Molecules

The good news is that "intelligent design" got voted out in Dover, Pennsylvania, where, as one successful school board candidate put it, "there's a church on every corner."

The bad news, according to one numbskull preacher, is that God will surely throw some disaster Dover's way for allegedly voting Him out of the classroom.

This explains the socialist right's frustration with the federal judiciary. They can't apply any retribution on it because the Founding Fathers wisely protected the federal bench from all that. Why does the socialist right hate the Founding Fathers so?

Anyways, back to the issue at hand, the "intelligent design" mess was brought up not just by local election results but by my seven-year-old second grader son on election night. He was asking me how molecules worked. I told him that the protons did this, and the neutrons did that and the electrons did the other side and the whole shebang acted one way when connected with some other atoms and other ways when merged with others.

"Why?"

And there is why "intelligent design" fails as an 'alternative' to science and evolution.

Science and its theory of evolution attempt to describe -what- happens in the natural world. Light travels this way, planets go that way and nature evolves life through this apparent process. It -doesn't- try to explain "why" at the level my son asks.

Why doesn't light travel faster or slower than 186,000 miles per second or so? Why does water evaporate at a certain heat? Science can and does describe the process but no one can explain exactly why it all works the way it does. Nor does science try to.

Theology and belief does. Even early human knew that the sun rose and set by a predictable observable schedule but they couldn't figure out -why-. So they created myths. The sun was a magical creature, or a flaming chariot rode by a deity as his job description. They needed to understand why the sun did what it did. It's a natural desire.

But it's not science. It's theology. Which is what "intelligent design" is, no matter how its proponents try to wrap it. You wanna know -why- animals adapt to changing surroundings? Ask God. Or gods. Or the great Karma. Or no one. Or just ponder it all under a tree. For most of this work, there are religious organizations willing to help you work it out. There are plenty of trees available if you just want to sit and think about it. Finally, there are ballgames to watch if you'd really just not worry about it at all. After all, some might feel that if we're here, we're here, who cares where we came from?

In short, evolution vs. intelligent design is an apples and oranges fight, bad science invented by foolish people for political gain. It's good to see that some solid and sensible people in the heartland see this. There's hope for the Republic yet.

10 Reasons Why Gay Marriage Should Be Illegal

1) Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.

2) Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.

3) Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

4) Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn't changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can't marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.

5) Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Britany Spears' 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.

6) Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn't be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren't full yet, and the world needs more children.

7) Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.

8) Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That's why we have only one religion in America.

9) Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That's why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.

10) Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven't adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.

Inspired by a recent vote in the state of Texas.

Conan vs. California

"Crom count the dead!"

It makes for a good description of Arnold Scharzenegger's ballot measures after yesterday's special election in California.

I knew Schwarzenegger was toast right after his election in 2003. He promised California voters that he could provide the same level of public services while rolling back a vehicle license fee by finding efficiencies, waste, blah, blah, blah, in the state government. “Something for nothing!” the people yelled. They liked that.

Of course, you can’t deliver the same for less so Arnie’s fortunes inevitably failed. Given the size of the gap between what comes in and what goes out, taxes would have to be raised and services reduced to produce a real balanced budget. But that requires pain on both sides of the ledger, from liberals who want more services and conservatives who won’t raise taxes. Arnie needed to fight both ends from the middle to produce real results. But he didn’t. He chose to blame a Democratic majority legislature in a Democratic majority state. This is tantamount to fighting the Russian army in downtown Moscow.

The pundits are on and on about the “dysfunctional” nature of state policymaking. Really, there’s nothing dysfunctional about it at all. It’s the classic divide between what we want as a society and what we’re willing to pay for.

Fyi, the California state deficit is a byproduct of the Dot Com boom. The Democratic governor and legislature overtaxed the rich kids who came out of that and reduced taxes on everyone else, and increased services. When the Dot Com well dried up, the deficit came and ballooned out of reason.

Arnie didn’t use his prior stature to get people to see the either/or involved. Taking the easy way out, he promised gain with no pain. He wasn’t the first. Reagan did it with his “supply side economics”, providing more revenue by –lower- taxes. Reagan made “WIFRA” his mantra, “[W]aste, [Fr]aud and [A]buse!” Get the welfare mommas off their duffs and we’d be in like pigs in clover. Anyone with an eighth grade math education knew that tossing even a few thousand $750 a month welfare queens out won’t make a decent in a multi-trillion dollar budget. But it’s a siren song which can be counted on to cause enough folks to put the math book aside before voting.

But Arnie’s not running the federal government. His budget, though sizeable, still isn’t the US government’s. He can’t print money and he’s under a specific constitutional demand for a balanced budget, although nothing says he can’t borrow money to balance the books. He’s also got a state constitutional requirement that calls for two-thirds of the legislature to approve the annual budget and any tax increases. This gives the minority, in this case the GOP, power all out of proportion to their political standing to hold down revenue increases, locking in the shortfall against a majority which reflects the voters’ level of desire for public services.

Arnie could use his standing with the GOP to argue tax hikes out of them in return for service cuts from the legislature. He could have governed truly from the middle. But he didn’t and now he’s dealing with a legislature which sees him cut down to quite mortal size.

I have no love for Arnie. He shouldn’t be governor. The GOP mounted the recall attempt right after losing the 2002 governor’s race. It was a case of “let’s keep voting until we win.” Gray Davis wasn’t a great governor but he was fairly re-elected. Recalls should be used for malfeasance and similar activities, not by sore losers.

I also can't stand the ridiculous idea that a guy who kills special effects-produced monsters on stage somehow carries that same talent over into the real world. Pro sports players and coaches enjoy the same assumptions when they run for office. But I suppose there's no use fretting about that. Americans have had an unreasonable thing for “heroes” dating back to Andrew Jackson. That ain’t gonna change. Still, it’s good to see it shot down every now and then.

I love California. It's a fantastic place to live, work and play. I want my son to live here and be happy too. I’d like to live in a state with some fiscal sanity. But it ain’t gonna happen under Arnie after last Tuesday. The work now is to elect a Democratic governor who can convince the voters to get rid of the ridiculous budget and taxes supermajority so we can tie wants with needs and the governing majority can really govern.