This and that

A few interesting items in the news today:

Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., says he'll fight fire with fire on procedural obstructions on the immigration bill. We hope that threat isn't empty hot air, especially after seeing this comment at Blue Jersey: (Update: Senate Leader Harry Reid pulled the bill.)

There is another good reason to oppose this bill.

Hidden way down in the guts of the thing, there is a rule that all people applying for a job, that's you, me, every American citizen and everybody else, would have to get the okey-dokey from Homeland Security to be approved for the job. The same Homeland Security that cannot get the no-fly list right.

No okey-dokey? No job. And, you cannot go to court to challenge the decision, if you could afford it. All power in this resides in the Director of HomeSec. ...by: Tandalayo Scheisskopf

Our other senator, Sen. Frank Lautenberg, posted a bill yesterday that would require all pharmacist to dispense Plan B birth control, a.k.a. "the morning after pill," which some pharmacist withhold because of their religious beliefs. So, I guess if a pharmacist dispensed a Viagra prescription to someone sleeping with his secretary, the pharmacist's religion supports adultery. Some pharmacists don't stop at denying a woman's right to stop conception. Some, like this chain in Montana, decided they know best that no woman customer -- even married women -- is capable of choosing even the size of their own families.

Virgin chairman Sir Richard Branson's first train operating on environmentally friendly bio-fuel (right) pulled out of the London station today. Using these trains could slash the green company's CO2 emissions by 14 percent, as much as taking 23,000 cars off the road.

The man who plays Adam in the video at the Creation Museum in Kentucky flaunts his sexual exploits online and models clothing that promotes free love. When publicity started, the museum pulled the plug on the video. I wonder if visitors get some of their $20 back.

A world where lies are true

Building of the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky., was behind schedule when I drove through there last summer, sadly. I've been anxious to see this for myself.

Chris Hedges, writing for Truthdig this week, goes there for us:

... Before Adam and Eve were expelled from paradise, museum visitors are told, all of the dinosaurs were peaceable plant-eaters. The evidence is found in Genesis 1:30, where God gives “green herb” to every creature to eat. There were no predators. T-Rex had such big teeth, the museum explains, so it could open coconuts. ...

The danger of creationism is that, like the pseudo-science of Nazi eugenics, it allows facts to be accepted or discarded according to the dictates of a preordained ideology. Creationism removes the follower from the rational, reality-based world. Signs, miracles and wonders occur not only in the daily life of Christians but in history, science, medicine and logic. The belief system becomes the basis to understand the world. Random facts and data are collected and made to fit into this belief system or discarded. When facts are treated as if they were opinions, when there is no universal standard to determine truth, in law, in science, in scholarship, or in the reporting of the events of the day, the world becomes a place where people can believe what they want to believe, where there is no possibility of reaching any conclusion not predetermined by those who interpret the official, divinely inspired text. This is the goal of creationists.

Other creationist museums are going up in Arkansas, Texas, California, Tennessee and Florida. Museums are part of a massive push to teach creationism in schools, part of a vast Christian publishing and filmmaking industry that seeks to rewrite the past and make it conform to the Bible. The front lines of the culture wars are the classrooms. The battle is one we are slowly losing. ...