Huckchuckin It...

Have you seen the internet crying today? Its brightest meme and one of its ideologically darkest, melting together to form: An ad for presidential candidate Mike Huckabee starting Mr. Huckabee... and Mr. Chuck Norris.

For those of you knew to the Huckchuckzone, Mr. Huckabee is against gay rights, against the separation of church and state, against immigration in the most severe way, in favor of eliminating the Internal Revenue Service entirely, and pro-guns (pretty much all guns - used for hunting). Also not a big fan of science.

Chuck Norris is a conservative karate champion and the creator and star of Walker, Texas Ranger, a show about fighting drug-dealers in rural Texas. And whitewater-rafting. Also not a big fan of science, but he studied with Bruce Lee and so gets some kind of by from young people. (I am glad to be old enough to be mad at young people about this.) If you haven't heard all the "Chuck Norris facts," just Google em.

We return to impeachment...

Tiffany Gardner

IEM - Innovative Emergency Management - a private "risk management" firm. A client of the Livingstone Group, a P.R. lobby based in D.C. founded by a Louisiana Republican. IEM was brought on to work on Katrina but did not confer with LSU scientists who'd long been saying the city and levies were not prepared for a category 4 or 5 hurricane.

"Science was ignored" said on LSU scientist.

The evacuation - woefully inadequate - was called a complete success at the time.

Gardner echoes Jackson's report that no plans were made to help poor people with no transportation. Keep in mind that Louisiana is one of the poorest states in America; Orleans one of its poorest parishes (counties). One Lower Ninth Ward resident did try to evacuate his family, but his car was too small to accommodate his whole family; he stayed behind.

Q: Does the blame go all the way to the top?

A: Definitely. The Stafford Act is Bush's to carry out. The statement that the levies were not supposed to fail was a lie. Bush knew they would fail; scientists had briefed him.

Marvelous Thoughts About... Thought

Dan Dennett is somewhat of a cranky old dude, and not as brilliant a writer as Laing or Jaynes or B. Russell - but he kicks ass on video. He freaks out about Pointillism, which he pronounces in a very funny faux-Gallic way, and he huffs and breathes heavily, but you can't miss this video, it's dope. Even if my boi Dylan isn't into him - I'd hug the dude. Check out Consciousness Explained for more.

I have to write this for Jenifer...

I just had my camel and straw moment with that unbearable piece of shit that 28% of the country are still ignorant enough to call commander-in-chief. I. Have. Had. It. The clock in my living room says there are 579 days, 46 minutes til this ass-sucking administration hits the road.

Today Bush vetoed the Stem Cell Research bill - for the second time. He said fuck you to 77% of the country. He said fuck you, I hope you die to nearly 100 million Americans who suffer from diseases the NIH admitted (in private, of course) could potentially be treated if embryonic stem cell research was given the thorough support and oversight and resources that come with federal funding.

I have had the honor to work with some of the world's greatest scientists in the fields of neurology and cellular science - dedicated, distinguished men and women from the finest research institutions on the planet. My best friend Jenifer Estess was diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) in 1997. Jenifer and her sisters and I founded Project A.L.S. later that year. Project A.L.S. was responsible for the first-ever embryonic stem cell collaboration with the neurological community. We were witness when two brilliant doctors - one from Johns Hopkins, one from Harvard - bounded in the room to declare with glee that the stem cells had successfully passed the blood-brain barrier in mice. Project A.L.S. fully funded that work - the best one million dollar investment ever. One of those doctors, only 2 years earlier, told my friend that her cells were dying, her motor neurons, and they could never be replaced. She would die in two to five years. My friend Jenifer asked hard, thoughtful, yet practical questions - among them "if we can transplant livers and hearts, why can't we transplant motor neurons?". The doctor, "a giant in his field" we had been told repeatedly, said with a dismissive sneer "Cellular transplants? That's science fiction!" Two years later Jenifer's sister read an article in Science magazine, and a few weeks later the largest and most comprehensive international stem cell collaboration was born.

I write this with 100% conviction - the greatest minds, the most respected scientists in the world, are on the threshold of treatments, and dare I say cures - for the most complex diseases, and embryonic stem cell research is at the core. ALS, Parkinson's, spinal cord injuries, diabetes, Huntington's disease, Alzheimer's - the disorders that have plagued mankind and made the brain the final frontier in reseach - we can and will soon treat them. One day in our lifetime, they will be cured.

BUT WHAT ABOUT TOMORROW? Yes, our next president will most likely reverse this course, but every day people are suffering. And dying. Needlessly. It makes me sick to my stomach to watch the continued destruction in this psycopath's wake. This motherfucker flew across the country in the middle of the night so he could 'save' a woman who was braindead. He and all his Christian buddies with their fucking meaningless faith and their shallow, empty moral character, wrote a law to save one life. One life completely devoid of humanity. And today he struck down a law to save millions. George Bush is a murderer. In a court of law the charge would be one million counts of criminally negligent homicide. He's responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans in uniform, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and hundreds of thousands of Americans like Jenifer who died when they might have lived.

When Jenifer testified before Congress for the second time in 2002, she was completely paralyzed and her respiratory function was severly impaired. She had to breathe with the help of a bi-pap (a non-invasive ventilator). She took her time, she measured each breath, and she gave the most dignified, passionate, exquisite speech I've ever witnessed. I owe it to Jenifer to keep shouting from the rooftops that these bastards have responsibilities to we, the people. Jenifer was the people. She fought harder than anyone should ever have to fight. She gave her life, for her country. When she ended her testimony that September afternoon in 2002, she closed with a simple statement: "I, too, have the right to life. And to liberty. And to the pursuit of happiness".

There was a time when those words had meaning.

It's Not Often That I Agree With Republican Senator Sam Brownback About Religion...

Compared to Fred Thompson (boo! hiss!) et al, this man is a shining beacon of good thought. He has considered his position, and he states his case well. I agree with him:

There is no reason that people of faith cannot or should not use reason and the scientific method as much as possible.

Science does not purport to verify or dismiss claims about God -- or any claims that cannot be addressed by hypothesis and experiment.

Likewise, the existence of God does not disprove evolution; if God exists, perhaps he created evolution. We can't know.

Sam goes off at the end about man being created in the "image" of something, and I tend to think that that idea, too, is untestable and unprovable, and probably not all that important.

After all, we are here, now, and we can create sweet robots in our own image.

More from Sam:

May 31, 2007, Op-Ed Contributor, "What I Think About Evolution," By SAM BROWNBACK:

IN our sound-bite political culture, it is unrealistic to expect that every complicated issue will be addressed with the nuance or subtlety it deserves. So I suppose I should not have been surprised earlier this month when, during the first Republican presidential debate, the candidates on stage were asked to raise their hands if they did not “believe” in evolution. As one of those who raised his hand, I think it would be helpful to discuss the issue in a bit more detail and with the seriousness it demands.

The premise behind the question seems to be that if one does not unhesitatingly assert belief in evolution, then one must necessarily believe that God created the world and everything in it in six 24-hour days. But limiting this question to a stark choice between evolution and creationism does a disservice to the complexity of the interaction between science, faith and reason.

The heart of the issue is that we cannot drive a wedge between faith and reason. I believe wholeheartedly that there cannot be any contradiction between the two. The scientific method, based on reason, seeks to discover truths about the nature of the created order and how it operates, whereas faith deals with spiritual truths. The truths of science and faith are complementary: they deal with very different questions, but they do not contradict each other because the spiritual order and the material order were created by the same God.

People of faith should be rational, using the gift of reason that God has given us. At the same time, reason itself cannot answer every question. Faith seeks to purify reason so that we might be able to see more clearly, not less. Faith supplements the scientific method by providing an understanding of values, meaning and purpose. More than that, faith — not science — can help us understand the breadth of human suffering or the depth of human love. Faith and science should go together, not be driven apart.

The question of evolution goes to the heart of this issue. If belief in evolution means simply assenting to microevolution, small changes over time within a species, I am happy to say, as I have in the past, that I believe it to be true. If, on the other hand, it means assenting to an exclusively materialistic, deterministic vision of the world that holds no place for a guiding intelligence, then I reject it.

There is no one single theory of evolution, as proponents of punctuated equilibrium and classical Darwinism continue to feud today. Many questions raised by evolutionary theory — like whether man has a unique place in the world or is merely the chance product of random mutations — go beyond empirical science and are better addressed in the realm of philosophy or theology.

The most passionate advocates of evolutionary theory offer a vision of man as a kind of historical accident. That being the case, many believers — myself included — reject arguments for evolution that dismiss the possibility of divine causality.

Ultimately, on the question of the origins of the universe, I am happy to let the facts speak for themselves. There are aspects of evolutionary biology that reveal a great deal about the nature of the world, like the small changes that take place within a species. Yet I believe, as do many biologists and people of faith, that the process of creation — and indeed life today — is sustained by the hand of God in a manner known fully only to him. It does not strike me as anti-science or anti-reason to question the philosophical presuppositions behind theories offered by scientists who, in excluding the possibility of design or purpose, venture far beyond their realm of empirical science.

Biologists will have their debates about man’s origins, but people of faith can also bring a great deal to the table. For this reason, I oppose the exclusion of either faith or reason from the discussion. An attempt by either to seek a monopoly on these questions would be wrong-headed. As science continues to explore the details of man’s origin, faith can do its part as well. The fundamental question for me is how these theories affect our understanding of the human person.

The unique and special place of each and every person in creation is a fundamental truth that must be safeguarded. I am wary of any theory that seeks to undermine man’s essential dignity and unique and intended place in the cosmos. I firmly believe that each human person, regardless of circumstance, was willed into being and made for a purpose.

While no stone should be left unturned in seeking to discover the nature of man’s origins, we can say with conviction that we know with certainty at least part of the outcome. Man was not an accident and reflects an image and likeness unique in the created order. Those aspects of evolutionary theory compatible with this truth are a welcome addition to human knowledge. Aspects of these theories that undermine this truth, however, should be firmly rejected as an atheistic theology posing as science.

Without hesitation, I am happy to raise my hand to that.

Sam Brownback is a Republican senator from Kansas.

See my THAT'S PLENTY post about the Creationist museum >>