Rep. John Murtha (D-Racist Part of Pennsylvania) further confirms his idiocy. There is certainly an undercurrent of anti-black racism behind some of the opposition to Obama, just as there is/was an undercurrent of sexism behind some of the opposition to Hillary Clinton and Palin, and much of that undercurrent is concentrated in the Appalachian homeland of (some of) my ancestors, but surely a sitting House member facing reelection could articulate that sentiment in a way that doesn’t insult all of his constituents.

Ken Fisher of Ars Technica contributes further to my general level of skepticism about “intelligent design” proponents:

Intelligent Design backers spend no shortage of time trying to portray what they believe as science, but an embarrassing fact has come to light about the book that Dover would have the kids read, Of People and Pandas. As it turns out, the book was originally a work of Christian apologetics, and it explicitly promoted creationism. Indeed, the version published now is the largely the same, save one minor fact: they more or less did a search and replace, substituting Intelligent Design where Creationism once sat in the text.

More on this theme from this week’s Economist, courtesy of my ex-co-blogger Robert Prather, who’s now back and blogging up a storm at Insults Unpunished.