But remember, he's with us on everything except the war

Soon-to-be ex-Senator Joe Lieberman, pictured at left during an earlier tryst with some other IDiot, will be co-authoring a book with David Klinghoffer, a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute. Pallin' around with creationists now, eh, Joe?

Klinghoffer's other books include How Would God Vote?: Why the Bible Commands You to Be a Conservative, published in July 2008, which may or may not have had anything to do with Holy Joe's choices during that year's presidential campaign.

As Roy Edroso reminds us, Klinghoffer also pens the occasional anti-science screed for National Review. If you'll recall the goals of the Disco'tute, this will not surprise you.

Turning Bachmannia Up Another Notch

Reports Andy Birkey of the Minnesota Independent:

Bachmann stars in “Socialism: A Clear and Present Danger”

Rep. Michele Bachmann appears in a new documentary by Coral Ridge Ministries called “Socialism: A Clear and Present Danger.” The film questions “whether socialism is the Bible’s prescription for the underprivileged and assesses socialism’s track record in Venezuela, Cuba and elsewhere.” The film’s creators conclude definitively in the first few minutes that socialism is decidedly anti-Jesus.

The film combines clips from speeches by President Obama and interviews by individuals like Bachmann with images of the Communist Manifesto and of figures like Stalin, Castro, Mao and Hugo Chavez.

[...]

Coral Ridge Ministries is a religious right group that has made it a mission to oppose Obama’s policies. The group also raised the ire of Jewish groups for saying Hitler committed the atrocities of the Holocaust because be believed in evolution.

(h/t: Lauri Apple | x-posted)

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[Added] Also in the cast of wingnuts: Jay Richards, from the creationist flagship Discovery Institute. "He is also critical of Wikipedia, and recommends his blog readers to avoid it." Okay! So don't click here!

Plus! Nixon hatchet man and Templeton prize winner Chuck Colson! And David Horowitz, for calmness! And Steve Forbes, because Jesus loves the flat tax? Maybe!

But wait, there's more! As a final bonus, to prove that they're totally not racist against our black socialist totalitarian overlord, they also have "Kai Chen: Native of China and former member of the Chinese National Basketball team."

Moving the Endpoint of the Far Right Farther Right

Andrew Sullivan reacts to news that Rupert Murdoch is looking to sell The Weekly Standard:

Things that make you go hmmmm. The possible buyer is a far right Christianist, Philip Anschutz, whose campaigns include keeping gay people marginalized (he funded Colorado's Amendment 2), discouraging the teaching of evolution (he founded the Discovery Institute), and the Pass It On organization, the Foundation For A Better Life. It would mean even more theoconservatism and Christianism at TWS - just what we need!

Actually, from following Sully's first link, it appears a lot more than "possible:"

News Corp. is near a deal to sell its right-wing political magazine, the Weekly Standard, to conservative media mogul Philip Anschutz, according to people familiar with the situation.

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[Update 2009-06-17 22:53] The deal is done (via). Interesting to note/worth keeping in mind that the Washington Examiner and the San Francisco Examiner are already owned by Anschutz.

How (Not) To Talk To A Creationist

PZ has copies of emails from a professor of biology at UVM responding to an IDiot from the Discovery Institute trying to wangle a debate. Pretty sweet.

(h/t: marindenver/Rumproast)

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P.S. Just in case you're wondering, "Why not debate?", the short answer is this: Been there, done that, and too many times already. Creationism is not science, "intelligent design" is not anything but creationism rebranded (remember the Wedge Document?), and all the creationists are looking for is credibility by association.

Richard Dawkins has an essay called "Why I Won't Debate Creationists" if you'd like to read a clear and detailed explanation.

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[Added] It turns out there was an additional wrinkle here. The professor, Nick Gotelli, had earlier written a commentary, published in the Burlington Free Press, explaining why the initial selection of Ben Stein as commencement speaker at UVM had been met with such disapproval. The IDiot was possibly trying to pick a fight, and certainly trying to play on this, since Gotelli had distinguished in his article between a commencement speaker and just having a controversial lecture given somewhere on campus. He had no problem with the latter, obviously.

The IDiots play this "free speech" card all the time these days ("teach the controversy" having met its Waterloo Dover back in 2005), trying to create the impressions that religious dogma is just as good as facts and scientific theory, and that lack of patience for superstitions in the science classroom equals censorship. Sadly, this snow job sometimes works.

Tube Time

(Updated below)

John Evo has posted a couple of videos over on his site that you might like. The first is the BBC documentary, "A War on Science," and the second is the PBS/Nova documentary, "Judgment Day."

The Beeb's show is about an hour long, and takes a more general look at the anti-science movement. The Nova show is a two-hour documentary on the Dover trial concerning the teaching of creationism intelligent design in the classroom. Both are quite good. Thanks for finding these and posting them, John.

Further reading: During "Judgment Day," you'll hear discussion of a document produced by the Discovery Institute called "The Wedge Document." To save you some searching, here are links to copies of that document, in two flavors: 10 page PDF and the same content in HTML.

Reading this thing makes for some chilling moments. Here's an excerpt, the Goals section:

GOALS

Governing Goals

• To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies.
  
  
• To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and hurnan beings are created by God.

Five Year Goals

• To see intelligent design theory as an accepted alternative in the sciences and scientific research being done from the perspective of design theory.
  
  
• To see the beginning of the influence of design theory in spheres other than natural science.
  
  
• To see major new debates in education, life issues, legal and personal responsibility pushed to the front of the national agenda.
  

Twenty Year Goals

• To see intelligent design theory as the dominant perspective in science.
  
  
• To see design theory application in specific fields, including molecular biology, biochemistry, paleontology, physics and cosmology in the natural sciences, psychology, ethics, politics, theology and philosophy in the humanities; to see its innuence in the fine arts.
  
  
• To see design theory permeate our religious, cultural, moral and political life.

And some say I'm paranoid to believe that there are people bent on turning my country into a theocracy.

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Update

2008-01-02 04:32

Afterthought: I never really get why people who believe in God feel so threatened by the theory of evolution. It has always seemed to me that if you want to believe in a Creator, even if you view humans as the pinnacle of this creation, it's far more impressive to think of this Creator as having the understated elegance to set up a system with a few simple rules that would lead to what we see today. You got your Big Bang, a handful of physical constants, your chemical soup, and your natural selection. Boom! A universe full of wonders! What else do you need? What's the problem?