PDC investigating Gregoire donors
The Public Disclosure Commission announced today that it was investigating five political action committees who have donated a combined $12,200 to Gov. Chris Gregoire because the PACs lacked local donors.[snip]
"We have urged the PDC to expedite their investigation in the same way that Judge Kallas expedited the deposition of Dino Rossi, even though it caused him to cancel multiple campaign appearances less than a week before Election Day,'" WSRP Chairman Luke Esser said in a press release. "There shouldn't be a double-standard that allows the Gregoire investigation to be slow-tracked by the PDC until after the election. The people of the state deserve to know the truth about these serious charges before they vote on Tuesday."
I'm guessing Knoll Lowney might pass on the case since I'm not sure Evergreen Progress will pay for this investigation.
Posted by Eric Earling at October 29, 2008 09:23 PM | Email ThisExpelled: No Intelligence Allowed, is Ben Stein's movie on Intelligent Design, or more accurately, the attack by the left on the freedom of scientific discovery. You'll understand very quickly that it doesn't apply just to Intelligent Design, but just as easily could have been about the left's suppression of arguments against man-made Global Warming, or any other search for scientific truth where liberal politics would be adversely impacted.
I just watched Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed on Netflix. It is available right now for Netflix subscribers through Netflix's "Watch Instantly" option at no additional charge. Yes, although in theaters right now, you can watch it on your computer with Internet Explorer with no special software if you subscribe to Netflix. Just go to Netflix, select the Watch Instantly tab, and search for "Expelled". It is that easy. You can play it in full screen on your PC or laptop.
I challenge anyone, particularly liberals and Obama supporters who claim to be open-minded, to watch this movie before they cast a ballot for Barack Obama and Democrats, who will continue their fight against scientific freedom while they continue their pursuit of unlimited abortion, euthanasia, and support organizations like Planned Parenthood.
Discredit it all you want after you've watched it. But I only ask that you do one thing; use your own brain and consider the arguments. Ben Stein has a certain amount of respect even on the left side of the political spectrum, and he does a fine job at keeping this outside normal political tit for tat. Disconnect your political biases and allegiances before you watch it just while it lasts - if you have the courage to do so.
Now back to the governor's race.
Posted by: Reality on October 29, 2008 09:35 PMThe Public and camera crews should be invited and all deposition information will be immediately released to the news channels.
Thank you for your reliable and fair coverage to this election!
Posted by: GS on October 29, 2008 09:54 PMReality,
Intelligent design isn't science. It falls within the realm of faith. If you want your kids taught intelligent design in school, then you should help us end the public school monopoly so that you can send your kid to whichever madrasah you want.
You absolutely have a right to your faith and to have your kids taught however you want but unfortunately, in the public school system, it's probably best to leave faith and religion out of it because most kids have no other choice than to go to a public school.
Posted by: blindman on October 29, 2008 10:55 PM"Hey blindman, then why allow public schools to teach a theory that is counter to the faith?"
The theory of evolution is not counter to anyone's faith. That line of argument rests on the assumption that tenets of one's faith can be tested through the scientific method. Faith by definition is a system of beliefs, not testable facts. You can believe they are facts, again, that's a common part of people's mythology, but I assure you that assertions that there is a god or that a god design something isn't evidence supporting a testable hypothesis.
I'll contend that the theory of evolution may not fully explain the facts. As a believer in the scientific method, I have to allow that as a possibility. If there is evidence running counter to evolution, it does not prove that faith-based beliefs are true. It simply means that the scientific theory of evolution must be revised, or rewritten to take into account the new data.
Think of it like this. When Einstein showed that Newton wasn't right 100% of the time but was right most of the time, it didn't prove that there really was a horse and chariot pulling the sun through the sky. It just showed that at certain scales and energy levels, Newton's mechanics break down. Scientists are still struggling with the entire rewrite of the physical theory to this day.
If we ever do find evidence counter to Darwin's theory, it just means that Darwin's theory doesn't account for all of the data and that a new theory must be written. It does not and will not prove there is a God who designed everything. The opposite of that is true too, if Darwin's theory continues to hold for hundreds of years, it will never prove that there isn't a God either. Science and religion are not two halves of the same coin.
That said, this really isn't a debate about religion and science. It is a debate about control. More specifically, who has control over what gets taught to our kids in the public schools.
It is that control argument that I was really getting at in my post. It forms the kernel of a thesis on why the Federal Department of Education and publicly run schools are generally a bad idea. Publicly run schools work in a homogeneous society but we aren't homogeneous anymore--if ever. Therefore publicly run schools have an inherent clash between the parents who rightfully feel like they should have control over what gets taught, because they are taxpayers, and the anti-religion position the government is forced to take because of the establishment clause in the Constitution.
Don't get me wrong, publicly funded education is a very good idea. It is one of the very few redistributionist government policies that I feel is allowable simply for national defense reasons and the preservation of our republic. But notice I said publicly "funded" and not publicly run and operated. I believe that to follow the spirit of individual liberty that our nation rests upon, public education should be funded through a voucher system and the federal department of education should be shut down. It is in our nation's interest to make sure that all parents have the money to buy their kids a basic education and that all schools providing that education must compete for the students by being excellent centers of learning and responsive to parent's desires.
My best evidence in support of this is our nation's university system. 100% of our nation's universities enjoy complete control of their curriculum and course offerings and must all compete for students whether they are publicly funded or private. The end result is that all of the universities offer at least a great "basic" college level education and some of our nation's greatest and most prestigious universities are publicly funded institutions.
Students are completely free to choose a Catholic school such as Notre Dame or a completely secular one like UW. (On a side note, I must say that UW is only secular if you exclude wild-eyed, frothing liberalism from the pantheon of religions. I was once threatened with failing a course because I publicly disagreed with and discredited my professor's marxist politics. It was a math class and I reminded him of that.)
Anyway, back to my original point. The only true way to maximum individual liberty in the realm of basic education is with a voucher system. It gives parents a real choice as to where their students attend school and it will create a much healthier education system with a broader set of options in methods and values. (Who knows we might actually get schools who will discipline kids again). Even the socialist Europeans like Belgium have a completely voucher based public education system.
I'm not much for conspiracy theories, but I do believe that the left in this country actually wants to dumb-down and indoctrinate generation after generation of children to create an entire society of citizens dependent on the government. Citizens who must vote for socialist and leftist policies to keep food on their table and to survive. What they haven't planned on though is that too many parasites will eventually kill the host.
When in doubt, vote for more liberty.
Posted by: blindman on October 30, 2008 11:14 AMOne more thought to show you that religion and science really are tangential to each other:
Have you ever considered that if God designed everything and that God has a plan for everything and that God is perfect and all knowing, then isn't it possible that God actually designed animals to evolve through natural--or is it divine?--selection. The systems of environmental pressures and genetic mutation certainly fall well within the realm of "everything" that God would have designed.
Maybe a natural world that evolves over time is the perfect design God created. Because if it never evolved it would have ended long ago. And what kind of plan is that?
Posted by: blindman on October 30, 2008 11:37 AM