Is there any truth in this allegation

[Guy Profumo]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8282356.stm

that some members of Dubya's staff were fucking morons?

Matt Latimer, former speech writer for President George W Bush, said that some members of his administration believed her books promoted sorcery.

[Wyatt Earp]

Is there any truth in this allegation

Guy Potger wrote:

that some members of Dubya's staff were fucking morons?

That danger must exist.

[Guy Profumo]

Is there any truth in this allegation

You don't suppose she missed out because, rather than contributing to US national interest, world peace or cultural endeavours; she merely was a hugely successful commercial author, who wrote entertaining and diverting tales for children?

Just a hunch, you understand. I've no firm evidence for this. [Any more than I can see from Mr Latimer in the above article]

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Is there any truth in this allegation

Er, books whose heroes are children going to a school to teach them to become wizards and use magic powers to overcome their enemies .

Of course they fucking "promote sorcery"!

The only bizarre thing is why anyone would think that's a bad thing. Don't ALL children (and some seriously deranged adults) love to believe in magic, and the power of spells, and suchlike? Did the Bush administration similarly ban re-runs of "Bewitched", and showings of "Bedknobs and Broomsticks"?

[Ginger Yellow]

Is there any truth in this allegation

Ashcroft was well known for holding that sort of belief (by which I mean that I don't know about his views on Harry Potter in particular, but that he thinks sorcery is real and involves demons manipulating the practitioners), and I'm sure he was far from alone, given how prevalent that view is on the religious right. Given how many of Bush's appointees went to Liberty and Regent universities, which are hotbeds of evangelical loonyism, it's hardly surprising news.

[Brandenburger Toro]

Is there any truth in this allegation

The Straussians, on the other hand, who were most of the rest, were having none of it and smirking to each other behind their oilfield maps.

[Guest]

Is there any truth in this allegation

Guy Potger wrote:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8282356.stm

that some members of Dubya's staff were fucking morons?

Surely it was a prerequisite?

[Bruno]

Is there any truth in this allegation

One of my students was telling me yesterday how they brought in some guy to his (religious, private) school recently to teach everyone that the Grand Canyon must have been formed by the Great Flood, not the Colorado River. And other various things about dinosaurs and ice ages and evolution lacking enough evidence to hold up in a court of law.

I'm just throwing it out there, since this thread has 'loony' and 'moron' in it.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Is there any truth in this allegation

"Lacking enough evidence" (in a court of law) on a "beyond all reasonable doubt" basis, or on a "balance of probabilities" basis? On the former basis, you could - just about - concede that argument might follow (that a jury could conclude that), but surely not on the latter basis? Civil law is almost always judged on the "balance of probability" test.

[Bruno]

Is there any truth in this allegation

There's that, and there's the small issue of not applying the same rigorous standards of evidence to their own beliefs...

[Ginger Yellow]

Is there any truth in this allegation

Funny that, given that the evidence for evolution has held up in a court of law, repeatedly, whereas the purported evidence for creationism has not, repeatedly. Not that a court of law is a particularly good forum for judging the accuracy of scientific theories.

[Bruno]

Is there any truth in this allegation

Also, there are dinosaurs in the Bible.

[Ginger Yellow]

Is there any truth in this allegation

[Ginger Yellow]

Is there any truth in this allegation

By the way, that's from the same (totally serious) person who gave us this great argument:

[Incandenza]

Is there any truth in this allegation

Going by that quote from Genesis, I presume these giants were all living below the surface of the earth, correct?

[WOM]

Is there any truth in this allegation

I never tire of the ?? for sneering emphasis on absurd questions like the 'pygmies and dwarfs' one above.

[Bruno]

Is there any truth in this allegation

I knew Man had fallen, I just didn't realize how many feet.

[Bruno]

Is there any truth in this allegation

Eve has stitched Adam a nice pair of woolly mammoth boxers, there.

[Brandenburger Toro]

Is there any truth in this allegation

Ha, yeah. Way to draw a leaf, Jack Chick!

[linus]

Is there any truth in this allegation

What type of religious school would teach that Bruno, evangelical? surely catholic schools are above this crap.

[Brandenburger Toro]

Is there any truth in this allegation

We are certainly supposed to be.

[Bruno]

Is there any truth in this allegation

linus wrote:

What type of religious school would teach that Bruno, evangelical?

Oui.

[Ginger Yellow]

Is there any truth in this allegation

It's not actually Chick, but a guy called Jim Pinkoski.
How can you not love a guy who writes a sentence like: "In 1981 when Ron Wyatt was discovering the Ark of the Covenant, I developed my solution to our country's economic system"? And whose solution is this:

That's how things would work, says Pinkoski, if there were only one financial institution in the whole U.S. -- that's one bank for all the saving, checking and lending activity.

...

In "The New Money Game," he uses the example of mortgage lending to illustrate how things would work if one institution handled all the money.

First, the bank lends the money to a person who wants to buy a house. Next, the homebuyer pays the money to the homebuilder. Finally, the homebuilder deposits the money into his account -- which, of course, is in the same institution that loaned out the money. By extension, if the builder pays out some of what he was paid, the recipients will make deposits in the bank.

So the bank already has its money back. Therefore, says Pinkoski, it can afford to charge a borrower a miniscule amount compared to what the institutions now require and yet still make a comfortable profit.

Funny how crackpot ideas tend to go together, isn't it?

Here's Chick's take on the dinosaurs, which conveniently neglects the fact that there were small dinosaurs too.

[Wyatt Earp]

Is there any truth in this allegation

Rogin the Armchair Fan wrote:

"Lacking enough evidence" (in a court of law) on a "beyond all reasonable doubt" basis, or on a "balance of probabilities" basis? On the former basis, you could - just about - concede that argument might follow ...

I don't think you could, you know. (Unless you're positing a mental fundy jury, which would make the argument a bit circular: you can surely convince any jury of anything they're already inclined to be convinced of.) But there's not really any "reasonable doubt" that evolution has happened; it's as much a settled fact as, oh I dunno, "the Sun is a star" or "matter is composed of atoms".

Reasonable doubt about natural selection is probably just about still possible, though kind of perverse.

[Wyatt Earp]

Is there any truth in this allegation

Ginger Yellow wrote:

Here's Chick's take on the dinosaurs, which conveniently neglects the fact that there were small dinosaurs too.

You know, quite apart from all the palaeo-lunacy, those swarthy, hook-nosed Sanhedrin are like something out of Der Sturmer.