Crazy Quote of the Day

"Now, no matter what you think of the mythical separation between church and state, it is not possible for there ever, in the United States of America, to be a separation between God and government because God is the source of every single right that government has a sacred duty to protect. I submit to you that not a single one of our unalienable rights will be safe in the hands of a president who believes that we evolved from slime and that we are the descendents of apes and baboons.”

~Bryan Fischer, Director of Issues Analysis for the American Family Association at the Value Voters Summit.

This is the same event that every Republican running for their party's nomination attended save one. So... religious rights? No problem, as long as that religion is Christianity. And no, Mormonism doesn't count. Human rights? Of course, as long as you're not gay. Science? What's that?

The more things change...

Old Testament Scholar Resigns After Evolution Endorsement

Next thing you know, theological scholars will be turning in their keys for believing in gravity.

Chris Matthews Challenges Mike Pence: Do You Believe In Evolution?

I caught this live and was pretty impressed with Matthews. Mike Pence gets painted into a corner on the questions of science and evolution. Enjoy the sweating and squirming as Pence refuses to admit he believes in evolution but admits to believing in creationism on national television.

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Highlights:

MATTHEWS: How can your party be credible on CO2 emissions and greenhouse gases when the loudest voices in your party don't believe in it?

PENCE: Well let me tell you. I think the science is very mixed on the subject of global warming, Chris.

MATTHEWS: Then why should your party believe you’re going to get serious about it, if you say the science is mixed?

BANG!

[...]

MATTHEWS: You want to educate the American people about science and its relevence today. Do you believe in evolution, sir?

PENCE: Uh, do I believe in evolution? I embrace the view that God created the Heavens and the Earth, the Seas and all that’s in them. The means that he used to do that, I can’t say, but I do believe in that fundamental truth.

MATTHEWS: Did you take biology in school? ...If your party wants to be credible on science, you gotta accept science. … See how you're hedging? This is why people don't trust Republicans... I don’t think your party is passionately committed to science, or fighting global warming, or dealing with the scientific facts we live with.

KAPOW!

Why Are Conservatives Stupid?

by Armadillo Joe

Or should I ask "why are stupid people so conservative"?

Because my formulation of the GOP membership as "The Stupid, The Deluded and The Corrupt" remains intact and reinforced every single day. In today's edition, the educational braintrust in the Great State (and future Republic) of Texas directing the book-learnin' of the supple young minds in their care have concluded that too much "fact" and not enough "fiction" can be damaging to young minds with regards to, um, science and hard data. Instead of being able to dismiss these drooling Jebus-freaks as yet another bunch of banjo-pickin' toothless-goobers determined to keep themselves and their offspring mired in the intellectual and sociological poverty of 13th Century thinking -- and cheering on their defeat after defeat in court rooms across the land from the Scopes Monkey Trial in 1925 to the Kitzmiller v. Dover decision in Pennsylvania in 2005 to their electoral defeat in Kansas a year later -- we actually have to pay attention to this particular group of self-righteous religious kooks because when it comes to high school textbooks in America, Texas is the 800-lb gorilla. Texas buys so many textbooks that textbook publishers generally tailor their entire line of books to Texas state standards, forcing the other 49 to comply simply by narrowing the field of alternatives.

It's scary. From Salon.com:

Textbook publishers demonstrated as recently as last year that they're not immune to pressures to pander to one of their biggest markets. In 2002, in an effort to appease Texas, references to the Ice Age as occurring "millions of years ago" in a history textbook were changed to read "in the distant past" so it wouldn't conflict with literal interpretations of the Bible. In 2001, the board rejected an environmental science book as "anti-free enterprise" and "anti-Christian" for its coverage of global warming.

Just because Barack Obama is our president doesn't mean these people have been vanquished. Not by a long shot. If "Scopes" (and "Inherit the Wind") didn't shame them into forever hiding under a rock (or, I dunno, becoming smart), they know no shame and nothing will ever drive them into permanent hiding. They must be fought at every turn as the mindless, unthinking and (in this specific case) brain-eating zombies they are.

Their relationship with the truth of the modern world is best described by this quote from The Terminator:

"It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead."

So, to answer the question posed in the title of this here post: because they choose to be. And they will not rest until they force everyone else to join them in the intellectual sewer.

God help the children of Texas.

Can We Just Give Texas Back To Mexico?

Don McLeroy, chairman of the State Board of Education and point man in the fight over Texas' science curriculum... is convinced that evolution taught uncritically undermines faith, [and] knows that it will take a different kind of argument to win the debate about what should be taught in science classes in Texas public schools.

...[The avowed creationist] is among board members who want the standards to require a more critical approach to the teaching of evolution. It's a theory that McLeroy, 62, believes lacks the empirical data required to be taught without discussion of its particular insufficiencies.

I suggest to Mr. McLeroy that as soon as he collects an equal amount of "empirical data" for creationism or intelligent design (or whatever you're calling it this week) as has been collected for evolution, then he can make his case.

(H/T FDL)

FIELD TRIP!

I've been thinking about what I might do when I go to Ohio to visit my future in-laws. We've actually got some baseball tickets to watch the Mets play the Reds and now the calendar is full. It's too bad I didn't hear about the new museum that opened up in Petersburg, Kentucky or I would have loved to go. It's only 20 miles south of Cincinnati.

But this isn't your regular, run-of-the-mill museum. You know the kind I'm talking about. They're usually pretty boring, with old stuff encased in hermetically sealed glass. You see one fossil, you've seen them all. But not this museum. This is a brand new $27 million CREATION MUSEUM! No artifacts here!

That's right! Forget about what you may have learned in school. All that schoolin' ain't gonna learn you nuthin'! This is the real deal! A museum that tells the Bible's version of Earth's history - that the planet was created in a single week just a few thousand years ago.

"The guests were very happy with the museum experience," [co-founder Mark] Looy said. "Of course, we had some naysayers come through and engage us in conversation, and that's fine - we want them."

One of the naysayers was Lawrence Krauss, a physicist visiting from Cleveland, who rated the museum a 4 out a 5 for technology, but a negative 5 out of 5 for content.
My favorite is this: Some exhibits show dinosaurs aboard Noah's Ark and assert that all animals were vegetarians until Adam committed the first sin in the Garden of Eden.

Hmm... I'm confused. Didn't Noah come after Adam? If that's the case, that means that at least some of the animals were now carnivores... Oh well. I guess Noah had extra livestock to feed the dinosaurs. "Okay T-Rex, you can eat anything you can catch, just make sure you leave me a male and a female of each."

Remember, everyone is welcome, but a word of advice to the naysayers: don't drink anything they offer you. Also, make sure the bottled water in the vending machines is sealed.

Grand Canyon Apparently Not As Old As We Thought

Every time I think I can't possibly get any angrier at these idiots running the show, I come across something like this:

Grand Canyon National Park is not permitted to give an official estimate of the geologic age of its principal feature, due to pressure from Bush administration appointees. Despite promising a prompt review of its approval for a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah's flood rather than by geologic forces, more than three years later no review has ever been done and the book remains on sale at the park, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

"In order to avoid offending religious fundamentalists, our National Park Service is under orders to suspend its belief in geology," stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. "It is disconcerting that the official position of a national park as to the geologic age of the Grand Canyon is ‘no comment.'"

Yes, go ahead and read it again, I'll wait. I had to read it twice myself to actually fathom that something this ludicrous is happening within the borders of the US. And the topper is that for the last three years, the only book approved to be sold in the park bookstore is "Grand Canyon: A Different View". I'll wait again while you pick your jaw up off the floor.

Have I mentioned how much I hate these people?

Read the rest of the article.