Live blogging NOVA and Dover evolution trial?

November 13, 2007

For the next couple of hours, I’ll be watching instead of blogging, mostly (“Judgment Day: Evolution on Trial”). PZ is liveblogging, he says. I’d go for the popcorn, but we just finished dinner.

These issues are still very much alive. Texas science standards are up for rewriting now (a bunch to come on that here, from Texas Citizens for Science, soon). Texas biology books will be updated in the near future. Creationists have flocked to Texas in anticipation.

Judge Jones was featured on The News Hour tonight — the man is a statesman of great stature, refusing to denigrate either side, but carefully explaining the law and the judge’s duty.

Stay tuned to PBS tonight. You will not see anything like this program on any commercial outlet, broadcast or cable. PBS remains one of the shining lights of our government, a wonderful idea executed with flair.

_______________________________

7:56 p.m.: The guy playing Kenneth Miller in the trial reenactment is good, but he’s nowhere near as engaging as Miller is. This NOVA is a good deal: I wish someone had a good video of Miller’s presentation to the Texas State Board of Education in the 1990s (1999? 1997? I’ll have to look that up). It was a stellar performance before a hostile crowd, and it was one of the big rocks that stopped the anti-evolution tide.

For that matter, I wish we had copies of the testimony of Andy Ellington and Stephen Weinberg from 2003. I understand a video may still exist (Discovery Institute taped the whole thing, but don’t expect to see them ever let this stuff out for others to see — it’s too powerful). Ellington was afire, and Weinberg was as statesmanlike as anyone will ever see him. It was great.

Nick Matzke got a little camera time earlier. He’s a hero in this story, and he was grand earlier in other states.

Watch this stuff carefully. The scientists and policy defenders of evolution are almost to a person, wonderful people. You’d enjoy a dinner with Eugenie Scott. You’d love to spend an afternoon with Andrew Ellington. There are scientific, political and religious differences galore, but very few really disagreeable people defending evolution. Funny: The pro-evolution side demonstrates the virtues of Christian charity better than the self-proclaimed Christian side. (And as if on cue, just after 8:00 p.m. Bill Buckingham shows up to attack the teachers as non-Christian, or not good Christians, even the ministers’ kids — and he looks crabby, if not downright bothered.)

8:07 p.m.: The actor playing Michael Behe has his voice and delivery down pretty well, but without the usual smirk. I wonder if Behe smirked through his testimony — anybody know? Maybe the ID folks would have been better off to hire an actor to play Behe.

8:10 p.m.: Behe’s irreducibly complex stuff, and bacterial flagella: Has anybody ever asked Behe why an intelligent designer wouldn’t have used a screw propeller, which would be more efficient than a flagellum? Is the designer irreducibly dense, too?

8:55 p.m.: IDists and other creationists won’t like the program. It was fair. In two hours, NOVA offers clear understanding of what happened at the trial, and to people who listen, it tells why evolution came out on top.

Great program. How many will it sway?

In the interim comes word that Kenneth Miller will be in Dallas day-after-tomorrow from something called “Pegasus News Service.” Since Pegasus is the flying horse logo of the old Magnolia Petroleum Company, which was adopted by Dallas-based Mobil (before Exxon-Mobil), it’s clearly a Dallas-based news group. Maybe SMU related. Here are the details of Miller’s visit:

On Thursday, Nov. 15 at 5 p.m. in the Hughes-Trigg Student Center Ballroom on the campus of Southern Methodist University, Kenneth R. Miller will lecture on the subject of science and faith in America, and how the falling out of favor of “intelligent design” will affect our understanding of science as a tool for understanding our world. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Only one Scout meeting conflicting . . . can I make it?

___________________________
Resources

6 Comments | Evolution, History, Intelligent Design, Junk science, Jurisprudence, Law, Public education, Voodoo science | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Vote tampering in Ohio, 2004

November 8, 2007

Kathy Dopp’s project keeps turning up reasons to watch out for electronic voting machines, and other tampering with elections.

Below the fold I copy a recent e-mail from Dopp’s group. If true, the allegations here paint a sad picture of the U.S. as a nation plunging to third-world status in important areas, such as democratic elections.

I wish it were different, but for myself, I have little confidence that either the 2000 or 2004 election was straight up. Was it crooked enough to skew results? Let me know what you think in comments.

Dopp’s e-mail follows: Read the rest of this entry »

Leave a Comment » | Civil Rights, Elections, Government, Law, Lessons of history, Voting Rights Act | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Politicians can lie, but they can’t hide

November 5, 2007

A decision by the Supreme Court of the State of Washington last month had wags and pundits claiming that it is okay for politicians to lie, at least in the state of Washington.

On October 4 the Washington Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional a law that banned publication of “a false statement of material fact about a candidate for public office” in advertisements or other campaign materials, if the statement was made with “actual malice,” or with “reckless disregard to its truth or falsity,” according to a report in the New York Times.

“The notion that the government, rather than the people, may be the final arbiter fo truth in political debate is fundamentally at odds with the First Amendment,” Justice James M. Johnson wrote for four the justices in the majority. A dissenting justice, Barbara A. Madsen, wrote that “the majority’s decision is an invitation to lie with impunity.”

Justice Madsen added that the decision would help turn “political campaigns into contests of the best stratagems of lies and deceit, to the end that honest discourse and honest candidates are lost in the maelstrom.”

Utah’s voters now are engaged in a great debate that tests those views. Can voters discern the truth from a fog of claims and counterclaims about school vouchers?

Polls show vouchers losing. What does that mean?

Ironically, perhaps, in the Washington case, the candidate who got the claim wrong, according to the court’s decision, also lost the race:

Mr. Sheldon said Ms. Rickert had violated a state law that made it unlawful to publish “a false statement of material fact about a candidate for public office” in advertisements and campaign materials if the statement was made with “actual malice,” meaning in the knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard to its truth or falsity.

The commission ruled against Ms. Rickert and fined her $1,000. It found that Mr. Sheldon had not voted to close the facility and that it was, in any event, a juvenile detention center rather than one for the developmentally challenged.

Justice Johnson said the law under which the commission had acted was “a censorship scheme.”

“It naïvely assumes,” Justice Johnson wrote, “that the government is capable of correctly and consistently negotiating the thin line between fact and opinion in political speech.”

Mr. Sheldon had other ways to combat the brochure, Justice Johnson added. Mr. Sheldon and his supporters could have “responded to Ms. Rickert’s false statements with the truth.” And Mr. Sheldon remained free to file a libel suit, though he would have to prove not only falsity and actual malice but also that the statement had harmed his reputation.

In a brief concurring opinion, Chief Justice Gerry L. Alexander said the flaw in the law was that it penalized false “nondefamatory speech,” meaning statements that do not injure reputation. But he said the government should be free to “penalize defamatory political speech.”

The voters figured it out.

___________________________

Opinions in Rickert v. Washington:

 

Leave a Comment » | Education, Ethics, History, Law, Politics, School vouchers | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

NY Times backs overhaul of mining law

October 26, 2007

Congress seriously considers changes in mining laws in the U.S. — the General Mining Act of 1872 is 135 years old with no serious changes since its passage. President Ulysses S Grant signed the law.

The law affected much of the development of the U.S. west of the Mississippi River, but this issue is generally ignored. The New York Times editorial page endorses the change process in an editorial today.

Originally enacted to encourage economic development in the West, the law gives precedence above all other land uses to mining for hard-rock minerals like gold, uranium and copper. It requires no royalties from companies that mine on public lands and contains no environmental safeguards. It has left a sad legacy of abandoned mines, poisoned streams and damaged landscapes throughout the West.

Now, at last, there is real hope for reform. Representative Nick Rahall, a West Virginia Democrat who has been trying to modernize this law for two decades, has persuaded the Natural Resources Committee to approve a major rewrite.

The law is a major study in economics, government intervention and free markets. It would make a good topic for warm-ups or government intervention lesson plans in high school economics classes.

1 Comment | Economics, Environmental protection, Government, History, Law, Politics | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Crazies promise to abandon California public schools?

October 21, 2007

No, the news is not that good, really. It’s not really news, either. WorldNet Daily, an on-line publication of borderline sanity, may have left the border.

If only it were a promise, instead of a “call to abandon the schools.”

“We’re calling upon every California parent to pull their child out of California’s public school system,” Randy Thomasson, president of Campaign for Children and Families, told WND.

“The so-called ‘public schools’ are no longer a safe emotional environment for children. Under the new law, schoolchildren as young as kindergarten will be sexually indoctrinated and introduced to homosexuality, bisexuality, and transsexuality, over the protests of parents, teachers and even school districts,” he said.

The law at issue went through the California legislature as SB 777, and now bans in school texts and activities any discriminatory bias against those who have chosen alternative sexual lifestyles, Meredith Turney, legislative liaison for Capitol Resource Institute, said.

There are no similar protections for students with traditional or conservative lifestyles and beliefs, however. Offenders will face the wrath of the state Department of Education, up to and including lawsuits.

“So-called ‘public schools?'”

Below the fold, the full text of the law. You’ll note, Dear Reader, that the law includes protections for “students with traditional or conservative lifestyles and beliefs,” under the prohibition of discrimination on the bases of religion or sexual orientation, “or any other characteristic contained in the definition of hate crimes that is contained in the Penal Code.”

The new law will make it a crime to bully homosexual kids. Is that the real reason WND is worried about the bill, that it makes bullying a crime?

Why would anyone want to defend a right to bully kids? The purpose of the law is clear, from its purpose clause:

Existing law states that it is the policy of the state to afford equal rights and opportunities to all persons in the public or private elementary and secondary schools and postsecondary educational institutions of the state regardless of their sex, ethnic group identification, race, national origin, religion, or mental or physical disability and prohibits a person from being subjected to discrimination on those bases and contains various provisions to implement that policy.

Existing law prohibits a teacher from giving instruction, and a school district from sponsoring any activity, that reflects adversely upon persons because of their race, sex, color, creed, handicap, national origin, or ancestry.

This bill would revise the list of prohibited bases of discrimination and the kinds of prohibited instruction and activities and, instead, would refer to disability, gender, nationality, race or ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or any other characteristic contained in the definition of hate crimes that is contained in the Penal Code. The bill would define disability, gender, nationality, race or ethnicity, religion, and sexual orientation for this purpose.

Would you pull your kid out of a public school because she doesn’t have a right to bully anybody?

Critics of the bill object even to correcting English usage on forms asking information about students; forms may now ask “gender” rather than the more gauche “sex.” California’s Catholics for the Common Good found that correction a threat, somehow:

“Who knows what the consequences would be of deleting the definition of ‘sex’ of a child as a biological fact and replace it with ‘gender,’ a subjective term to be determined by the student. The legislature never investigated the cost of accommodating student preferences for lavatory and locker room facilities.” Read the rest of this entry »

3 Comments | Civil Rights, History, Law, Public education, Rampant stupidity, War on Education | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Why read the Constitution?

October 17, 2007

Every Member of Congress needs someone to read the Federal Register daily, the Congressional Record each day, and the Constitution regularly.

The Federal Register records agency actions, many of them quite obscure, but all of the agency actions that affect a member’s state or district. Sometimes an agency will try to sneak something past a member, and sometimes they’ll simply fail to notify the member of something that really deserves a lot of attention. The Congressional Record does the same thing for Congress. It’s a difficult read, but someone who knows it well can tell when conditions are ripe to get action on some measure.

Al Kamen at The Washington Post gives an object lesson on why knowledge of the Constitution is important. In this case, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s Constitution experts invoked the clause that prevents a president from making recess appointments.

This may be inside baseball to most people. Kamen’s story demonstrates why a party will elect someone like Reid as their leader. He may not be as suave and funny as Jack Kennedy on camera, but he knows where the buttons are that open and close the automatic doors of power.

The detente the two sides reached over the Senate’s August break — which saw the Senate approve dozens of nominees in exchange for a no-recess-appointment pledge — is over.

That deal was reached in part because Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) dusted off an old weapon — the pro forma session — which would mean theoretically that the Senate would never be in recess. When both sides negotiate anew, that weapon looms large.

Turns out the pro forma session originally had nothing to do with recess appointments. It comes from Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution, which says neither the House nor Senate may be out for more than three days while the other body is in session, without the consent of that other body.

But neither chamber wanted to seek “permission” from the other one for anything. Bad form and all that.

Did you know what was in Article I, Section 5?

Perhaps more important, this was covered by the much-maligned-in-blogdom “Main Stream Media” (MSM). Can you find a blogger who broke this story before Kamen? I’ll wager you can’t.

Leave a Comment » | Government, Law, U.S. Constitution, U.S. Senate | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Errors page one, corrections page 2: Gore film okay for classroom

October 14, 2007

Al Gore, from Ventura County Star (stock photo?)

Tim Lambert at Deltoid tracked down the facts in the really odd story about a court in Britain ruling that the film Inconvenient Truth contains errors — a case I noted in a post about Al Gore’s winning a Nobel Prize for his work on climate change. Deltoid said:

A UK High Court judge has rejected a lawsuit by political activist Stuart Dimmock to ban the showing of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth in British schools. Justice Burton agreed that

“Al Gore’s presentation of the causes and likely effects of climate change in the film was broadly accurate.”

There were nine points where Burton decided that AIT differed from the IPCC and that this should be addressed in the Guidance Notes for teachers to be sent out with the movie.

Unfortunately a gaggle of useless journalists have misreported this decision as one that AIT contained nine scientific errors.

Got that? The British Court said Gore is right.

I’ll bet I’ve seen that case cited a half dozen times today, with claims that Gore’s film is generally wrong.

Tim’s detail on the case, and the nine allegations of “error” (scare quotes from the judge in the original opinion) should be read by anyone following the climate change debates. I doubt that any Gore critics will read, nor, just to be nasty, that many of them can.

This is another political hoax in the making. Bad reporting, caused largely because the news of the case hit as the announcement of Gore’s Nobel Prize win crossed the news wires, makes Gore a target for the denialist and right-wing spin machines. Though their charges are inaccurate, they will make the charges, and repeat them endlessly. Buckle up — it’s going to be a bumpy night.

3 Comments | Accuracy, Climate change, Jurisprudence, Law, Natural history, Natural resources, Science, Technology in the classroom, Video and film, War on Science | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Trial by Jury (grades 5-8)

September 30, 2007

Trial simulations put students into the middle of tough topics in government, economics and history — or can do, depending on how well the simulations work. In the middle of the fight is a great place to learn.

Scholastic.com features a series of lesson plans suitable for government and civics. Looking for Constitution Day lesson plans I stumbled into a trial-by-jury simulation, with the mock trial script all prepared for you, for grades 5 through 8.

It looks to me to be a good way to study the jury system (see Amendments 6 and 7 of the Constitution).  The lesson plans and materials were designed, and their dissemination supported by the American Board of Trial Advocates.  Yes, that’s a group with a view; no, the bias doesn’t show up in the classroom materials, really.

Here’s a graphic on amending the Constitution, from the same site. This could be reproduced for student journals, printed for small posters, or, check with your high school drafting classes to see whether they won’t print this out for you in a poster size, in color. Scholastic.com features nine graphic pages like that one.

Trial by jury provides the foundation for some of our greatest drama: On television with Perry Mason, Matlock, Law & Order, Boston Legal, or L.A. Law; on the stage with Inherit the Wind and Ayn Rand’s The Night of January 16th; in opera with Gilbert and Sullivan’s Trial by Jury (okay, in operetta). This is the sort of thing students enjoy, and probably will remember.

How and why to show up for jury duty is one of the most important understandings our students can take away.

Justice by the People logo, from Scholastic.com

Leave a Comment » | 6th Amendment, 7th Amendment, Bill of Rights, Government, Jurisprudence, Justice, Law, Lesson plans, U.S. Constitution | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

UC-Irvine, Chemerinsky patch it up

September 18, 2007

Erwin Chemerinsky has agreed, again, to take the post of dean at the new law school at the University of California at Irvine.

Leaping off a bit from what Brian Leiter said earlier, that deans really don’t have any academic freedom of their own, we should note that being dean occupies more than every waking moment of a person’s life.  There are few who can do the dean’s job and continue their previous scholarship output at the same high level.  Anyone who might have been concerned about Chemerinsky’s politics can take some solace in the fact that he will certainly have to cut back on his studies and writing at least a little, in order to do his duties.

UC-Irvine’s school will open with very high expectations.  If Chemerinsky does half the job as dean that he is capable of doing, the entering class will carry with it some jealousy, or at least some wistfulness, from a lot of attorneys who will wish they could have had the experience.

If egos as big as those involved in this affair can shake hands and patch over a serious disagreement, there is hope for mankind.

Leave a Comment » | Academic freedom, College, Law, Leadership, Politics | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Academic freedom: No liberals need apply?

September 13, 2007

(No, this isn’t a proper academic freedom issue; disgraceful, but not an issue of viewpoint suppression. Conservatives who claim such things when the shoe is on the right foot still won’t complain, though, I’ll bet.)

The University of California at Irvine is in the process of setting up a new law school. They had asked distinguished law scholar Erwin Chemerinsky of Duke to be dean, and he’d agreed.

Then, abruptly, UC-Irvine asked to cancel the contract — conservatives opposed Chemerinsky, according to one claim.

Sources and commentary:

(Waiting for conservatives who complained about breaches of academic freedom for conservatives to explain the injustice . . . still waiting . . . still waiting . . .)
Not waiting any more. Instapundit links to a bunch of conservatives who have sprung to Chemerinsky’s defense. Great news that they’d do it at all!

6 Comments | Academic freedom, Accuracy, College, Education, Law, Leadership, Politics | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

American hero: Jack Goldsmith

September 7, 2007

Jack Goldsmith, Harvard U photoJack Goldsmith. This book, when you read it, will explain why he is a hero. Goldsmith is the guy who pulled back the memorandum from the U.S. Justice Department that authorized illegal torture.

There is hope for America so long as good men will do the right thing, quietly, out of the spotlight, and then move on without seeking credit. Watch Moyers’ interview with Goldsmith.

It’s revealing that his pictorial muse, guardian, taunter and inspiration was Elliot Richardson.

Leave a Comment » | Government, Heroes, International law, Iraq, Justice, Law, Patriotism, War on Terrorism | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Historic moment: Texas commutes a death sentence

August 30, 2007

Gov. Rick Perry commuted a death sentence today. This is the first commutation in eight years so close to an execution. Any commutation recommendation is rare in Texas.

Is this just one commutation, or does it signal a change?

Gov. Perry’s press release:

Read the rest of this entry »

3 Comments | Current History, History, Justice, Law, Texas, Texas history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

One Texas, under God

August 29, 2007

A federal district court judge dismissed a challenge to the new law in Texas which adds “under God” to the Texas pledge, on top of the Texas law which requires all kids to say the pledge every day.

The Texas Lege, long the foil of Molly Ivins, was in particularly fine form this year, writing commandments from God and curtsies to God into several state activities. While I’m way behind on railing about these requirements, our Texas State Attorney General, Greg Abbott, has little more to do than make sure God gets his due — God being incapable of doing that himself, I suppose. Houston’s being over-run with storm refugees who disproportionately brought their guns, drug and gambling habits with them, juries in East Texas being under fire for being racially imbalanced and sentencing way more blacks to death than would seem reasonably by any statistical measure, and millions of school dollars disappearing in charter school scams and other scandals across the state, and Texas having the highest number and highest percentage of kids without health insurance, all pale by comparison to the Texas Lege’s and Mr. Abbott’s calls to make sure Texas kids pledge allegiance to the correct deity in the correct way.

Abbott’s opposite-editorial-page opinion ran in this morning’s Dallas Morning News. He gets his full say, below the fold.

Read the rest of this entry »

1 Comment | Education, Law, Politics, Religion, School discipline | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Alberto Gonzales resigned . . .

August 27, 2007

. . . Friday, but the president didn’t tell us about it until today.

According to the the New York Times (which broke the story):

“The unfair treatment that he’s been on the receiving end of has been a distraction for the department,” the official said.

Injustice even as he leaves. It’s the fair treatment Gonzales received that should have forced him out. The U.S. Justice Department is a mess above the political appointee level, with serious mismanagement, mal-management and lack of management threatening justice and the administration of law at several levels.

Other notable coverage: The Washington Post story now includes notes to Gonzales’s terse announcement, and links to recent stories in the Post which lend perspective and a lot of information.

Leave a Comment » | Capturing history, Civil Rights, History, Jurisprudence, Justice, Law, Politics, Presidents, Scandals, U.S. Constitution | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

P. Z. Myers sued for libel; what is crackpot science?

August 22, 2007

Stuart Pivar initiated a suit for libel against P. Z. Myers (of Pharyngula), over Myers’ caustic reviews of Pivar’s recent book. Myers is not talking (on advice of counsel); others are providing solid background, including Andrea Bottaro at Panda’s Thumb, Scientific American, the Lippard Blog, Overlawyered, Science after Sunclipse and Positive Liberty (all blogs that you read on occasion, right?).

In the comments to Bottaro’s post at Panda’s Thumb, someone asked:

What exactly is a “crackpot,” and how does one attain the status of “classic?”

Isn’t that rather the key question of life? How can we tell the cranks from the prophets, the dross from the gold?

My comments appear at Panda’s Thumb, but why not put it down here, too? This is a topic often addressed here: Voodoo science, voodoo history, bogus science, bogus history, and who can tell the difference, and who cares?

Read the rest of this entry »

6 Comments | Accuracy, Jurisprudence, Justice, Law, Science, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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