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At the end of the week.  Two events are standouts at the end of this week—one, revelations and admissions that the Bush administration committed impeachable offenses in grabbing for more powers than the US Constitution really grants to people like them and, two, the failure of Intelligent Design (ID) proponents to separate the scientific mission of ID from its the theological implications.

If Pennsylvania's Dover Area School District controversy is any indication, ID is now inextricably connected to Creationism (along with an apparent lineage and family resemblance to the discredited Scopes Trial) and therefore certainly won't get mentioned by any teacher in a public school for a long time from now.

It started out fairly benignly, I think, with this affirmative resolution by the School Board:

That was in October 2004. On November 19, 2004, the Dover Area School District announced in a press release that, beginning January 2005, teachers would have to read this statement to students in the 9th grade biology class at Dover High School:

It suits the purpose of ID proponents to have its methodology brought into the classroom alongside dogmatic evolutionary theory, if only because it brings into focus the very issue of biological complexity and how scientists deal with evidence that competes with paradigmatic science. Unfortunately, Intelligent Design, as "the field of study that investigates signs of intelligence,"¹ really isn't an explanation of the origin of life, despite its inevitable theoretic distance from Darwin on the mechanisms of species differentiation, and has thus been misused and bruised all along its short ideological journey in Pennsylvania—first by the Dover School District and finally by US District Judge John E. Jones III, who ruled on Tuesday that ID is religious doctrine and that its inclusion in a public school curriculum violates the constitutional separation of church and state. Jones also went so far as to say that Dover board members and witnesses "lied outright under oath" about the motives for including ID in the curriculum.²

Consequently, biology teachers in public schools in Pennsylvania (and elsewhere) are now going to be teaching evolutionary theory with hard lines drawn on their sandy intellectual floors: where we want our high school students to graduate with good analytical skills, including the ability to think critically about science and scientific method, we're still going to see them walk across the podium with the party line committed to memory.

As for Mr Bush's boarding-house reach across the table spread with Constitutional powers, I am compelled to note his resemblance here to Richard M. Nixon, but in a more terrifying ideological way. In an interview with David Frost in 1976 Nixon said openly and boldly that "when the president does it that means that it is not illegal," as consistent with language he used in responding to the Church Commission: "there are certain inherently government activities, which, if undertaken by the sovereign in protection of the interests of the nation's security are lawful, but which if undertaken by private persons, are not."³ The signal word here is "sovereign." I think that, like Nixon, Bush believes himself to be a sovereign entitled to the powers we customarily associate with kings and despots.⁴

1.  William Dembski, "In Defense of Intelligent Design" [.pdf] (forthcoming in Oxford Handbook of Religion and Science). More information is available at Dembski's Design Inference Website and also at the Center for Science and Culture, a program of Seattle's Discovery Institute.
2.  Kitzmiller, et al. v Dover Area School District: Case No. 04cv2688" [.pdf].
3.  Nixon wrote that in response to questions put to him by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, concerning alleged abuses of the executive power during his administration. See "Interview with David Frost" [.pdf], reported in New York Times, March 12, 1976, 14:2. Cited in American Historical Association.
4.  And he went so far as to say that blowing the whistle on him was a "shameful act." See Washington Times, December 20, 2005. At least things are finally heating up in the White House press room. See the December 20 Press Briefing by Scott McClellan. One would certainly like to have seen this aggressive questioning BEFORE the invasion of Iraq.

From the song by Michael Franti and Spearhead:

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Where your treasure is ....  There is irony in this, but it's only one of many. Yesterday the Farmington Daily Times reported that the Bureau of Indian Affairs has notified the Navajo Nation that it has $15 million less to allocate to tribal welfare programs for the remainder of 2005.¹ The Navajo Nation, covering an area as large as France within the borders of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah, struggles along with more than half of its population living below the poverty level.² I mention this because at the same time as this news item was making the rounds in New Mexico, the Los Angeles Times was reporting that the Pentagon had paid out $20 million for a 2-month contract with the Lincoln Group to influence public opinion in Iraq's Al Anwar province ("a campaign that was unnecessarily costly, poorly run and largely ineffective at improving America's image in Iraq," reported the newspaper).³ We tend to forget, too, that these are all American tax dollars.

1.  "BIA warned of shortfall months ago Navajo Nation considering options to cope with late checks ," Farmington Daily Times, December 18, 2005.
2.  See, e.g., "Navajo feel a long way from Washington," Guardian, October 1, 2004.
3.  "Planted PR Stories Not News to Military," Los Angeles Times, December 18, 2005.

Time for the Friends Calendar.  Since 2006 is only two weeks away, it's certainly about time to get the new Friends Calendar from the Tract Association of Friends. It's only a $1.50 and they also have a cool pocket version of the calendar for 50 cents less. The order form (listing the calendars and all of their books, pamphlets, and tracts) is available here. This is another good way to support the work of your Christian Friends.