PA Court Rejects Intelligent Design In The Classroom

  I’d much rather live in a world where this wasn’t even a debate, but a victory is a victory.

  In case the small army of volunteers wandering about the city haven’t made it out to your dank cave, today is the last day to register or update your voting records if you want to participate in the Pennsylvania presidential primary on April 22nd. This might not be terribly exciting for the Republicans, but Democrats should be peeing their pants in anticipation of the chance to cast a vote in a contested primary for the first time since Jesus created dinosaurs.

  Try not to let the fact that the Democratic nomination is going to be decided by the superdelegates dampen your spirits, guys.

  I find it absurdly fascinating that, in a close contest, where every single vote should theoretically be invaluable, the Democratic party has found a way to make individual voters irrelevant.

A routine resolution to formally recognize a convention taking place in Harrisburg stalled because the group in question practices the wrong religion.

The 60th annual convention of the U.S. chapter of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community is scheduled to take place in the state capital this weekend. Speaker Dennis O’Brien (R., Phila.) proposed the resolution for formal recognition by the House, noting the convention’s mission to “increase faith and harmony and introduce various humanitarian, social and religious services.”

Unfortunately, there was a slight problem with the whole “Muslim” thing. Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R., The Crusades) objected. “The Muslims do not recognize Jesus Christ as God,” Mr. Metcalfe helpfully pointed out, “and I will be voting negative.”

After this impromptu lesson in comparative theology, Rep. Gordon Denlinger (R., Bigotry) tried to classy-up the debate by invoking September 11th.

“Certainly this nation went through an attack some years ago that is well-burned into the subconscious of our society,” he said. “What I sense on our floor today is that, for some people, this evokes very strong passion and emotion.”

You know what else evokes strong passion and emotion? Legislators who fail to grasp the basic principles of the Constitution. I’ll admit that I think the resolution itself is a bit of a time-waster; shouldn’t the approval of their god be enough to sustain them? But to squash the resolution because the subjects don’t worship the same god as you and your colleagues? You’ve in effect created a religious test for resolutions by a legislative body. And did you not notice that you’ve now said on the record that some portion of our state legislators hear the word “Muslim” and immediately think “terrorist?”

Thank you, Reps. Metcalfe and Denlinger for showing the world just how intolerant and prejudiced Pennsylvania politics can get, over something as silly as a pat on the back for a locally scheduled convention. It’s a proud day for all of us.

• Michael Shermer kicks off a series of articles on “the neuroscience of chance” with a look at why we’re so bad at intuiting probability. (What are the odds? I have no idea. And neither do you.)

• Virtual Philosopher ask the Director of Education at the British Humanist Association a basic question. (”Quasi-religion” is the new “cult.”)

• Discovery News reports that some birds’ sweet songs are actually dueling duets. (”Our eggs are more fertile that your eggs!” “Nobody regurgitates food better than us!”)

• Six Pennsylvania families are suing their school districts because they want their religious indoctrination home school curricula exempted from state reporting requirements. (The final exam is just a file folder with the Old Testament pasted inside it.)

Hundreds of dogs got to go for a ride in the car on Tuesday afternoon. They (and their owners) gathered outside the Pennsylvania state Capitol in Harrisburg for a rally in support of House Bill 2525. The legislation, sponsored by Representative James Casorio (D-Decent Human Being), would bring tighter regulation and improved minimum conditions to commercial kennels in the Pennsylvania, and hopefully start reforming the state’s lousy record of monitoring the dog breeding industry.

• Malaysian family beats two members to death as a smoking cessation ritual. (Ritual stops smoking, breathing, heartbeat.)
• Sarah Palin isn’t a clueless fundamentalist mouthpiece. She’s a poet. (I think I forgot the word “just” back there somewhere.
• Pennsylvania Republicans invoke electioneering laws to stop voters from wearing campaign t-shirts to the polls. (Darn kids loitering on polling place lawns next on list.)
• Russian government promotes 9/11 conspiracy theories on state-run television. (Vladimir Putin’s eyes report that his soul has no comment.)

• Scientists build RNA-based chemical computers that react to changes in individual cells. (Possible applications include single-cellular surgery, tattooing of internal organs.)
• New book examines Einstein’s life and works by examining his many, many mistakes. (At last, Einstein and George W. Bush have something in common.)
• Joe Biden claims that “jobs” is a three-letter word. (Senator Biden, meet Albert Einstein. Have you been introduced to President Bush?)
• Pennsylvania Republicans file suit against ACORN for collecting false voter registrations that ACORN has already told the government about. (Poor people voting. It’s almost as bad as that “hip-hop” stuff they call music.)

• Republican National Committee press release skewers Barack Obama for flip-flopping. On who he’s going to support in the World Series. (Clearly, this man is far too inexperienced to… excuse me, I just threw up in my mouth a little bit. Tastes like inanity.)

Last week’s avalanche of election news swept a lot of things off the trail and buried them in a remote part of the news wilderness. One of the stories that died of hypothermia at the bottom of a gully was actually election related. Voters in Pennsylvania’s 29th district re-elected state Senator James J. Rhoades to another term. Sadly, Senator Rhoades will be unable to serve, since he died 17 days before the election from injuries he received in a car accident.

The Pocono Record explains how the incumbent Republican beat his Democratic challenger, despite being dead at the time:

Rhoades died too close to election day to replace the incumbent senator’s name on the ballot and his staff continued to campaign for his election after his death. (emphasis added)

This suggests that there were two reasons that Senator Rhoades was victorious. One of those reasons is understandable, if not entirely satisfying. Yes, finding a new candidate in under three weeks would have been difficult. But would it have been prohibitively difficult to note on the ballot that electing a dead man would trigger a special election, rather than just leaving him their as a space-filler?

The second clause in that sentence is just disturbing, mostly because it’s so unsurprising. It sounds crazy and morbid; Rhoades’ staff was so devoted to their beloved leader that they wanted to have his corpse embalmed and propped up in a chair in Harrisburg, while a psychic contacted his spirit and asked him how he’d like to vote on fluff resolutions.

The truth, one suspects, is that they didn’t want the seat to go to a *gasp!* Democrat. They weren’t campaigning for a zombie senator, they were working to keep the other guy from winning, so they’d have a couple of months to find a suitable replacement candidate before the special election in January. Instead of saying that, they kept up their “memorial campaign,” and got a corpse elected rather than see challenger Peter Symons take over the seat.

Another interesting outcome is that the third-place candidate for the seat, independent Dennis Baylor, hasn’t officially conceded, despite receiving about 2,000 votes to Rhoades’ 71,000 and Symons’ 41,000. He points out the practical problems of conceding to a dead man, as well as the unclear procedure for trying to get on the ballot as an independent candidate in the special election. If it works the same way as it did for the general election, Baylor will have to gather a certain number of signatures on a petition to secure a place on the ballot. Instead of having six months to gather the required names, he’ll have less than three.

So, congratulations to Pennsylvania’s 29th District. That is one state senate seat that is guaranteed not to generate any patronage jobs and wasteful spending, at least until January.