Odds and ends for today

Intelligent Design: What’s the Big Deal?

I subscribe to Wikipedia’s Featured Article of the Day by mail, and today’s article is Intelligent Design. This is basically a way for religious-minded individuals to frame “creation” in a way to hopefully get around the objections of those who reject creation accounts on “scientific” grounds.

Personally, I don’t see the supposed disconnect between religion and science. After all, the root meaning of the English word “science” is “knowledge.” Wikipedia’s article on science defines it as follows:

“Science (from the Latin scientia, 'knowledge'), in the broadest sense, refers to any systematic knowledge or practice.[1] In a more restricted sense, science refers to a system of acquiring knowledge based on the scientific method, as well as to the organized body of knowledge gained through such research.”

In other words, science is what is known. The fact that a particular group of scientists don’t know, for example, how the earth was created, doesn’t make the method used any less scientific. It just means that they don’t know or cannot reproduce the method. Many times arguments against creation accounts are no more than the egos of the objectors acting out.

World Trade Bomber has a change of faith

According to reports in today’s edition of the New York Daily News, convicted terrorist Ramzi Yousef, who detonated the truck bomb that destroyed a basement garage in the World Trade Center in 1993, has abandoned Islam and is now a Christian convert.

The report states that he has stopped reading the Koran, shaved his beard, and even eats pork.

I’m sure that there are conspiracy theorists claiming that he’s putting on a show in hopes of getting some kind of early release from prison (which could never happen in a post 9/11 world, especially since he’s serving a life sentence). But, in fact, even a discussion of changing religions could get someone killed by fundamentalist Muslims, to say nothing of eating pork. So I’d have to say this is real. And if it is real, he’d best hope that he never gets out of prison. Because if he did, he could never be at ease – besides those who would be willing to hunt him down over the bombing, there would be people who consider his “conversion” as blasphemy.

Kid Singers in NYC? OK. But Baby Races?

A ten-month-old baby was just crowned “fastest crawler” at a “Baby Derby” in Union Square, in New York City. He competed against seven other babies in crawling along a ten-foot-long course, sponsored by Babies “R” Us as a trial run for races to be held this weekend at the American Baby Faire (?!) in Long Island’s Nassau Coliseum.

Maybe I’m overreacting, but this seems just a little bit exploitive… but then somebody thought the same thing about 17-year-old American Idol winner Jordin Sparks and fellow contestant Sanjaya Malakar, who turned 18 just after the performing the New York shows on this years American Idol tour. The organizers got hit with fines after a clerk at the NYS Labor Department took note of the fact that Jordin and Sanjaya, both featured performers, were under 18. She did some digging, and turned the info over to investigators who then found that the company that organized the tour didn’t have the correct permits filed for using underage performers.

I know that laws and standards exist for a reason, but there is a huge difference between teen performers who have parents, managers, and so on with them to monitor them and make sure they’re not being exploited or overworked, and kids enslaved in some sweatshop making sneakers or pocketbooks for pennies an hour. It was “only” a $5,000 fine, though, so they didn’t get too carried away, but I still think it probably should have been let go.

The Middle East and baseball

All this fuss over Senator John Murtha's comments on pulling out of Iraq is nothing more than both sides mugging for the cameras, political style. After Bush's political attack dogs all but called Murtha a terrorist himself, Bush softened a bit and said that Murtha has a fine record of service, but he's just wrong about Iraq. A fine Washington version of good-cop, bad-cop, I think. As for pulling out of Iraq, of course Bush would think Murtha's wrong; Murtha probably doesn't have friends in position to profit from what's going on over there. One of the press conferences said that a quick troop withdrawal would put American lives in danger. Yeah, those Americans working for Bechtel, Halliburton, and all the rest. They're the real reason the troops were sent there in the first place. If Bush would just admit that, he might find that he'd gain just a modicum of respect from the American people, just before the White House came crashing down around him out of sheer inanimate contempt for its main occupant...

Bud Selig, an actual baseball commissioner?

It looks like I may have to take back some of my comments about Bud Selig being only a caretaker commissioner. The new steroids rule isn't something a caretaker would come up with. I'm glad to see that, if the rule is enforced, there won't be any more situations like Steve Howe, who seemed to be in trouble over cocaine or some other drug every other week, only to wind up back in uniform for somebody or other the very next week. (Of course cocaine is NOT a performance-enhancing drug, it's only illegal.) Let's see what they do with the players whose names keep popping up now, like Barry Bonds, who was the subject of a back-page feature articel in the sports section of this past Sunday's New York Daily News.

I still think Selig would look more like a real commissioner, though, if he (or his so-called "blind trust") would just sell the Brewers once and for all. I don't care how "commissionerly" Selig turns out to be, having his old team run by his daughter creates a very real appearance of conflict of interest. Maybe after they finish clearing up the Washington Nationals mess, Selig will finally decide to be a commissioner and not an owner. But will he be free to act without restraints, or will he make real fans fondly remember the days of Giamatti and Vincent? Because if he's restrained by the (other) owners, then Congress should think seriously about investigating baseball's antitrust exemption. One of the conditions for granting the exemption in the first place was that baseball had a strong and independent commissioner. He worked for the owners, but they had to grant him a measure of authority over them and their investments (their teams) in order to keep the exemption. So, though they grumbled when Bowie Kuhn started fining teams for excessive amounts of money changing hands in trades, they went along with it. But when Fay Vincent came along, they did their best to make him uncomfortable. He took the hint and left, and baseball has been rudderless ever since. Losing that exemption and having to answer to some degree of federal oversight would wake up the owners for real. Time will tell...

Pakistan vs. the Gulf Coast

There were reports in the news lately that, while Pakistan receives billions in aid from the US Government, Louisiana is having serious financial problems because of the cost of rebuilding in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. A few weeks ago, there was a political cartoon in the NY Daily News, showing a road sign somewhere near the southern Mississippi coast, giving directions to "Biloxiraq," "PersianGulfport," and "Bay St. Baghdad." Also pictured were two locals, one saying to the other, "That's one way to get the government's attention."

Isn't it odd that the man who had been famously portrayed as turning his back on the rest of the world to "take care of his own" is quicker to send aid to Indonesia (which didn't really want it) and the Persian Gulf area (which definitely didn't want it) than to his own countrymen? Hotels around the country are telling Louisiana refugees that they have to get out, largely because FEMA has informed the hotels that they won't pay for the refugees' stay past December 1, and yet more and more money and resources are being dropped into the bottomless pit of Iraq and Afghanistan.