Monday, August 22, 2005

Connecticut Sues 'No Child Behind' Law (AP). AP - The state of Connecticut filed a federal lawsuit Monday challenging President Bush's No Child Left Behind school reform law, arguing it is illegal because it requires expensive testing and programs it doesn't pay for. [Yahoo! News: U.S. National] An unfunded mandate?  Wow...who'd u thunk it. 3:50:38 PM    comment []

Bush defends policy on Iraq war. President Bush again says the US must "stay the course" in Iraq as he interrupts a holiday to address US war veterans. [BBC News | News Front Page | UK Edition] Sometimes you have to go abroad to find out what is going on in the United States.  Scary that.  Anyway, the commander or is that vacationing chief had this to say today: Mr Bush said a policy of retreat and isolation would not make the US safer. Funny but I thought the general indifference by the leadership of the United States to the world opinion was already working to isolate it. The only way to defend to our citizens where we live is to go after the terrorists where they live. An interesting statement, considering that the worst terrorist are not in Iraq and never really have been.  Our troops know that ... if we do not confront these evil men abroad, we will have to face them one day in our own cities and streets, he said in his weekly radio address on Saturday. And he is not talking about the members of Congress or others that under the guise of homeland insecurity have begun to systematically chip away at the rights that most US citizens have forgotten they have. Bruce Cockburn said it best...the trouble with normal is it only gets worse. 3:40:06 PM    comment []

Experts warn Army may face decline in quality (USATODAY.com). USATODAY.com - If the Army maintains the size of its force in Iraq over the next several years, it could risk a decline in the quality of the force and other severe problems, a Republican senator, defense analysts and retired military officers say. [Yahoo! News: U.S. National] Well, I am glad this is only experts and not a study.  If they have to issue a study on this, then I want the funds to come out of the President's pay instead of mine.  The most mind boggling statement in the whole piece though was this one by Sen. Lindsey Graham: The worst-case scenario is not staying four years; the worst-case scenario is leaving a dysfunctional, repressive government behind that becomes part of the problem in the war on terror and not the solution. Now I can understand the United States desire not to have a state-sponsored terrorism organization left behind, but quite frankly, it is time to re-evaluate the entire mission.  Soldiers are returning to a nation of fewer freedoms than the one they left.  The only difference between Iraq and America at the moment is that people are not shooting soldiers on the street.  Iraq is approaching the United State pre-September 11 while the United States is approaching pre-Saddam Iraq. 11:43:49 AM    comment []

Sixty-Something Stones Roll at Fenway (AP). AP - The Rolling Stones launched into "Start Me Up" to kick off their latest North American tour Sunday night at Boston's historic Fenway Park, a fitting venue and fitting opening song for the aging but irrepressible rockers. [Yahoo! News: Top Stories] I am not a big Rolling Stones fan.  I like some of their music, but on the hole, I will not be rushing out for tickets to this concert. What makes this concert such a big deal is two-fold.  First, here are a group of gentlemen that have been doing this for over 40 years.  Not bad considering to average life span of a band in this day is about two weeks.  Secondly, they play their own instruments, generally write their own songs and while some would argue this, are fairly decent musicians. I bring this to the front because the RIAA, that bastion of the music business, keeps lamenting that music sales are down because of file swapping and illegal downloads.  What the RIAA refuses to acknowledge is that the issue is not downloading - it is the lack of musicians. Go back and read what I just wrote about the Stones.  They have been around 40 years.  That means they have not a couple of songs but hundreds.  There are few artists with a catalogue that big, but there are a few.  The problem is that most of those artists started their careers in the 1960's and 1970's.  Name two bands that formed after 1980 and are still around, still touring and still putting out new music.  Good luck.  If you can think of any, please, let me know because I can only come up with two individual artists - Bryan Adams and Madonna.  I cannot think of anyone from the 1990s or forward. This is the real problem for the RIAA.  8:25:18 AM    comment []

Frist Backs 'Intelligent Design' Teaching (AP). AP - Echoing similar comments from President Bush, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said "intelligent design" should be taught in public schools alongside evolution.[Yahoo! News: U.S. National] It must be the August heat.  Either that or someone forgot to adjust Mr. Frist's medication.  Yes, I realize he is a medical doctor and should therefore be accorded the honorific, but I am afraid that I find it impossible to reconcile the required science that medical doctors must go through in order to reach the level the Mr. Frist has achieved and the drivel about intelligent design that comes out of his and other so-called scientists mouths. I am the first one to admit that Darwin's theories might not hold up.  One of the great things about science, even that practiced before God became an issue and subjected us all to believe rather than prove is that if you put forward a hypothesis, you better be able to back it up with some pretty solid evidence and you had better be prepared to watch it crumble to dust if some one puts up better evidence than you. For example, this issue with greenhouse gases.  The hand wavers have been telling us that it is getting bad, climate is being affected etc, etc, etc, and they put forward dozens of years of proof.  Not bad, except that on a planet that is conservatively estimated to be in excess of four billion years old, a couple of dozen years does not even come close to cutting it.  Does it look like we are doing something to our planet that probably is a bad thing.  Absolutely.  It is proof that we are warming it up?  Maybe.  Is it definitive?  Not even in the same ball park. Now, we have a President (the same one who has been on vacation more than on the job) and the Senate Majority leader saying that something called intelligent design needs to be taught alongside evolution in the schools.  For those of you who live under a rock (or in a more enlightened country, like China, or Iran), intelligent design is a euphemism for creationism.  But because of the supposed separation of church and state in the United States (stop laughing, it is true - most US residents truly belive there is a separation), they cannot call it creationism.  So this new phrase.  I guess I would have to start asking a whole bunch of questions about this intelligence that designed (and here it gets sticky) the world? Man? Animals? Plants? If, as Mr. Frist and others seem to think, life on this planet is too complex to have developed through evolution, then we have to put forward some competing theories.  Forget for a moment that man and a fungus share pretty much the same basic biology, DNA building blocks, method of reproduction etc.  Forget for the moment that traits among species exist and a pretty solid line can be drawn connecting most of the living organisms on the planet to each other.  Instead, focus on the things that do not fit.  A giraffe is one of those.  So is a platypus. Some would argue Man also falls in that category.  How did they develop?  Someone must have done it.  OK, for a moment, let us assume that someone did do it.  I would be more willing to belive that the someone was an extra-terrestrial doing gene experiments than I am willing to belive it was a higher power who waved their magic wand.  It is lovely to explain away things we do not understand.  Man has been doing it for millennia - where do you think the idea of gods came from in the first place.  The problem with this intelligent design nonsense is that it fails the most basic test of all scientific proofs, namely, there is no evidence to support the argument.  Contrary, there is more than sufficient proof to put the theory on the scrap pile.  This is the sort of theory you would have expected Aristotle to propose before proving that things were connected.  The ancient Greeks seemed to know more about the human body than some of today's so called medical experts and yet, here is a medical doctor, a powerful senator, someone who you would expect should know better, proposing the biggest fly pile in a generation.  Should students be exposed to this?  Sure, tell them that it represents the religious position but has no scientific fact.  Or better, have them prove it themselves.  Perhaps then, we might hear less of this nonsense as our children tell us to get back to the more serious issues at hand. 8:15:47 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2005 David Lane.