Manscapes

Some shots of the lovely scenery in that state to our south, the one nearly surrounded by water.

ps: got the link from Andrew Sullivan.
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When Conservatives fight

It can look pretty nasty. Not, I must admit, as nasty as when liberals like Hilary and Barack go at it, and at it, and etc. But still, it's nasty enough for some genuine entertainment [btw: Hilary just got her clock cleaned here in North Carolina, and Barack is about to lose it in Indiana, even as I write]

Where were we? Oh yes. Over on National Review Online Derbyshire panned Ben Stein's movie Expelled without ever having seen the movie. Purely in the interest of science, I posted his review. And because I thought it was hilarious.

But the Steinians (Steinists? Steinistas?) aren't going to take this laying down! David Berlinski has fired off a post claiming that the Derby's effort "is an exercise of striking vulgarity" in which he "writes foolishly." Well, I must modestly admit that I have been pointing that out about the Derby for some time. But do I get any credit from the Creationists?

He then goes on to show that the Derby has his facts wrong, wrong, wrong about the movie: They did SO create their own cartoons and Yoko Ono did NOT have to give her permission for the use of a John Lennon song! What those two points have to do with the central thesis of the Derby's writing, or of the movie, I will leave to your imagination. Read the whole thing here.

Not to be outdone, a staunch supporter of the Derbyist Side, one Jim Manzi, also posts a defense of science called "Show me the science." Manzi doesn't waste any time leveling the meanest put down of all in his very first lines:

Expelled seems to me to be the right-wing analog of Fahrenheit 9/11. Stylistically, it is almost an homage to Michael Moore:

I don't think I've enjoyed reading NRO so much since D'Souza claimed that liberals caused the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

The Anti-Darwin crowd and Derbyshire

I thought that Dinesh D'Souza's last book had been savaged by the more rational of the folks over at The National Review, but John Derbyshire's rottweiler review of Ben Stein's movie Expelled is in a class by itself. It's not often you get to watch one conservative savage another with such heartfelt venom.

Here is one of the Derby's concluding paragraphs, which gives a hint at the tone:

The “intelligent design” hoax is not merely non-science, nor even merely anti-science; it is anti-civilization. It is an appeal to barbarism, to the sensibilities of those Apaches, made by people who lack the imaginative power to know the horrors of true barbarism. (A thing that cannot be said of Darwin. See Chapter X of Voyage of the Beagle.)

You can tell he's worked up butyou should read all of it to truly appreciate it. Though I can't say I disagree with him.

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