"Intelligent" Design Gets Ass Kicked in Dover

:evilgrin:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/09/national/09dover.html?pagewanted=print


Evolution Slate Outpolls Rivals
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
All eight members up for re-election to the Pennsylvania school board that had been sued for introducing the teaching of intelligent design as an alternative to evolution in biology class were swept out of office yesterday by a slate of challengers who campaigned against the intelligent design policy.

Among the losing incumbents on the Dover, Pa., board were two members who testified in favor of the intelligent design policy at a recently concluded federal trial on the Dover policy: the chairwoman, Sheila Harkins, and Alan Bonsell.

The election results were a repudiation of the first school district in the nation to order the introduction of intelligent design in a science class curriculum. The policy was the subject of a trial in Federal District Court that ended last Friday. A verdict by Judge John E. Jones III is expected by early January.

"I think voters were tired of the trial, they were tired of intelligent design, they were tired of everything that this school board brought about," said Bernadette Reinking, who was among the winners....

Somehow Trump Noodly Appendages every time.

RAmen.

Excellent.

DEMS SWEEP THE NATION and DOVER, PA!!

LMAO!!

Finally!
..people are waking up from the Prince of Darknesses Evil Spell! :evilgrin:

Needs to be on the home page.

and kicked.

The top four vote-getters in the first group, and top three in the second, are all anti-ID Democrats. :applause:

http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/comments/at_least_the_news_from_dover_is_good/

4-Year Term (vote for four)
B Reinking Dem. 2754
H Mc Ilvaine, Jr. Dem. 2677
B Rehm Dem. 2625
T Emig Dem. 2716
A Bonsell Rep. 2469
J Cashman Rep. 2526
S Leber Rep. 2584
E Rowand Rep. 2547

2-Year Term (vote for three)
L Gurreri Dem. 2623
P Dapp Dem. 2670
J Mc Ilvaine Dem. 2658
E Riddle Rep. 2545
R Short Rep. 2544
S Harkins Rep. 2466

Reinking, H McIlvaine, Rehm, Emig, Gurreri, Dapp, and J McIlvaine are on record as in opposition to teaching Intelligent Design creationism; all the Republicans in this list supported it. It looks like a clean sweep to me.

:kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick:


Intelligent school boards for separation of Science Class and Sunday School! Yes!

Hekate

when democrats take the time, effort, and money to organize locally, we will finally reverse the awful trends that have been in place for 30 years. This is a wonderful smackdown of the christo-fascist zombie brigade.

Hallelujah, hallelujah hallelujah!
Hallelujah, hallelujah!!!

back the forces of the dark ages. Those IDiots showed their true colors and got spanked. :spank: Now on to Kansas!

My two favourite subjects ;-)

What about "Numerology: the New Math!"?

No?

There I was, all set to 'teach the controversy' too. So much for -that- resume.

Onwards to Kansas where science is free to propose -supernatural- explanations, like ball-lightning is actually fairies trying to trick the unwary into an unnatural death and sports teams only lose if they don't pray enough. Yes, the "Arrogant IDiot" movement has opened up career opportunities for tea leaf readers, horoscope casters and alien abductees to educate America's youth, in accordance with Bush's dream of leaving -NO- Child "Behind"

http://www.opinioneditorials.com/freedomwriters/rcooper_20051005.html

Edit: spelling and added link

you can teach at my "School for Out-Moded Ideologies".

Seriously, just mix a little bit of this and a little bit of that and God appears to say, "Just use Leaches and sharp razors. The suffering will end in a fortnight."

Sterile and grown in specific "leech farms", but none-the-less they are using them again.

I believe one of the uses it to restore blood-flow to reattached limbs and digits.

I saw it on Animal Planet...pretty sure it was fairly recent and accurate.

Not as a cure for magical maladies. It aides healing for a reattached finger.

Defense Against the Dark Arts? We have to be prepared to know the proper defense should terrists attack

"ball-lightning is actually fairies trying to trick the unwary into an unnatural death"

:rofl:

Now, on to 2006 and let's send Saintwhorum packing!!

:woohoo:

And no apologies to Rush!

is that it is getting a lot more people to become much more involved and take much greater interest in the school boards, at both the local and state levels.

Its starting to show people just what the fundies and conservatives are pushing for, how far they will go, and just how much damage they could do.

For years now, the Fundies have been able to quietly start taking over many school boards. Now, it's starting to be noticed. I think (and hope) that when people really start to realize and see that it's a focused agenda to push something on their kids, they'll really start fighting.

For those of you who already fight, congrats, and keep it up! :)

to help with a mailing. My first time. I'm so energized by this! Makes me hopeful we can get the idiots out in Kansas as well....

:bounce: :applause: :woohoo: :kick:

but not in a science class

From the website of the new Dover School Board:
http://www.dovercares.org/

Critical Thinking and Academic Freedom

We support the teaching of intelligent design and other diverse religious concepts related to the origins of life in order to enhance student understanding and critical thinking. Science class is not the proper curriculum for these concepts. This can only be done in a proper forum, such as an elective comparative religion course, so our students have the freedom to explore these concepts.

I think it's a joke the money wasted by the old school board to get ID into the schools. The new school board suggests that ID could be taught but in an elective course of comparative religion.

But hell we took them all. Please remember in the primary the Republicans on the board all finished ahead of all the Democrats. But with hard work we kicked there asses out and took all 8 seats.

I'm really starting to think that Rick is going to 'retire' from his seat in order to save political face. The guy has serious sites on a presidental run but will totally blow it if he totally tanks in his 2006 re-election bid.

He could always site the his damn "Contract on America" back in 1994 which pledged that they would only serve 2 terms

Just had to say it.

good on you!

:patriot:

And I am a 1988 graduate of Dover high school, I graduated with one of the winners son Bill Reinking, his mother is Bernadett Reinking. I can through a rock from my back yard and hit the high school with it. I am stunned I never expected to sweep the old board out. We are registered here at 53-R and 47-D. We also had local religious leaders come out against this idea.

It's no wonder the rest of the town--including rational Republicans in it--would want to punish them for it.

The story that disturbed me most was the one about the janitor who took it upon himself evidently to destroy a student's mural depicting early humans. What kind of brainwashed zombie would do that to a young person's artwork?

If you saw the Janitor that works there you would understand. He's the crazy uncle in the attic.

:popcorn:

Is he disturbed or fundamentalist or both. I got the impression from an article Chris Mooney wrote that he felt he was acting on behalf of religion.

Just don't teach it as science.

Science is not the place.

for what was called DOVER CARES was a mix of D's and R's--four each, if I remember what I read about them a while back. They all ran under the D ticket for simplicity. The bit cited above was a way of triangulating the ID issue--sure, you can teach it in an elective RELIGION course, but it ain't science.

It was a methodology to get the fundy who likes the ID idea, but wants better SAT scores, better school performance, less waste in the budget, etc. to be able to find a way to vote for them. Rather Clintonian, that little twist--clever of them, and it worked!

From what I understand, they had a couple of open meetings, as a group, and, unlike the Monkey, did not exclude anyone. They answered questions, allayed concerns, did all the stuff a smart local candidate (candidates, in this case) does. They stuck together as a group, supported one another, and came across as a dedicated TEAM. They also did a lot of walking, knocking and talking.

It sure paid off--more power to them! I think they were hoping that SOME of them would win, but were pleasantly surprised to sweep the ticket.

Intelligent design belongs at church, not in the schools. It's not like anyone is telling people they can't go to church. Learn about it there. It's not the schools' job to teach religion. At least Pennsylvania knew this. Again, thank you!

Tammy

"...tired of intelligent design..."

You gotta love it!

lets remember that intelligent design was PASSED by the school board in KANSAS.

Now we must work on Kananas!

I am so happy for my state. The fact the all eight were removed, and that they were removed in favor of a slate of challengers who specifically campaigned against the intelligent design policy, says a lot about the voters of Dover. Yesterday was a good day for this country. The results in VA and NJ are wonderful, but in some ways this result in one school board (in a relatively conservative area of the state!) does even more towards giving me some hope for this country.

There's no substitute for winning elections.

.... is the the beginning of the backlash against the "religious right"?

I think people pretty much ignored them, but now that they are actually trying to shove their agenda down our throats, I think there will be a lot of resistance.

I'm so sick of (un)intelligent design that I just want to scream at these morons night and day. Now I don't have to blow my larynx. Thank you PA for showing the rest of the country what a moronic idea this is and that it should be relegated to the theology classes and churches, not the science classroom.

But I'm still just positively giddy about VA, NJ, and CA.

Way to go everyone!

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I just hope this is a foreshadowing of things to come for the radical religous movement.

A sincere thank you!:toast:

Just out of curiousity, do you know the proportion of electronic voting machines used in these elections and if so what company is involved? Or know where i could get a breakdown with voting results?

If all precincts are like mine in Dover (which I'm pretty certain they are), we use the system with the mechanical levers. These machines are probably at least 40 years old.

:spray:

HEY!! Someone nominate on my behalf, I gotta live up to my alias!

Let's hope we can get back to the days when the Quakers were the most radical group to be heard from in PA!

Why, why, oh why oh,
why did I move to Ohio?

So close to Pennsylvania in geography...so far in politics.

Yea, PA!!! :party: :bounce:

And really: what are you going to teach with Intelligent Design? Science is about studying and observing and making theories and all that stuff. What are you going to teach with ID? I mean seriously. People here know that I'm a Christian but I don't get it. You can't prove God exists but you can't prove He doesn't either. That's why it's called faith for a reason.

voters will wake up also after their state school board has to spend a boatload of money defending themselves against an ACLU suit.

Congrats to the citizens of Dover on their clean sweep.

This news totally RAAAAAAAAWKSSSSSS! <G>

:patriot:

in the State pf Pa. or even the NE in general. Don't want their choice of college to be just Bob Jones University.