Monthly Archives: February 2008

Salt Lake Tribune – Cannon in line for possible promotion

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Salt Lake Tribune – Cannon in line for possible promotion

WASHINGTON – Republicans will have a difficult time reclaiming the House in November’s elections with a slew of incumbents deciding to retire, resign or run for higher office.

Huh? Why did they change the headline? Why is this a duplicate story? I blogged it yesterday.
Salt Lake Tribune – Cannon growing old in D.C.

WASHINGTON – Republicans will have a difficult time reclaiming the House in November’s elections with a slew of incumbents deciding to retire, resign or run for higher office.

Here’s something else that caught my eye – the Trib always has a sidebar with the most-read and most-emailed stories, and the current list shows that lots of people are reading all about Chris Buttars, and all the letters to the editor criticising his anti-gay and anti-immigration stance, and generally giving me hope that there might be more tolerant people in Salt Lake than I previously thought possible.

Stories with the highest ratings by Tribune readers in the past five days.

  • Rebecca Walsh: Anti-gay patriarchy takes SLC to woodshed (522)
  • Walsh: Buttars is craggy face of homophobia, racism (363)
  • Leave us alone (215)
  • Mitt’s untruths (155)
  • Buttars must go (150)
  • Fear and prejudice: No excuses for Chris Buttars (139)
  • LDS Church asks lawmakers to weigh morality, ethics in immigration reforms (139)
  • Buttars and gay people (121)
  • Disgusting remark (114)
  • Butt out, senator (114)

    • Beware of creationist “scientists” padding their resumes

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     Is it a problem if creationists have their own academic journal, giving them a forum for publishing their theories in a “peer-reviewed,” theologically literalist setting for a Bible-believing readership?

    Well, it is if they are permitted to lie about their identities in order to hide their association with said journal, and said “peers,” at least until they get a little more academic seniority in their fields. And it is if they publish under their own names but use the fact of publication in a journal with rigorous biblical standards but not-so-rigorous scientific standards to pad their resumes or make them seem more authoritative if running for a school board office or quoted for a local newspaper article.

    How Creationists peer-review their “academic” scholarship. – By Bonnie Goldstein – Slate Magazine

    As an extra incentive to participate, those with “a reason for not wanting their biographical details publicized on the AiG website” (such as seeking tenure at an institution with more rigorous notions about scholarship) may use a “pen name” (Page 2). In a recent ARJ microbe forum, two “independent scholars” (purportedly, Ph.D.s at “prominent research facilities in the eastern part of North America”) submitted abstracts under the pseudonyms “Luke Kim” and “Ira Loucks” because they “prefer to keep their creationist credentials hidden for the moment until they achieve more seniority

    .”

    Come on, boys, be out and be proud. Fly your freak flag for all to see.  Otherwise, the smart people will smell the rat and call you on it.

    Oh wait, they already did in the comments section:

    The creation of this journal fits into a larger context of cynical moves made by the creationist community to acquire the trappings of real science so as to be taken more seriously by an uninformed public. First they tried the direct approach: simply attempting to insert young-earth creationism into public school science curriculae. These attempts were repeatedly struck down by the courts, and they began to realize that in order to get into the science classroom, they would need to cloak their dogma in the language of “real science,” which meant finding some like-minded people with Ph.D.’s (in any subject area), forming a research institute, and creating a peer-reviewed journal. In effect, this journal exists to provide bogus credentials to information that has failed consistently to be accepted by anyone in the mainstream scientific community so that it may ultimately be slipped into public science education.

    –Fourmi

    A well-reasoned and logical summary of Things Thus Far is a pleasure to read.

    I agree that this “journal” could be another chessboard move to bolster the standing of “Creation and Flood” theories in the public mind, in a very indirect way (since the general public will never read it). It’s not just cynical, it’s insidious.

    Via The Lead

    Chris Buttars: A Homophobe For The Nation

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    Yep, I had more on Chris Buttars that I found today.

    Buttarsface.jpg

    Sen. Chris Buttars listens to Cristy Gleave, of Salt Lake City, as she
    testifies before the Senate Health and Human Services Committee on Monday about
    Buttars’ bill to repeal the new domestic-partnership registry. (Scott
    Sommerdorf/The Salt Lake Tribune)

    “Christensen said Amendment 3 deliberately outlaws synonyms or substitutes
    that “approximate marriage.” And he alleged that registry supporters have “a
    broader agenda” than securing health benefits or visitation rights – which
    never have been threatened, according to SB267 backers.

    Tell that to Cristy Gleave, a lesbian mother who told the committee she was
    not immediately allowed to see her partner at LDS Hospital after a serious car
    accident.

    That did not sway Buttars, who equated the registry certificate with
    marriage papers. But City Attorney Ed Rutan rejected the comparison, saying
    there is “absolutely nothing” in the language that violates Utah’s marriage
    law.”

    The Salt Lake Trib’s letters to the editor and editorial pages exploded today after the latest Buttars debacle broke open, and several letters referred to the image above. Trib columnist Rebecca Walsh also attempted to find one voter in South Jordan who admitted voting for Buttars. No one did, and most people she encountered did not even know who he was. He’s supposed to be going on a mission (at his age! Probably hoping for a stake presidency someplace warm and exotic) and will not be running again
    in 2008, thank God.

    Yesterday’s “old Mormon bishop” letter was one of the most-read articles in the Trib. Right on again, bish!

    Here’s a Trib editorial…

    More good quotes from the letters section:

    “The undisguised fear, contempt and loathing on the good senator’s face is
    shocking in its nakedness.”

    “Salt Lake City residents did not elect Buttars to the Legislature. We did
    elect Mayor Becker and the City Council, and we trust them to make decisions
    for our community. Butt out, Sen. Buttars.”

    “What a telling photo of Chris Buttars on the front page this morning
    (“Becker’s registry sparks a squabble,” Tribune, Feb. 12). If there was ever a
    picture of hateful intolerance that is it. “

    Assorted other blogs:

    blogs.sltrib.com – Salt Lake Crawler by Glen Warchol

    dKos: a diary by ragged claws scuttling

    And the caption contest/LOLbiggit extravaganza has started, too.

    A blast from the past: audio of the debate on another Buttars-sponsored piece of nasty intolerance, including an impromptu speech during debate from State Sen. Scott McCoy, Utah’s only openly gay state senator. Buttars once publicly expressed surprise that “the gay?” got a committee appointment, and McCoy promptly registered a vanity license plate: “THEGAY.”

    [tags]Chris Buttars, homophobe, religious nut, Utah legislator, racist[/tags]

    Utah’s Choice: Loose Cannon, or Lose Cannon

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    Utah’s other idiot pol named Chris, Rep. Cannon of that ilk, shoots his mouth off over his dreams of chairing a committee in Congress and bein’ all ‘portant and stuff.  He has a mathematically possible chance and a practically impossible chance: a whole bunch of senior Republicans have decided to retire (or euphemism of choice) off of committees he’s on, but the Democrats would have to lose their majority for him to be anything other than “ranking Republican” on them. Or, “rank Republican” if you prefer.

    He paints a rosy picture indeed of how wonderful it would be for him to chair a committee someday, like maybe Oversight/Govt Reform or Natural Resources. Just by sitting like a lump on a log, he automagically gains all kinds of seniority juju this fall…  that is, if he can get re-elected. And in a heavily Republican state like Utah, an incumbent never faces challengers from within his own party, it’s simply not done.

    Okay, almost never.

    Salt Lake Tribune – Cannon growing old in D.C.

    Before any of this matters, Cannon must secure his seventh term in office.He faces three intra-party challengers, who will try to unseat him at the state Republican convention.

    So far, Utah’s other representatives, Republican Rob Bishop and Democrat Jim Matheson, remain unchallenged.

    THREE challengers. This is a sign that the electorate is not happy with Cannon, and/or that several different factions of the Utah GOP’s coalition of business/mining/energy/social conservative interests think their guy might do better against whatever Democrat is running.

    Utah would probably do better to lose the loose Cannon, IMHO. He doesn’t have a terribly distinguished career, he’s linked to David Safavian, the family lobbying business run by brother Joe is a little too cozy with him, and he was on last year’s CREW watchlist .

    If his dreams come true, that’s one Top Ten list he’ll make in the future.