Obviously vice-presidential material…in America

I keep telling people there is a deep dangerous strain of insanity running through this country, and here’s a perfect example: Bobby Jindal.

We’ve discovered that in an essay Jindal wrote in 1994 for the New Oxford Review, a serious right-wing Catholic journal, Jindal narrated a bizarre story of a personal encounter with a demon, in which he participated in an exorcism with a group of college friends. And not only did they cast out the supernatural spirit that had possessed his friend, Jindal wrote that he believes that their ritual may well have cured her cancer.

Reading the article leaves no doubt that Jindal — who graduated from Brown University in 1991, was a Rhodes Scholar, and had been accepted at Yale Law School and Harvard Medical School when he wrote the essay — was completely serious about the encounter. He even said the experience “reaffirmed” his faith.

Jindal is considered a serious contender for the vice presidential nomination…or at least, he’s one of the people the media thinks will appeal to a broad swathe of the country, boosting John McCain’s presidential aspirations. He’s also the governor of Louisiana. How could you people down there elect this goony bird?

Pointless poll or serious survey?

I’m going to give you a choice today.

  • If you’ve only got a moment and want to click a button and be done with something fairly trivial, vote on whether to impeach Bush.

  • For a change, if you’ve got a half hour or so and would like to contribute data to serious research, take Elisabeth Cornwell’s research survey. I think we could add a large dollop of godless attitudes to her work.

(Hmmm…I should do a poll on who would rather crash a poll vs. take a serious survey!)

Good on you, Oklahoma!

Under the malign influence of the wicked and silly Sally Kern, some Oklahomans were trying to pass an awful religious viewpoints anti-discrimination act, which would have simply given further privileges to majority religious views in the state.

Fortunately, Governor Brad Henry has vetoed the legislation, saying

Under current state and federal law, Oklahoma public school students are already allowed to express their faith through voluntary prayer and other activities. While well intended, this legislation is vaguely written and may trigger a number of unintended consequences that actually impede rather than enhance such expression. For example, under this legislation, schools could be forced to provide equal time to fringe organizations that masquerade as religions and advocate behaviors, such as drug use or hate speech, that are dangerous or offensive to students and the general public. Additionally, the bill would presumably require school officials to determine what constitutes legitimate religious expression, subjecting them to an explosion of costly and protracted litigation that would have to be defended at taxpayers expense.

It’s one small step back from the brink of theocratic inanity, hooray!

Support El Tinklenberg!

Michele Bachmann is the Minnesota representative who embarrasses us all. She is, of course, a Republican, and one of the dumber ones — she’s our anti-gay, anti-science, anti-American, far-right-wing kook, and we need to get her out of office … she’s up for re-election this year.

My oldest son Alaric is an activist and organizer for the Democrat-Farmer-Labor party here in Minnesota, and he’s campaigning for the sensible opposition, El Tinklenberg. He’s asked me to promote an event going on TONIGHT, a fundraiser and rally for Tinklenberg in St Cloud. If you’re somewhere in the region, stop by. If maybe you aren’t a Minnesotan, but you’d like to help out financially (really — Bachmann is flaming insane, and the entire country ought to be interested in ousting her), call 320 217 5394 and chip in a few bucks (you might also find my boy on the other end of the phone line. Tell him hello from me.)

Here are the details on the big event.

Please Help Us
DEFEAT
Michele Bachmann

Cindy Harner, Rich Kelly
and
Rick Miller

Invite You to Come, Meet and Support

El Tinklenberg
Candidate for Congress in the 6th

Thursday, June 5
7:00 – 9:00 PM

Home of Rich Kelly:
524 7th Avenue South, St. Cloud
Co-hosts include:
Senator Tarryl Clark
Representative Larry Haws
Representative Larry Hosch
Candidate Joanne Dorsher
Candidate Rob Jacobs

Contribute What You Can!

ALL ARE WELCOME!

RSVP to Rick Miller 320-293-3935 rick@tinklenberg08.com

Work fast. I just got this notice myself, since my connection to the internet is only intermittent while I’m out of town.

Aetogate

Sometimes, the politics of science can get ugly, and they don’t get much uglier than this ghastly mess going on among paleontologists. I’ve read a couple of accounts of this story so far, and it sounds to this outsider like a few senior scientists riding roughshod over their junior colleagues and students and appropriating as their own the interpretations and details of others’ explanations. There seem to be shenanigans all over the place, and it seems to be in the interests of all parties involved to resolve the issues.

The sensible thing to do would be to have an impartial review of both sides of the story by neutral but knowledgeable observers — as a non-paleontologist, someone like me would certainly defer to the judgment of such a panel. Well, the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science put together a review, supposedly, and did so in such a bumbling, biased, and stupid way that although they decided there was no wrongdoing, I’m persuaded otherwise. Why else make such an effort to assemble a kangaroo court?

Spencer Lucas and his colleagues at the NMMNHS were accused of using the work of William Parker, Jerzy Dzik, and Jeff Martz without proper attribution. To judge this accusation, the NMMNHS put together a committee of external experts that consisted of people who had published with Lucas, one of whom declared his summary judgment before the hearings were held.

Unbelievable.

They’re accused of a serious impropriety, so they blatantly fix the review, packing the jury and even declaring innocence before the trial? That’s compounding a major ethical lapse on top of an accusation of an ethical lapse, and only makes the problem worse. What were they thinking?

Birth pangs of a police state

Minneapolis is hosting the Republican National Convention this summer, and that means we’re seeing an uptick in sleaze (you might want to avoid public restrooms when these guys are in town). The most bizarre part of it all is that the FBI is looking for villains in all the wrong places.

What they were looking for, Carroll says, was an informant–someone to show up at “vegan potlucks” throughout the Twin Cities and rub shoulders with RNC protestors, schmoozing his way into their inner circles, then reporting back to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, a partnership between multiple federal agencies and state and local law enforcement. The effort’s primary mission, according to the Minneapolis division’s website, is to “investigate terrorist acts carried out by groups or organizations which fall within the definition of terrorist groups as set forth in the current United States Attorney General Guidelines.”

Vegan potlucks now fall within the definition of a terrorist cell, as defined by the US Attorney General? What are they going to do, threaten a mass assault by kumbaya-singing hordes in birkenstocks armed with lumps of tofu?

This is not about protecting citizens. It’s about silencing the expression of dissent, no matter how mild.

Tennessee passes a “Bible in Schools” act

While I think a non-sectarian comparative religion course would be a fine idea for our public schools, I don’t trust these bozos at all. Tennessee legislators want to stuff a bible studies class into the curriculum.

“Our government school teachers cannot constitutionally preach the Bible, but they can teach the Bible,” Herron said.

“I want students to study the greatest and most popular book in history. I want young people to understand how the Bible has enormously impacted literature, art, music, culture, history and politics. A Bible course will help students understand our culture and our highest and best values.”

A Bible class is not non-sectarian. A course that begins with the premise that the Bible is the greatest book in history is not unbiased. This is a completely phony bill that is trying to smuggle religious instruction into the public school system.

As usual, I expect the politicians to be completely oblivious to their religious agenda.

Minnesota does the right thing

California may inspire a whole series of legislative actions. Minnesota has introduced a bill similar to California’s.

The Marriage and Family Protection Act was introduced by Rep. Phyllis Kahn, DFL-Minneapolis, and Sen. John Marty, DFL-Roseville, on Friday. The bill would make marriage a gender-neutral proposition in Minnesota, allowing same-sex couples to marry. It would also protect religious institutions that have moral objections to same-sex marriage from being compelled to perform such ceremonies.

I love the title of the bill — that will have the wingnuts chewing their tongues in a frenzy.