Being Old Is No Excuse

Most of the time, I see no need to mention things that appear in the Opinions section of the newspaper. The section is designed to be a place where anyone can say whatever they want, and I understand that that means I'm going to disagree with a large amount of what is written, and because of that I can ignore most of the idiocy that populates the page. However, when something is grossly idiotic, disturbingly misleading, or both, I cannot stay quiet. That brings me to the subject of today's post. Martin Henrichs is a retired former teacher from the Valparaiso area. Much of his time these days is spent working as a board member for Lutheran Hour Ministries, whose web site can be found here; in short, his primary area of expertise is indoctrination. For reasons unknown to myself, and I would hazard to the paper itself, he has a regular column approximately once a month. Please keep in mind the fact that he has as many credentials as I do in terms of writing newspaper editorials; most everyone else that has a column possesses some level of knowledge in a specific subject or writes for a major newspaper (the Washington Post is most common, but there are some others grabbed off the wire services). His columns are always filled with completely insane statements, none of which are backed by facts, designed to appeal to those whose primary instinct when confronted with anything remotely resembling change/progress/whatever-the-opposite-of-status-quo-is is fear. I've decided that, quite frankly, I can't let this go anymore. I'm going to do something fairly rare for me: I'm going to break down his entire column, piece by piece, and expose him for the mentally defective charlatan he is. His words are in italics, mine aren't. Let's hop in:

I am perplexed about so many issues in the news that I can only ask questions today. Maybe someone else has the answers.

Right away, this should raise some red flags. When someone poses only questions and never posits any answers of their own, there is no interest in discussion, primarily because the asker has no answers and no ideas. Immediately we know that Mr. Henrichs has done no legwork in researching his topic and instead simply wishes to raise moral indignation in his readers.

* Why is the issue of health care being decided by government and not by the consumers, health professionals and insurance companies? Isn't government the one that can't defend our borders, win the war on poverty or control the cost of stamps? And if Medicare and Medicaid are rampant with corruption and cost overruns, what will government do to a much broader program?

And the stupid settles in rather rapidly. First, let's get this whole "health care reform" thing out of the way. Of the major fully developed nations (for the sake of discussion, this includes the EU, Japan, Australia, and Canada), ours is the only country where a government-run option for the general public does not exist. No other country spends as much per person on health care as the United States, and no other country has anywhere near the number of uninsured. This is due in large part to allowing insurance companies and health professionals decide the issue of health care. Insurance companies reject customers and refuse to pay for even medically-relevant services based solely on whether that customer will cut into profit margins. Health professionals can set exorbitant prices for services because those services are necessary and there's nothing to stop them from gouging (there are other issues involved in this as well, but to get into all of it would push this past 10,000 words easily). Given that we spend so much, it's sickening how little we get. As for government's other weaknesses, the comparison is laughable. It's impossible to win a war on an abstract idea, so there's really no point in blaming the government for failure to eradicate poverty (which, for those of you playing along at home, can be partially attributed to the broken health care system. You can read more about that here.) any more than you can blame it for losing the "war on drugs," the "war on illiteracy," or even the "war on terror." Medicare and Medicaid corruption typically isn't related to the government itself; the fraud is usually on the part of unscrupulous doctors/pharmacists attempting to defraud the government of extra money. Cost overruns related to those two are due to the aforementioned absurd prices charged for medical services. Finally, the government DOES control the cost of stamps. They're the ones who set the prices. Stamp prices increase due to a number of factors, ranging from inflation to hiring additional workers to meet demand, from pension costs to (surprise surprise) health care costs for their employees.

* Why are the 10 poorest cities in America the ones that always elect Democrats to public office? Is it because their solutions to problems is welfare, not work?

You can find all the information on the wealthiest and poorest cities in America here. Anyone with any knowledge of economics or common sense can tell you that these cities are not poor because they elect Democrats to higher office; many of the cities listed among the poorest have far more important social and economic problems, among them substantial wealth discrepancy along racial and ethnic demographics. Those issues either do not exist or are far less extensive in the cities listed amongst the wealthy. The reason these cities always elect Democrats is because the Democratic platform is geared toward the middle and lower classes. Why would a group of people choose to vote for someone who makes their plight anything less than a top priority? By the way, for those of you who are curious, 6 of the 10 wealthiest cities currently have Democrat mayors.

* Why is it considered desirable to register every uninformed voter to cancel out the votes of informed, well-educated people?

Every person has the right to vote, no matter how poorly they choose to do so. The Constitution's pretty clear on that one. Declaring that anyone should be barred from voting is disenfranchisement, pure and simple. Everyone has a right to be heard in a representative democracy, whether they understand the issues or just like the candidate's hair.

(By the way, I'm fully aware that I've stated repeatedly how much I hate when people who don't know the issues vote based on lies or ignorance. However, I also understand that, outside of a djinn granting my wish to increase the general IQ in this country 40 points, that's not something that's going to change, and the best I can do is try to inform people of the facts before they make ill-informed decisions.)

* What does it mean when cities with strict gun control laws, like Chicago and Washington, D.C., can't control gangs, drugs and shootings?

Usually, it means that the problems are bigger than the availability of guns. The two concepts don't show a direct correlation, however. Gang violence and drug use aren't related to guns in any way, outside of the severity of injury the weapons cause. The idea is simply that tougher gun laws make it less likely that someone who shouldn't have one will get one. I really fail to see the problem with this.

* Why is global warming even an issue when the increase in worldwide temperatures during the past 100 years has been only one degree Celsius and, for the past three years, has declined?

Because that one degree is enormous. One degree is the difference between ice and water. Let's get this cleared up right now: people who bitch about global warming being fake inevitably toss out the "But this summer is colder than last year" excuse or something similar. Global warming does NOT mean that the entire Earth is going to be warmer all the time; rather, it means that the extremes are going to be more pronounced. It doesn't mean that there won't occasionally be cooler summers or cold winters; it means that the hot summers will be brutally hot and the cold winters will be bone-chillingly cold. It doesn't mean that every year there are going to be droughts or floods; it means that when they occur, those events will be far more dangerous and far more deadly than normal. Some of these effects can already be seen; take a look at this list of the most powerful hurricanes EVER. Notice anything? 11 of the most powerful hurricanes ever have occurred within the last 20 years. 20% of the Arctic summer ice cap is gone. It's not coming back, ever. That's an enormous supply of fresh water, gone. That's habitat for a number of Arctic species, gone. At what point do people stop thinking these are all coincidences?

* Why does President Obama prefer to house terrorists in the United States rather than at Gitmo?

Because Gitmo exists outside due process? Because the vast majority of those being held there are being held without rights and he wants to bring us back to operating within the scope of international law? Because the stories of human rights violations offend and disgust him, as they should any decent human being? This is another one where I just don't understand the objection. Where do people think these guys are going to be sent, Arkham Asylum? We keep guys who kill and EAT PEOPLE in supermax. We've got guys in prison here who would make Vlad the Impaler say "That's a bit much" and none of us think a second thought about them escaping. What reason is there to think these guys would be any more likely to get out?

* With Cash for Clunkers and $8,000 bribes to first-time home buyers, what will happen to car and home sales when these "incentives" end? (I'm waiting for my 10 grand for grandpas.)

They'll probably decrease. What a concept, sales decreasing when a good deal comes to an end. Mr. Henrichs must be a wizard. The idea behind these programs was to give the economy a shot in the arm by providing an incentive to make big-ticket purchases. It seems to have worked. Yeah, it's not going to last forever; no one should expect it to. By the time the programs come to an end, things will hopefully be better than they were before they started. So what's the problem?

* Why is there so much weeping and gnashing of teeth over Burr Oak Cemetery? Didn't anyone ever visit the graves of their loved ones on their birthdays or Memorial Day to honor them? Or is there now "money in them there bones"? I found a beautiful tombstone of a relative buried in Germany in 1959. I couldn't find it again five years ago. I discovered that, because of a shortage of burial space, tombstones remain only as long as a relative pays an annual fee. Oh, well, in my opinion, it's what happened to the soul of my relative -- not his bones -- that counts.

I'm not someone who is overly attached to the physical. I'm not overly concerned with what happens to my body when I die (though being made into a diamond would be pretty badass). However, I understand the connection people feel to the graves of their relatives. It gives them a site where they can feel as though the spirits of those they've lost are still with them, a place where they can pay respect to those who meant so much to them in life. To even begin to suggest that desecration of such a place is no big deal is despicable at best and worthy of condemnation and scorn.

* Should I buy a car from a company owned by unions that caused their own bankruptcies and by a government stupid enough to invest taxpayer money to prop them up?

I'm not getting into the dispute about labor and the car companies again. I've said quite enough about it in previous posts, and I'm sick of belaboring my points. Can you tell that I'm very, very tired of this guy by now?

* Whatever happened to the great all-American principle that when a business fails, it provides opportunity for others to step in and do a better job? Has our government become the No. 1 enabler of inefficiency?

In order for capitalism to continue to "provide opportunity for others to step in and do a better job," it has to still be around. The businesses being protected by the federal government are currently so entrenched in the major workings of our economy that to let them collapse could potentially bury us. Mind you, this isn't necessarily true for all of them, but this is a place where it's a little better to be cautious. Or would you prefer unemployment to rise to a robust 12%?

* Why is the stimulus package loaded with funding that obviously will not stimulate the economy, but will stimulate people to vote a certain way?

Examples? I honestly have no idea what he's talking about here. On top of that, the Administration ultimately (for better or worse) abdicated much of the meat-grinding involved in producing the stimulus bill to Congress, which promptly altered it to meet its own agenda. That bill was then further hacked to pieces to appease Republicans who still didn't vote for it to prove a point (that point being "We don't give a damn about the country if we don't hold absolute power"). So if you've got any issues with the bill, take it up with a representative.

* Why is it that public schools that spend $10,000 per pupil can't do any better educating children than private, religious schools spending $4,000 per pupil? Shouldn't more resources go to those who succeed and less to those who are proven failures?

Again, examples? And maybe, just maybe, cite your statistics? Also, this doesn't make any sense. Giving extra money to the successful groups and diverting funds from the failing ones only ensure that the failing ones fail and the more well-to-do ones grow even more well-to-do while simultaneously excluding the possibility of any education from those who can't afford the pricier option. Wait a minute...helping those who already have the means to help themselves while ignoring the ones who actually need help...that sounds familiar. Perhaps one of my readers can help me remember?

* Why do television network news broadcasts use the term "news"? Isn't their product just tabloid entertainment? Fortunately, we still have good news -papers that do an excellent job of informing.

This is unbelievably wrong. Granted, most television news broadcasts are terrible. Some, however, are absolutely invaluable. Nightline has been a fantastic source of information for over 30 years. BBC World News is probably the single best source for international news today. In addition, most newspapers (including, amusingly enough, the one in which this column was printed) are unbelievably awful. The New York Daily News takes garbage journalism to a new low on a daily basis. The Wall Street Journal and Chicago Tribune have massive biases that color all their reporting, as does the New York Times on the opposite side of the aisle. Most local newspapers slant distinctively toward one ideology and filter all their information through that ideological lens.

So now, my readers, you see the kind of general psychosis that infiltrates an item designed to inform. I know it's just the opinions page, but I don't think it's too much to ask that those opinions actually be based on something besides fear and loathing. I also don't think it's too much to ask that people who refuse to cite examples or sources while using haphazard guesses and flat-out lies to make outrageous and blatantly wrong declarations of supposed fact be relegated to letters to the editor.

People wonder why thoughtful and respectful discussion no longer exists in this country.

People like this are why.

I Pity Da Foo

Seeing as it is April, and seeing as I've been noticing that Mr. T pressure cooker commercial quite a bit, I've decided to create a new annual tradition. So, without further ado, here's the 2009 April Fools List.

1. Roland Burris

If you're a politician with a history of being somewhat shady, and you're appointed to a high-profile office by a politician with a history of being criminally shady, and you have to give testimony regarding said appointment and your conversations about it with said criminally shady politician, wouldn't you try to be as straightforward as possible, so that absolutely no one could misconstrue your innocence? Well, it appears that for Mr. Burris, that was too difficult. First, he claimed in an affidavit for his testimony to the Illinois State Senate that he had never attempted to raise funds for Rod "Prisoner #364278-B" Blagojevich. Then, he admitted that he tried, but was unsuccessful. Then he tried to backpedal on that as well. There's a decent article on it here, and there are plenty of other sources for looking into this. The best part of the whole story is that Burris is still planning to run for reelection in 2010, despite the general consensus that he can't win his own party's primary, and despite overwhelmingly negative poll numbers (in a phone poll on Fox 32 Sunday night, over 78% thought it was wrong for Burris to pursue reelection). If nothing else, Burris has ensured that he will be remembered, though I doubt he expected his term as Senator to be less the culmination of a mediocre political career and more a monument to his own egocentric incompetence.

2. Barack Obama

Let me preface this by saying that this isn't related to any major policy decisions, though I do wish he'd let someone besides Summers and Geitner have a say in planning for economic recovery, especially regarding bank policy (Stiglitz in particular makes some good points here). It's also not related to the declassification of the legal memos the Bush Administration used to justify torture (more on that later), or easing travel restrictions to Cuba (about bloody time), or the polite conversations and gifts with Hugo Chavez (isn't that how a foreign dignitary is supposed to behave?) , or the president's picking of his NCAA bracket (for the record, up until the Final Four I had him outpicked). No, this one is related to his throwaway line on The Tonight Show about his relatively poor bowling ability in which he compared himself to someone in the Special Olympics. Now, I knew what he meant. You knew what he meant. Most everyone with a brain stem knew what he meant; it was designed to be self-depricating. However, when you're the most visible man on Earth, you absolutely cannot say something like that, even in jest, because the media will eat you alive for it. And, naturally, they were all over it. Jenova forbid they discuss the economic or military ideas he'd brought up that night; no, instead we get treated to a dozen "DURR I COULD OUTBOWL THE PRESIDENT DURR" stories. The man has a mind for this sort of thing, most of the time, which makes the blunder all the more surprising and inexplicable. So, for subjecting me to even more utterly banal news than usual, Obama gets a spot in this column.

3. Republicans in Congress

People always wonder why nothing ever gets done in Washington. Sometimes it's because things get so rapidly bogged down in committees and political grandstanding. Sometimes it's because lobbyists have altogether too much power (never used to be that way...thank you Ronald Reagan). And sometimes, it's because one party has decided to put its own pursuit of power ahead of doing its job. This has become the modus operandi for the Republican Party: do absolutely nothing to fix anything and hope that all measures fail. This isn't some hidden agenda for gaining power, this is the STATED GOAL of at least one Republican congressperson. A Republican senator from TEXAS is trying to have a say in the legal process for seating the (finally) elected Al Franken. The goal seems to be to abdicate as much responsibility as possible so no mistakes can be tied to them, thereby allowing them to use those mistakes as a means to retake power in 2010 (the vote on the stimulus, particularly in the House, seems to symbolize this thoroughly). There's a little problem with this strategy, though: things are really bad right now! This is not the time to wait around and hope things go poorly so you can point and laugh, because if the plan works, there won't be anything left! I would think that being a subject in a semi-fertile kingdom would be superior to being the emperor of a wasteland, but hey, what do I know?

4. Democrats in Congress

Back in 2005, George W. "Thank God The Black Guy Has To Deal With It Now" Bush nominated a sizable number of judges to fill vacancies in the federal courts. A number of these nominees were ultraconservative sociopaths and as such were opposed by the Democratic minority. In response, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist began to tout the use of the so-called "nuclear option," by which the filibuster would be banned, in essence silencing the minority view and allowing anything with a simply majority to be pushed through. Democrats cried foul and promised to shut the Senate down if this went through; ultimately, 14 senators came to an agreement that pushed some of the nominations through in exchange for not eliminating the filibuster as an option. Now, Speaker of the House Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid are discussing the use of the "nuclear option" as a means to bypass the aforementioned Republican obstructionism. While I sympathize with the goal, this is the stupidest possible way to achieve it. Remember all that video footage of you decrying the idea of reconciliation, guys? They don't erase those tapes once you get into power! Pursuing this strategy is the fastest way to give up the moral high ground and would give the Republicans all the ammunition they needed to destroy any hopes of getting the President's agenda through Congress on the back of the currently burgeoning populist movement. The rules you play by have to be the same when you're in the minority as when you're in the majority. The Dems have been (correctly) ripping the Republicans for trying to play by two separate sets of rules for the last eight years; to do the exact same thing they did as soon as they get into power would be the definition of hypocrisy.

5. Denver Broncos owner Pat Bowlen

As a momentary break from the heavy stuff, let's hear a little bedtime story. Once upon a time there was a GM/coach who drafted his team's first franchise quarterback since their Hall of Famer retired. The new QB fit into the organization well and learned his craft, and for three years it was good, even if they didn't make the playoffs (when you go through 8 running backs in a season and couldn't play defense against the Indiana School for the Blind, that tends to happen). Then the owner fired the GM/coach. The new QB was not pleased, but understood the need for change and asked only that his offensive coordinator be kept (not too much to ask, seeing as the team had the 2nd best passing offense in the league in that last year). The owner of the team assured the new QB that he would do so. The owner then hired a new coach/GM with a massive ego despite no legitimate reason for possessing it. The new coach/GM then fired the offensive coordinator. The new QB was not pleased. The new coach then attempted to trade the new QB for another quarterback who, while lacking the raw talent of the new QB, was a better fit for the new coach's system. Ultimately the trade never happened, and the new QB found out he was being shopped and asked what was going on. The new coach/GM first denied that any such trade was in the works, then (once it was obvious that was a lie) admitted to the subterfuge and told the new QB that he could still be traded at any time. The new QB was irate and demanded a trade. The owner at this point stepped in and made it clear to both sides that they needed to be able to work together while simultaneously making no apologies for the extremely poor handling of the situation. The new coach/GM tried to play both sides, both stating that the new QB was "his guy" while also repeating that he could trade him whenever he felt like it. Meetings and phone calls produced nothing, and the owner continued to support his new coach's view, ultimately leading to the trade of the team's most valuable player to a team that hadn't seen a franchise QB in over 50 years. The new coach has gotten most of the blame (as he should), but the owner, the person with the most clout and the most power in ensuring that this didn't have to happen, has caught little flack for his impotence in resolving the situation positively. The moral of the story, boys and girls? If you're going to be an owner, grow a pair when you need to.

6. Organizers and participants in Tax Day Tea Parties

Seemingly since the birth of the nation (and, amusingly enough, done to an incredibly flagrant extent in D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation) people have perverted the image and the ideologies of the Founding Fathers to justify any and every crazy concept they could come up with. I'm not talking stuff like Sam Adams beer or Benjamin Franklin Plumbing, I'm talking stuff like "Jefferson and Madison founded the first major political party, so hardcore partisan politics are both hallmark and status quo for American democracy" and "Washington and Jefferson owned slaves, so they obviously were white supremacists." The newest in this line of utter idiocy comes in the form of the Tax Day Tea Party. The concept is simple and ludicrous: rather than go to work, meet up with a group of other ill-informed malcontents, make signs with ignorant catch phrases ("Commander-in-Thief" is one of my personal favorites), find the nearest government building, and throw tea bags at it while marching in a circle, waving the signs, and chanting moronic wanna-be populist drivel. Never mind that the primary protest makes no sense (apparently taxes on these fools have been made too high by the administration that just gave all of them a substantial tax cut), and never mind that the secondary argument makes no sense (if you haven't noticed, while they certainly are spending a large amount of taxpayer money, they aren't just throwing this away on laser-planes, unwinnable insurrection fighting, and parties for Henry Paulson's buddies; heck, Obama just asked each of his Cabinet members to find $100 million they can cut from their budget). My biggest issue lies in that they genuinely believe that their arguments are so in line with the Founders' response to the Tea Act that they can have a tea party of their own. It's not. The Boston Tea Party was about high taxes, but the issue wasn't that the taxes were unfairly high (in fact, the Tea Act of 1773 actually reduced taxes from their high under the Townshend Acts). The issues of the Boston Tea Party were that of taxation without representation, of government-created monopolies, and of government officials being unanswerable to anyone in the areas where they enforced laws. Do any of those jive with any part of the Tax Day Tea Party agenda? Didn't think so. The only thing more steeped in idiocy (pun totally intended) than the Tea Parties themselves were the people who attended them. If you want to sully the names of the Founders, there are certainly ways to do it, as none of them were without their vices...but don't insult my intelligence by doing it via pairing their protest against unjust treatment with your ignorant whining. You want to bitch, that's what MySpace is for.

7. Everyone on Fox News

I don't think this requires any explanation. However, as an example, let's toss this one out there. Today the Obama Administration declassified a number of memos drafted by Bush Administration legal scholars (if you can call them that) justifying the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" such as waterboarding and "walling." As expected, there was an outcry from just about everyone. Most of the world saw these memos and their tortured (pun, again, totally intended) constitutional justifications as one more example of the wayward imperialistic tenor of Bush's executive branch. Fox News, too, decried the release of these memos, but for an entirely different reason: allegedly, now that Al Qaeda knows what techniques were used, the terrorists can train for these techniques and they will no longer be effective. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the whole idea behind this Administration's policy regarding prisoners that we don't torture anymore? So if we're not going to be doing any of this stuff, what does it matter if people know how it was done when we did? Karl Rove and Bill Kristol in particular argue that the country is now less safe because these techniques will no longer be available to wrangle intelligence from captured "terrorists" (surprisingly few of the people being held as terrorists actually were when they were picked up, though I'd chance a guess that the numbers have increased since they first were taken into captivity). News flash, guys: Jack Bauer is a fictional character. Sometimes torture does work. The vast majority of the time, it does not. Numerous studies have been done that show the majority of people will say anything to make the pain stop, whether it makes any sense or not. Yes, something might be missed by not torturing prisoners. Am I willing to take that risk to uphold what I consider to be a necessary aspect of our honor and our national character? Yes.

I'm sure that, given enough time, I could add a ton more people to this list. However, I think this will do for this year.

Until next time, find your own fools to pity.

He Blinded Me With Science

Have you ever noticed that whenever progress is made, some sort of example pops up to show just how much further society needs to go? It seems as though life is a sort of cosmic Hokey Pokey, where every time a segment of humanity puts its left foot in, another segment does its damnest to put its left foot out. This time, the dichotomy lies in the realm of science and its place in governing, well, governing. In this case, the progress is represented by President Obama's decision to allow federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research. It's been quite some time (about eight years, to be exact) since we've had a president who based scientific policy on, as Mr. Obama put it, "fact, not politics." To be honest, it's a little disconcerting to know that this represents a new direction in national scientific policy; should not facts be the source of all decision-making? However, the fact that the change has now been made is a definite step forward, despite what those against this specific process say. I've actually got quite a bit to say about them, too, but that can wait for another time.

The same day that Mr. Obama overturned the Bush Administration's stem-cell policy and changed the way science was regarded in Washington (well, as best as one can change that sort of thing when Sam Brownback is still in office), the following letter ran in the Opinion section of the Post-Tribune. I've decided to reprint it here, in its entirety, because quite frankly, I couldn't honestly believe what I was reading. It's my genuine hope that none of you will, either.

Jerry Davich's recent column asked, "Is it possible to believe in both evolution and creationism?"
In these last days, God is revealing more and more in the Bible. Daniel 12:4 says, "But thou O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end. Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased."
We know from the Bible that on May 21, 1988, the Earth was exactly 13,000 years old to the very day, and it was also the end of the church age and the beginning of the great tribulation period, which will culminate on May 21, 2011, when the rapture of the believers will occur. These facts are known in part because we now have a biblical calendar of history.
His column poses another question, "Did dinosaurs rule the earth 100 million years ago?" We would not have the fossils of the bones of the dinosaurs if God had not destroyed this world in 4990 B.C. with a cataclysmic flood, which reached over the highest mountains in Noah's day. Genesis 7:20-21 says, "Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail, and the mountains were covered. And all flesh died that moved upon the Earth."
Why have biologists and others not considered this solution? Possibly because they think they are smarter than God. It would take a gigantic disaster, such as the flood of Noah's day, so we could have these bones and fossils to argue about.
For details on all of these issues, the following books and booklets, as well as others, are available to be downloaded from familyradio.com: "Adam When?" "We are Almost There" and "To God Be The Glory."
These are also available free and postage-paid by calling Family Radio in Oakland, Calif., at (800) 543-1495.

I chose to omit the writer's name because I feel wholly embarrassed for him. Give that another quick read. The Earth is apparently 13,000 years old, because the Bible says so. It wasn't a meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs, it was the Great Flood, despite the fact that any such flood would have occurred at least 64.75 million years AFTER the last dinosaurs died out. The writer wonders further why biologists/paleontologists/anthropologists would not consider these ideas, and the first thing he can come up with is that scientists think they're smarter than God.

(Trying to tamp my response down to a reasonable level...)

(Still trying...)

(Come on, you can do this...)

All right, I think I'm good to go. First: if the Earth is 13,000 years old, then thousands upon thousands of artifacts are apparently imaginary. There is no shortage of items that can be attributed to times before what would be 11,000 B.C. How do we know this? A little thing called carbon-dating. For those of you who are unfamiliar, I'll break it down: there is a radioactive isotope of carbon, specifically carbon-14, whose half-life is well known. Using this data, a sample can be examined for the amount of carbon-14 present, and based on the type of material from which the sample is constructed, it can be determined how much carbon-14 there was when the sample was first created. Most of what we know about prehistoric man comes from samples that have been backdated using this process; for example, Chauvet Cave in France, home to the largest known collection of cave drawings by prehistoric man, contains drawings that date to at least 26,000 years ago.

Second: the dinosaurs allegedly dying in the Great Flood. Wow, I don't even know where to start with this one. Despite numerous fictional examples to the contrary (the comic strip B.C. being one of the more prominent ones), there is absolutely no proof that man and dinosaurs even existed in the same era, let alone at the same time. This isn't even one of the things supposedly up for debate, like evolution (which I'll get to another time) or global warming (ditto); there is total consensus among scientists. Those who pose this question are not scientists, but rather, and I quote, "Christian historians;" in other words, people who try to fit history into the timeline of the Bible, science be damned. This actually isn't that hard to do, if you assume that all accounts in the Bible are certain fact and that any potential interpretation of said accounts is also fact.

Finally, the reason that scientists haven't considered this idea? BECAUSE IT MAKES NO SENSE! (Sorry, told myself I wasn't going to yell this time.) There's no point in exploring a ridiculous and utterly stupid theory when the one we have is not only sensible, but backed up by scientific evidence. It's the same reason why most schools teach evolution and only the absurdly over-religious teach creationism. When the evidence on one side of the scale weighs it down to the ground, and the evidence on the other side couldn't budge a feather, why should the other side receive equal credibility?

This is the sort of problem I'm talking about. For every action that places decision-making in the hands of logic, reason, and scientific fact, there are five people who decry it as an affront to God because their interpretation of the Bible deems it to be so. Even if you get past the fact that these people view the Bible as literally true, which it most certainly isn't (at best, it's a series of parables designed to keep people in line, especially the Old Testament), there is no getting past their hostility to science. To these people, I offer the words of Lewis Black: "SCIENCE IS NOT F****** VOODOO! SCIENCE IS NOT IN CONFLICT WITH THE LORD ALMIGHTY! IT IS NOT THE WORK OF THE DEVIL!" Nothing prevents the two from coexisting but the stubborn will of fearful people terrified of being proven wrong.

I'm going to close with a line from Bill Maher's last appearance on The Daily Show. It seems especially pertinent to the current discussion.

"There are two Americas, there's a progressive European America that a lot of us live in or would like to live in, and it's being strangled by the Sarah Palins of the world and can't quite be born because this other stupid redneck nation won't allow it."

Until next time, here's hoping we're on the path to one America.