Nuggets of internet gold:

vative site Wigderson Library & Pub blasts a Wisconsin Republican for abandoning his principles. Seems one such principle is paralyzing state government if any sort of tax is ever required.

• Nancy Hanks at The Hankster tells us what we need to know about open primaries, tossing away party affiliation.

• Tim McGaha at Tim's Thoughtful Spot connects the development of the biplane with the science of structural bridge design in 1893.

• New Global Myth contrasts for us the bright, shining presentation this week from our new President with the dim and dreary attempt by the Junior Governor of Louisiana.

• Jack Jodell, friend of the working blogger, has a memorable piece at THE SATURDAY AFTERNOON POST educating us on a comic strip from long ago with a bit of fascinating research.

• Ravings of a Semi-Sane Madwoman offers a dispassionate and balanced, okay maybe not so much that as accurate and passionate, analysis of the CPAC conference of movement conservatives.

• Max's Dad tells a little about a few lessons for bigots in Sean Penn's depiction of the late Harvey Milk.

• A favorite conservative site, Chuck Thinks Right provides a sensible warning to Democrats about a movement to push the party to the left. But before you go to the main blog, lower the volume. Chuck has an auto sound deal with tripe about the deficit being the equivalent to a million dollars a day since the time of Jesus, and combines it with a bogus, non-existent CBO report that says the money won't be spent in time to affect the recession. Besides the sound being annoying, Chuck is full of beans. Such comparisons mean little. For example, if you laid all newly unemployed Americans end to end, they would still be unemployed.

• Writer, illustrator, and filmmaker SJ at RANDOM THOUGHTS lets loose a well reasoned rant against Washington lobbyists.

• The World of Doorman-Priest posits a theory that the Gospel according to Luke contains a blatant bias and a thinly hidden agenda concerning the disciples of Jesus.

Your turn.

Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson and his friend, Reverend Robinson Duckworth, often took the children of friends on excursions. One day, they took the daughters of an official of Oxford University on a boat trip. On the five mile journey up the slow stream, Dodgson entertained the children with an impromptu tale of a little girl in a strange alternate world.

Dodgson became the author Lewis Carroll and the story became Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Temporary Illinois Senator Roland Burris reminded me of a character from the Carroll classic as he angrily defended himself at a raucous press conference a couple of weeks ago.

He originally insisted that he had spoken with no associates of then corrupt Governor Rod Blagojevich about his prospective appointment to President Obama's vacated U.S. Senate seat. When it developed that he had, in fact, met with Blagojevich's brother, he explained that a brother is not an associate.

Then it turned out he had met with other actual non-sibling associates of the Governor. Under oath, he said he had spoken to nobody about an appointment to the US Senate. However, he now says he had indeed spoken with the associates about a similar subject. How similar? Well, he is quite emphatic that it was not, definitely not, really and truly NOT about an appointment to the Senate. It was, however, about his interest in being appointed to the Senate. There is an important distinction, he ranted, between an interest and an appointment.

More important to some of us than his mad game of origami with the English language, is the clear attempt while Illinois Attorney General to show his toughness on crime. He tried to have two men executed who, though convicted, were demonstrated to be innocent of a horrific murder. As he insisted the innocent men be killed, he explained that he did not want to overturn a jury verdict just because he felt it was wrong. Unknowable is whether he was engaging in yet another whimsical play on words.

The Lewis Carroll's story has Humpty Dumpty explain his philosophy. "When I use a word," he says, "it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less." He later elaborates to the astonished Alice. "When I make a word do a lot of work," he says, "I always pay it extra."

As Burris pays his words their well earned overtime, he seems to retrace Dodgson's journey up the slow creek. But this trip seems different than that of the future Lewis Carroll and his friends.

Burris is alone and without a paddle.

Your turn.

Four decades ago, Patrick L. Paulson was on television defending draft laws.

And what are the arguments against the draft?
We hear that it is unfair, immoral...discourages young men from studying, ruins their careers, and their lives...(Pause)...
...Picky, picky, picky

That "picky" part was comedian Pat Paulson's trademark phrase. He would answer profound arguments with humorous dismissal.

Bobby Jindal, the unfortunate Governor of the unfortunate state of Louisiana, is being dismissed for his dreary presentation following Barack Obama's address to Congress. His presentation was a little like an elongated beauty pageant speech (and what would you do for world peace, Miss Louisiana?).

He immediately followed a popular President speaking to a mostly cheering Congress. Jindal spoke to a room of busy television technicians. Obama spoke majestically of a broad panorama of problems and solutions, offering a clear vision and substantial hope to a nation desperate for hope. The President put today's circumstance in the context of other historic hardships overcome with success. How is a lone Governor to follow that?

Thank you for that magnificent performance, Mr. Pavarotti.
And now for our next contestant, little Bobby Jindal.
And what will you be singing for us tonight, Bobby?

But the Governor had an even larger problem. He was representing a very difficult case on behalf of a singularly unpopular client, the increasingly conservative, mostly regional, largely marginalized Republican party. But he managed to come up with a coherent, quite daring, polemic. He added up the failures of recent years and presented them to a skeptical nation as a case against government itself. Do we really want to hand our economy over to the folks who brought us death and destruction in New Orleans?

It was a brave argument. We screwed up completely, he seemed to be saying, which proves you can't trust government. The public may be forgiven for learning the more limited lesson that we can't trust Republicans. It isn't government that failed, it is conservatism.

Don't blame Governor Jindal for giving the only response left for Republicans:

. . . Picky, Picky, Picky . . .

Rush Limbaugh is against the Fairness Doctrine. Should we be shocked? He is against it because it is a plot to get conservatives off AM radio.

Okay, so how many leftist groups are there in this country that could call every one of my 600-plus radio stations and say, "We don't like what Limbaugh said, and we need a chance to respond." So you've got 600 general managers at radio stations, "We have to, the law says I gotta put 'em on here."

Giving free time to every random caller that demands it would be prohibitive. So stations would have no choice but to cancel opinion programs.

There are four problems with Limbaugh's logic.

That's not how the Fairness Doctrine worked. When it was enforced, stations using the public airwaves were required to broadcast controversial issues of public importance. They only had to be fair and honest about it. Equal time was not required except for candidates during election campaigns. That is why the rule had to be suspended during the Kennedy-Nixon debates in 1960.

Its time is past. The rule made sense when only a few channels were available for news and opinion. The rule still made sense when Reagan Republicans managed to get it permanently suspended in 1987. That was wrong. But since then, cable news and the internet have combined to make alternatives available. Fairness is a lot easier to get.

It won't be seriously considered, ever. Every once in a while, some lone representative will introduce it. Occasionally it might even attract a co-sponsor. But enthusiasm for it is harder to attract with each passing year. Few people want it. Bill Clinton recently brought up the idea. Deep in my heart, I do believe, he was pulling the chain of hyper-sensitive conservatives.

Liberals, for the most part, are not lunatics. Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, and other on air conservatives combine to form God's gift to the left. They perform two valuable services to a grateful nation. 1) They repel moderates away from conservatism in general and the Republican Party in particular. 2) They convince the true believers that remain that there is no reason to rethink ideas and policies, no need for any change to bring the GOP back to life.

Any of us who would want to drive conservatives off the air would have to be out of our tree hugging, dirt loving, latte swilling, granola crunching, juice chugging, solar worshiping minds.

Your turn.

Rick Santelli' s shouting fest on CNBC was quite the scene. His voice rising, he condemned those out of work losers who were about to experience foreclosure on their homes. Why should they be bailed out?

His climactic moment came as he turned to the assembled financial wizards and screamed his question. Did they want their hard earned money spent bailing out a bunch of losers? Their screams of support for his every-man-for-himself rant encouraged him. Gesturing broadly toward his new found support, he issued his warning to the President of the United States. "This is America" he shouted. The real message, the unintended message, was that conservatives have a very narrow view of America.

Americans do not react well to arrogance. Liberals became outcasts when they lost their image as sons and daughters of the working class. When they became known as Limousine Liberals, they were doomed for a couple of generations. Mario Cuomo captured the feeling when he spoke eloquently of the sacrifices his parents made, working hard and eventually earning their place in American prosperity. He described the rage of working folks as they were told their success was something to apologize for, in the face of the misfortune of others. Liberals who talked of rewarding work, of playing by the rules, began to earn a way back to political acceptance.

Dan Quayle lost any opportunity he had for our highest office in the now famous debate with Lloyd Bentsen. Quayle was indeed no Jack Kennedy. The pounding drowned out what would have been his undoing in the same exchange, as he was asked about his votes against families living in poverty.

I have met with those people ... [T]hey didn't ask me those questions on those votes, because they were glad that I took time out of my schedule to go down and to talk about how we are going to get a food bank going ...

It would be hard to overcome the image of groveling poor people, too grateful for the unearned attention of the busy Senator to question his votes.

Today's image of conservatives is costing them. The Santelli rant typifies a country club attitude. It contrasts with Obama's battle for endangered ordinary citizens. Republicans seem bent on continuously repeating the experience of pop singer Simon Le Bon a few years ago.

"I'm not a snob," he insisted. "Ask anybody who matters."

Your turn.

A few nights ago, bringing the puppies in from out back, we speculated about what could be hiding in the woods. Something must be there. The dogs spend hours each day barking into their own little wilderness. For the last several months it has been a daily ritual. My wife has been a little concerned, wondering if some large animal might be lurking, imperiling the pets.

As we came in, Alan Keyes was in the news yet again. Once more, he was shown explaining that Barack Obama is not really the President of the United States. He was parroting the same line as a week before, repeating what has become a conservative viral fantasy: that Barack Obama was not born in the United States, that in fact he was born in Kenya. Keyes charges that Obama has never produced his birth certificate.

In fact, the State of Hawaii willingly provides a reproduction of any birth certificate, although state law prohibits releasing the original to the general public (understandably, legislators were reluctant to allow unique documents into the custody of crazy persons or anyone else who might want to deface them.) The L.A. Times provides the courtesy of an online image. Shortly after Obama's birth, an announcement was published in a Honolulu newspaper.

The conspiracy envisioned by Keyes requires foreknowledge by Obama's family, the 1961 Kenyan government, the State of Hawaii also in 1961, that Obama would be taking office as President in 2009. It would also require preternatural, international cooperation among all three groups on behalf of the future political plans of the new born infant. Presumably a star in the east would have been arranged by NASA had they moved quickly enough.

The charges by Keyes were not surprising to those of us familiar with this profoundly troubled man. But why the déjà vu? This wasn't really news.

Well, it kind of was. You see, Richard Shelby, Republican Senator from Alabama now doubts that Obama is President. “Well his father was Kenyan and they said he was born in Hawaii, but I haven’t seen any birth certificate,” Shelby said. “You have to be born in America to be president.”

Oh mercy.

The woman I love originally offered the opinion that, like our barking puppies, the fringes of a dying national political party are baying at who knows what phantoms in the deep woods.

But last night, after listening carefully, she had an epiphany. They are barking at their own faint echoes.

Your turn.

There is a lot of information on the internet about it.

• The site godandscience.org promises to provide "evidence for the existence of God and the reliability of the Bible from scientific studies."

• Time Magazine tells us the "market seems flooded with books by scientists describing a caged death match between science and God--with science winning".

• In a book entitled Has Science Found God? Victor Stenger, a Professor of Physics at the University of Hawaii, educates his readers and imperils our faith. "In fact, modern science argues against the existence of an active, personal creator."

• But nuclear physicist Gerald Schroeder rescues our belief, as he "demonstrates the harmony between Bible and Science and shows how science reveals the ultimate truth."

So what does science really say about the existence of God?.

Centuries ago a standard called logical empiricism became widely accepted in any form of scientific investigation. Science restricted itself to contemplating what it called meaningful theories or propositions. To be meaningful, a statement had to be both verifiable and falsifiable.

"The world is flat" Is falsifiable and verifiable. Take a balloon high enough to see the edge, or see that the surface is curved. Or travel in a straight line to the edge, or to a starting point. "God Exists" is verifiable when God chooses to make his existence manifest. But no-one can falsify God, even if God does not exist. In science it is not a meaningful statement.

A statement that science considers not to be meaningful can be meaningful in life. I think about a variation of an old philosophy argument. If I become firmly convinced that my neighbor is trying to kill me, the proposition cannot be tested. I am not about to allow it to come to a test. I will spend my life on guard, avoiding contact, watching my house and my automobile. The proposition will forever be untestable. It is not meaningful in a scientific sense. But it is very meaningful to me. It profoundly affects my life.

In a more positive way, so does my spiritual faith. My life is enriched by my faith. That does not prove or disprove God. It does show God's existence to be a meaningful proposition outside of science.

The verdict - What science says about God is: "No comment".

Your turn.

Nuggets of internet gold:

• Amber at Make Dinner not War tells the sad story of one man's unusual approach to dropping his mistresses.

• Nancy Hanks at The Hankster begins her roundup of news with California madness and proposed reforms.

• Conservative site Chuck Thinks Right smashes Democrats on human rights. It seems the new administration criticizes China's rights record even while working with them on climate change, terrorism, and economic hardship. Chuck is full of beans, but he writes well.

• Jack Jodell at THE SATURDAY AFTERNOON POST introduces us to common sense with the sad necessity for taxation.

• A conservative site I happen to like, Wigderson Library & Pub, has a New York Post type criticism of Michelle Malkin hugging a guy with a swastika, combined with an attack on liberals.

• Manifesto Joe of Manifesto Joe's Texas Blues observes Texas Senator John Cornyn's odd behavior during the stimulus vote.

• Max's Dad covers yet another bit of random lunacy from Pennsylvania ex-Senator Rick Santorum
  

• Tim McGaha at Tim's Thoughtful Spot celebrated Valentine's Day with a quotation from my favorite book. Very nice, although I confess a bit patriarchal (It's an old book).

• The folks at RANDOM THOUGHTS cover Blogojevich the Sequel. Just when we thought it was safe to go back in the water.

• Rose at Ravings of a Semi-Sane Madwoman tells of the travails of an anti-gay state Senator whose rants were too much for Utah's GOP.

• Jessica Hollingshead at ¿Dónde está la Biblioteca? went out for Valentine's Day and offers a detailed account from hazy memory.

• The World of Doorman-Priest gives us an account of a shouting match between Christians and Muslims at a British shopping mall.

Not a bad week.

Your turn.