Bobby Jindal: Liar, liar, pants on fire

Bobby Jindal didn't exactly tell the truth the other night while responding to Obama's speech.

There was a Sheriff Harry Lee. There was some yelling on a telephone. But any Jindal involvement occurred AFTER the kerfuffle about regulations in regard to sending out rescue boats to Katrina victims.

Read all about it here, on Ben Smith's Blog.

Two questions: Do you think Gov. Bobby resembles the "30 Rock" intern? And which of them do you think has the better chance of winning the Presidency in 2012?

Phill Kline, deputies to face ethics complaints

What I said earlier about not wanting to hear any more about Phill Kline? I take it back. This story is one I have been waiting to hear for years. Kline and two deputies have apparently been found to have violated rules of professional conduct.

The Board for the Discipline of Attorneys found "probably cause" in the case. Though they can't send the three miscreants to jail, they might inflict a severe disciplinary measure that could cause PK to lose his law license.

I wonder: would that disqualify him from continuing as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Law at the late Jerry Falwell's Liberty University? Hmmm.

Sebelius is Obama's top health post choice

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius said to be top choice for secretary of health and human services.

Should she accept the post, she would, I'm sure, do a bang-up job. She has excellent qualifications, having run the Kansas Medicaid program for six years and serving as Insurance Commissioner before that.

I would love to see our Kathleen in the H&HS spot. But woe is me, for she will leave her post here, and after Lt. Gov. Mark Parkinson serves out the rest of her term, he has said he will not run for Governor. And Sen. Sam Brownback and Ron Thornburg have said they will.

The only Democratic hat in the ring so far is Sen. Chris Steineger's. He seems like the kind of Democrat Kansans just might elect. He's right on most Democratic issues, yet he's moderate. Add to that his outgoing personality, good looks and effective speaking style, and we just might have a winner. But don't count out Sammy. If the Religious Right gets het up enough over Obama Nation, they might load up all the church buses with wingnuts and vote him in. Especially if moderates and progressives fall asleep at the wheel, as they have done so many times before, e.g., in the Kansas Board of Education elections, one of which will also take place in 2010.

One major reason I would hate to see Gov. Sebelius take off for D.C. is that she has been fighting off the coal plant promoters until now, though tomorrow's vote might be veto-proof. But with Sammy in the office, environment be damned. King Coal will reign again. Oh, woe is us.

But all good wishes to Kathleen Sebelius. We need her kind of smarts in Washington.

Joe the Plumber to advise young conservatives at CPAC

Joe Wurzelbacher, please tell me that the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) is not paying you to be an adviser to young people at its conference this week. Or to advise anybody, for that matter, on anything but plumbing.

At right: Would you take political advice from this man?

Alert news-watchers will recall that plumber Joe Wurzelbacher rocketed to stardom via an idiotic on-camera question to candidate Barack Obama, after which then-candidate McCain adopted him like a son and mentioned him or brought him along to every campaign stop as a stand-in for the "everyman" his party has heretofore pointedly shunned.

Joe is no dummy. Well, not in the "making money off your 15 minutes of fame department." He's milking it for all it's worth. This showing at CPAC (see video here) gives him a chance to join fellow would-be 2012 candidates Sarah Palin and Bobby Jindal in the far right wing of the GOP. And when I say far right, I mean far out beyond the reach of reason or fact.

Joe says he'll consider "six years" when his son graduates from college. SENATOR Joe the Plumber? Say it ain't so, Joe.

CPAC also features Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin and is expected to draw record numbers of attendees. You scratch the sensitive elephant's skin, and he gets MAD! And anger, of course, is what always motivates conservatives. That's why Rush is their hero. He makes up stuff for them to be mad about and whips them into a frenzy about his fantasies. Are we sure Rush isn't still getting a rush from illegal drugs? It's the only way I can think of to explain the things he says.

Sheesh.

Ancient human ancestor had size 9 feet

Homo ergaster tracks have been found in Kenya.

They are well-preserved and help fill in the picture of hominid locomotion through the past 1.5 million years. Yet I'm sure Young-Earth Creationists will call them ape footprints (Read the article linked above to see why this is impossible.) or claim they are fakes or are prints from modern humans. Some way, they have to work it so the earth is only 6,000 years old. Good luck, folks.

Homo ergaster
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Homo ergaster Fossil range: Pleistocene
Skull KNM-ER 3733 discovered by Bernard Ngeneo in 1975 (Kenya)
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Mammalia Order: Primates Family: Hominidae Tribe: Hominini Genus: Homo Species: H. ergaster
Binomial name
†Homo ergaster Groves & Mazak, 1975

Homo ergaster ("working man") is an extinct hominin species (or subspecies, according to some authorities) which lived throughout eastern and southern Africa between 1.9 to 1.4 million years ago with the advent of the lower Pleistocene and the cooling of the global climate.

See a video about the footprint discovery here.

Christians' actions driving people from church

We've all seen so-called Christians doing embarrassing, illegal or just plain disgusting things. The sex scandals, the Phelps Phamily's hate-a-thon, the crooked TV evangelists' greed, the lying and scheming of certain Christian politicos.

You would think these all would discourage people from attending church. But according to this article from the K-State Collegian, the reason churchgoing is becoming less popular among young people is the aggressive proselytizing and the intolerance of fellow Christians toward any belief other than their own, including acceptance of homosexuals into the church.

Judge won't throw out Tiller case because of Phill Kline's behavior

Phill: How can we miss you if you won't go away?

Phill Kline's behavior during his persecution case against Wichita abortion provider George Tiller was, to say the least, unusual. However, a Sedgwick County judge didn't think Kline's ethical lapses during the case warranted throwing out the several misdemeanor charges filed against Tiller. The main accusation is that he obtained a second opinion on the necessity for abortions from a physician who had a financial relationship with him.

Phill, even though we're gone, why do we still have to keep hearing about you and your foul deeds? You're like doggie doo stuck to the sole of our shoe. Even after you think you've gotten rid of it, the odor lingers on and on.

KSU Center for Understanding Origins events!

The following notice came today from a friend at K-State. The events all sound good, but I would encourage you especially to attend the Ken Miller talk.

Ken is a cell biologist at Brown University and the co-author of the most widely used high school science textbook in the United States. Not only is he knowledgeable, he's also funny and a fascinating speaker. Ken has had much experience debating and challenging ID proponents. He was a main witness in the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial in which ID was declared just as unconstitutional to teach as overt creationism. Don't miss him and his famous mousetrap tie clip!

Below are three speaking events being sponsored by the KSU Center for Understanding Origins. I encourage anyone to come who can. Notice that the first speaking event is this Thursday, February 26!

1. February 26, 2009; 7 PM Little Theatre, KSU Union. Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz (Univ. of Pittsburgh) will speak on the relevance of Darwin's ideas to the current evo-devo debate.

2. March 25, 2009. 7 PM Alumni Center Ballroom. Dr. David Quammen, author. Will speak on Darwin's life (title TBA). Dr. Quammen is the author of a number of books on evolution and ecology, including "The Reluctant Mr. Darwin: An Intimate Portrait of Charles Darwin and the Making of His Theory of Evolution", "The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinction", "Natural Acts: A Sidelong View of Science and Nature", "The Boilerplate Rhino: Nature in the Eye of the Beholder"

3. April 9, 2009. 7 PM West Ballroom, KSU Union. Dr. Kenneth Miller, Brown University. Will speak on evolution and intelligent design (title TBA). Dr. Miller is a well known philosopher of science and has written a number of books including "Finding Darwin's God" and "Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul."

Gov. Bobby Jindal's response to Obama rated "amateurish" even by Fox News

"Worst Speech in the History of Democracy?"

We can cut Bobby Jindal a little slack over his terrible GOP response to Obama last night (which an apoplectic David Brooks described "as the worst speech in the history of democracy"). The piece was obviously recorded before Jindal had any idea what Obama would say, so every point he made was off by a mile. But the fact is, the content and tone of Obama's speech were no big head-scratcher; every commentator on the airwaves and cable has been speculating for days, mostly correctly, on what Obama would say. Does the Gov. of Louisiana ever listen to anybody but Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh? Has he gotten his DTV converter hooked up?

The Jindal "response" was more of a campaign speech than a response to Obama's masterful speech to Congress. Starting with praise for a country that has won civil rights for minorities, he swung into his own family's immigrant experience (I didn't really care to know that he was a fetal immigrant.). His father's phrase, "Americans can do anything" became an annoying verbal mosquito buzzing my ears every few seconds. He also started, oh, about seven points with "To strengthen our economy..." followed by some idiotic GOP idiotic b.s. Like cutting taxes is the cure for everything. Well, hey, if Joe the Bricklayer doesn't have a job, he's not paying taxes anyhow, so how does a tax cut help him?

Another recurrent -- and woefully misguided -- trope in Jindal's speech was, "You can't trust government to run things." It's blatantly obvious that most of the things that have gotten us into this pretty kettle of fish occurred during the Shrub Administration. So what he was really saying, as Paul Krugman later remarked, was, "You can't trust Republicans to run things." Good point, Bobby.

In response to Obama's having made the middle of the political spectrum his own, the GOP is faced with the choice of either going along or going more weirdly right-wing. Jindal has chosen the latter, as have Sarah Palin and other GOP wannabes. The heck with the polls. They know what has killed the Republican Party is not utter incompetence, dirty dealing and nastiness, but a failure to adhere to Goldwater Republicanism. Uh, really?

In this article, Paul Begala opines that Bobby Jindal (and perhaps other Republicans) should stop listening to Rush. Good idea.

Neufeld bad, O'Neal worse: "Slimedogs" of Kansas

I am shocked -- shocked! to learn that two top Kansas House GOP leaders have been playing fast and loose with truth and money! Well, actually, I'd be surprised to find otherwise.

Melvin Neufeld and Mike O'Neal are Nasty Boys. Slimedogs in spades, I'd say.

Apparently, it's legal for one candidate to donate money to a county political party, but not for that candidate to specify whose campaign it's to be used for. And that's exactly what O'Neal and former House honcho Neufeld did. It was all about influencing other politicos around the state as the House chairmanship came up for a vote. BTW, O'Neal won. And I hear he's a slimedog squared, not only with regard to House activities, but also in his personal life, which sounds like a rotten, horny mess.

The head of the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission, Carol Williams, is searching for more information on these shady dealings in order to determine if laws have been broken. But as Phill Kline and other wingnut GOPers have taught us, you don't need to break the law to be ethically wrong.

I hope they both get smacked with fines and run out of the state. We don't need this kind of dirty dealing in the House, with all the other problems we've got to face.