It's Not a Tax!

What's the Matter With Creationism?

(AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, file) 
Do you know what the worst thing about the recent Gallup poll on evolution is? It isn’t that 46 percent of respondents are creationists (“God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last ten thousand years or so”). Or that 32 percent believe in “theistic evolution” (“Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process”). Or that only 15 percent said humans evolved and “God had no part in this process.” It isn’t even that the percentage of Americans with creationist views has barely budged since 1982, when it was 44 percent, with a small rise in the no-God vote (up from 9 percent) coming at the expense of the divine-help position (down from 38 percent). Or that 58 percent of Republicans are creationists, although that does explain a lot.

It’s that the proportion of college graduates who are creationists is exactly the same as for the general public. That’s right: 46 percent of Americans with sixteen long years of education under their belt believe the story of Adam and Eve is literally true. Even 25 percent of Americans with graduate degrees believe dinosaurs and humans romped together before Noah’s flood. Needless to say, this remarkable demonstration of educational failure attracts little attention from those who call for improving our schools.

My brilliant husband, a sociologist and political theorist, refuses to get upset about the poll. It’s quite annoying, actually. He thinks questions like these primarily elicit affirmations of identity, not literal convictions; declaring your belief in creationism is another way of saying you’re a good Christian. That does rather beg the question of what a good Christian is, and why so many think it means refusing to use the brains God gave you. And yes, as you may have suspected, according to the Pew Research Center, evangelicals are far more likely than those of other faiths to hold creationist views; just 24 percent of them believe in evolution. Mormons come in even lower, at 22 percent, although official church doctrine has no problem with evolution.
Why does it matter that almost half the country rejects the overwhelming evidence of evolution, with or without the hand of God? After all, Americans are famously ignorant of many things—like where Iran is or when World War II took place—and we are still here. One reason is that rejecting evolution expresses more than an inability to think critically; it relies on a fundamentally paranoid worldview. Think what the world would have to be like for evolution to be false. Almost every scientist on earth would have to be engaged in a fraud so complex and extensive it involved every field from archaeology, paleontology, geology and genetics to biology, chemistry and physics. And yet this massive concatenation of lies and delusion is so full of obvious holes that a pastor with a Bible-college degree or a homeschooling parent with no degree at all can see right through it. A flute discovered in southern Germany is 43,000 years old? Not bloody likely. It’s probably some old bone left over from an ancient barbecue. To celebrate its fifth anniversary, the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky, has installed a holographic exhibit of Lucy, the famous proto-human fossil, showing how she was really just a few-thousand-year-old ape after all.
Patricia Princehouse, director of the evolutionary biology program at Case Western Reserve University, laughed when I suggested to her that the Gallup survey shows that education doesn’t work. “There isn’t much evolution education in the schools,” she told me. “Most have no more than a lesson or two, and it isn’t presented as connected with the rest of biology.” In fact, students may not even get that much exposure. Nationally, Princehouse said, at least 13 percent of biology teachers teach “young earth” creationism (not just humans but the earth itself is only 10,000 years old or thereabouts), despite laws forbidding it, and some 60 percent teach a watered-down version of evolution. They have to get along with their neighbors, after all. In Tennessee, home of the Scopes trial, a new law actually makes teaching creationism legal. “No one takes them to court,” Princehouse told me, “because creationism is so popular. Those who object are isolated and afraid of reprisals.” People tend to forget that Clarence Darrow lost the Scopes trial; until the Supreme Court ruled otherwise in 1968, it was illegal to teach evolution in public schools in about half a dozen states.
Kenneth Miller, a biology professor at Brown University and practicing Catholic who is a leading voice against creationism, agrees with Princehouse. “Science education has been remarkably ineffective,” he told me. “Those of us in the scientific community who are religious have a tremendous amount of work to do in the faith community.” Why bother? “There’s a potential for great harm when nearly half the population rejects the central organizing principle of the biological sciences. It’s useful for us as a species to understand that we are a recent appearance on this planet and that 99.9 percent of all species that have ever existed have gone extinct.” Evangelical parents may care less that their children learn science than that they avoid going to hell, but Miller points out that many of the major challenges facing the nation—and the world—are scientific in nature: climate change and energy policy, for instance. “To have a near majority essentially rejecting the scientific method is very troubling,” he says. And to have solidly grounded science waved away as political and theological propaganda could not come at a worse time. “Sea-level rise” is a “left-wing term,” said Virginia state legislator Chris Stolle, a Republican, successfully urging its replacement in a state-commissioned study by the expression “recurrent flooding.”
The group Answers in Genesis, which runs the Creation Museum, has plans to build a full-size replica of Noah’s Ark as part of its Ark Encounter theme park. If that “recurrent flooding” really gets going, you may wish you’d booked a cabin.

Katha Pollitt

June 14, 2012 | This article appeared in the July 2-9, 2012 edition of The Nation.

Romney's Profit From Bain Buyouts:

Up to $20,000 Per Laid-off Worker

By TheStreet.com

By Lauren Bloom

As the 2012 presidential campaign season swings into high gear, we're going to hear a lot about presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney's record on job creation.

Between his tenure at Bain Capital and his time as governor of Massachusetts, there'll be plenty for politicians and pundits alike to discuss.

Here are some of the highlights we can expect to hear from the campaign trail:

Bain Capital: The Good, the Bad and the Hard-to-Quantify.
In 1984, Romney left management consulting firm Bain & Company to co-found the spinoff private-equity investment firm, Bain Capital. For the next 15 years, Romney presided over Bain Capital's operations, which shifted focus over time from venture capitalism to leveraged buyouts. Make no mistake about it -- Bain Capital's purpose was to make money for its investors, and it did so hand over fist. From its 1986 success investing in what was then a small office supply store called Staples (Romney fondly recalls stocking store shelves himself) until Romney left in 1999, Bain made billions. Along the way, it purchased at least five companies that subsequently ended up in bankruptcy even as Bain walked away with eye-popping profits:

• American Pad & Paper: Bain invested $5 million in the small paper company in 1992, and reportedly collected $100 million in dividends on that investment. AMPAD went bankrupt in 2000, laying off 385 employees.
• Dade Behring: Bain Capital invested $415 million in a leveraged buyout in 1994, borrowed an additional $421 million, and ultimately walked away with $1.78 billion. Dade filed for bankruptcy in 2002, and 2,000 workers lost their jobs.
• DDI Corporation: Bain Capital reportedly invested $46.3 million in 1997, reaping $85.5 million in profits and an additional $10 million in management fees. When the company later went bankrupt, 2,100 workers were laid off.
• GS International: In a somewhat less profitable transaction, Bain Capital invested $60 million in 1993 and received $65 million in dividends. This company, too, went bankrupt in 2002, and 750 workers lost their jobs.
 • Stage Stores: Bain invested $5 million to purchase the company and took it public in the mid-'90s, reaping $100 million from stock offerings. Stage filed for bankruptcy in 2000, and 5,795 workers reportedly were laid off.

Romney himself profited handsomely from his time running Bain Capital. Although the exact details of his personal finances are not available, news reports estimate his net worth at somewhere between $190 and $250 million, much of it derived from his Bain Capital days. Very rough math might suggest that Romney made as much as $20,000 per job lost.

In fairness to Romney, however, Bain Capital purchased more than 115 companies during his tenure, and Staples wasn't its only success. The Romney campaign points to household-name companies like Domino's Pizza and Sports Authority to support its claim that Bain Capital actually created approximately 120,000 jobs during the Romney era. But that number may also be misleading: Job creation at successful companies is usually more attributable to dedicated management than to investors or consultants.

Romney's job as head of Bain Capital was to make a handsome return for investors. His goal would have been to maximize efficiency and profits, not to ensure that people with steady jobs got to keep them. Consequently, although jobs were created, it's not clear how much of the credit should go to Bain and Romney.

The Massachusetts Miracle – or Not. Romney proudly attempts to tout his success at creating jobs in Massachusetts, but the facts may not support him. According to MarketWatch, Massachusetts ranked 50th out of the 50 states in job growth during Romney's first year in office, and things improved very little thereafter. By the end of his term, Massachusetts was still 47th, ranking above only rustbelt states Michigan and Ohio and Hurricane Katrina-wracked Louisiana. While jobs were growing nationwide at more than 5%, Massachusetts limped along at a bare 0.9% growth rate. So yes, some jobs were created in Massachusetts during Romney's tenure, but not at a rate that unemployed American voters are likely to find reassuring
So, who is the real Mitt Romney? It's clear that Romney will continue to portray himself as a savvy businessman who can put America back to work, and that President Obama will want to characterize him as a heartless corporate pirate who got filthy rich on other people's misery. The truth undoubtedly lies somewhere in between, but Romney's tendency to publicly stumble over his own wealth won't help him in the polls. The Internet is already full of awkward Romney quotes like:

• "Corporations are people, my friend."
• "I like being able to fire people."
• "I'm not concerned about the very poor."

All of those quotes have been taken out of context and stripped of whatever nuance Romney intended. Taken together, though, they form a fairly compelling -- if not necessarily accurate -- picture of a man with far more money than heart.

And why should investors care? If corporate America likes Romney's promise of a business-friendly White House, there should be plenty of concern about how Romney's job creation record plays on the campaign trail. Corporations may be able to donate big money to presidential candidates these days, but it's still individual human voters who'll decide whether to vote Romney in or not.

Perhaps, instead of essentially promising to create jobs himself, Romney should focus his message on how making companies profitable and encouraging economic growth will create the need for well-paid workers. It's an honest message, and one that might just appeal to voters. If Romney gets mired in his arguably ambiguous record, or continues to arm his critics with quotes suggesting that he's just too rich to care about ordinary Americans, President Obama is almost certain to win another four years in the White House.

Voter Fraud?

Top Ten Groups Of Americans The GOP Hates

By Justin "Filthy Liberal Scum" Rosario
Let’s just get the obvious out of the way: The GOP runs on hate. Their entire political platform consists of opposing things they can’t stand. They don’t stand for anything; they stand against. They don’t stand for family values; they stand against alternate lifestyles. They don’t stand for freedom; they stand against the rights of others. It permeates every word they speak and every law they pass (or filibuster). But there are some people they hate more than others and, oh boy, does it show!
Just for fun, when you’re finished, post how many of these groups you fall into. I actually only fall into 2. I’m so lucky! The GOP only hates me a little!
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/06/06/top-ten/

HARD WORK

Conservatives seem to believe that the rich will work harder if we give them more, and the poor will work harder if we give them less