Apocalypse now. No, really. Now!
As if we didn't already have enough to worry about with this administration, this is the current question of the week and answer on the website of Jack Van Impe's Ministries International (Thanks To Atrios for pointing this out).

Do you think that President Bush, apparently a Christian man, believes and knows he is involved in prophetic events concerning the Middle East and final battle between good and evil?
--James Beaubien

I believe he is a wonderful man. They say he is a prayer warrior. He was born again through Billy Graham's visit a few years ago when he was having problems with alcohol, and today he's proud to claim these verses in John 3, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God," verse 3. Verse 7, "You must be born again." He said I have been born again. My life has been changed.
I am not sure whether he knows all of the prophecies and how deep of a student he has been in God's Word, but I was contacted a few weeks ago by the Office of Public Liaison for the White House and by the National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice to make an outline. And I’ve spent hours preparing it. I will release this information to the public in September, but it’s in his hands.
He will know exactly what is going to happen in the Middle East and what part he will have under the leading of the Holy Spirit of God. So, it's a tremendous time to be alive.
It is great to have a President who believes in God — a President who's living a godly life and not playing with sin, for the Bible says in Proverbs 14:34, "Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people."

In every generation, some people look around, notice that there are wars and rumors of wars, that the weather is bad, that young people don't respect their elders as much as the elders think they deserve, and they know that this has never, ever happened before in the entire history of the world!! Ergo, these must be the end times. Normally this isn't a dangerous belief. Many people file it away under "nothing I can do anything about" and go on with their lives. Some watch the news alternating between anxiety and disappointment. Occasionally, such people present a danger to themselves and to their families if their belief leads them to give away their belongings, dress the family in sackcloth and ashes, and go sit a hilltop waiting for God. Most never do that and most never become violent.

Occasionally a charismatic personality can convince large crowds of people that not only is the millennium at hand, but that they can help it along by destroying the old order. The Reformation featured a few of these characters and some of them managed to lay waste to entire provinces before they were stopped (and usually executed in the most horrible manner imaginable by people with pretty horrible imaginations). There is a whole library of literature on millennial movements and millennial disappointment (if you’re interested, the classic work and usual starting point is Norman Cohn’s The Pursuit of the Millennium).

Millennial movements are usually opposed to the existing order of things. Millennialists in power are rare and those that survive to write interesting memoirs, even rarer. While some millennialists may function no worse in a position of authority than any other person with sincere religious or spiritual beliefs, it is possible that a belief in the imminent end of the world can create some dangerous conflicts of interest. James Watt, Secretary of the Interior under Reagan, is said to have believed that there was no need for conservation or environmental protection because we only needed to use this world for a few more years. God would literally create a fresh, well-stocked world for us after the second coming. I have no idea if he really believed such a thing, but at the time I believed he believed it.

Suppose Bush actually believes in the literal truth of Van Impe’s narrative of the future? He knows what the president must do at each step to fulfill God’s plan. If Van Impe’s narrative says the Israeli’s must expel the Palestinians, destroy the al Aqsa and Dome of the Rock mosques to make way for the third temple, and trigger a global holocaust, then he must use his power to carry out this plan. This is called Christian Zionism. It is the heartfelt belief of a large portion Fundamentalist Protestantism that this narrative must be carried out. The Jews must all be gathered into Israel to trigger the final battle (in which most of the Jews die) so that the second coming will occur. This is the reason so many Fundamentalists are so fervent in their support of Israel.

I hope to write more about this in the future, but for now let me refer you to the excellent material at Political Research Associates.

So, is Bush sitting, with his finger on the button, waiting for Van Impe to tell him the magic day when God wants him to push it? Or is Van Impe exaggerating his own importance in front of his flock? Much has been written about Bush’s religiosity over the last four years. He speaks the language of Fundamentalist Protestantism fluently, but what does that mean? There are lots of varieties of Fundamentalism. Loving the Bible and believing he has a special mission is not the same as champing at the bit to hurry the millennium, and in some varieties of Fundamentalism, believing you can know God’s plan and affect it is itself a sin. What is in his mind and heart?

As we radical agnostics say: I don’t know, and neither do you.

Another blow for freedom
The small town of Tonasket in Okanogan County, north-central Washington, has become the latest jurisdiction to just say No to the Partriot Act. Okanogan County is deeply conservative in the western libertarian mold. That makes their defiance all the more significant. It is also practically within spitting distance of my cat-filled hideaway in the senic northwest. Now I know where to go hide when the crackdown comes.
The resolution is very well written, I especially like the final section:

Section 5. The Tonasket City Council believes it is the duty of every citizen to protect and defend the State and Federal Constitutions from all enemies — foreign and domestic — and to demonstrate outspoken respect for the Rights that have been paid for with the blood and sweat of the American People throughout our history.

Take that, John Ashcroft.

The evil genius of Karl Rove
Buzzflash and Horse both have pieces up that explain how Rove is behind the California recall and Arnold’s candidacy. They offer some interesting circumstantial evidence, but nothing really iron clad.

I don’t doubt that Rove was involved on some level. California is a big important state and he wouldn’t be doing his job if he ignored something like this. The recall also fits nicely with the pattern of Republican behavior over the last decade. As the party has moved right, they have shown more and more contempt for the norms of electoral democracy. The search for something—anything to impeach Clinton on was first, then the judicial coup to get the electoral count they wanted in 2000, the various out of season redistrictings this spring, and now this. None of these are technically illegal, but they all stink of bad-sportsmanship. However, I have two problems with the idea that Rove planned this business in all its particulars sometime last fall.

My first problem is why Arnold? Last year Rove and the rest of the Bush crowd might have had an attraction toward Arnold as a Republican who could beat Davis. But Arnold certainly isn’t their kind of Republican. Many movement Republicans consider Arnold a Democrat in Republican’s clothing, suspiciously close to the Kennedys, Hollywood, and all that is wrong with the world. So now, with the bar to getting a Republican elected significantly lowered, why wouldn’t Rove want someone who is going to be a stronger supporter of the Bush revolution? I can’t see that Arnold will be that much of an asset to their side.

My second problem is that I don’t think Rove is as clever as we are being sold. I’m frankly pretty tired of hearing Democrats sing Rove’s praises. He’s good at his job, but he isn’t infallible. This constant chorus from our side about what a formidable strategist Rove is, is starting to sound like we are getting our excuses in line to lose next year (yeah, we lost, but we were running against The Rove). If we expect to lose, we will lose. Rove is human; he has flaws (hubris leaps to mind along with short sightedness). He does make mistakes. If we look for them and pounce on every one; if we hound his every move and show no mercy, he can be beat.

Personally, I'm looking forward to seeing him have his ass handed to him.

Pryor’s toes get scorched
I have been hoping that Judge Roy Moore’s illegal Ten Commandments monument in Alabama might start to cause some discomfort for Republicans higher up the food chain and draw attention from outside he usual church/state crowd. As the story moves towards its climax it might do just that.

Moore, you will recall, first came the public eye as a local judge defying orders to remove a Ten Commandments display from his courtroom. He used his notoriety to get elected Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court on a platform that was little more than promising to continue annoying liberals. True to his word, soon after moving to the big courthouse in Montgomery, he had a 5,280-pound Ten Commandments monument plopped in the lobby in the middle of the night. televangelist D. James Kennedy’s Coral Ridge Ministries in Fort Lauderdale, FL filmed the stealthy event and used the videos as a fund raising tool (God’s will defended for $19.95). The dark forces of liberalism (that’s us), of course, sued and the State of Alabama has been defending Judge Moore through various losing appeals ever since.

Having lost his last appeal, US District Court Judge Myron Thompson has lifted a stay that allowed Moore’s monument to stay where it is pending appeals, and given the State of Alabama till August 20 to remove it. After that hefty contempt fines will kick in and escalate.

So far, this might be just another story of some reactionary making a local embarrassment of himself by shaking his fist at the modern world. The usual liberals and the usual fundamentalists have rushed to the aid of their respective sides and that should be that. However, stories like this have a way of attaching themselves to national politics.

Moore’s defenders have managed to make this a much bigger issue. Rep. John Hostettler (R-Indiana) attached an amendment to a Commerce, Justice, State and Judiciary spending that prevents the use of federal funds to carry out the removal (Me, August 1, my links are Bloggered. Damn!). Hostettler’s amendment was passed by nearly all of the House Republicans and a disturbingly number of Democrats who are either unclear on the concept of balance of the branches of government, or, more likely, eager to pander to the reactionary vote in their home districts.

One of Moore’s most fervent defenders back home has been William H. Pryor, Jr., the Attorney General of Alabama and Bush's nominee to fill an 11th Circuit vacancy. Pryor has a long history of denying the existence of a separation of Church and State (among other alarming beliefs). His nomination is currently being filibustered by Senate Democrats. His nomination has taken an especially ugly turn since Sen. Orin Hatch (R-Utah) introduced the Republican talking point of accusing anyone who opposes Pryor of being biased against Catholics (Pryor being a conservative Catholic).

Three things keep the Moore case from being just another local idiocy. First, Rep. Hostettler made it a national issue by tying enforcement of the court’s will to a federal spending bill. Second, Judge Thompson aimed his enforcement at the State of Alabama, not Roy Moore; any fines will come out of the already strained state’s coffers. Third, and biggest, Bill Pryor can’t escape his part in this. Just at a time when it would be in the best interests of his Senate confirmation to look like a mainstream judge, his opposition to most recent (by which I mean, the last half century or so) constitutional interpretation will be pushed into the headlines by this case.

The attorneys Pryor named to defend Moore, D. Stephen Melchior and Herbert W. Titus, chose to base their arguments on long-discredited theories of states’ rights. The federal government, they argued, has no authority over state constitutional issues. Their arguments are essentially the same arguments used by George Wallace to resist integration flour decades ago. Americans United for Separation of Church and State has called on Pryor to fire Melchior and Titus for incompetence. Americans United, one of the plaintiffs in the suit to remove the monument, appears to be determined to keep the pressure firmly applied on Pryor.

Pryor’s outdated defense of Moore shows how reactionary the Bush administration is. I’m not the first observer to point out that while Reagan and Gingrich only wanted to reverse Johnson’s Great Society, Bush wants to reverse FDR’s New Deal and possibly also Teddy Roosevelt’s Square Deal. Pryor’s states’ rights position would turn the clock on constitutional law back a half-century or more. Moore and Pryor show that this administration wants to be our bridge to the nineteenth century, and despite the cowboy nostalgia that seems to fill the head of the leader of the free world, I don’t think the reality of that century is a place most of us would like. Even the white males.

Kitchen theology
I’m feeling fairly moral at the moment having just completed the most dreaded task in all of housekeeping. I cleaned out the refrigerator and emptied and washed the Tupperware!! Grown manly-men are known to tremble in fear before this task. The literature of Tupperware cleaning is filled with frequent references to projectile vomiting without the expected prior references to consuming vast quantities of alcohol. Tupperware cleaning is one of those things so unambiguously good, like making an old cat happy, that, if it does not actually assure one a place in heaven, it at least shaves decades off ones time in purgatory.

I have had friends so desperate to avoid this task that they have dated their Tupperware and—No. Not that kind of dating. This is not the kind of thing that leads to man on Tupperware sex. I mean they put a label on the Tupperware with the calendar date that they filled the Tupperware. This way they could go through the fridge once a month, season, or year and throw out all of the old stuff without opening it and looking inside. I’m sure Tupperware appreciates the return business, but my Protestant background makes me unable to do anything so wasteful. If I even looked like I was contemplating such a thing, I’m sure my dour Scots-Methodist ancestors would return from their graves and hound me into mine.

What led me to this task was the presence of an odd smell. In the end it turned out to have nothing to do with Tupperware; it was a bit of old broccoli in the back of the crisper. Now, although Old Broccoli sounds like a fine old sour mash or single malt whiskey (as in "what would you say to a wee nip of the Old Broccoli?" "Why, I'd say 'hello, wee nip.'"), it's not.

Now that the fridge smells nice, I think I’ll go kill some weeds.

Best cast ever
...or at least a good contestant. The two pack from DVDplanet with both versions of The Italian Job lists this as the cast: Benny Hill, Charlize Theron, Donald Sutherland, Edward Norton, Jason Statham, Mark Wahlberg, Michael Caine, Mos Def, Noel Coward, Seth Green.

Bookmark this
Just over a week ago, Steve Perry over at Bush Wars published part one an excellent two-parter called All the President's Lies about—surprise !—Bush’s problems with the truth.

Part one, Better Late Than Never, was an extended essay on why he has gotten away with it for so long. Most of this is common wisdom on our side of the spectrum; Perry concentrates on the lack of enthusiasm shown by the press in informing the electorate and by the Democrats in functioning as an opposition party. Although not new, his discussion is thoughtful, detailed, and show a nice historical perspective. I don’t agree with everything he has to say—in particular, I think he’s unfairly hash on George Soros—but in general I think he provides a nice introduction to this line of criticism.

The really valuable section is part two, The Bush Administration's Top 40 Lies About War and Terrorism. This is more than just a list of outrageous quotes (though I do love such lists). Perry gives a short summary and critique of the problems with each claim and follows it with a series of links to the important sources for debunking Bush. This is the sort of bibliography that should be invaluable to bloggers and debaters of the ABB party (Anybody But Bush). I hope other energetic writers will do this sort of legwork on the economy and other topics where Bush, his administration, and the Republican party are vulnerable.

(Un)intelligent design
Last month two bills (here and here) were introduced in the Michigan House of Representatives and referred to the Education Committee that pave the way for requiring the teaching of intelligent design in the public schools. Intelligent design is simply creationism in new clothes. It is a tactical effort by creationists to undermine the teaching of evolution and bring their narrow sectarian form of religion back into the public schools.

When the creationists finally exhausted all arguments for teaching overtly religious creationism in schools—the type familiar from the play and movie “Inherit the Wind”—they tried a strategy of repackaging their product. For their first attempt in the seventies, they gave creationism a scientific veneer and called it “creation science”. After failing for twenty years to insert creation science into the schools, they changed the packaging to a philosophical veneer and called it “intelligent design theory”.

Intelligent design theory is a “god in the gaps” philosophy. Anything we can’t explain must be left to God. As this affects evolution, the intelligent design philosophers concede all observational data—yes the universe is old, yes species change over time—and stake their claims on two areas: origins and causes. They introduce a designer to start things and they use the designer to keep things going. They are fond of pointing out how unlikely it is for complex organisms (almost always the eye) to have happened by pure random chance. The designer must intervene to tell things how to change.

The emergence of intelligent design theory shows a growing sophistication on the part of creationists and their political allies. It avoids any hint of religious language or any other terms that might warn students that they are being taught something nonscientific. Creation science and intelligent design both depend on co-opting the American sense of fair play to their cause. Their proponents come forward and say in the most reasonable of tones, “evolution is a theory; intelligent design is a theory. Isn’t it only fair to teach both and let the students choose?”

Intelligent design is not a theory in the same way evolution is. It lacks a key component of the scientific method. It is unfalsifiable, that is you cannot design a test for which the failure to pass would disprove the theory. The requirement of falsifiability is what most people have in mind when they think experiments are necessary for science. Experiments are the best way to test a theory because they allow you to control most variables, but a predicted pattern of observation is also an acceptable test.

I think it’s amusing that the intelligent design theory doesn’t say who the designer is. It’s proponents all know they mean the God of the Old Testament that learned about in Sunday school, but the careful language of most intelligent design statutes allows ancient astronauts to fill the role of designer. So far I haven’t heard of any Raelians demanding equal time. I also find it interesting that the fair play argument is the preferred strategy of Holocaust deniers on college campuses. I’m not suggesting that all creationists are closet Nazis (though I suppose some are; there is quite a bit of overlapping at that end of the spectrum). I have the beginnings of a larger theory of rhetorical dishonesty on the right that I should attempt to codify someday.

Intelligent design theory has implications for science education beyond what students believe about human origins and evolution. Intelligent design is based on a strategy of undermining the whole idea of the nature of science. Intelligent design, like creation science before it, plays fast and loose with the definitions of such key scientific ideas as “theory,” “evidence,” and “proof.” They encourage common misunderstandings about probability and chance (which leads to depending on the gambler’s fallacy. Eh, Mr. Bennett?).

A student taught intelligent design comes out of the school system with a confused and inaccurate idea of what science is and how it is done. Their chances of succeeding in higher education are greatly reduced. Ultimately, industries that depend on a scientific and technically savvy workforce have trouble finding qualified candidates. But none of this matters to the proponents of intelligent design. They have planted the thin end of the religion wedge back in the school system and are shoving it as hard as they can.

More Moore
Last week Alabama’s own Chief Justice Roy Moore got some unexpected encouragement in his battle to keep a 2.5-ton Ten Commandments monument on state property without permission.

In early July, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Moore’s monument was a unconstitutional violation of the separation of church and state and had to go. Moore vowed to appeal to the Supreme Court. While a couple conservative ministers tried to recruit protesters to block the removal, the US House of Representatives unexpectedly entered the fray. In a 260-161 vote, the House approved an amendment to a Commerce, Justice, State and Judiciary spending bill. The amendment by Rep. John Hostettler (R-Indiana) prevents the use of federal funds to carry out the removal. His intent was to prevent federal marshals from enforcing the court’s order. Six of the seven members of the Alabama house delegation supported the measure. Artur Davis of Birmingham was the lone dissenter.

"I felt, frankly, that it was outrageous, in that it would prevent the U.S. Marshals Office from carrying out a court order," Davis said Thursday. "In Alabama, unfortunately, we have a history of a governor 40 years ago who stood in the schoolhouse door in defiance of the federal courts. The last thing we should do is sanction not following a court order. It would set us back 40 years."
[…]
Ayesha Khan of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, one of three organizations that sued Moore over the monument, said the amendment "shows profound disrespect for the Constitution.
"You'd think the House would have more pressing matters than subverting the Constitution," Khan said.
[…]
Rhonda Brownstein, legal director of the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, another plaintiff in the case, said Hostettler's action was little more than a ploy to win applause from religious conservatives.
"If this legislation passes, I doubt it would stand up in court," Brownstein said. "It sounds to me like nothing more than political grandstanding by a right-wing politician."

Though the amendment is clearly political grandstanding, it represents a dangerous challenge to the principal of the separation of powers. Any attempt by the congress to override court decisions with which it does not agree brings forth echoes of some of the most divisive battles of American history, from nullification in the early nineteenth century to civil rights in the late twentieth. Hostettler and those who voted for his amendment show their ignorance of American history and their dangerous willingness to cast aside constitutional principles for the sake of a few votes.

Mom update
My number two sister came down from Alaska. Yesterday she, my wife, and I took Mom to meet the oncologist and find out about her cancer. It’s bad. But we were expecting catastrophic, so we’re relieved. After the doctor told us that it was bad and we needed to get Mom into surgery as soon as possible, we were high-fiving, “all ri-ight! Major surgery.” The doctor made sure he had a clear path to the door

This is the power of low expectations. If you expect the really horrible, the merely bad is cause for celebration. When the going gets tough, the real pessimists party down. We didn’t think there’d be any going at all.