Mitt and Mormonism; Dead Men Don't Vote

The Nightly Build...

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Time to Channel JFK

The Dallas Morning News editorializes that it's time for Mitt Romney to give a JFK-like speech about his religion and how it shouldn't disqualify him from the Presidency. The News recognizes the catch here. JFK ran in a time when there was a broad consensus on the separation of church and state. He had to convince voters, even conservative Christians, that he believed that, too. Today, conservative Christians positively want religion to direct public policy, just not Romney's religion.

The other catch, not mentioned by the News, is that Catholicism was generally well known in JFK's time. Today, most Americans still don't have a clue what Mormonism is all about. Even though Romney's Mormonism may be holding him back in the polls, the religion is not being discussed openly in the campaign. If Romney makes the speech the News urges, that changes. If the press starts airing all the silly beliefs that Mormons believe, will that really help Mitt Romney? His silence on the subject tells us what he thinks the answer is.

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Stop the Presses: Dead Man Didn't Vote!

Surprise! Auditors found 49,000 dead people, felons and duplicates on state voter rolls. So says Christine DeLoma on Dallas Blog. She warns us that these dead people are "potential ineligible voters." She leaves the impression that we should purge the voter rolls and do it now.

Buried deep within her story, she tells us that this makes up a miniscule 0.4% of all eligible voters. More telling, she admits that "there were no instances of ineligible voters casting a ballot during the May 12, 2007 special election." None.

She details all the usual bookkeeping errors that led to outdated public records, but isn't in the least concerned that these same bookkeeping errors might erase eligible voters from the rolls as well. Overzealous purges almost guarantee it. The bookkeeping errors in those cases won't always be so innocent.

Texas ought to be more concerned about increasing the pitifully low turnouts our elections now draw. And not let conservatives like Christine DeLoma, who has worked for Republican politicians and anti-abortion groups, use scare stories about dead people on the rolls to serve as cover for our politically motivated Republican Secretary of State to disenfranchise the poor and African-Americans and Hispanics, who happen to be the groups that tend to vote Democratic.

Immigrant study; Trinity tollway

The Nightly Build...

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Welcome to America. Now go home.

Mike Hashimoto cites an "interesting new study" about immigration statistics. He implies some kind of conspiracy of silence over the study among mainstream media, even though he says the story was in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and USA Today. His own newspaper, The Dallas Morning News, didn't cover it, but it's usually safer to assume incompetence rather than bias to explain anything going on in that paper.

None of the statistics Hashimoto cites from the study is new. The percentage of the immigrant population is now about the same as it was in the 1920s. There are about 12 million illegal immigrants. Texas has a larger percentage of illegal immigrants than the nation as a whole. Immigration keeps America's population growing. Yada, yada, yada. Does anyone see any news here? I'm not surprised the study received little press. Or maybe that's due to the bias of the organization itself.

Hashimoto quotes from the "mission" of the organization behind the study, something called the Center for Immigration Studies. They have a "low immigration vision". They say they want to provide a "warmer welcome" for immigrants. Apparently, they want to start by kicking most of them out. Interesting, indeed.

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Hide the Ball. Show the Ball. Re-hide the Ball.

The big Trinity River tollway election may be come and gone, but the toll road isn't built yet, and Jim Schutze won't let The Dallas Morning News forget that it's not all paid for yet, either. He tells us that during the election campaign, Mayor Tom Leppart told voters that "he had looked them in the eye at the North Texas Tollway Authority and that he was very comfortable that they were never going to ask the city for more money no matter what the road costs." It turned out that NTTA never made such a promise. In fact, NTTA reserved the right to come back for more money if tolls didn't cover the cost of building the road.

The Dallas Morning News knew this, but didn't say anything until the day after the election and, then, only buried in a long story. Jim Schutze caught it. But did other The Dallas Morning News reporters? Schutze points out another hidden reference to the costs, this time in a Bruce Tomaso story about the mayor's interest in speeding up the project, in part to keep costs from ballooning. Tomaso says, without elaboration, "The city is committed to pay $84 million in bond money, regardless of the final cost." He doesn't point out that NTTA is not committed to building the tollway unless the city helps pick up the cost overruns.

Good job, Schutze. Keep showing us why why media conglomeration is a bad thing. Readers, support independent local media like Unfair Park to keep the dinosaurs honest.

Baptism in the womb; Peace conference

The Nightly Build...

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Religion has Nothing to Say about Abortion

Or so says historian Garry Wills anyway. DallasNews Religion blog has an energetic discussion about a recent commentary by Wills about abortion. Wills claims that abortion is not a religious issue, that there is no theological basis for defending or condemning abortion. He says the issue hinges on whether the fetus is a person and that religion has not always been consistent on that question.

"The Catholic Church [did not] treat abortion as murder in the past. If it had, late-term abortions and miscarriages would have called for treatment of the well-formed fetus as a person, which would require baptism and a Christian burial."

This led to a heated debate on the religion blog over whether Wills was suggesting the church should baptize dead bodies or if he was instead suggesting that if the church believed fetuses to be persons, then baptism of (living) fetuses in the womb would have been the practice.

The debate over what Garry Wills meant reminds me of the endless arguments over what this or that line of Scripture really means. If we can't agree what a contemporary English speaker like Wills meant, we'll never agree on what a bunch of ancients meant. Heck, we can't even agree on who wrote what, when.

No matter what Wills may have meant, his commentary prompts a very good question. Why in the world would God create a fetal development system that leaves the fetus in the womb for nine months, out of reach of saving baptismal waters? Especially since a huge number of pregnancies result in spontaneous abortions before the mother even knows she's pregnant. You'd think God would have arranged for his church to create a baptismal sacrament around the sex act itself, just in case it was going to result in a pregnancy. If he did, think of all the millions and millions of zygotes who would be freed from limbo.

P.S. The above observations were submitted as a comment to the religion blog, but were not accepted by the moderator. As always, if you want to read the uncensored Ed Cognoski, you can only get that here!

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Recasting the War against Terrorism

William McKenzie is excited about the renewal of the Mideast peace process. Why? Because it gets the focus back on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, which has a lot more to do with terrorism than the war in Iraq does. McKenzie thinks that's where the US focus should have been after Afghanistan instead of invading Iraq. Better late than never for the Bush administration.

Now just because the Israelis and Palestinians are talking again doesn't mean peace is at hand. That conflict is too deep rooted for quick solutions. But I agree with McKenzie that at least the US is now looking in the right place. Terrorism springs from the conflict in Jerusalem, not Baghdad. The War in Iraq didn't change the dynamics of the region for the better. The war was a distraction. The war just made things worse. Maybe, just maybe, this week's peace conference marks a turning point in America's five years of foreign policy disaster.

Brothels and space aliens; Taking marriage private

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Dallas Tabloid

In today's installment of "I Read Dallas Blog So You Don't Have To", I bring you two stories published in our city's own trashy tabloid. The first is Tom McGregor's campaign coverage titled "BunnyRanch Brothel Owner Endorses Ron Paul." Dallas Blog seems to have missed the fact that MSNBC television personality Tucker Carlson arranged for the endorsement without the knowledge or consent of the Ron Paul campaign. Tabloids do know how to pick out the juicy parts of a manufactured non-story, don't they?

The second story is also by Tom McGregor, this time a tabloid staple about New Mexico and a tourism ad campaign featuring "hideous looking aliens" and "drooling, grotesque office workers from outer space." Yawn. Dallas Blog might be slipping. Please give us more Boy-George-chains-man-to-wall and African-immigrants-eat-monkey-meat stories, please.

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Privatize Marriage

Referring to a New York Times op-ed advocating taking marriage private, Nicole Stockdale asks "Is it feasible -- or desirable -- for states to get out of the marriage business?." Michael Landauer answers:

"The government should get out of the 'marriage' business altogether and only focus on the 'civil union' contracts that are essential tools in managing people's estates. We have blurred the seperation of church and state on marriage out of a romantic notion of tradition. Truth is, marriage is seen as a legal contract by the government and by a holy covenant by most churches. They are two separate transactions already, and we should make that more clear in the labels we use."

Hooray. I said much the same thing three months ago when an Iowa's judge's ruling in favor of gay marriage set off a mini-storm among the religious right.

"Differentiate between marriage and civil unions. The former is a religious bond. The latter a legal contract. The state shouldn't be setting the rules for religion and the church shouldn't be enforcing legal contracts. Quit mixing the two up."

Do you think anyone will listen now that the idea is being talked about in The New York Times and The Dallas Morning News?

Gas Guzzlin' Texans; PTA podcasts

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Gas Guzzlin' Texans

Unfair Park's Rob Wilonsky explains why he doesn't listen to NPR anymore -- it's for their stereotyping Texans in a story that quotes a Texan on the subject of big cars: "Here, it's the bigger the truck, the better off you are; the bigger the gas guzzler you are, the better off you are." Wilonsky doesn't think the stereotype is fair. As evidence, he cites the "brawl over the coal-burning plants" that north Texas had earlier this year. One might argue that the fact it took a "brawl" to stop the coal-burning plants is evidence that the gas-guzzlin' stereotype fits a lot of Texans. In contrast, Massachusetts' brawls are over wind farms. No one there would even try putting coal-burning power plants in Martha's Vineyard.

Ironically, Wilonsky himself provides evidence of the truth behind the stereotype. In the post just before the one berating NPR, Wilonsky told his Texas readers all about a Farmers Branch car dealer who manufactured knock-offs of the 1967 Shelby GT500E, a car that got, what, 8.4 MPG? Apparently, there is demand for gas guzzlers in Texas and journalists who cater to those stereotypical Texans. But I'll still read Wilonsky anyway.

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PTA Podcasts

The Dallas Morning News shows just how trendy it can be when it recommends podcasts for PTA as a way of increasing parental involvement in their children's schools. A Highland Park middle school just spent $1280 setting up podcasts of PTA meetings. I suspect some geek parent or geek administrator just managed to get the PTA and HPISD to fund that geek's latest toy. If parents are too busy to attend long, boring PTA meetings, they'll be too busy to sit through equally long, boring PTA podcasts. PTAs typically schedule student plays and concerts the night of PTA meetings to get busy parents to attend. There's no substitute for parents actually being there in the audience where their child can see them beaming with pride. Listening to a podcast later won't cut it.

This isn't to say there aren't better ways to document and communicate what the PTA is up to. PTAs regularly publish minutes of meetings. A sixty minute meeting can be condensed into a five minute read. Historically these take the form of printed minutes that are passed out at the next meeting. In other words, stale news available only to the people who were probably at the last meeting and know what happened anyway. Making PTA meeting minutes immediately available on the Web for parents who missed the meeting is good. But putting a sixty minute meeting into a podcast is a waste of time.

Flag pins; DUI; Dictator Watch; Thanksgiving

The Nightly Build...

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Of Flags and Patriotism

In The Dallas Morning News, Mark Davis is still trashing Barack Obama for not wearing a flag lapel pin and not always putting his hand over his heart during the playing of the national anthem. Davis disingenuously says he isn't suggesting Obama is "some closet radical", when, of course, that's exactly what he is doing, going on to say that Obama "snubs the flag" and is "unfit for the presidency."

Conservatives have been using the flag to divide Americans since at least the McCarthy and Nixon eras. George H. W. Bush famously used an American flag factory itself as a photo op to wrap himself in the American flag. Conservatives do no honor to the American flag by using it to cudgel political opponents. I'll take Barack Obama's patriotism over Mark Davis' any day. Samuel Johnson said, "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." He might have been reading Mark Davis when he said it.

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Complacent about DUI?

Betsy Simnacher of The Dallas Morning News asks, "Where is the outrage about drunken driving?" She says Americans are way too accepting of drivers who drink and drive.

Perhaps so. Personally, I thought that DUI penalties had been tightened, that education campaigns for designated drivers and against drinking and driving were largely effective, and incidents of DUI were down.

So, I did a little digging. According to a 2001 survey by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, nearly all Americans reported that they perceived drinking and driving to threaten their personal safety. According to the 1995 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) 16 percent of drivers reported that they had driven while under the influence of alcohol in the past year. So, it appears that the message is getting out, but not everybody is doing what they know is good for them.

Given the obvious fact that alcohol impairs judgment, there may be a natural limit to how much further we can reduce rates of DUI without drafting the support of bar and restaurant owners, friends, family, etc. If society as a whole no longer wants to tolerate drunken driving, then society as a whole is going to have to take a more active enforcement role. It's time to assign more legal responsibility to those who don't put up any resistance when someone around them drinks and drives ... and kills.

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Dictator Watch

When our city's very own tabloid Dallas Blog isn't telling us what sex scandal Boy George is up to, or where to find Florida prostitutes, or what human body parts you might find on your next amusement park ride, it is keeping up with the comings and goings of the world's dictators. Tom Pauken makes sure we don't miss any of the evildoers' doings.

Today, he tells us that Venezuela's Hugo Chavez is having a hard time keeping his thugs in line, Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe is getting picked on by the British, Mexico's Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has some followers who can't sit still in church, and America's Rudy Giuliani (Rudy, too?!?!) isn't best friends with the real heroes of 9/11, the New York firefighters.

How much does Tom Pauken care for all these fellows? Not so much, is my guess. But he is sure obsessed with them.

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Thanksgiving, Our Great National Myth

Bruce Tomaso of DallasNews Religion finds Steve Gushee's musings about Thanksgiving worthy of note. Gushee says there's little historical accuracy in our national legend of the first Thanksgiving, but nevertheless, the legend serves to draw all Americans into a common heritage.

Well, I suppose, as long as we all know exactly what that heritage really is. National myths describe who we as a nation want to be, not who we are in practice. Learning the historical truth, learning where we failed to live up to the myths, striving to change our ways, to do better, to earn the pride that comes with the myths, that's the real value of national myths. Thanksgiving is a great opportunity for learning.

Income gap; Scott McClellan

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The Return of the Gilded Age

Is the economy good or bad? Don Erler, in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, tells us that it's good and getting better all the time. He dismisses the growing income gap between rich and poor by pointing out that "80 percent of poor American households have air conditioning, up from 66 percent a decade earlier?" So, quit complaining, you've got air conditioning, don't you?

In fact, growing income inequality is something to worry about, even if we are all living with more amenities than our grandparents did. If you value the America of the late 1940s and 1950s, it's probably because of the rise of the middle class. If you remember a time when we all shared the same values, it's probably middle class values you think of. The reason those values ruled America in those years was because the size of the middle class had grown to dominate the American scene. The income gap that characterized the Gilded Age (think tenements, child labor, wretched working conditions, contrasted with estates and mansions, dinner parties and servants) gave way to a vast middle class (think home ownership and automobiles and education and health care). Unfortunately, the shrinking of the income gap lasted only from about 1940 to about 1980. Just as quickly as the income gap disappeared, it reappeared. And as the gap grows again, the middle class is shrinking. Expect the benefits that a middle class brings society to disappear as well. This should concern us. When history looks back on our age, the disappearance of the middle class will be more important than whether another 14 percent of American homes got air conditioning or not.

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Scott McClellan Passes the Buck

Is there a reason why political insiders won't tell the truth until it's too late to matter? Back in the days of Watergate, special prosecutor Archibald Cox, Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus all resigned on principle rather than participate in Richard Nixon's illegal coverup of White House crimes. In the current White House, Scott McClellan, former press secretary to President Bush, loyally does his president's bidding, only setting the record straight long after he's out of office. According to Trail Blazers, McClellan is writing a book in which he tells us something everyone in the country knew in 2004:

"The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.

There was one problem. It was not true. I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice President, the President's chief of staff, and the President himself."

Global warming; Drivers' licenses; Belief in God

The Nightly Build...

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The Three Stages of Denial

Denial of global warming often goes through three stages. First, denial that global warming is real. Next, denial that humans play a role. Last, denial that anything can be done about it. Only after that last stage of denial is overcome can progress begin. Rod Dreher of The Dallas Morning News has reached that third stage of denial. He smugly relates how quickly he can kill a conversation about global warming just by pointing out the flaws in proposed solutions. As if no one has ever considered that slowing global warming and ameliorating its negative environmental impact won't come cheaply. As if his own status quo strategy (dare I call it "stay the course"?) itself isn't impractical for various political, economic and scientific reasons.

I'm reminded of the scene in the movie "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" where Butch and Sundance find themselves on the edge of a cliff, caught between certain capture and hanging at the hands of a pursuing posse and a death-risking leap off the cliff into a river far below. Sundance won't jump, finally admitting that he doesn't know how to swim. Butch laughs out loud, saying "The fall alone is enough to kill you!"

When the status quo is untenable and you have no good choices available, then the least bad choice is what you choose to do. Rod Dreher will eventually join Butch and Sundance in that leap from the cliff. Not because it's easy or because it guarantees success, but because it offers the only hope for success, however slim. The status quo leads to disaster.

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Driving Illegals Underground

Bob Ray Sanders of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram dares to take an unpopular stand. He comes right out and says "New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer was right the first time when he proposed issuing driver's licenses to illegal immigrants." Asked if she agreed, Hillary Clinton waffled a bit in her support of Gov. Spitzer. After a barrage of criticism and Gov. Spitzer's own retreat on the issue, she changed her answer in the next debate to a flat "No". Only Gov. Bill Richardson dared to stand firm, defending signing a similar bill in New Mexico as a matter of public safety, a tool for identifying residents of New Mexico and decreasing the number of uninsured motorists.

This incident foretells the future of immigration reform in this country. Reformers will be unable to muster a majority to get comprehensive reform through Congress. Conservatives will exploit cultural backlash against piecemeal reform. Poor, unskilled immigrants will still be needed and wanted and hired for low-wage jobs, but roadblocks against filling those jobs legally will remain high. What meager rights and privileges and benefits illegal aliens possess will be repealed. More and more punitive measures will be passed. Illegal immigrants in this country will be driven more and more into the shadows, not allowed to sleep inside our city limits or send their children to our schools. We will become two Americas: one of affluence and rights and privileges and one of poverty and exploitation and living outside the law. Bob Ray Sanders points out that encouraging this state of affairs actually wins elections for many politicians. As long as that's so, expect things to get much worse before they get better.

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God is Like the Wind

God is like the wind: "You can't see it, you can't touch it, you can't catch it, you can't pin it down, but you can see what it does. And you know that it's there." At least, according to a Jesuit author, the Rev James Martin, in an essay cited by DallasNews Religion blogger Bruce Tomaso.

Besides the obvious falsehood about our inability to catch the wind (windmills? sailboats? vacuums and bellows?), Martin misrepresents the position of skeptics. He says, "Most atheists conclude that if there isn't a logical proof for God, then God doesn't exist."

Most atheists don't make that mistake. Atheists simply find the evidence for the existence of God to be unconvincing, just like the evidence for the existence a celestial teapot or a flying spaghetti monster is unconvincing. Most atheists know that doesn't prove celestial teapots don't exist, only that there's no compelling reason to believe in them.

Atheists don't demand "proof", or even evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. Just a preponderance of evidence would lead a host of scientists into the field of God research. But believers can't provide enough evidence to make it even a close call. The Rev. Martin admits as much, saying that belief in God "transcends rationality." Defies rationality would be more like it.

The Rev. Martin rhapsodizes about love and longing and joy. That isn't evidence of God's existence, unless he wants us to believe that God's reality is nothing more than the reality of Santa Claus. I think most atheists would go along with Francis P. Church of The New York Sun, who famously wrote in 1897:

"Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy."

The Duomo it ain't

DallasNews Religion | Bruce Tomaso:

“Sarah More McCann of Religion News Service writes of an odd preservation fight over a Washington, D.C., church, Third Church of Christ, Scientist. The church's members think it's plug-ugly, and they want to tear it down. But preservationists say it's a great example of the 'brutalist' architectural style from the 1970s and ought to be saved.”

Ed Cognoski responds:

There's another example of the 'brutalist' architectural style that's been targeted for the wrecking ball. It's a college campus building, not a church. This one's in Madison, Wisconsin. It's the Humanities Building on the University of Wisconsin campus (unaffectionately called the Inhumanities Building for its appearance). So far, there's no organized opposition to demolishing it, but I won't be surprised if organized opposition springs up, given newspaper stories like this one:

"It's apt that the Humanities Building is both complex and a struggle to fathom. Designed by Chicago's Harry Weese, it was built between 1966 and 1969 during the Vietnam War-era turbulence. Sick of broken windows, tear gas and unruly protesters, university administrators were determined to erect a riot-proof building. Weese certainly gave them that."

Something is lost when we tear down old buildings without really understanding the architecture or the times that produced them.

Fox News Porn

Related to the last item, commenting on how blogs like Dallas Blog are providing us an alternative to the biased liberal mainstream media, I can't help passing along this link to some of the wholesome fare aired by Fox News, the family values network. I guess we can be thankful that Dallas Blog, which recently gave us the "Boy George Chained Male Escort to Wall" story, hasn't sunk this low ... yet.

Update 11/17/2007: Just one day after I posted the above, Dallas Blog has a story, "Orlando Newspaper Sales Reps Busted for Promoting Prostitution", that seems to be mainly an excuse to post a photo of a sexy woman and talk about "sultry coeds, naughty nurses and girls with come-hither names like 'Rush' and 'Roxie.'". It looks like Dallas Blog has now officially sunk as low as Fox News Porn. ;-)

Red light cameras; Deleting emails; Alberto Gonzales; School prayer

The Nightly Build...

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Red Means Stop

This was so predictable. Cities wanted to stop red light runners. They installed automatic cameras at problem intersections. The state said the cities were greedy, they were just after the money. The state's response? Take the money for itself. The state promised to fund emergency rooms and trauma centers. Now, as it turns out, the state never followed through. The Dallas Morning News is right to complain. The greed in this story is in Austin, far away from the accidents, injuries and deaths caused by red light runners on our city streets.

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Disk Space is Free

It seems that state agencies in Austin have been automatically deleting emails from their systems in as little as seven days. The Dallas Morning News thinks that might be just a little too quick, but otherwise supports the practice, saying "Public officials can't be expected to save every digitized sentence ('Honey, Quizno's at 6?') lest they overstuff the people's servers."

Earth to The Dallas Morning News. That Quizno's message is not going to overstuff the people's servers. Saving email is not going to break the treasury. Disk space is cheap and getting cheaper all the time. Google is getting rich because they understand the economics of technology. Maybe the state of Texas should check out Google's free email service:

Gmail: A Google approach to email.
Lots of space: Over 4975.492087 megabytes (and counting) of free storage so you'll never need to delete another message.

The Dallas Morning News says "The public deserves reassurance that state regulations are keeping up with technology where the people's business is concerned." The News itself is behind the times if it thinks cost is the reason why emails are being deleted after 7, 14, or even 30 days. Today, there's only one reason to delete emails, and that's to cover up embarrassment, malfeasance, corruption, or just plain incompetence.

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Mistakes Happen

The Dallas Blog's Tom Pauken has spotted former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales back in Texas. Gonzales gave a speech to the Corpus Christi Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Could you invent a friendlier-sounding group to welcome Gonzales?

In the speech, Gonzales still fails to find anything specific anyone specific in the Bush administration did wrong. "Mistakes are going to happen, but the American people don't expect perfection," he said, passively. What they expect, according to Gonzales, is good faith. Apparently, he wants history to judge him, not as evil, only as incompetent.

In Tom Pauken's revision of history, Gonzales was not as much evil or incompetent as he was the fall guy. Pauken excuses Gonzales by taking a swing at Dick Cheney and David Addington and Karl Rove, crediting unnamed Washington insiders as saying Gonzales was only carrying out policies designed by others. Watching Tom Pauken get his revenge on his fellow conservatives is a guilty pleasure. Pop some corn.

By the way, Pauken's man in the 2008 Republican race looks more and more to be Mike Huckabee. Pauken praises Huckabee's anti-abortion and anti-gay rights social positions and sees a little daylight between Huckabee and the Bush administration's rush to war in Iran.

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Just the Facts

Are you tired of how the mainstream media lets its liberal bias color its news stories and slants the news to the left? Are you happy that Dallas now has a news source like Dallas Blog to give us the straight news? Are you happy with today's report in Dallas Blog about Illinois' recently passed law mandating a moment of silence in public schools? Here's how Tom Pauken reports that news:

"Federal Judge Robert Getterman declared unconstitutional Thursday an Illinois state law which provided for a moment of silence in the public schools of that state."

The first reader comment on Dallas Blog amplified the outrage. "That's a bunch of Bull ____.!" writes john k, lending more evidence to the truth of Winston Churchill's truism that "a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on."

What is the truth? First, the judge's name is Gettleman, not Getterman. No big deal, but if Pauken can't get even something as simple as the judge's name right, how much of the rest of the story should we trust?

Next, the law did not "provide" for a moment of silence. That's what the old law did. The new law mandates it.

Finally, the judge did not declare the law unconstitutional. He issued an injunction forbidding the state from enforcing the new law until a court case filed by a parent can be heard. In other words, teachers are still allowed to have a moment of silence. But, for now, the state can't lock them up if they choose not to.

Listen, Tom, if you ever want Dallas Blog to be taken seriously as a news source, you have to get the facts straight. Even if you only care about promoting right-wing propaganda, if you want a hope of persuading anyone with half a brain, get the facts straight.

Finely tuned universe; Teacher pay; Trinity toll road; Organ donation

The Nightly Build...

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Finely Tuned Universe

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram publishes a column by Don Erler in which he recommends the writings of cosmologist Paul Davies. Davies' big idea is that there are many constants in physics that are balanced just so to allow life to exist. Tip any one a little this way or that, and no life, no us. Erler admits that Davies does not believe in a miracle-working God, but Erler himself leaves the impression that this fine tuning of the universe is proof of God.

Paul Davies is talking about what's called the anthropic principle. It's been batted around for decades and there is no scientific consensus about it ... yet. Erler's answer - God did it - is the always reliable answer whenever man is faced with mystery. Another explanation is that our universe is just one of an infinite number of universes. A few can support life, most cannot. Of course, if we are to exist, we would have to live in one of those universes that can support life, so it should be no surprise that our universe does, indeed, support life. Yet another explanation is that there is an underlying unity in the forces of the universe that we haven't figured out yet. When we do, we'll understand how they are connected and why they happen to be just so and can't be anything else. Albert Einstein, as always, had great insight into big questions like this. Einstein said, "What really interests me is whether God had any choice in the creation of the world". So, maybe as Don Erler wants us to believe, God really did do it, but a God who had no choice in what laws of nature to use probably wouldn't be the kind of God Don Erler has in mind when he wants us to believe God did it.

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Merit Pay for Teachers

The DallasMorningViews editorialists are debating merit pay for teachers. What you don't want to do is tie pay to test results. Good teachers should be assigned to the students with low test results. Don't limit their pay because of that. And don't tie pay to improvement in test results. Students already getting 100% on tests have a hard time improving that much. Don't punish their teachers because the smart kids can't score 110% on a test.

Michael Landauer offers advice that I think will be hard to top:

A decentralized program that left it entirely up to principals. ... Give principals a pot of money and let them decide, on their own, how to dispense it. ... This is what happens in the business world. Managers get some flexibility to put money behind the things they care about. Principals should be empowered in a similar way. Oh, but some principals have favorites? Some play politics? Name a workplace where that dynamic doesn't exist. Get over it.

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$84 Million? Did I Say $84 Million? My Bad!

The alternative news outlets are ganging up on The Dallas Morning News over a story by Michael Lindenberger in the News reporting that the North Texas Tollway Authority thinks Dallas taxpayers may end up paying more for the toll road than $84 million, even though Mayor Tom Leppert insisted during the campaign that NTTA had agreed that no more money would be needed.

Jim Schutze of the Dallas Observer and Unfair Park says someone at the News sat on the story, publishing it only after the election was safely won.

Sam Merten of Dallas Blog calls the delay in printing this story "a breach of ethics."

And Eric Celeste of Frontburner has his popcorn ready for when the News' managing editor George Rodrigue responds.

I'm with the little guys on this one, but three little guys gnawing on the ankles of the News won't change any votes. The election is over. The 800 pound gorilla won. The News gets its toll road. That world-class park? Ain't gonna happen. Move on. Nothing more to see here.

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You Mean Punishment is Meant to be Unpleasant?

Frontburner's Trey Garrison found another offense to his libertarian instincts. He cites an irritated blogger who reports that his punishment for speeding included sitting through a video on the virtues of organ donation. What does organ donation have to do with speeding, he asks. I'm thinking that maybe the punishment should instead be picking up litter on the highway. No, wait, litter has nothing to do with speeding, either. How about just making him pay a fine? But money and speeding don't have much in common, either. I know, how about if lawbreakers quit whining about what punishment society gives them? If watching a video on organ donation irritates him, it sounds like a fit punishment. Maybe he should be thankful that we don't extract his organ right there in the defensive driving class.

ID; Safe sex; Cloned monkeys; Sleazy tabloid; GI Joe; Irving votes

The Nightly Build...

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cdesign proponentsists

The Dallas Morning News Religion blog gave a heads-up about "Judgment Day", an episode of the science show Nova about the Dover, Pennsylvania court case over teaching intelligent design. As expected, the show was one-sided. But I expected that because Nova is a science show after all. Moreover, the creationist Discovery Institute did not participate, so their spin was not going to get any air time. But what I was surprised to learn was that the creationist side wasn't just refuted on the science argument. The Dover case revealed dishonesty on the part of the creationists as well. Google "cdesign proponentsists" for a hilarious example of a transitional fossil that creationists deny exists! And Google "Dover Buckingham perjury" for the story of the creationists on the Dover school board lying in sworn affidavits. The show was one-sided alright, but for good reason. The facts of this particular court case were themselves overwhelmingly one-sided -- in favor of science. Two big (panda) thumbs-up for this show.

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Are there Special Skills for Driving Drunk?

Mark Davis offers a very reasonable explanation why abstinence-only sex education is flawed. Unfortunately, he fails to point out the flaw in one commonly used analogy:

"We don't tell kids how to drive drunk," a local school board official once told me. "We tell them, 'Don't do it.'" That made sense to me for a while.

In fact, we do teach kids how to drive safely. Safe driving is taught to every new driver. The techniques are useful even if you are driving drunk. That does not mean that driver's ed classes are an encouragement to drive drunk. Likewise, safe sex education is not an encouragement to engage in sex. Mark Davis eventually figured this out. Better late than never in his case. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for some of the kids denied a comprehensive sex education in Texas schools.

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Dogs In Heat? Her Words, Not Mine

Dallas Blog publishes a long screed by Donna Garner attacking comprehensive sex education. To be honest, I couldn't get past the opening paragraphs, in which Garner puts up an outrageous straw man misrepresenting what comprehensive sex education is all about. For example, she says, "[Douglas] Kirby and his crowd believe that since teens cannot possibly control their sexual urges (in essence, comparing teens to dogs in heat), then we must give all teens contraceptives."

I'm interested in reading reasoned arguments against comprehensive sex education, but Garner's ain't it. Being in favor of comprehensive sex education does not mean you believe that teens are like dogs in heat or that condoms should be passed out in schools like hard hats in an air raid. If Garner represents Texas' approach to sex ed, I'll choose California's.

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When do Human Clones get a Soul?

The Dallas Morning News Religion blog cites an MSNBC story on cloning monkey embryos, telling us not to worry. Not to worry? I was excited.

What worries some is the prospect of thousands or millions of cloned humans walking around. We don't need any more humans walking around, so that's not going to happen. Britain has even outlawed the implantation of cloned human embryos in a woman's womb.

Others are concerned about the use of human embryos for purposes like stem cell research. Something about the destruction of human embryos being murder. Ironically, implantation in a woman's womb is the only hope for survival for these embryos, so Britain's law is a death sentence for them. An example of the law of unintended consequences, that.

But if the human embryo is grown from a clone, is it really a separate human being with a soul? The pro-life side argues that human life begins when the sperm fertilizes the egg. With clones, that's not the way it works. Maybe a cloned human embryo is nothing more than cultured human tissue, like skin or blood. For that tissue, grow it, harvest it, destroy it, God doesn't mind. Are we sure He minds when a human embryo is used for stem cell research?

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Dallas' own Weekly World News

Dallas Blog continues to headline its irrelevance with stories on New York's pigeon tsar, the plans to build an Islamic car with built-in compass to find Mecca, some oil sheik's flying palace jet and a lurid tale of Boy George chaining a male escort to the wall. All of these were presented as straight news pieces, not a snarky comment in sight. I guess every city needs a local edition of Weekly World News, especially now that the real thing has closed. Dallas Blog is staking its claim to be ours.

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Uncle Sam Doesn't Play Overseas

The Dallas Morning News' Bruce Tomaso bemoans Paramount's plans to bring GI Joe to the big screen stripped of any identification as a Yank. He predicts "a bomb." Don't be too sure. More and more of the movie take is from the overseas box office. And American jingoism is poison overseas. Movies like "Lions for Lambs" and "Redacted" might not play well in American theatres, but they tend to do surprisingly well overseas.

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Proportional Representation Undemocratic?!?

Some more thoughts on DallasMorningViews' Rod Dreher's campaign against single member voting districts in Irving. He considers it rigging the system to ensure minority representation on the City Council. Nonsense. The US Congress has 435 single member districts. The US Senate has 50 two-member districts. The Electoral College has 50 districts with a different number of members in each. The Texas Supreme Court has nine members chosen at large. The Texas House and Senate have single member districts. There are lots of ways to do this, all more or less democratic, some better, some worse at achieving representative results. So, why would a system of single member districts in Irving be a violation of democratic principles? It wouldn't. If you think having an all-Anglo council in a city with sizable minority populations is detrimental to civic health, then change the system. If you're happy with the unrepresentative results the current system in Irving achieves, then join Rod in his fight to keep it.

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Finally, a big hello to Frontburner readers. Whatever they're paying Trey Garrison, it isn't enough! ;-)

Irving's council clones; The Hammer at Oxford; The Admiral vs Iran hawks

The Nightly Build...

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Let Them Eat Cake

Mike Hashimoto and Rod Dreher on DallasMorningViews are just fine with Irving's all-Anglo City Council, where all members are elected at large. There are hundreds of ways to structure a representative democratic system of government, many of which result in proportional representation for minorities. That the at-large voting system used in Irving tends to favor a monopoly on power by the at-large majority -- whether race, ethnicity, geographic region, economic class, or any other characteristic of the population at large is considered -- doesn't bother Hashimoto and Dreher. Apparently, if minorities can't overcome the built-in advantages of the at-large majority to obtain even a proportional share of power, it's their own d*mn fault.

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He's Baaaaaack!

It must be election season. Tom Delay is active again. He's been sighted in Sugar Land forming something called the Coalition for a Conservative Majority. Even though he can no longer be king, he still wants to be kingmaker.

Delay was also spotted in England, where he warned the audience at the Oxford Union that if Hillary Clinton were elected, she would institute a British-style government health care program in America. The audience cheered. Delay then claimed that no Americans are denied health care. The audience laughed. No word on how many audience members signed up to join his new Coalition for a Conservative Majority.

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Revenge is a Dish Best Served Cold

Two stories caught the eye of Dallas Blog's Tom Pauken today, both of which serve to advance his grudge against Republican neoconservatives. First, Admiral William Fallon fires "a shot across the bows of hawks" by saying he doesn't want war with Iran. Maybe Pauken forgets that admirals don't call the shots.

Second, Pauken curiously describes a poll that "has Rudy Giuliani well ahead of his principal rivals" as evidence that Iraq hawk Giuliani's lead is "fragile." Surprisingly, Pauken plays up, not social conservative Mike Huckabee, but libertarian Ron Paul, predicting a better than expected showing for Paul in New Hampshire. Pauken is desperate for someone to spoil the neoconservatives' continued stranglehold on Republican politics.

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Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye

Dallas Blog's Tom McGregor tells us that John McCain is guaranteeing a victory in New Hampshire. That can only be read as an announcement that McCain plans to drop out of the race after he fails to win New Hampshire.

Single-member districts in Irving? Er, no.

DallasMorningViews | Rod Dreher:

“Why should Irving go to a single-member district form of council government, given how disengaged the vast majority of Irving voters are? Has the Dallas experience been so positive that we would recommend it to Irving too? What evidence do we have that minorities in Irving are being routinely and systematically denied representation on the council?”

Ed Cognoski responds:

Perhaps the disengagement of the vast majority of voters is due to a feeling of powerlessness in the face of a system stacked against them? Not everyone has the optimism and perseverance of a Charlie Brown to believe that this year, unlike last year and the year before that, Lucy won't pull the football away.

Whether the Dallas experience is positive or not is irrelevant. Representative government can be messy. It can be inefficient compared to plutocracies. But Americans still value representative government. When we don't have it, it's not only the unrepresented ethnic groups or classes that suffer. We all suffer.

The evidence that minorities in Irving are being routinely and systematically denied representation is plain. Just look at the makeup of the City Council. It defies rationality that this outcome is due to chance. All citizens should be embarrassed by this outcome. Whether single-member districts is the answer or whether better get-out-the-vote drives are sufficient to achieve representative government are worthy questions to debate. No one should be content with the status quo.

Presidential candidates - Bloomberg

DallasMorningViews | Keven Ann Willey:

“Should Bloomberg run for president? Will he run for president? Would he be a good candidate? Who would his candidacy hurt the most? And most important: Would he make a good president?”

Ed Cognoski responds:

Should he run? The Newsweek story Ms Willey quotes from says Bloomberg is pro-choice, pro-gun control, pro-gay rights, against global warming, a fiscal hawk and an unabashed supporter of free trade. Because he has no chance of winning as an independent or third party candidate, then his running would serve only to siphon votes away from another candidate who shares similar views, thus decreasing the likelihood of having a President who can actually advance his causes.

Will he run? Given the above, running would be a vanity act. Billionaires and vanity have been known to run together. Whether Bloomberg is vain enough to run, I don't know.

Will he make a good President? History suggests that humility is a better predictor of success in the Presidency than vanity.

A Light Discussion About Light Rail

FrontBurner | Trey Garrison:

“Mass transit ... more often than not looks like an answer to a question very few ask. Most people like to drive; more rail isn't going to change that. At least as far as I can tell. I've been fooled before.”

Ed Cognoski responds:

Mr Garrison is right. As long as the government subsidizes highways, oil and cars, the rest of us would have to be fools not to prefer driving. Isn't the government about to sink over a billion dollars to pave the Trinity to help suburban drivers get downtown? Hasn't the government already sunk hundreds of billions of dollars into the Persian Gulf protecting the flow of oil, to say nothing of thousands of lives of American military? Isn't the government eventually going to bail out GM's crippling pension obligations?

If the government is doing all that so I can keep driving my SUV, who am I turn my back on its generosity? On the other hand, if the government redirected that money to mass transit, just think of the great system we'd have by now, to say nothing of cleaner air, more allies and independence from oil sheiks. At least as far as I can tell.

Catholic schools barely hanging on

DallasNews Religion | Bruce Tomaso:

“Parochial schools are losing students, losing money, losing teachers. Many Catholic schools have closed. Many more may have to.”

Ed Cognoski responds:

In somewhat related news, Utah voters sent that state's school vouncher program to a crushing defeat at the polls yesterday. So, Catholic schools shouldn't count on the taxpayers to bail them out of their predicament. Imagine asking taxpayers to fund vouchers to pay for Catholic schools at the same time the Catholic Church is looking for money to pay off the court judgments related to its child sexual abuse scandals. That'll go over well at the polls, I'm sure. The shame is that there are a lot of good teachers in those Catholic schools, doing good work. All screwed up by a paternalistic, authoritarian hierarchy that believes it gets its license to run things dictatorially from Jesus himself.

Bush to nominate female Harvard law professor as ambassador to Vatican

DallasNews Religion | Sam Hodges:

“Mary Ann Glendon is the choice.”

Ed Cognoski responds:

Lots to think about with this nomination. She'll be moving from Harvard to the Vatican. Isn't that a case of moving from one group of oddballs to another? Given her anti-abortion and anti gay rights positions, she will fit in better in the Vatican. She has already served as advisor to the Pope. If we want someone to represent the US to the Pope, should we really trust someone who the Pope already has working for himself? Hmm... what's her position on waterboarding, I wonder. Didn't the Church's Inquisition perfect that torture against heretics? Lots to think about.

Regrets only

Trail Blazers: Todd J. Gillman:

“Vice President Dick Cheney landed a little while ago at Love Field. He's in Dallas to raise money at a reception tonight for Sen. John Cornyn. Unlke Mr. Cornyn himself. Alas for the senator, he's stuck in Washington awaiting a vote on controversial state children's health insurance program. Mr. Cornyn is keen to help kill the Democrats' plan to expand SCHIP.”

Ed Cognoski responds:

Vice President Cheney is at a fundraiser in Texas for a senator who is back in Washington trying to kill health care for children. What delicious timing. Darth Vader holding court while one of his imperial stormtroopers battles the Jedi Knights, who are defending innocent children. You can't make this stuff up.

In Myanmar, monks on the march again

DallasNews Religion | Bruce Tomaso:

“Defying Myanmar's military rulers, Buddhist monks took to the streets again, in 'the first large protest since the junta violently crushed a wave anti-government demonstrations' a month ago.”

Ed Cognoski responds:

It's inspiring how religious figures often lead civic uprisings. From Martin Luther King in the Jim Crow American South to Ayatollah Khomeini in the Shah's Iranian dictatorship to the Buddhist monks in Vietnam and now Myanmar, religion plays its most vital role in society when it stands up against political oppression.

Obama and Edwards – Not Ready

Dallasblog.com | Tom Pauken:

“Hillary Clinton is very fortunate that her principal challengers for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008 are Barack Obama and John Edwards.”

Ed Cognoski responds:

So, Tom Pauken, former head of the Texas Republican Party, is not impressed with the Democratic candidates for President. Stop the presses. Mr Pauken thinks John Edwards is insincere and Barack Obama is inexperienced and Hillary Clinton is unelectable. Not much originality in thinking there. Mr Pauken is such a knee-jerk conservative that he may be unable to provide any objective analysis of the Democratic race.

Mr Pauken is more interesting when he's analyzing the Republicans. He drips venom when he talks about how the conservatives screwed up American foreign policy... excuse me, how the neo-conservatives did. Mr Pauken can't stand even sharing the label conservative with some of these guys. He can't stand conservatives' fiscal policy, even though George W Bush followed in Ronald Reagan's footsteps of cutting taxes and ballooning deficits. Mr Pauken is not too happy that conservatives haven't banned abortions, that they haven't gotten courts to approve of teachers leading prayers in public schools again, that they haven't launched a new crusade against the invading Muslim hordes in Europe (on this last one, maybe he should just give the neo-conservatives a little more time).

As you can probably guess, there aren't too many Republican candidates for President who meet Tom Pauken's minimum requirements for acceptability. Mr Pauken wants to exclude from the conservative label any conservative who has crossed him in the last two decades. That's a lot. He's still smarting from Karl Rove getting the best of him in the early 1990s in Austin. By my last count, the only conservatives left in his big tent are himself, Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, and two of those are dead. Three, if you count being dead politically. So, Mr Pauken's analysis of the Republicans boils down to watching who escapes his criticism. Former Governor Mike Huckabee might be Mr Pauken's favorite, or least flawed anyway. Here's what he had to say about Gov. Huckabee earlier this week: "Huckabee increasingly is tapping into the populist, middle class base of the Republican party which fueled Barry Goldwater’s and Ronald Reagan’s campaigns for President." Does it sound like Mr Pauken is making a little room inside his tiny tent?

Stay tuned.

P.S. But you'll have to stay tuned here. Tom Pauken continues to block me from posting comments on Dallas Blog itself.