Being Random

Brokeback:

OK -- the info dump is over. I just wanted to get those posts on Brokeback Mountain revised and moved over here to inaugurate the new site. For further reading on the movie by some people who are thinking deep thoughts (and in some cases amazingly similar to my deep thoughts), check out particularly cabanaboyscoot, Left Coast Breakdown (including this exchange on place), and towleroad. (This is by way of getting you to notice my new links area to the right.) However, do remember the tandem posts at Hunter's Eye.

The Scientific Evidence for ID:

I wanted to present a post on the scientific evidence for Intelligent Design, but I found the opinion on Kitzmiller, et al. vs. Dover Area School Board, et al. It's 139 pages and it's in PDF format, but you can handle that. Can't you? Besides, it's much more interesting than a blank post.

A few choice quotes, courtesy of Kevin Drum at Washington Monthly (no link -- this is most of the post):

First, while encouraging students to keep an open mind and explore alternatives to evolution, [the Board's disclaimer] offers no scientific alternative; instead, the only alternative offered is an inherently religious one, namely, ID.

....The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy. It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy.

....Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The breathtaking inanity of the Board's decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial. The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources.

Since eight of the Board members who voted for the ID policy have been booted out of office, I would guess the Board will not appeal.

Offhand, I'd say the Kansas School Board is in serious trouble. Again.

Later.