Are There Any Dinosaurs Who AREN'T Tax Cheats?

A federal judge has cleared the way for the government's seizure of a creationism theme park in Pensacola owned by a couple convicted of tax fraud.

A ruling by U.S. District Judge Casey Rodgers states that the nine properties that make up Dinosaur Adventure Land as well as two bank accounts associated with the park will be used to satisfy $430,400 owed to the federal government.

Kent Hovind, who founded the park and a ministry, Creation Science Evangelism, is serving 10 years in federal prison for failing to pay the Internal Revenue Service more than $470,000 in employee taxes.

See, it's not just Obama appointees!

Thanks To the Commenters

It's more fun to crank this stuff out when people write back to disagree with you. My most frequent commenter has been my ol' pal Skot; and I want to welcome "Madeline's Dad", a man who takes his identity from his very fatherhood. See him as WAMK under a few recent evolution-based threads.

Less frequent, but memorable commenters have included a guy from Reason Magazine Online who wrote to discuss the orgins of "jump the shark"; a kid who ridiculed me for being all emo, and a Film professor who was pleased that I noticed the deeper undercurrents of STARSHIP TROOPERS. I love you all, except the emo kid, whom I will kill if we ever meet.

Fear Of A (color=x) Planet

Okay, the whole day goes by and I still can't shake Dobbs.

It's not just him. Check out this O'Reilly quote:

But do you understand what the New York Times wants, and the far-left want? They want to break down the white, Christian, male power structure, which you’re a part, and so am I, and they want to bring in millions of foreign nationals to basically break down the structure that we have.

A few months back Charlie John Gibson was on a similar bandwagon, without the left bashing, calling for white people to have more babies or by 2050 "we" will be in the minority. Lou Dobbs continually insists that he has nothing against Mexicans as a people, only that their increased numbers in the country will cause economic disaster, leprosy and, uh, I dunno, a gradual shift to different national holidays.

I have said it before, but white people, black people, Jewish people, Muslim people, female people, Swedish people - they're all people, dude. The differences between are pretty tiny compared to the similarities. If the country were 90% Mexican, it would actually be run about the same as it is now. It's a big concept to wrap your mind around, because we focus on superficiality - skin color, accents, peculiarities in the way we worship - but ultimately, as groups there are few important differences.

As individuals of course, the differences between two people are often vast. I'm just talking about us vs. them, not me vs. you.

So racism is, to use an inelegant metaphor, no more than being afraid of your own shadow.

I think this is true of politics as well. My first urge is to believe Republicans are too stupid to understand the world like I do, but that's stupid. They're intelligent people who are getting different information than I am. They want the same thing I do too, a better America which is fair to its citizens, only we disagree about the best ways to accomplish it.

The dangerous meme that's making its way around Republican circles this generation though is the idea that the non-Republicans are so far gone that they must be stopped by any means necessary. Hence the willingness to cage votes, to fix elections, to cheat. Of course it's wrong, but to them it's better than the alternative. The history of politics in the last 30 years (probably much, much longer) seems to be one of stacking up the wrongs in hopes of eventually making a right of some kind. In practice, it virtually guarantees a never-ending assembly line of revenge plots. Viva L'Acme!

This fear of the other is so deeply ingrained in human nature that I suppose only evolution will rid us of it. Glad I believe in evolution, or I'd see no hope at all.

By the way, creationists - what a buncha jerkoffs.

What You Don't Know: Coelacanth Hurt You

There's a cheapie monochrome sci-fi movie from the fifties which has stayed in my head. Called MONSTER ON CAMPUS, it's the story of a college professor who gets a hold of the long-extinct frozen Coelacanth, which is a breed of fish. A mosquito feeds on the blood and becomes a gigantic pre-historic monster mosquito; the scientist somehow puts his hand in the Coelacanth's mouth, gets "bitten" and finds himself reverting to caveman form, only at night. Kind of a were-caveman, if you will. If you take the fish out of the equation, ALTERED STATES is a remake of MONSTER ON CAMPUS.

So last week, this Indonesian guy caught a Coelacanth!

Much as I love the 'canths, (by the way, another one was caught in 1998) the story might not have come to my attention if it hadn't been flagged by the WHERE ARE MY KEYS blog, because somehow the existence of a Coelocanth disproves evolution.

I'll tell you what I thought was extinct - debate about evolution. And like that Indonesian, I'd heard that such a thing exists but I never thought I'd see one face to face. But I have spent the better part of the week arguing about the origin of species. While I kept imagining myself in a white 3 piece suit, mopping my brow with a cotton handkerchief while gently mocking my learned opponent before a jury of farmers, the thing that fascinated me most is these bloggers weren't creationists. They were simply conservatives.

It's no longer a battle of faith versus science. Apparently now it's a territory war. The Right believes that the schools have a liberal bias and they want back in. You can add schools to the media, Muslims and the blogosphere on the list of organizations which somehow are against them. The evolutionists control the banks and the media!

My problem with teaching creationism in science classes is, of course, that it is the opposite of science. Creationism is philosophy. Come to think of it, how would those people react to a requirement that Darwin be given equal attention at Bob Jones University? I brought something up in the debate but no one reacted to it: you can believe in God AND evolution pretty easily. Why not a world where God creates, then allows things to evolve? The thing that bothers creationists is the fossil record is older than 4000 6000 years, which is how old they think the bible says the Earth is. If you buy evolution, you can't buy a literal Bible.

And since very few people think that way, creationists keep that part on the downlow. Pin one of 'em down on it some time. It's fun!

Anyway, let's tie up the loose ends. A. Finding a long-thought-extinct species doesn't disprove evolution, it proves we were mistaken about it being extinct. If a branch of the Coelacanth didn't evolve, it simply means that branch was able to survive under its local conditions. B. There is such a thing as evolution. You will never be able to prove it to creationists (I gave up trying) in the same way that you'll never convince some people that we never landed on the moon. Faith trumps evidence; it has to. Otherwise why call it faith? C. Just because they didn't respond to the age-of-earth thing, doesn't mean they wouldn't have a counter-argument. I'll grant that.

Oh, and D. The were-caveman is a metaphor for the regression of rational thought. I wish I could have done that one more artfully.

The Far Side Moves Back To the Periphery, Where it Belongs

The revelation this week that the PATRIOT Act included a clause that allows for the president to fire and replace district court judges federal district attorneys can't look good to my friends at Townhall.com. They keep saying that we're all paranoids, and Bush Derangement Syndrome is the reason why we think he's consolidating power. This clause, and the heavy-handed use its been put to recently, is almost impossible to credit to the fight against terror. I say "almost" because, let's face it, there's always Britt Hume.

Anyway, I'm assuming the Townhall people have little to say about it, but it's been almost impossible to load them today. Same with NO LEFT TURNS. I've heard of similar bandwidth problems with CONSERVAPEDIA, the alternative Wikipedia for people who insist on a stated bias in their facts. Tom Delay has announced that he's signing on as a commentator with CNN, which is a little chilling but at least he will only be able to influence people by talking to them, rather than threatening to bury their chances of passing the farm subsidies bill. (note: Okay, maybe he's just going to stick to blogging)

Ten years ago the President visited Brazil and he was beloved; this week the President visited Brazil and was greeted with signs implying that he's Hitler. Sooter Libby was convicted of obstructing justice, and the jury's most prominent question was "why is this the guy on trial when he's obviously covering up for the Vice President?"

The NeoCon dream is going down faster than Paris Hilton at a Handycam demonstration booth. And high time too! This Democracy is constructed so that the rule comes from the center... maybe a little to the right, maybe a little to the left, but there are safeguards to prevent anything so very wierd as the last six years from taking place. Democracy prevents us having a President who says "the jury is is still out on evolution."

Sure it's possible to circumvent the forces of centrism, but you wind up being voted out.

So it's comforting so see all this going on. I'm liberal but I'm perfectly happy to lose some battles. Most people are for the death penalty? Fine! I'll live in a country with the death penalty. Watching the neocon blimp hit the tower and burst into flames has provided me with the first warmth I've felt in a long, long time.

Why I Love BOINGO, The Final Oingo Boingo Album

"I like my stupid life, just the way it is."

"I've never been lost like this, but I wouldn't be happy anywhere else"

"Let's drink a toast to those clever bombs and the men who built them."

"My only love is the love of oblivion, in a dark room"

"A million years of evolution, we get Danny Quayle"

"Yellow matter custard, dripping from a dead dog's eye" (okay, that one is a cover)

"All those damn kids drive me crazy every day"

"Nothing ventured, nothing gained: evolution's cruelest joke."

Add to this the exquisite production values, Elfman's emotional range and the way he can go from Mickey Dolenz to Alice Cooper in the same sentence. And most importantly, it's the SINCERE Oingo Boingo album, honest and twisted. 1993. Check it out. Buy two copies.

R U A Racist? Take This Simple Test!

With the suspiciously heated debate going on about illegal immigrants, among vast numbers of people who aren't racists, perhaps it is time to consider that you may, in fact, be one yourself. I believe 98% of racism comes from people who are certain they aren't. That number is statistically likely to include me, so know I don't take this problem lightly.

So how do you know if you're racist? Let's try this. First of all, dictionary.com defines racist as follows:

racist
adj 1: based on racial intolerance; "racist remarks" 2: discriminatory especially on the basis of race or religion [syn: antiblack, anti-Semitic, anti-Semite(a)] n : a person with a prejudiced belief that one race is superior to others [syn: racialist]

Okay, we can all agree on this. Let's move on.

Do you endorse this statement: "Regardless of the color of their skin, their culture, or their beliefs, people are people. And all people are created equal." Remember, you can disagree with their beliefs or dislike elements of their culture. You just have to think that these are humans you disagree with.

You probably agree with me so far. Here's where it gets tricky, with the illegal immigration talk. If your problem is that illegal immigrants are a drain on our national resources, this is a legitimate argument, though you are forgetting how much they pay to the states in Sales Tax. If you think they are taking American jobs, this too is legitimate; but your anger would be more effectively aimed at employers. There are fewer of them and laws already exist to penalize hiring unlawfully and pay below-minimum wages.

If you are John Gibson, encouraging white people to make more babies because by 2050 the estimates are that the nation will be a Hispanic majority... yep, you're a racist. Because, you know, so what? They're human beings, they're equals. They are us, we are them. It's like being worried that the population will be over 50% blonde, or Type O negative. It's a non-issue.

If you are afraid that a particular religious or ethnic (or political group) is plotting to "take over the world" then you are probably a racist. Conspiracy is hard to maintain - it's harder to keep secret. And the majority of any group of people is too selfish to participate in those kinds of plans.

If you are worried about mixed-race breeding, you're a racist AND stupid. Genetically speaking, mixed-race is superior. Let's look at it this way - at one end of the scale, Jennifer Garner. At the other, the British Royal Family. 'Nuff said.

Humans (all of us) are pattern-seeking creatures. We want to classify everything. It's almost impossible to stop. So we are prone to divide the human race into "us and them" despite the fact that they are us. The best quick-fix to this problem would be an alien invasion, but in lieu of this we can only practice vigilance against our worst instincts and hope that evolution will take care of the problem eventually.