The Politics Thread - Read the First Post

[emma peel]

darkmagicwillow, you beat me to the punch about Black Box Voting. However, there is an fascinating link from there to

www.votergate.tv/, which has a 30 minute documentary showing the "innacuracies" of the electonic, paperless voting machines.

I hope they can someday prove that the fix was on to rob Kerry of the 2004 Presidential election.

[Gatito Grande]

Quote:

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Given that the Christian right is distorting and perverting Jesus' message why don't more church leaders speak up.

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Hello!!! Screaming my lungs out over here! (not that I think you're dissing me, sam. But I do keep addressing this issue constantly . . . and not just in friendly places like the K)



All the bishops of my church (Episocopal---and that's what Gene Robinson is, an Episcopal bishop: proper form of address is "Right Reverend") in my State of Michigan came out publicly against anti-gay-marriage Prop. 2. Very happy about that (despite, well, losing ).



Miller's theories sound a lot like George Lakoff's (which I cite above). It's sort of Jungian: lashing out against one's own "Shadow Self," by projecting it outward ("anywhere other than me").



GG Please consider the following . . . invitation: try attending a pro-gay religious community (such as---or found within---the Episcopal Church, or the MCC, or the Unitarian-Universalists, or United Church of Christ, or Reform Jews, and a few others) EVEN IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE. Most of these communities will welcome someone who affirms their mission, even if w/o their theology. And by doing so, you'll be in a position to take back MORAL VALUES from the 'phobic pseudo-Christians (or Jews) Out

Edited by: Gatito Grande at: 11/6/04 10:27 am

[sam7777]

GG: I'm not talking about the rank and file christians like you but about church leaders. I hope more good christians like you get out there to show that the message of Jesus is not one of hate and intolerance but we also need the big guns that can get on the news.



There are many real christians out there:

Words of Support from Religious Leaders



Why don't we here about them in the news? The news coverage that I see on the Episcopalians for example focuses on the schism of the church and the conservative members who are leaving rather than their affirming messages of tolerance.



If the true Christian message doesn't get out there, Christians will continue to be thought of as intolerant despite the many pro-gay and more moderate religious communities out there.



Dems are taking the wrong lesson from 2004 if they think that they have to oppose gay marriage to win on values.

Edited by: sam7777  at: 11/6/04 3:33 pm

[darkmagicwillow]

I thought some might find the Purple States Map an informative counteractive to the overly simplistic Red/Blue Map.

--

"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit." -- "Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."

[sam7777]

I was a long time dem until I switched parties in 1996 due to disgust over Clinton and the dems shifting right to pass shit like the Defense of Marriage act, Welfare nonReform and NAFTA. However, they may finally be getting a clue:

Democrats Skeptical of Bush Offer

Quote:

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The choice facing Democrats -- accommodation or defiance -- is one facing any party that loses the White House, but it is especially acute this year. Even some legislators and strategists who have counseled pragmatic compromise over partisanship in the past say they see little reason to treat Bush's 51 percent victory as a mandate, or wipe clean the slate of past grievances. Different versions of this debate, Democrats said, will emerge in several near-term decisions, including the choice of who is to replace Democratic National Committee Chairman Terence R. McAuliffe.

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One strategy that is being bandied about is to convince moderate Republicans to switch parties or become independents (re: Sen. Jim Jeffords, I-Vt.) that vote with the dems. This is not as farfetched as you would think:

Republican gains in Congress could hurt New England

Quote:

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And in at least one case, the moderates may lose one of their own to the other side. Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I. _ is considering casting off his GOP robes to become a Democrat.

...

Moderate Republicans like Chafee and Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine have often banded together with Democrats in the Senate on issues of particular importance to New England. And they have provided critical votes to block a variety of GOP initiatives including drilling for oil in Alaska´s Arctic Refuge, the Bush energy bill, and air pollution matters.



"This will be a test of whether or not Republican moderates is now an oxymoron," said Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass. "It places a greater burden on moderate Republicans, if they don´t step up bad things will happen.



"It will be up to the moderates to band together with Democrats to block the most radical parts of the Bush agenda," Markey said.

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Moderate Republicans like Gay Republicans are caught between a rock and a hard place. If they vote too conservatively, they face ostracism from their own constituents and challenges from dems. If too liberal, their own party will try to get rid of them ala Arlen Spector. Like Gay Republicans, they are despised by their own party but seen as traitors for being republicans by the other side. In the Senate, the dems must be prepared to obstruct bush's right wing plans by using fillibusters to force them to fins 60 votes. They may fear being called obstructionists but they should fear more the loss of liberal independents like me who will never vote dem again until they show they will oppse the republican agenda. If the right wing will be passing their agenda and foisting right wing judges with the dems help then it makes no difference if the republicans stay in charge. Dems must take a page from the republicans and ostracize dems that do not stand with the party by denying them help for reelection and challenging them in the primaries. Better to havea republican than dem scum like Zell Miller who are republicans in all but name. Moderate republicans who will not cooperate with the dems must be vigorously challenged in blue states and voted out of office for dems that can be relied on.



I say again if the dems do not take a stand against the bushies and roll over like mutts so the republicans can lick their balls, they have lost my support and I hope that of all progressives. If we must wait generations for change, I would rather vote Green (non Nader) and build up a third party to the 15% needed to participate in debates. It's put up or shut up time for the dems. They voted for Bush's illegal and immoral war which made it impossible for them to capitalize on it's inevitable failure in the election. This term they cannot afford to vote for Bush's agenda or they will be partners in his crimes and unable to run effectively against his policies.



Dems must obstruct obstruct obstruct. I plan to wirte to my senators and congress members to assure them that if they pass the republican agenda, they will never see my vote again. I hope others who feel like me do the same. We can make a difference!

_____________________

I still see dead lesbian cliches

Edited by: sam7777  at: 11/7/04 2:41 am

[darkmagicwillow]

You can find a wide selection of side-by-side area and population cartograms at http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/ like the following one which shows red and blue counties, but sizes them by population:















Of course, that still overemphasizes the red areas, since many red areas are almost 50/50 divided, while many blue areas are almost 100% Democratic, so here's the purple version of that map:















While not map related, you might find this article over at TomPaine.com interesting: Kerry Won in Ohio and New Mexico.

--

"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit." -- "Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."

Edited by: darkmagicwillow at: 11/7/04 4:28 am

[justin]

The problem with that article is that Tom Paine seems to be basing his conclusions on the premise that the exit polls were accurate. However this wouldn't be the first time that exit polls were wrong. In the 1992 general election in the UK, exit polls indicated the result would either be a hung parliament, or a win by the Labour party. The actual result was the Conservatives won.

--

Homer Simpson: When will people learn, democracy just doesn't work.

[skittles]

Quote:

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...the result would either be a hung parliament ....

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the visual that resulted from that little phrase... oh, yes.. but instead of the British terms for assorted politicians... hung congress, hung representatives, hung cabinet... and the pièce de résistance: hung president



and yes, I do understand the 'true' meaning... we have hung juries over here and that's the term most commonly heard... but the visual that popped into my head as I read justin's post... oh, yes.... glorious indead.



but if 'the shrub' dies, we would get 'the dick' and that would probably be worse, unless he abdicates....



dreaming can be such fun...

skittles

Prepare the child for the path, not the path for the child.

under construction (looking for another quote).

[darkmagicwillow]

While exit polls aren't completely precise, there are a number of reports that show that exit polls were much more accurate in counties that did not use electronic voting than in ones that did, which is suspicious, given the insecurity of e-voting software and the number of problems we've already seen from e-voting for this election, such as a Franklin County precint in Ohio having 4,258 Bush votes when only 638 people voted:

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) _ An error with an electronic voting system gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes in suburban Columbus, elections officials said. Franklin County’s unofficial results had Bush receiving 4,258 votes to Democrat John Kerry’s 260 votes in a precinct in Gahanna. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct. Bush actually received 365 votes in the precinct, Matthew Damschroder, director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, told The Columbus Dispatch. State and county election officials did not immediately respond to requests by The Associated Press for more details about the voting system and its vendor, and whether the error, if repeated elsewhere in Ohio, could have affected the outcome. Bush won the state by more than 136,000 votes, according to unofficial results, and Kerry conceded the election on Wednesday after acknowledging that 155,000 provisional ballots yet to be counted in Ohio would not change the result. The Secretary of State’s Office said Friday it could not revise Bush’s total until the county reported the error. The Ohio glitch is among a handful of computer troubles that have emerged since Tuesday’s elections. In one North Carolina county, more than 4,500 votes were lost because officials mistakenly believed a computer that stored ballots electronically could hold more data than it did. And in San Francisco, a malfunction with custom voting software could delay efforts to declare the winners of four races for county supervisor. In the Ohio precinct in question, the votes are recorded onto a cartridge. On one of the three machines at that precinct, a malfunction occurred in the recording process, Damschroder said. He could not explain how the malfunction occurred. Damschroder said people who had seen poll results on the election board’s Web site called to point out the discrepancy. The error would have been discovered when the official count for the election is performed later this month, he said. The reader also recorded zero votes in a county commissioner race on the machine. Workers checked the cartridge against memory banks in the voting machine and each showed that 115 people voted for Bush on that machine. With the other machines, the total for Bush in the precinct added up to 365 votes. Meanwhile, in San Francisco, a glitch occurred with software designed for the city’s new “ranked-choice voting,” in which voters list their top three choices for municipal offices. If no candidate gets a majority of first-place votes outright, voters’ second and third-place preferences are then distributed among candidates who weren’t eliminated in the first round. When the San Francisco Department of Elections tried a test run on Wednesday of the program that does the redistribution, some of the votes didn’t get counted and skewed the results, director John Arntz said. “All the information is there,” Arntz said. “It’s just not arriving the way it was supposed to.” A technician from the Omaha, Neb. company that designed the software, Election Systems & Software Inc., was working to diagnose and fix the problem.

or the number of other e-voting problems across the nation:



These are courtesy of VotersUnite!:



* Broward Co., FL – ES&S software on their machines only reads 32,000 votes at a precinct then it starts counting backwards: http://www.news4jax.com/politics/3890292/detail.html



* Wichita Co., TX – Nearly 6,900 of 26,000 total early votes had ‘undervote’ for President. Human error to blame. County has software problems that need ES&S to fix before they can run ballots: http://www.timesrecordnews.com/trn/loca ... 16,00.html



* Lancaster Co., SC – Unilect Patriot voting machines were used and failed. Printouts of votes had to be taken from the machines memories and hand-counted: http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/n ... 094349.htm



* Mecklenburg Co., NC – More votes registered than voters: http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/ ... 094165.htm



* Volusia Co., FL – Diebold optical-scan machines had another failure with 6 machines having memory card failures. “Ion Sancho, the elections supervisor in Leon County, said officials with Diebold told him that the new, higher-capacity memory cards tend to have more glitches than older cards.”: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/ele ... -headlines



* Craven Co., NC - Software glitch forces a recount which changes the outcome in one race.: http://www.newbernsj.com/SiteProcessor. ... tion=Local



* San Francisco, CA - A glitch in the new tabulation software made by ES&S to handle IRV/RCV voting (more here) stoped the counting and forced a recount of 81,000 ballots.: http://www.internetweek.com/allStories/ ... D=52200321



* Sarpy County, NE - 3000 “phantom votes” show up after an audit reveals that some tabulation equipment counted votes twice. (I’m not sure if this is optical scan or some other system… they used optical scan in 2002): http://www.wowt.com/news/headlines/1161971.html





If we've seen this many problems without a systematic audit, we're going to see many times this many when BlackBoxVoting conducts their audit. There's no evidence of global election fraud yet, but I'd be quite surprised if we don't at least discover a few local cases of election fraud.

--

"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit." -- "Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."

[shane0009]

Quote:

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Man Shoots, Kills Himself at Ground Zero



46 minutes ago U.S. National - AP







NEW YORK - A 25-year-old man from Georgia who was apparently distraught over President Bush (news - web sites)'s re-election shot and killed himself at ground zero. Andrew Veal's body was found Saturday morning inside the off-limits site, said Steve Coleman, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. A shotgun was found nearby, but no suicide note was found, Coleman said.







Veal's mother said her son was upset about the result of the presidential election and had driven to New York, Gus Danese, president of the Port Authority Police Benevolent Association, told The New York Times in Sunday's editions.





Friends said Veal worked in a computer lab at the University of Georgia and was planning to marry.





"I'm absolutely sure it's a protest," Mary Anne Mauney, Veal's supervisor at the lab, told The Daily News. "I don't know what made him commit suicide, but where he did it was symbolic."





Police were investigating how Veal entered the former World Trade Center site, which is protected by high fences and owned by the Port Authority

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[Kieli]

Give the Shrub an inch and he's already plotting out the mile...not like we're shocked or anything :

Aide Says Bush to Seek Gay Marriage Ban in New Term

Quote:

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Bush to Seek Gay-Marriage Ban in New Term -Aide



1 hour, 49 minutes ago Top Stories - Reuters



By Randall Mikkelsen



WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush (news - web sites) will renew a quest in his second term for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage as essential to a "hopeful and decent" society, his top political aide said on Sunday.



Bush's call for a constitutional ban on gay marriages failed last year in Congress, but his position was seen as a key factor motivating Christian conservatives concerned about "moral values" to turn out in large numbers and help supply Bush with a winning margin in last week's election.



"If we want to have a hopeful and decent society, we ought to aim for the ideal, and the ideal is that marriage ought to be, and should be, a union of a man and a woman," Bush political aide Karl Rove told "Fox News Sunday."



Rove said Bush would "absolutely" push the Republican-controlled Congress for a constitutional amendment, which he said was needed to avert the aims of "activist judges" who would permit gay marriages.



Renewing his push for an amendment -- despite its slim chances of success -- would be a way for Bush to reward his conservative base. The amendment would face a steep hurdle winning the needed approval of three-fourths of the states.



Other items on Bush's second-term agenda included nominating -- without a "litmus test" on abortion -- judges who would "strictly interpret" the Constitution, and tax reform. Rove said Bush wanted to review the tax code "in its entirety," which suggested a broad-based reform was possible.



Republicans' ability to deliver on their campaign agenda will help determine whether the party can realize its potential to retain a governing majority for decades, he said.



The gay-marriage issue leaped into the campaign spotlight this year after Massachusetts legalized the practice in response to a state Supreme Court ruling, and San Francisco began performing gay marriages in defiance of a state ban.



Ballot measures in 11 states to ban gay marriages all passed last week. Gay-rights groups have vowed to keep fighting for legal protections of same-sex relationships despite the election setbacks.





CIVIL UNIONS



Bush said last month that he disagreed with a Republican Party platform provision that would also ban civil unions of same-sex couples, and he said states should be able to allow such legal arrangements if they wish.



Rove elaborated on this on Sunday.



"He (Bush) believes that there are ways that states can deal with some of the issues that have been raised, for example, visitation rights in hospitals, or the right to inherit, or benefit rights, property rights, but these can all be dealt with at the state level, without overturning the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman."



U.S. Sen. Susan Collins (news, bio, voting record), a Maine Republican, said a constitutional amendment was unnecessary. "The states are perfectly able to handle this important issue on their own," Collins said on CBS's "Face the Nation."





ABORTION



Asked whether Bush intended to appoint anti-abortion judges to Supreme Court vacancies considered likely to come open in Bush's second term, Rove said the president would not use a litmus test. He said Bush wanted his judicial nominees to be "impartial umpires" who would strictly interpret the law and Constitution.



He played down a conservative firestorm over a suggestion last week by Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record), a Pennsylvania Republican, that Bush would have a hard time winning confirmation of any Supreme Court nominees who would overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade (news - web sites) decision legalizing abortion.



Specter is expected to become chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee (news - web sites) with authority over judicial nominations.



Rove said Specter has assured Bush that his nominees would receive a prompt hearing and those picked for an appellate court would receive a vote by the full Senate.



Specter said on CBS that he had only been trying to point out that Republicans, while they expanded their Senate control in Tuesday's election, still lacked the Senate votes to overcome a united Democratic front.

---

Time flies by when the Devil drives.
It's not the pace of life that concerns me, it's the sudden stop at the end.

[sam7777]

Bush lied about the Iraq war and now we knoe he is lying about any reaching out or bipartisan cooperation with the dems. The hell with that shit. The dems need to be ready with their fillibuster to block his homophobic and mysogynist agenda or we will find someone else who will firght for us. yeah tell me again that bush isn't so bad. The gays that voted for him will get a harsh lesson the next four years unhappilly the rest of us who did the right thing will have to suffer along side them and that sucks. The gay community need to take names and hold people accountable for all homphobic legislation and judicial decisions be them dem or republican. It must be a very freeing sensation for bushwad to have no sense of honor or decency.

Edited by: sam7777  at: 11/7/04 5:01 pm

[russ]

Over this past week, I've been reading a lot, both here and from other sources, of people's thoughts and reactions to the US election. I've some thoughts of my own on the subject, but have been hesitant to post. Not being American, what I say may be seen as unwanted comment from an outsider. But, as I said in a post last week, the whole world has to live with the results of last Tuesday. This is not like an election in Canada or New Zealand; for better or worse America's power in the world means we all have a stake in what happens there. So, at the risk of giving offense, here goes.



Half a century ago, Robert A. Heinlein predicted that America in the 21st century would be ruled by a theocratic dictatorship. As of last Tuesday, this prediction has, I believe, come true.



This dictatorship was (more or less) freely voted into power (see the articles on voting machine “problems”), by an electorate motivated by fear. Interviews with Bush supporters consistently repeat the same themes: the need for a strong leader with a clear, simple moral vision. The religious right simplified all issues into two which they considered paramount: abortion and same-sex marriage. Anyone who would convincingly oppose these would receive the victory. Kerry couldn’t be elected because he refused to simplify complicated issues. It’s come to the point where a thoughtful, intelligent person cannot be president of the U.S. Simplemindedness is a requirement for the job.



Never mind the other issues: war, economy, environment (does anyone remember the environment?). Never mind the myriad books and articles showing the corruption and incompetence of the Bush regime. The religious right only reads what’s sold in the Christian bookstores.



There’s nothing new under the sun. This all happened before, in Germany, in the 1930’s. A nation in fear and distress wanted a strong leader with simple answers. They elected one. One of the first things that government did was to scapegoat marginalized groups in society.



Over the next few months and years I expect to see more and more restrictive laws directed against GLBT people, as well as liberals in general and particularly the “religious left” who will be reviled as apostate. Foreign governments who do not follow the American line will be punished. For Canadians the terms “softwood lumber” and “mad cow” will strike a chord. The environment will be free for the plundering. Never mind the deterioration of the planet’s life support system. After all, God gave us dominion, right? And it’s only temporary anyway.



I may be completely wrong in my analysis. I hope and pray that is the case. If not, we’re in for a very rough time.

Russ



When we love and give it everything we've got, no matter what the consequences, we are doing what we were put here to do -- Geneen Roth

[darkmagicwillow]

The dems need to be ready with their fillibuster to block his homophobic and mysogynist agenda or we will find someone else who will firght for us.



That may no longer be a possibility, as Republicans are already moving on the so-called "nuclear" option to change senate debate rules. Read about it here.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) said he is “keeping all options open” in trying to break a Democratic filibuster of President Bush’s judicial nominees, now that the Senate Rules Committee has reported a resolution that would ease confirmation of judges.



The resolution, which passed on a voice vote at a markup yesterday with no Democrats in attendance, will be placed on the Senate’s calendar, and could be taken up at any time. But Frist said he will deal with the issue after the July 4 recess.



The resolution would change the Senate rules dealing with judicial nominations, which currently require 60 votes to overcome a filibuster. Instead, the resolution, introduced by Frist, would provide for a series of cloture votes, where the threshold would gradually decrease until only a simple majority is required to overcome it.



Frist made it clear he won’t allow what he termed an unprecedented filibuster of U.S. Circuit Court nominees to continue, declaring “I’m not going to let that happen.”

--

"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit." -- "Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."

[Kieli]

Just when you think we couldn't go any farther back to the Stone Age:



Evolution Case Opens in Georgia Court

Quote:

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Evolution Case Opens in Georgia Court



33 minutes ago U.S. National - AP



By KRISTIN WYATT, Associated Press Writer



ATLANTA - A warning sticker in suburban Atlanta science textbooks that says evolution is "a theory, not a fact" was challenged in court Monday as an unlawful promotion of religion.



The disclaimer was adopted by Cobb County school officials in 2002 after hundreds of parents signed a petition criticizing the textbooks for treating evolution as fact without discussing alternate theories, including creationism.



"The religious views of some that contradict science cannot dictate curriculum," American Civil Liberties Union (news - web sites) attorney Maggie Garrett argued Monday before U.S. District Judge Clarence Cooper. The trial is expected to last several days.



But a lawyer for Cobb County schools, Linwood Gunn, held up a copy of a textbook's table of contents Monday that showed dozens of pages about evolution.



"The sticker doesn't exist independently of the 101 pages about evolution," Gunn said. "This case is not about a sticker which has 33 words on it. ... It's about textbooks that say a lot more than that."



The stickers read: "This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered."



One of the parents who filed the lawsuit, Jeffrey Selman, said the stickers discredit the science of evolution.



"It's like saying everything that follows this sticker isn't true," he said.



The U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites) ruled in 1987 that creationism was a religious belief that could not be taught in public schools along with evolution.



Gunn said he expects the warning will hold up in court, saying it "provides a unique opportunity for critical thinking."



"It doesn't say anything about faith," Gunn said. "It doesn't say anything about religion."

---

Oh yes, and then there's Karl Rove



Rove: Bush "serious" about gay marriage ban amendment

Quote:

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White House - AP



Rove: Bush Serious About Gay Marriage Ban



2 hours, 46 minutes ago White House - AP



WASHINGTON - President Bush (news - web sites) in his second term "absolutely" would push for a constitutional amendment that says marriage consists only of the union of a man and a woman, White House political adviser Karl Rove said.



Bush believes states can deal with the issue of civil unions between gay people, an arrangement that if enacted would grant same-sex partners most or all the rights available to married couples, Rove said on "Fox News Sunday."



But a national ban on same-sex marriage is the only way to make sure "activist judges" don't redefine marriage, he said.



As for the Supreme Court, Rove said Bush would nominate only judges who would "strictly apply the law, strictly interpret the Constitution" from the bench.



"He views judges as the impartial umpires," Rove said. "They shouldn't be activist legislators who just happen to wear robes and never face election, ... (who) feel free to pursue their own personal or political agenda."



Rove said Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record), the Republican in line to head the Senate Judiciary Committee (news - web sites), has assured the president that he would make certain that all appellate nominees receive a prompt hearing and reach the Senate floor.

---

Time flies by when the Devil drives.
It's not the pace of life that concerns me, it's the sudden stop at the end.

Edited by: Kieli at: 11/8/04 10:00 am

[sam7777]

darkmagicwillow: All the more reason for the dems to use the fillibuster whenever they can before the republicans continue degrade our democracy and change the rules.

Quote:

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Bush believes states can deal with the issue of civil unions between gay people, an arrangement that if enacted would grant same-sex partners most or all the rights available to married couples, Rove said on "Fox News Sunday."

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No kidding, states have no problem declaring civil unions illegal considering that all the ammendments banning civil unions passed on Monday. I hope those 23% of gays who voted for Bush are happy. I predict by the end of the 2008 election most of the states of the union will have bans on civil unions and gay marriage.

_____________________

I still see dead lesbian cliches

Edited by: sam7777  at: 11/8/04 10:50 am

[justin]

So people are just supposed to accept Evolution without any critical analysis? The sticker doesn't say "This book contains material about Evolution, which is a load of rubbish." It just says that Evolution is a theory. Hardly a damning claim given the fact that it's called The Theory of evolution.



The only thing wrong with the sticker is why does it single out Evolution when surely everything in that book is just a theory?



If you try to present evolution, or any other scientific theory, as being the absolute truth, then all you're foing is turning science into a religion.

--

Homer Simpson: When will people learn, democracy just doesn't work.

[Hemiola]

Sorry, justin, but I'm gonna have to correct you on an important point: evolution is a fact, the theory expounded by Darwin (and Alfred Wallace, btw ) to explain this fact is natural selection.



This is not just a matter of semantics. The reality of evolution was acknowledged by 18th-century naturalists such as Buffon and Cuvier way before Darwin. The problem for these naturalists came from the fact that evolution (i.e. the idea that new animal species had come into existence since the Creation and that existing animal species had been altered over the course of time) was not in accordance with the Bible, which stated that all animals had been created, perfect and entire (they were "good", as the text says) by God. Darwin's (and Wallace's) theory provided a mechanism which explained how evolution worked. Like any scientific theory, it has been subject to "tweaking" as further data have become available (e.g. the now widely accepted notion of "punctuated equilibrium" rather than Darwin's "gradualism") .



So-called notions of "creationism" or "intelligent design" are nonsense and have been demonstrated to be such. In fact, evolution through natural selection has been confirmed by all of the recent (1980s/1990s) studies in genetics, which confirm pretty much all of the evolutionary "lines" proposed by Darwin (i.e. that all primates [including humans] share a common ancestor).



Now, one might ask, why do the "Fundies" (I love that term ) make such a fuss about this? After all, you don't see any of them pasting stickers on astronomy books suggesting that it's only a "theory" that the earth moves around the sun (in spite of the fact that the Book of Joshua clearly states that the sun moves around the earth!!!!). It's simple: accepting Darwin/Wallace would imply that there was no Adam, and if there was no Adam, Jesus cannot fulfill a role as "The Second Adam" to make up for the Fall. Mind you, this is not my idea, but one stated clearly and frequently by the Creationists themselves. That's why the Supreme Court stated unequivocally that "creationism" is a religious doctrine, not a scientific theory.



Oh--and btw, don't be thrown by the word "theory". This is simply the proper term for a scientific paradigm. Likewise, the "law" of gravity is not a matter of legislation, and it cannot be "repealed" .

Edited by: Hemiola at: 11/8/04 1:45 pm

[Kieli]

Quote:

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So people are just supposed to accept Evolution without any critical analysis? The sticker doesn't say "This book contains material about Evolution, which is a load of rubbish." It just says that Evolution is a theory. Hardly a damning claim given the fact that it's called The Theory of evolution.



The only thing wrong with the sticker is why does it single out Evolution when surely everything in that book is just a theory?



If you try to present evolution, or any other scientific theory, as being the absolute truth, then all you're foing is turning science into a religion.

---

I agree with this...which is the reason why I mentioned it. If they're going to call out one theory they should do them all...but I think the intent was to do like is being done in Kansas and Texas....force creationism into the curriculum which has no basis in scientific fact. At least evolution has more scientific study and observation to lend it credence. If there were other theories that were based on science and NOT religion, then I could accept that. But this sticker does not make it's intent clear and thus opens the door for all sorts of speculation, good and bad. I think that scientific investigation into other theories should be left up to the teacher...let's give them some credit for being able to think independently.



And BTW, evolution was NEVER presented as the end all, be all as to how earth came into being, hence the use of the word "theory" and not "fact".

Time flies by when the Devil drives.
It's not the pace of life that concerns me, it's the sudden stop at the end.

[justin]

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And BTW, evolution was NEVER presented as the end all, be all as to how earth came into being, hence the use of the word "theory" and not "fact"

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Well the people behind the law suit seem to be saying that. I just don't see how a sticker saying that evolution should be considered critically (surely a good thing? Shouldn't we be teaching children to consider everything critically?) somehow invalidates all the science of evolution. I mean it doesn't even mention creationism.



Also I have to admit that I have a rather more jaded view of teachers exploring other theories. I think it started when I found out about a flu epidemic around the same time as WW1, which killed as many people as the war did but which was never even mentioned at school.



Also, it's my experience there are a lot of things in science which are taught as fact even though they're just theories or, in some cases, have actually been disproven, in order to keep things simple enough for us simple minded children to understand.

--

Homer Simpson: When will people learn, democracy just doesn't work.

[Kieli]

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I just don't see how a sticker saying that evolution should be considered critically (surely a good thing? Shouldn't we be teaching children to consider everything critically?) somehow invalidates all the science of evolution. I mean it doesn't even mention creationism.

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It doesn't invalidate and that's not what I am saying. What it does, however, is reopen the argument of teaching evolution in schools...an argument that has been repeated time and time again and the state of Kansas has been trying to remove teaching evolution from their schools altogether. As Hemiola said better than I, it has far more credence as a scientific fact than creationism. It's like when Galileo was persecuted for teaching that the Earth revolves around the sun not the other way around as was being taught by the Catholic Church during that time period. It was considered a sin and punishable by death to believe otherwise even though there was not concrete scientific evidence to back up the assertion.

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Also, it's my experience there are a lot of things in science which are taught as fact even though they're just theories or, in some cases, have actually been disproven, in order to keep things simple enough for us simple minded children to understand.

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I don't know which schools you've been attending but I've never had such an experience (and hope to never have it). Though academia can often be slow to change or accept new theories, they cannot refute concrete evidence or research without thorough investigation and examination. Contrary to popular belief, science does not limp along with antiquated theories and teach them as fact. Science hypothesizes, investigates to prove said hypothesis and then moves along. Science cannot hold up under false premises....if said premises are being posited, it is no longer science but fiction. As a scientist myself, I take severe exception to the insult that science is just a lot of unproven theories being taught as fact.

Time flies by when the Devil drives.
It's not the pace of life that concerns me, it's the sudden stop at the end.

[justin]

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Oh--and btw, don't be thrown by the word "theory". This is simply the proper term for a scientific paradigm.

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Yes and the scientific definition of the word is that it cannot be proven imperically, it can only be disproven by data which doesn't match it's predictions.



The reason why creationism is religious doctrine rather than science is because it doesn't fit that criteria.

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Likewise, the "law" of gravity is not a matter of legislation, and it cannot be "repealed"

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I know in the scientific sense a law is just a theory which has stood up to a lot of scientific scrutiny without being disproven.



Except in a way the law of gravity (or at least Newton's version) was repealed, in that it was shown to be inaccyrate and was replaced by something better (General relativity)



Which goes to show that a theory can be accepted for centuries and be backed up countless experiments but can still be shown to be wrong.



In that respect I don't see why evolution is any different from any other theory. Yes there is a lot of evidence that supports it, but that doesn't preclude the idea that new observations will contradict it.

--

Homer Simpson: When will people learn, democracy just doesn't work.

[darkmagicwillow]

Unfortunately, the fundies have to a large extent achieved their goal; teachers tiptoe around the subject of evolution and most address it so cursorily that few university freshmen (and no creationist I've ever talked to) can even define evolution, much less explain it. Most still have the idea that new species emerge from mutations that happen to individuals, having completely missed the essential concepts that new species emerge through selection of populations. Fewer still have any idea that we've actually observed new species of plants and animals existing or are acquainted with genetic evidence; they still think that it's just a theory in pejorative sense, that we've never seen any evidence beyond fossils.

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"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit." -- "Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."

[justin]

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The trouble with calling both Evolution and Creationism a "theory" is that you equate them as equal and that is wrong. Creationism simply can't replace Evolution because it can't be used to advance research. It's a dead end philosophy incapable of creating lines of study in Biology and Medicine.

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I guess I either didn't express myself very well, or that I'm misreading what you've written. I thought that I had explicitly said that creationism wasn't a scientific theory. I certainly don't see it as a viable alternative to evolution.



The point I was trying to make was that there is the possibility that evolution will be found to be wanting and it will be replaced by a better theory, but that theory won't be creationism. Replacing evolution with creationism would be like finding a flaw in the standard model of nuclear physics and as a result deciding to go back to the idea that everything is made out of earth, water, fire and air.



Since there is the chance that evolution will be invalidated I don't see anything wrong with telling people to consider it critically. The only thing wrong with what was done is that evolution was singled out from all the theory's in the book.

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Fundies would be glad if there is never a cure for AIDs but surely the rest of us want to see a better world for everyone.

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In the book A Short History Of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson, he notes that the reason that AIDS isn't spread by mosquito bites is that there's something in the mosquitos digestive system which breaks down the HIV virus. He also notes that HIV is a mutagenic virus. This raises the possibility of a mutation of the HIV virus which can be transmitted through mosquito bite, at which point the fundy message of "we don't need a cure we just need to teach people the value of abstinence" will be proven to be total rubbish.

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Homer Simpson: When will people learn, democracy just doesn't work.

[Kieli]

It's gonna get worse before it gets better folks!



Druggists Refuse To Give Out Pill

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Druggists refuse to give out pill



Tue Nov 9, 6:54 AM ET Politics - USATODAY.com



By Charisse Jones, USA TODAY



For a year, Julee Lacey stopped in a CVS pharmacy near her home in a Fort Worth suburb to get refills of her birth-control pills. Then one day last March, the pharmacist refused to fill Lacey's prescription because she did not believe in birth control.



"I was shocked," says Lacey, 33, who was not able to get her prescription until the next day and missed taking one of her pills. "Their job is not to regulate what people take or do. It's just to fill the prescription that was ordered by my physician."



Some pharmacists, however, disagree and refuse on moral grounds to fill prescriptions for contraceptives. And states from Rhode Island to Washington have proposed laws that would protect such decisions.



Mississippi enacted a sweeping statute that went into effect in July that allows health care providers, including pharmacists, to not participate in procedures that go against their conscience. South Dakota and Arkansas already had laws that protect a pharmacist's right to refuse to dispense medicines. Ten other states considered similar bills this year.



The American Pharmacists Association, with 50,000 members, has a policy that says druggists can refuse to fill prescriptions if they object on moral grounds, but they must make arrangements so a patient can still get the pills. Yet some pharmacists have refused to hand the prescription to another druggist to fill.



In Madison, Wis., a pharmacist faces possible disciplinary action by the state pharmacy board for refusing to transfer a woman's prescription for birth-control pills to another druggist or to give the slip back to her. He would not refill it because of his religious views.



Some advocates for women's reproductive rights are worried that such actions by pharmacists and legislatures are gaining momentum.



The U.S. House of Representatives passed a provision in September that would block federal funds from local, state and federal authorities if they make health care workers perform, pay for or make referrals for abortions.



"We have always understood that the battles about abortion were just the tip of a larger ideological iceberg, and that it's really birth control that they're after also," says Gloria Feldt, president of Planned Parenthood (news - web sites) Federation of America.



"The explosion in the number of legislative initiatives and the number of individuals who are just saying, 'We're not going to fill that prescription for you because we don't believe in it' is astonishing," she said.



Pharmacists have moved to the front of the debate because of such drugs as the "morning-after" pill, which is emergency contraception that can prevent fertilization if taken within 120 hours of unprotected intercourse.



While some pharmacists cite religious reasons for opposing birth control, others believe life begins with fertilization and see hormonal contraceptives, and the morning-after pill in particular, as capable of causing an abortion.



"I refuse to dispense a drug with a significant mechanism to stop human life," says Karen Brauer, president of the 1,500-member Pharmacists for Life International. Brauer was fired in 1996 after she refused to refill a prescription for birth-control pills at a Kmart in the Cincinnati suburb of Delhi Township.



Lacey, of North Richland Hills, Texas, filed a complaint with the Texas Board of Pharmacy after her prescription was refused in March. In February, another Texas pharmacist at an Eckerd drug store in Denton wouldn't give contraceptives to a woman who was said to be a rape victim.



In the Madison case, pharmacist Neil Noesen, 30, after refusing to refill a birth-control prescription, did not transfer it to another pharmacist or return it to the woman. She was able to get her prescription refilled two days later at the same pharmacy, but she missed a pill because of the delay.



She filed a complaint after the incident occurred in the summer of 2002 in Menomonie, Wis. Christopher Klein, spokesman for Wisconsin's Department of Regulation and Licensing, says the issue is that Noesen didn't transfer or return the prescription. A hearing was held in October. The most severe punishment would be revoking Noesen's pharmacist license, but Klein says that is unlikely.



Susan Winckler, spokeswoman and staff counsel for the American Pharmacists Association, says it is rare that pharmacists refuse to fill a prescription for moral reasons. She says it is even less common for a pharmacist to refuse to provide a referral.



"The reality is every one of those instances is one too many," Winckler says. "Our policy supports stepping away but not obstructing."



In the 1970s, because of abortion and sterilization, some states adopted refusal clauses to allow certain health care professionals to opt out of providing those services. The issue re-emerged in the 1990s, says Adam Sonfield of the Alan Guttmacher Institute, which researches reproductive issues.



Sonfield says medical workers, insurers and employers increasingly want the right to refuse certain services because of medical developments, such as the "morning-after" pill, embryonic stem-cell research and assisted suicide.



"The more health care items you have that people feel are controversial, some people are going to object and want to opt out of being a part of that," he says.



In Wisconsin, a petition drive is underway to revive a proposed law that would protect pharmacists who refuse to prescribe drugs they believe could cause an abortion or be used for assisted suicide.



"It just recognizes that pharmacists should not be forced to choose between their consciences and their livelihoods," says Matt Sande of Pro-Life Wisconsin. "They should not be compelled to become parties to abortion."

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Time flies by when the Devil drives.
It's not the pace of life that concerns me, it's the sudden stop at the end.

[Hemiola]

Kieli: Good Gaaawwwwwd, this is a horror!

There are people whose lives depend on their pharmacists filling their prescriptions quickly and accurately. Am I supposed to worry if my pharmacist were to suddenly join a cult that thinks it is wrong to dispense blood pressure or allergy medications??? Furthermore, where is something like this supposed to stop? Suppose I need an anti-biotic--if my pharmacist is a Jain, does that give him the right to refuse to fill the prescription because he believes that killing any living creature is wrong? (I am not making this up: Jains regularly die by the hundreds in India because they refuse to take any medication that works by killing a microbe!!!!)



justin: I implore you to re-read what I, Kieli, darkmagicwillow and sam777 have written above. Evolution cannot be "invalidated"--it is a fact. As for the theory of natural selection, the change from gradualism to Gould's punctuated equilibrium has not "invalidated" Darwin, but only made his theory profounder and more sophisticated based on new data. In the same way, Einsteinian physics did not "invalidate" Newtonian physics, but extended them and made our understanding of the universe more sophisticated (just as Newtonian physics did not "invalidate" Galileo's discovery that the accelaration of gravity is 32 feet per second ).



Now, please don't think that I am trying to "dis" you or "scold" you--I know that we are on the same side. Rather, I am trying to ensure that if you find yourself arguing with a Fundie or anyone else who thinks that "the jury's still out on evolution" (as our president publicly stated), that you are able to argue with them using the correct terms and information.

[maudmac]

I bet y'all anything that if just three or four pharmacists nationwide refused to fill Viagra prescriptions, we'd see laws enacted overnight requiring all pharmacists to fill all prescriptions.

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make some room now dig what you see

[Diebrock]

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Ashcroft, Evans Resign From Bush Cabinet

link

5 minutes ago White House - AP Cabinet & State





By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent



WASHINGTON - Attorney General John Ashcroft (news - web sites) and Commerce Secretary Don Evans resigned Tuesday, the first members of President Bush (news - web sites)'s Cabinet to leave as he headed from re-election into his second term



Ashcroft, in a five-page, handwritten letter to Bush, said, "The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved."



"Yet I believe that the Department of Justice (news - web sites) would be well served by new leadership and fresh inspiration," said Ashcroft, whose health problems earlier this year resulted in removal of his gall bladder.



"I believe that my energies and talents should be directed toward other challenging horizons," he said.



Both Ashcroft and Evans have served in Bush's Cabinet from the start of the administration. Evans, a close friend of Bush's from Texas, wrote, "While the promise of your second term shines bright, I have concluded with deep regret that it is time for me to return home."



The resignations were announced by White House press secretary Scott McClellan, who said Bush had accepted the decisions of both secretaries.



Ashcroft, 62, has been well liked by many conservatives. At the same time, he has been a lightning rod for criticism of his handling of the U.S. end of the war against terror, especially the detention of terror suspects.



Evans, a Texas friend of the president, was instrumental in Bush's 2000 campaign and came with him to Washington. Evans has told aides he was ready for a change. He was mentioned as a possible White House chief of staff in Bush's second term, but the president decided to keep Andy Card in that job.



One name being mentioned for Evans' job at Commerce is Mercer Reynolds, national finance chairman for the Bush campaign, who raised more than $260 million to get him re-elected.



Speculation about a successor to Ashcroft has centered on his former deputy, Larry Thompson, who recently took a job as general counsel at PepsiCo. If appointed, Thompson would be the nation's first black attorney general. Others prominently mentioned include Bush's 2004 campaign chairman, former Montana Gov. Marc Racicot, and White House general counsel Alberto Gonzales.

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_________________

Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good.

I've kissed her best friend. I've reached into her best friend's pocket and fished around for keys. And I gave her best friend my number. I must be doing something totally, totally wrong... - TBSOL by Dreams

[darkmagicwillow]

I implore you to re-read what I, Kieli, darkmagicwillow and sam777 have written above. Evolution cannot be "invalidated"--it is a fact. As for the theory of natural selection, the change from gradualism to Gould's punctuated equilibrium has not "invalidated" Darwin, but only made his theory profounder and more sophisticated based on new data. In the same way, Einsteinian physics did not "invalidate" Newtonian physics, but extended them and made our understanding of the universe more sophisticated (just as Newtonian physics did not "invalidate" Galileo's discovery that the accelaration of gravity is 32 feet per second;) ).

While you're quite right about newer discoveries generally not invalidating older ones, I did want to point out that Gould's punctuated equilibrium is not generally accepted. While Stephen Gould was a brilliant writer and rhetorician, he wasn't the best of scientists. John Maynard Smith, one of the best modern evolutionary biologists, said about Gould: "Because of the excellence of his essays, he has come to be seen by non-biologists as the preeminent evolutionary theorist. In contrast, the evolutionary biologists with whom I have discussed his work tend to see him as a man whose ideas are so confused as to be hardly worth bothering with, but as one who should not be publicly criticized because he is at least on our side against the creationists." (NYRB, Nov. 30th 1995, p. 46).



For more, see here.

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"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit." -- "Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."

[Kieli]

That is what often disturbs me about scientists in general. I don't agree with Gould's theory in totality (the link mentioned here is to a fence-sitter in regards to Gould's and Eldridge's Punctuated Equilibrium theory) but he does make some points worth examining. I was taught evolutionary biology at the University with some of his principles. My professors of Ecology and Zoology agreed with almost everything he had to say and imparted that knowledge to us with some caveats of their own. Gabriele Veneziano has suggested that time and space might be older than the Big Bang theory suggests...there has been an alternate theory of relativity posited by Brent Cowan and it's making quite a splash...however ALL of these things have more grounds for observation and consideration than creationism. They're not bound to any religious beliefs (which almost exclusively rely on faith and not much else to substantiate its claims). One could consider both creationism and evolutionism but its like comparing apples to oranges.

Time flies by when the Devil drives.
It's not the pace of life that concerns me, it's the sudden stop at the end.

Edited by: Kieli at: 11/9/04 5:49 pm