Senator Stephen Wise? Senator IDIOT, really.

From the Jacksonville News:
Wise to introduce bill on intelligent design

Here's the thing: there is only one scientific theory on how we ended up with all the different kinds of animals on the planet. That's it, only one. Not one person in the last 140 years has come up with a scientific theory that has passed all the tests required of a scientific theory.

You've got the theory of evolution, and that's it for science. Every other explanation offered on the subject is based on articles of faith, and not the rigors of scientific study. And that includes "Intelligent Design," a bald-faced blatant re-tread of "creationism," which is basically a statement that the Christian Bible's Book of Genesis is the only place we need to look for evidence.

The Theory of Evolution is tested - and proven - every single day; it is the foundation of genetics research; it is a keystone of pharmaceutical development. It explains the failure of anti-biotics, and predicts how the flu virus changes every year. It guides research into birth defects, and our understanding of the human immune system.

And yet, we still have superstitious dingbat like Senator Stephen Wise, who is introducing a bill that will force teachers to hold a discussion of religious convictions if they are teaching actual science.

Wise explains his twisted logic thus:

"If you're going to teach evolution, then you have to teach the other side so you can have critical thinking."

The problem is that there isn't "another side." It's like demanding that teachers discuss the alternatives to "2 plus 2 equals 4." There isn't one. Just as there isn't an "alternative" theory to the Theory of Evolution. There's only the one valid scientific theory, and a lot of religious beliefs.

“Someplace along the line you’ve got to be able to make a value judgment of what it is you think is the appropriate thing.”

Religious beliefs are fine; a lot of people have them. Native Americans, for instance, know that the world was created on the back of a giant turtle, floating in the ocean. The Great Spirit need a place to build The World, and the great turtle volunteered to carry it.

They also have a Creation story, one that explains how Man came to exist: and explains a lot more than Genesis ever did. It seems that when the Great Spirit created Man out of clay, He was too impatient to see how Man would turn out, and took the figure out of the kiln too soon. The first Man was arrogant and hateful and ran away to settle in Europe. The Great Spirit tried again, and this time He left Man in the kiln too long, and he burned. The black Man didn't like the land the Great Spirit provided, so he ran away to Africa. Finally, the Great Spirit tried again, and this time He got it just right, and the result was the perfectly bronze-red skin of the Native American.

So if the Sioux are correct, Senator Wise is only half-baked, and that's why he thinks it's a good idea to shove Sunday-school into our serious discussions of Science.

But Senator Wise isn't an idiot because he wants to force public schools to teach Christian doctrine; that only demonstrates that he's very poorly educated. He's an idiot because a Federal Court has already ruled that a law requiring inclusion of "Intelligent Design" is a violation of the Constitution.

Senator Wise is introducing a practice that has already been tested in the courts, and lost. It lost in a big way. And if Senator Wise somehow manages to bring this very bad proposition into law, it will be challenged, and taken to court, and the State will lose.

And you and I get to pay for it. On top of all the financial stimulus packages that will cost us billions but at least have the potential to do some good, Senator Wise is introducing a stupid law that will cost us millions of dollars to pay for a defense and we already know that the law is in violation of the US Constitution!

Florida Citizens for Science made this observation, and it's a good one:

You’re wrong again, Sen. Wise. It’s not about making value judgments. It’s about teaching science, and the Pennsylvania case determined without a doubt that intelligent design is devoid of any real science.

Contact your representatives and senators. Remind them that Intelligent Design isn't science, and make them aware that this kind of law has already been ruled un-Constitutional in Federal Court. We can't afford a bone-headed law like the one Senator Wise has proposed.

Caylee's Defense Team Offers Lame Defense

Apparently, Casey Anthony's attorneys went to the Perry Mason school of law; they watch too much television. That's the only way I can explain their completely ludicrous comparison of Casey Williams to a fictional TV character.

That's right, her lawyers claim that Casey Anthony is a real-life Richard Kimble, the lead character in the 1960's TV show The Fugitive. Harrison Ford reprised the role in the film of the same name.

First, let's look at the fictional case of Dr. Richard Kimble:

Kimble and his wife have an argument, and he leaves to cool down, almost running down a one-armed man. Hours later, he comes home to find his house wide open and his wife murdered. The police show up and find him holding his dead wife, and he's arrested for the murder. They find no evidence of the One-Armed Man, and it's doubtful they even looked very hard, given the witnesses who saw Kimble and his wife argue on several occasions.

He's convicted of her murder, but an accident sets him free. Does he run off and start a new life, free of the ol' ball and chain? No, he spends all his time trying to find his wife's true killer.

So now let's look at what we know of Casey Anthony's case:

Her daughter, Caylee, seems to have dropped out of sight around June 10, 2008. Casey's parents asked their daughter about it, and she replied that Caylee was with a friend. It was several weeks later, in July, before she finally claimed that a baby sitter had absconded with Caylee back in June, and only then were the police were informed.

Casey claims she was doing her own investigation during that time. But not one person she was with ever heard her claim the child was missing. Not her new boyfriend, with whom she stayed for several weeks after Caylee seems to have disappeared. Not her best friend, with whom she was going to move in with, and from whom she stole several hundred dollars.

Over a month after her daugher disappeared, she led the police to an apartment she claimed had belonged to her daughter's nanny: not only did no one by that name live at that apartment, no one had lived in that apartment at all for 4 months. She stated that she had tried to call the babysitter, but there was no answer. When asked, she couldn't supply the phone number to the police; she didn't know it. She did point out a building that she said her 20-something nanny had lived in before: it turned out to be a "seniors only" facility.

She told police that she had met the nanny at work; Universal Studios. The nanny also sat for a co-worker, Jeff Hopkins. Her other co-worker Juliette Lewis would remember. But the police discovered that Casey had been fired two years previously, and that the other two had never worked there, if they even existed.

Fictional Kimball supplied information to the police before his trial, the police weren't able to go anywhere with it.

Real-life Casey supplied information to the police, and it's all been revealed to be flat-out lies.

No, Casey Anthony's case is nothing like The Fugitive's.

Unclear On the Concept: The G.A.O.

Miami Herald: Broadcasts to Cuba Questioned.

Generally, I approve of the GAO (General Accounting Office). Their mission is laudable: to keep track of our government's expenditures and make sure that our money is being spent in a manner beneficial to the taxpayer. They find and eliminate waste.

Currently, they're reviewing Radio and TV Martí, the government funded news source being directed at Cuba. Why? In theory, we're using facts to undermine Castro's propaganda machine, but in practice we end up simply countering their lies and distortions with our own lies and distortions

Although the GAO report states that programming has improved and praised its management, it said broadcasts are often biased and fail to adhere to journalistic standards.

And if this was an article about journalistic integrity, I wouldn't need to write this.

No, it's the other part of the GAO report that I find questionable:

Last year, less than 1 percent of people surveyed said they had listened to Radio Martí in the past week, said the study by the Government Accountability Office, the investigating arm of Congress.

And how, you might wonder, was this survey conducted? After all, Cuba is a strict dictatorship, run by a tyrant who doesn't approve of the United States. The GAO can't hardly send over a team of pollsters to knock on doors in Havana. Nielsen has a zero presence over there.

So how did the GAO determine if anyone listens to Radio Martí? They called up 1200 people who were approved by the government of Cuba to receive telephone service, and asked these government approved people over the government-monitored telephone lines if these select Cuban citizens broke Cuban law by listening to propganda issued by Cuba's declared Enemy Number One.

Of course, you could also ask the Cubans who've just left, and yes, the GAO did that, too:

But the same report said nearly half of new Cuban arrivals to the United States said they had listened to the broadcasts in the past six months.

So just to be clear: half the people who got out from under Castro's oppression report that they had listened to Radio Martí, versus 1% of the 1200 state-approved Cuban citizens. (I suspect that the 1% were members of the Secret Police, hoping to setup some kind of sting operation).

That's not to say that Radio and TV Martí isn't wasting millions of dollars; it absolutely is. After all, there really aren't that many TVs in Cuba, and TV signals are much easier to disrupt. And while even a thirty year old transistor radio has an earplug, anyone peeking in your window can see what's playing on your TV. Stupid to be caught watching US propaganda.

And even if you decide that broadcasting TV is worth it, compare the costs to operations at WLRN, which also runs both a radio and a TV station.

But that's the subject for another post at another time; I'm just pointing out that doing a phone survey over a heavily wire-tapped line that serves only citizens approved by the state is unlikely to reveal much about Radio and TV Martí patronage.