone who expects Governor Perry to now appoint a reasonably sane person to oversee TSBOE is going to be disappointed.  Perry, a Republican and no friend to science education, will snag another self-righteous fundie to fill that position.  And we will be right back where we started.

Rowdy's Sunday Roundup

Over at Crooks and Liars, Jon Perr scolds the NY Times and McClatchy for regurgitating right-wing talking points about Judge Sonia Sotomayor's "temperament."  (Glenn Greenwald applies flea powder.)

Newt Gingrich, who can't pass a microphone these days withour bashing Sotomayor, is calling Obama's nominee "un-American."  TPM's Eric Kleefeld takes that dog to the park.

Nevada legislators have overridden Governor Jim Gibbons' veto of the state's new domestic partnership bill.  Lurleen at Pam's House Blend has reactions from the LGBT community. 

Steve Benen thinks most Americans are unlikely to make a distinction between Republican activists and Republican officials.  (There's a distinction? They all sound like Limbaugh to me.)

And speaking of Rush...  A GOP election official that bought votes with OxyContin has changed his plea from not guilty to guilty.  Brad Friedman writes:  Bishop's re-arraignment is thought likely to be an indication that he has decided to cooperate with federal prosecutors. That could be bad news for the other 7 charged in the scheme, 6 of whom were Board of Elections officials including a Circuit Court Judge, the County Clerk, a School Superintendent, and the county's Democratic election commissioner.  (Extensive coverage at BradBlog.)

Respectful Insolence criticizes Oprah Winfrey for promoting "pseudoscience, quackery, and anti-vaccine madness" on her popular TV show.  (Guests who warn parents not to vaccinate their children are particularly irksome.)

Solly Mack at the Democratic Underground explains that there are two separate sets of detainee torture photos - one with 44 pics, the other containing over 2,000 - and he examines their current status.  Scott Horton says that the images are even more sexually explicit than originally reported.  The White House insists that the photos referred to by Major General Antonio Taguba in the UK Telegraph are not the ones Obama doesn't want released.  In an attempt to deflect attention from the content of the photos, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs unwisely trashes the British print media.  (For some reason this story reminds me of Russian nesting dolls.)

And speaking of non-transparency... The Obama administration is refusing to release documents in a warrantless wiretapping case, even though a federal judge is threatening the government with sanctions.  Jim Abrams chews on that bone.  Also in Bizarro World, the White House is now praising prisoner conditions at Guantanamo Bay.  Ali Frick at Think Progress delivers the goods.

On the Washington Post, Alec MacGillis argues that the Democrats' plan for health care reform will help red states at the expense of blue states.  (Dense, but worth a look.)

Priscilla at News Hounds wonders if Fox Nation is looking to start a race war.  (I predict the "fair and balanced" network will eventually have to move its headquarters to an underground bunker.)

Unbelievably - and shamefully - the United States, Canada, and the European Union is working to kill a UN treaty that would protect blind people's access to reading material.  Cory Doctorow has the scoop on BoingBoing.  (Pssst.  It's all about the greed of "intellectual property" owners.)

Wags of the Week - Riki Lindhome and Kate Micucci

Riki "Garfunkel" Lindhome and Kate "Oates" Micucci respond to Pat Robertson's bizarre assertion that same-sex marriage and hate crimes legislation will lead to sex with ducks.  Talented gals, clever song, great video:

One Stuffed Squirrel

This afternoon, on the deck...

 

Reckless police driving leads to tragedy - and unjust charges

In Clark County, Nevada, a police cruiser was going 109-mph in a 45-mph zone, responding to a domestic violence call.  Officer James Manor's patrol lights and sirens were turned OFF.  He slammed into a truck, seriously injuring the driver and killing himself.  Manor wasn't wearing a seat belt at the time of the accident.  From the Review-Journal:  The speed was the equivalent of traveling the length of a football field in about two seconds. It gave Manor little time to avoid hitting Calvin Darling's truck May 7.  At the time of impact, after braking and trying to steer out of the way, Manor was still driving 90 mph... The crash, which resulted in the first death of an on-duty Metropolitan Police Department officer since Henry Prendes was killed in 2006, shook up the department and the community.

When police arrived at the scene they made Calvin Darling, 45, take a field sobriety test.  (Touch your nose, walk a straight line, stand on one leg.)  They decided that he was inebriated and arrested him for driving under the influence and failing to yield to an emergency vehicle.  The police were understandably upset that a fellow officer had been killed - and they were anxious to pin this tragedy on something other than Manor's own reckless driving.

The officers originally insisted that Manor's lights and sirens were turned ON - until witnesses came forward to dispute that claim.  Darling was eventually given a blood test at the station house, which showed that the injured man had a blood-alcohol level of 0.035, far below the legal limit of 0.08.  He. Wasn't. Drunk.  Nevertheless, Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie is determined to make the DUI stick.  Gillespie maintains that Darling will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Ed Brayton writes:  A DUI field test means absolutely nothing if someone takes a blood test and it shows they were nowhere near the legal limit.  If he tested at .035 an hour later, there's no way he was legally drunk when the accident took place. The police need to drop all charges and hope to hell this guy doesn't sue the department. 

Sounds like they're looking for a scapegoat.  Rather than using county revenue to prosecute Darling, who is only guilty of being at the wrong place at the wrong time, the sheriff's department should spend its money teaching officers to drive more responsibly.  (Pictured: Sheriff Doug Gillespie.)

Bush's Apocalyptic Vision Led Him To Invade Iraq

A new story is emerging so fantastic and disturbing that at first I couldn't wrap my head around it.  But then everything made sense.  It explains why former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld thought he could motivate George W. Bush by embellishing top-secret documents with quotations from the Bible.  It explains Bush's decision to lie about weapons of mass destruction.  It explains why Bush was willing to torture people into falsely admitting that Saddam Hussein had ties to al-Qaeda.  It explains why Bush was prepared to sacrifice the lives of our soldiers in an ill-advised and unnecessary war.  

No one disputes the fact that Dubya is a religious conservative of the evangelical persuasion.  But who would have imagined that Bush's Apocalyptic beliefs might compel him to invade Iraq? 

Back in 2003, while drumming up support for the war with America's European allies, Bush tried to convince French President Jacques Chirac that Iraq had to be invaded because of a prophesy from the Book of Revelations.  He told Chirac:  "This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people's enemies before a New Age begins."

Clive Hamilton on Alternet:  The story of the conversation emerged only because the Elyse Palace, baffled by Bush's words, sought advice from Thomas Romer, a professor of theology at the University of Lausanne.  Four years later, Romer gave an account in the September 2007 issue of the university's review, Allez savoir. The article apparently went unnoticed, although it was referred to in a French newspaper.  The story has now been confirmed by Chirac himself in a new book, published in France in March, by journalist Jean Claude Maurice.  Chirac is said to have been stupefied and disturbed by Bush's invocation of Biblical prophesy to justify the war in Iraq and "wondered how someone could be so superficial and fanatical in their beliefs."

These are the verses that inspired Bush 43 to nudge humanity toward the End Times (Rev, 20:7-9):  "And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them."  From Wiki:  Gog and Magog are identified as the nations in the four corners of the earth, and their attack is represented as an eschatological crisis after the Millennium, to be vanquished by divine intervention.

Hamilton concludes:  There can be little doubt now that President Bush's reason for launching the war in Iraq was, for him, fundamentally religious. He was driven by his belief that the attack on Saddam's Iraq was the fulfillment of a Biblical prophesy in which he had been chosen to serve as the instrument of the Lord.  Many thousands of Americans and Iraqis have died in the campaign to defeat Gog and Magog.  That the US President saw himself as the vehicle of God whose duty was to prevent the Apocalypse can only inflame suspicions across the Middle East that the United States is on a crusade against Islam.

As mothers, fathers, wives, husbands, and children continue to the mourn the loss of loved ones who were killed in Iraq, Bush enjoys a happy life in Dallas, Texas, confident in his status as God's chosen messenger, oblivious to the suffering he wrought, still seeking affirmation from the Bible.

Only yesterday Dubya reentered the public sphere to defend his administration's use of torture.  If America ever votes another fundie politician into the nation's highest office, we will get what we deserve.