I haven’t seen “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” the anti-evolution film by Ben Stein. The mainstream reviews certainly haven’t been good. The New York Times critic described it as “a conspiracy-theory rant masquerading as investigative inquiry.” A number of reviewers said the movie doesn’t support its central premise: that all these academics are being persecuted because they question evolution or believe in intelligent design. There are a few people in the movie who claim they were persecuted but, according to the reviews, the film doesn’t present evidence of how widespread this is or whether what these people say is actually true. Were they really let go or denied tenure because of evolution, or were there other reasons? For example, the film suggests that one of these people lost his job at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History because of intellectual discrimination, but the Times reported that it “neglects to inform us that he was actually not an employee but rather an unpaid research associate who had completed his three-year term.” The film really goes off the rails, according to Time magazine, when it tries to link the theory of evolution to abortion and the Holocaust.
Have any of you bloggers seen the film? If so, what did you think?
John McCain Wednesday asked the North Carolina GOP not to run a 30-second ad that shows Barack Obama and an inflammatory snippet of a sermon by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and then intones that Obama is “too extreme” for America. The ad actually targets two Democratic gubernatorial candidates by linking them to Obama and Wright.
McCain said that the ad “degrades our civics and distracts us from the very real differences we have with the Democrats. In the strongest terms, I implore you to not run this advertisement.”
His plea, and that of the national party, apparently fell on deaf ears, though. State party chairwoman Linda Daves said the ad was “entirely appropriate” and would run next week, just days before the North Carolina primary.
Do McCain and the national party really have no influence over the state party?
Expect to see a lot of this swift-boating in the general election.
Barack Obama’s “bitter†comment has revived talk of Thomas Frank’s 2004 book arguing that lower-middle-class heartlanders vote against their economic self-interest when they vote Republican, the unfortunately titled “What’s the Matter With Kansas?†The author weighs in on the controversy in the Wall Street Journal, taking no side about what he calls Obama’s “tactless assertion that the hard-done-by clutch guns and irrationally oppose free-trade deals†but noting that it is conservatism that has spawned a “bitterness industry.†Frank concludes: “The landmark political fact of our time is the replacement of our middle-class republic by a plutocracy. If some candidate has a scheme to reverse this trend, they’ve got my vote, whether they prefer Courvoisier or beer bongs spiked with cough syrup.â€
Famed astrophysicist Stephen Hawking said this week that he thinks primitive life-forms might exist somewhere in our galaxy. But he believes that advanced, intelligent beings are rare in the universe. And he discounted reports of UFOs.
“We don’t appear to have been visited by aliens,†he said. “Why would they only appear to cranks and weirdos?â€
We assume he’s including Dennis Kucinich?
Citizens Against Government Waste, a taxpayer watchdog group, is opposing attempts by Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Goddard, and other lawmakers to reverse the Air Force tanker decision. “Any attempt by Congress now to overturn or undermine the Air Force’s tanker award would smack of . . . special-interest politics,†the group said. But Tiahrt responded in a letter to the group’s president that he is trying to protect taxpayers in opposing the contract to Northrop Grumman and the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. “An honest assessment of the KC-767 and the EADS’ KC-30 shows that the KC-30 will cost the American taxpayer at least $40 billion more than the American tanker,†Tiahrt wrote, adding that the contract “is bad for America’s war fighters and bad for America’s taxpayers.â€
“Two billion dollars will be spent on the presidential campaign. People don’t give that kind of money out of the goodness of their hearts.†— former NBC News anchorman Tom Brokaw, warning a recent audience at the Dole Institute of Politics in Lawrence about the “broken and inconsistent†U.S. presidential election system
I haven’t seen “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” the anti-evolution film by Ben Stein. The mainstream reviews certainly haven’t been good. The New York Times critic described it as “a conspiracy-theory rant masquerading as investigative inquiry.” A number of reviewers said the movie doesn’t support its central premise: that all these academics are being persecuted because they question evolution or believe in intelligent design. There are a few people in the movie who claim they were persecuted but, according to the reviews, the film doesn’t present evidence of how widespread this is or whether what these people say is actually true. Were they really let go or denied tenure because of evolution, or were there other reasons? For example, the film suggests that one of these people lost his job at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History because of intellectual discrimination, but the Times reported that it “neglects to inform us that he was actually not an employee but rather an unpaid research associate who had completed his three-year term.” The film really goes off the rails, according to Time magazine, when it tries to link the theory of evolution to abortion and the Holocaust.
