Going to see a rock
On the morning of my birthday, we drove down to the Evergreen Aviation Museum outside McMinnville, OR. Evergreen is the home of the Spruce Goose and it looms over the display area making all the other planes look like toys. A titan rocket and an SR-71 are tucked under one wing while the early history of aviation displays are tucked under the others.

The museum sits in the middle of a vineyard and produces it's own label of wine. After touring the displays, we went to the wine shop for a tasting. The pourer did a great job of chatting up the visitors and was soon asking us about our trip.

"Where are you headed next?" she asked.

"Well," my clever wife started, "we're going to see a rock."

"Oh. Are you going out to the coast to see Haystack Rock?"

"No. This is a big rock by the road. There was this glacier..." She paused. "He better explain it."

It's called the Belleview Erratic (also spelled Bellevue) and technically it's a large chunk of metamorphic argillite. It's a big dark rock, about as big as a mid-size sedan. It's flat and broken into three pieces. It sits on the top of a hill. To the broadly imaginative, a big flat rock sitting on the top of a hill might look vaguely ceremonial. To others, it probably just looks like a good place to stand while taking in a view of the valley. It's not a ceremonial altar. It is in fact, just a rock. What makes it interesting is how it got onto this hilltop in western Oregon.

Those who took a geology class and remember their lessons will know that an erratic is a rock that is out of place. Most famously, erratics are rocks that glaciers carry down from the mountains and deposit in the plains. It was the discovery of erratics that allowed early geologists to conceive of the ice ages and to trace the outlines of the lost ice sheets and glaciers. But the Willamette valley was never glaciated and the Belleview Erratic doesn't come from the surrounding mountains. it is a piece of southern British Columbia and it floated to that hilltop in Oregon.

Toward the end of the last ice age, the Cordilleran Ice Sheet extended across the Canadian border and covered a sliver of northern Washington, Idaho, and Montana. The western part of Montana, between the Continental Divide on the crest of the Rockies and the Idaho state line on the crest of the Bitterroots, is drained by the Clark Fork of the Columbia River. Unlike most rivers in the United States, the Clark Fork flows north. It loops across the Idaho panhandle and joins the Columbia in the extreme northeastern corner of Washington. During the ice age, this loop through Idaho was blocked by the southern tip of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet, a glacier called the Purcell Lobe. Behind the Purcell Lobe all of the drainage of the Clark Fork was damned up eventually to form a Great Lake sized body of water called Lake Missoula. When the lake was full, the future location of the town of Missoula would have been a thousand feet underwater.

The Belleview Erratic probably began its journey in southern British Columbia under the uphill end of the Purcell Lobe. Glaciers are made of snow, normal snow, which fell and covered the ground. When the snow gets deep enough, its own weight compresses it into ice. When a big enough, heavy enough mass of this ice gathers on a hillside, it will start to slowly slide down the hill. At this point, it becomes a glacier.

Hillsides are not perfectly smooth. They have irregularities, such as trees and rocks. As a glacier forms, these irregularities are encased in the ice. They become part of the glacier. When the glacier moves, they move with it. As the front end of the glacier melts, the debris that it has carried downhill are deposited in a disorderly pile. In time this pile forms a ridge in front of the glacier called a moraine. When the glacier retreats, the moraine remains. By following these ridges of erratics--these terminal moraines--geologists can map where the ancient front edges of glaciers were.

At least that's how it usually works.

One day, about fifteen thousand years ago, the Belleview Erratic was nearing the end of its glacial journey. It had been carried from the mountains by one glacier. That glacier joined with others to form the Purcell Lobe and carried the Belleview Erratic south into Idaho. As it neared the front of the glacier, to be deposited in the moraine something new happened.

The water that had been gathering behind the glacier reached a critical depth. At that end of the lake, the water was almost two thousand feet deep. The pressure at the bottom was enough to force its way under the glacier. In a few hours time, the water floated the southern tip of the Purcell Lobe and began to rush out under it. The glacial dam collapsed and was torn apart by the rushing water (the link leads to an impressive animated view of the collapse). One piece of glacier, carrying the Belleview Erratic, became an iceberg and floated away on the flood.

The Lake Missoula Flood is the biggest flood ever discovered. In eastern Washington, it tore up entire counties worth of topsoil and carried them away. In parts of the Columbia valley it passed as a five hundred foot high wall of muddy water traveling up to one hundred miles per hour. It pushed hurricane force winds ahead of it. The water itself was a churning brown mass the color and texture of a runny chocolate milkshake. It carried with it topsoil, rocks, trees, entire herds of mammoths, and the icebergs that had formerly been part of the Purcell Lobe. For two weeks, the Columbia carried several times more water than all the rivers in the world combined.

Where the flood ran into narrows, especially on the Lower Columbia, it backed up to form gigantic temporary lakes. These lakes backed up side valleys and there, when the water slowed down, it deposited some of its load of soil and rocks. The topsoil of Eastern Washington has made the valleys of the Yakima, Walla Walla, and Willamette some of the most productive agricultural area in North America, especially for wine.

The Belleview Erratic was carried into Lake Allison, the temporary Lake that filled the Willamette valley. South of Portland, it would have been out of the most active part of the flood. The waters would have grown calmer as the iceberg drifted south and finally ran aground on a submerged hill. After a few days, the waters would have receded leaving the iceberg stranded. Then the iceberg melted and there was just a big, dark rock on a hilltop.

The Lake Missoula flood wasn't a singular event. After the waters rushed out, the Purcell Lobe pushed forward and blocked the Clark Fork valley again. The river backed up and formed a new lake. After forty or fifty years, it was deep enough to float the glacier again and flood the Columbia again. This cycle dominated the Columbia valley for over two thousand years, there is sedimentary evidence of between forty-one and eighty-nine floods, although at least two came from lakes other than Lake Missoula. No one knows which flood brought the Belleview to its current home.

After we left the Evergreen Aviation Museum, my clever wife and I traveled west on Highway 18. A geology book I brought along said the rock was on the north side of the highway, just before Sheridan. We scanned the hilltops. We had a picture that showed above and behind a small white farmhouse. We hoped to recognize the farmhouse.

The Oregon Department of Highways has put up nice blue signs pointing out all the vineyards, especially the ones with some kind of tour or gift shop. On the signpost for Oldsville Road was a sign for Yamhill Valley Vineyards. Beneath it was a small, brown, older style sign that said simply "Glacial Rock."

We passed it doing fifty. I turned around about two miles down the road and came back. Oldsville Road immediately forked with one fork paralleling the highway and one heading into the hills. The highway was visible in our picture, so I took the road closest to it. I saw a brown sign behind some trees and thought, "Aha, that must be a Park Service sign." It wasn't, it was the winery. We followed the road a little further. It approached the highway and then swerved away. In the crook of the curve was another little, brown sign. This one said "Glacial Erratic Rock" and it marked a trail. The road was widened to create two parking spaces across from the sign. We looped around and parked.

Beneath the sign was a Park Service plaque explaining about the Lake Missoula flood. The trail followed a fence line. On one side the owners had planted Pinot grapes. There were ripe grapes on the vines. Blackberries grew along the fence. This is a noxious invasive species in the Northwest, but the berries were ripe and we picked a few as we climbed. It was a hot day and the trail was steep, but it was also short and there was a breeze. The trail went under a tree, rounded a bend, and approached the hilltop. And there it was--a big, dark rock. It's not as impressive in real life as in the pictures.

The Bellevue Erratic is the largest erratic in the Willamette valley. Unfortunately, since it was identified in the 1950's, tourists have been plucking pieces off it for souvenirs. When first measured, the scientists estimated it at one-hundred-sixty tons. In 1980, they estimated it at ninety tons. Today, about forty tons are left. For fifteen thousand years it sat unmolested in anonymity. Fifty years of marginal notoriety are all that it has taken to nearly destroy it.

In a few years I suppose the last significant chunk will be carted off to a museum, where it will just be another rock with a label. Although the best museum might provide the rock with an exciting display--a mural background, a diorama, or sophisticated animation showing how it got there--they will never be able to capture the experience of sitting on the rock in the very place where it was deposited fifteen thousand years ago feeling the sun and the air and trying to strip away the effects of time and man on the valley.

I sat on the rock for a few minutes and tried to imagine its journey. I looked across the valley at the Cascades trying to pick out our altitude on the other side, trying to picture what the valley looked like with all that water. I felt the heat that the morning sun had imparted to the rock. I thought of the other people who had done the same thing. Then we were on our way.

When we left, we only took pictures and blackberries with us. I already had all I needed from the rock.


Update: There are several book that at least mention the floods, but these are the two I read before the trip.

David Alt. Glacial Lake Missoula and Its Humongous Floods. Mountain Press Publishing Company, 2003.

John Eliot Allen, et al. Cataclysms on the Columbia. Timber Press, 1986.

Keith Olbermann is my new hero
Ever since 9/11 the Bush administration has followed a contemptible strategy of besmirching the patriotism of any who dare dissent from or even question their policies. It has been a calculated policy designed to extract the maximum partisan advantage from a national crisis. At a time when we should all pull together for our common security, they have chosen to ignore the real dangers and divide us by demonizing a large part of the American population. Now that they are losing support, they are lashing out like a wounded and cornered animal. Their accusations are getting cruder and more hateful. Usually, they allow supporters outside the administration itself to do their dirty work. However, as that support has been slipping away, they now find it necessary to do their own dirty work.

Fascism is the theme of the moment for the administration. It is a theme we'll hear a lot about for at least the next two weeks--until the anniversary of 9/11--and possibly right up to the November elections. Earlier this month, Bush tried out a variation of Christopher Hitchens' vile phrase "Islamo-fascism." It went over well with the faithful and so it has become an official talking point for the GOP and its supporters. It is a new low for an administration that has been characterized by low behavior.

Tomorrow, Bush will begin a three week series of campaign style speeches to remind us how much danger we are in if we question his policies. Yesterday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld accused critics of the Bush administration's Iraq policies, of "moral and intellectual confusion," of lacking the courage to fight terror, and he drew explicit parallels between those critics and those who appeased Hitler in the 1930s. Bush says he hopes no one will politicize his clearly political marketing campaign.

In a moment like this, we need a public person who can combine eloquence, clear sight, and historical perspective to call this contemptible behavior for what it is. Keith Olbermann has stepped up to try and fill that roll. His words deserve to be spread as far as possible.

The man who sees absolutes, where all other men see nuances and shades of meaning, is either a prophet, or a quack.

Donald H. Rumsfeld is not a prophet.

Mr. Rumsfeld’s remarkable speech to the American Legion yesterday demands the deep analysis—and the sober contemplation—of every American.

For it did not merely serve to impugn the morality or intelligence -- indeed, the loyalty -- of the majority of Americans who oppose the transient occupants of the highest offices in the land. Worse, still, it credits those same transient occupants -- our employees -- with a total omniscience; a total omniscience which neither common sense, nor this administration’s track record at home or abroad, suggests they deserve.

Dissent and disagreement with government is the life’s blood of human freedom; and not merely because it is the first roadblock against the kind of tyranny the men Mr. Rumsfeld likes to think of as “his” troops still fight, this very evening, in Iraq.

It is also essential. Because just every once in awhile it is right and the power to which it speaks, is wrong.

In a small irony, however, Mr. Rumsfeld’s speechwriter was adroit in invoking the memory of the appeasement of the Nazis. For in their time, there was another government faced with true peril—with a growing evil—powerful and remorseless.

That government, like Mr. Rumsfeld’s, had a monopoly on all the facts. It, too, had the “secret information.” It alone had the true picture of the threat. It too dismissed and insulted its critics in terms like Mr. Rumsfeld’s -- questioning their intellect and their morality.

That government was England’s, in the 1930’s.

It knew Hitler posed no true threat to Europe, let alone England.

It knew Germany was not re-arming, in violation of all treaties and accords.

It knew that the hard evidence it received, which contradicted its own policies, its own conclusions — its own omniscience -- needed to be dismissed.

The English government of Neville Chamberlain already knew the truth.

Most relevant of all — it “knew” that its staunchest critics needed to be marginalized and isolated. In fact, it portrayed the foremost of them as a blood-thirsty war-monger who was, if not truly senile, at best morally or intellectually confused.

That critic’s name was Winston Churchill.

Sadly, we have no Winston Churchills evident among us this evening. We have only Donald Rumsfelds, demonizing disagreement, the way Neville Chamberlain demonized Winston Churchill.

History — and 163 million pounds of Luftwaffe bombs over England — have taught us that all Mr. Chamberlain had was his certainty — and his own confusion. A confusion that suggested that the office can not only make the man, but that the office can also make the facts.

Thus, did Mr. Rumsfeld make an apt historical analogy.

Excepting the fact, that he has the battery plugged in backwards.

His government, absolute -- and exclusive -- in its knowledge, is not the modern version of the one which stood up to the Nazis.

It is the modern version of the government of Neville Chamberlain.

But back to today’s Omniscient ones.

That, about which Mr. Rumsfeld is confused is simply this: This is a Democracy. Still. Sometimes just barely.

And, as such, all voices count -- not just his.

Had he or his president perhaps proven any of their prior claims of omniscience — about Osama Bin Laden’s plans five years ago, about Saddam Hussein’s weapons four years ago, about Hurricane Katrina’s impact one year ago — we all might be able to swallow hard, and accept their “omniscience” as a bearable, even useful recipe, of fact, plus ego.

But, to date, this government has proved little besides its own arrogance, and its own hubris.

Mr. Rumsfeld is also personally confused, morally or intellectually, about his own standing in this matter. From Iraq to Katrina, to the entire “Fog of Fear” which continues to envelop this nation, he, Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and their cronies have — inadvertently or intentionally — profited and benefited, both personally, and politically.

And yet he can stand up, in public, and question the morality and the intellect of those of us who dare ask just for the receipt for the Emporer’s New Clothes?

In what country was Mr. Rumsfeld raised? As a child, of whose heroism did he read? On what side of the battle for freedom did he dream one day to fight? With what country has he confused the United States of America?

The confusion we -- as its citizens— must now address, is stark and forbidding.

But variations of it have faced our forefathers, when men like Nixon and McCarthy and Curtis LeMay have darkened our skies and obscured our flag. Note -- with hope in your heart — that those earlier Americans always found their way to the light, and we can, too.

The confusion is about whether this Secretary of Defense, and this administration, are in fact now accomplishing what they claim the terrorists seek: The destruction of our freedoms, the very ones for which the same veterans Mr. Rumsfeld addressed yesterday in Salt Lake City, so valiantly fought.

And about Mr. Rumsfeld’s other main assertion, that this country faces a “new type of fascism.”

As he was correct to remind us how a government that knew everything could get everything wrong, so too was he right when he said that -- though probably not in the way he thought he meant it.

This country faces a new type of fascism - indeed.

Although I presumptuously use his sign-off each night, in feeble tribute, I have utterly no claim to the words of the exemplary journalist Edward R. Murrow.

But never in the trial of a thousand years of writing could I come close to matching how he phrased a warning to an earlier generation of us, at a time when other politicians thought they (and they alone) knew everything, and branded those who disagreed: “confused” or “immoral.”

Thus, forgive me, for reading Murrow, in full:

“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty,” he said, in 1954. “We must remember always that accusation is not proof, and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law.

“We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were for the moment unpopular.”

And so good night, and good luck.

Go watch the video.

Dr. Strangerobbins*
Every so often, Seed magazine asks its community of science bloggers to comment on a question. It helps make the place more of an interactive community and probably encourages readers to try out some of the blogs that they might not regularly follow. At least, that's how it works for me. They're only asking the questions of the blogs that they host, but there is nothing to stop other bloggers from throwing in their two cents worth. This week's question caught my interest, so here I am.

The question is:

I read this article in the NRO, and the author actually made some interesting arguments. "Basically," he said, "I am questioning the premise that [global warming] is a problem rather than an opportunity." Does he have a point?

The article in question by James S. Robbins, is called "Hooray for Global Warming" and is a real horror. This is his thesis:

Global warming is great. Granted, maybe it isn’t really happening, and if it is there are strong reasons to doubt that humans have anything to do with it. But if the world is warming, I say “bravo.” People in most parts of the globe should have no objection to a warmer, wetter climate. If the aliens were watching they’d conclude we were making our planet more habitable on purpose.

I'm all in favor of it even though it isn't happening. He flips back and forth between those two points and gets in the expected slaps at Al Gore and the Left. He brings up the, by now, quite tired argument that we'll be able to farm arctic Canada. He implies that the whole thing is a socialist plot to encourage big government seizures of wealth and writes one paragraph of tone perfect, blind, conservative ranting.

Granted, there will be some negative impacts in marginal areas. Some rare plant and animal species, hyper-adapted to highly specific climate conditions or micobiotic zones, are already unable to cope with the change. Many may go extinct; some already have. That’s tough, but chalk it up to bad evolutionary choices. When those rigidly specialist species bet everything on a small part of the world in hopes it would never change, they made a very bad bargain. For our part, we have air conditioners, lightweight fabrics, and sunscreen. Why infinitely adaptable humanity has to pay the price for the evolutionary shortsightedness of other life forms is beyond me.

It displays and arrogant and contemptuous ignorance of science. Carl Zimmer points out that "micobiotic" isn't even a word and that "microbiotic," if that's what he meant, means something completely different (it's a type of dirt). His cold hearted lecture on responsibility in making evolutionary choices is so over the top that I would think it was a parody if it appeared in any other source.

So, besides being a complete doofus, mouthing conservative talking points without thinking about them, does Robbins have a point? Are their opportunities to be had in global warming? Of course there are.

• Pharmaceutical companies have made a fortune off of AIDS. As tropical diseases like malaria begin to spread in wealthy, formerly-temperate countries those same companies will make billions selling medicines that formerly went to countries that couldn't pay premium prices.
  
• Construction companies have made big bucks "rebuilding" Iraq and New Orleans. Imagine how much work they'll have when every coastal city in the world needs to be protected from tidal surges or rebuilt inland. Again, this won't be the usual mass destruction happening to dirt poor people in the tropics; it will be happening to people who can afford to pay premium prices.
  
• Energy companies have wanted to drill for oil on the Arctic coastal shelf for decades but have been prevented by their inability to work among moving ice flows. No ice flows, no problem.
  
• Do I need to explain what a couple billion people forced to move will do for the real estate market?

Global warming presents major opportunities for certain corporation to make enormous profits.** The companies in line to make those profits just happen to be among the most dependable supporters of the Republican Party. For a conservative, what's not to like about global warming?

* Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Global Warming
** Before civilization completely collapses, that is.

Maybe the Bad Astronomy blog should tackle this one
Joe Lieberman's communications director, Dan Gerstein, claims the sun rises in the West. Really.

The latest television ad by the Lieberman campaign shows a red sun hovering over the ocean in what is supposed to be the sunrise of a better day. The video they used is stock footage sold by Getty Images of a sunset on a beach in Santa Barbara, CA. When confronted with this fact, Gerstein said, "It's actually a sunrise. It's very much a sunrise." The sun rising over the ocean, when viewed from the West Coast, would be big news because it would mean the Earth had reversed its rotation over night. And, if the Earth can reverse its rotation in that short of a time without destroying civilization and most life other than a few types of thermogenic bacteria, it would mean Immanuel Velikovsky was right and the science guys all owe him a big apology.

Update: One of Lieberman's media consultants, Josh Isay, has decided to fall on his sword and say he purchased a video of a sunset, reversed it, and inserted it into the ad, all by accident. It could happen to anyone.

What have we become
Having insulted Rush Limbaugh with a cheap shot pointing out that he's a fat, drug addicted hypocrite, I'll show some liberal even handedness by giving him something he really wants. Rush thinks it's terrible and suspicious that the Democrats and liberal media are talking about Katrina this week instead of 9/11. Don't try to tell him that it's because the anniversary of Katrina is this week and the anniversary of 9/11 is still two weeks away; he knows talking about Katrina this week is a cynical political ploy to make Bush look bad. Okay, just to show what a nice guy I am, I'll talk about 9/11, just for Rush.

Five years of non-stop fear-mongering by the Bush administration and its allies have turned us into a nation of gun-shy cowards who are ready to cast aside our most sacred values the illusion of a few moments security. In evidence, I give you this:

An architect of Iraqi descent has said he was forced to remove a T-shirt that bore the words "We will not be silent" before boarding a flight at New York.

Raed Jarrar said security officials warned him his clothing was offensive after he checked in for a JetBlue flight to California on 12 August.

[...]

He said he had cleared security at John F Kennedy airport for a flight back to his home in California when he was approached by two men who wanted to check his ID and boarding pass.

Mr Jarrar said he was told a number of passengers had complained about his T-shirt - apparently concerned at what the Arabic phrase meant - and asked him to remove it.

He refused, arguing that the slogan was not offensive and citing his constitutional rights to free expression.

Mr Jarrar later told a New York radio station: "I grew up and spent all my life living under authoritarian regimes and I know that these things happen.

"But I'm shocked that they happened to me here, in the US."

[...]

"We Will Not Be Silent" is a slogan adopted by opponents of the war in Iraq and other conflicts in the Middle East.

It is said to derive from the White Rose dissident group which opposed Nazi rule in Germany.

The key point to note is that at no point did they suggest that he was suspected of being a danger to the security of the flight. It was the mere presence of words in Arabic script that sent people into a panic. And, by simply covering up the scary words, Mr. Jarrar was decreed an acceptable passenger for that flight. Rush Limbaugh, Dick Cheney, and the whole right-wing information machine want us to think about 9/11 and stay fearful every moment of every day. They have made us into a nation of pants-wetting cry-babies.

Carnival of the Liberals #20
The latest issue of Carnival of the Liberals is up over at The Greenbelt. Our host, The Ridger, takes us on a gentle walking tour of liberal country. It's a pleasant and stimulating walk, but nothing so strenuous that we AARP types can't keep up.

I want all of you to be thinking good liberal thoughts, especially you bloggers, because I'm hosting the next edition of CotL here at archy on Wednesday September 13. If you have a recent post that you're proud of that deals with liberal politics or commentary on almost anything from a liberal perspective, send me a link by dinnertime (or suppertime if you live in a farm state) on the 12th and I'll include it. Naturally, I'll think highly of you if you can get to me earlier than that.

Personal responsibility
The Republican Party and conservatives in general have always been big on personal responsibility. If people are suffering, it is because of bad choices that they made (like being born poor) and they need to stop whining and take responsibility for their situation. Nothing annoys a true conservative more than other people blaming their problems on society or looking for government aid.

Yesterday, Rush Limbaugh claimed that liberals and the UN were responsible for the epidemic of obesity. Clearly, the big, fat, drug addict has fallen off the wagon again.

I love these kinds of stories, 'cause we're just getting them all over the place: Waistlines continue to grow in the United States. Another crisis story here, ladies and gentlemen, from our old buddies at the Associated Press. "The gravy train -- make that the sausage, biscuits, and gravy train -- just keep [sic] on rolling in most of America last year." Thirty-one states showing an increase in obesity. Mississippi continued to lead the way; an estimated 30 percent of adults there are considered obese, an increase of 1.1 percentage points when compared with last year's report. Indeed, "the five states with the highest obesity rates are Mississippi, Alabama, West Virginia, Louisiana, and Kentucky -- exhibit much higher rates of poverty than the national norm. Meanwhile, the five states with the lowest obesity have less poverty. They are Colorado, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont."

[...]

I think you might then say that the obesity crisis could be the fault of government, liberal government.

[...]

This is what happens when you let the left run things. We've been beat about the head. There are hungry people everywhere. UNICEF got it all started. We've seen the babies with the extended tummies, the walking skeletons, told that kids can't learn unless they're fed. We've been guilted into pouring resources on the problem. And now, now, the latest crisis is that there is obesity among those who are impoverished. Because we are sympathetic, we are compassionate people, we have responded by letting our government literally feed these people to the point of obesity.

Rush must be thankful he's independently wealthy and not in danger of becoming fat like those poor people who the liberals prey on.

Limbaugh also demonstrated his keen grasp of agricultural issues:

At least here in America, didn't teach them how to fish, we gave them the fish. Didn't teach them how to butcher a -- slaughter a cow to get the butter, we gave them the butter.

Rush, killing cows is not an effective way to get butter.

Population shifts
Immediately after Katrina, I looked at the refugee situation and thought that the the Republicans, the wealthy, and the whites would find a way to keep most of the poor, Democratic, and black refugees from returning. It would give the Republicans another seat in the House and probably also give them Landrieu's Senate seat when she comes up for reelection.

Digby has some numbers up today tha make me want to qualifty that prediction. According to the US Census, in June southern Louisiana had 344,781 fewer people than before Katrina. Many will probably never return. While I still think that this will lead to the Republicans gaining a House seat when they stop letting the refugees vote absentee as Louisiana residents, it might be that they only hold on to that seat for one or two terms. A permanent loss of over a quarter million people from the state will probably cost Louisiana a house seat during the reapportionment following the 2010 census. Sure, Utah will probably gain that seat, but the West has been turning a bluer shade of purple lately.

A stupid word
Last week, while I was wandering around the west coast looking at old airplanes and big rocks, Katherine Harris was hard at work trying to lose the Florida Senate race. Her latest misadventure began when she gave a pandering interview to a Baptist newsletter and never imagined that someone who wasn't a far-right, Christian fundamentalist might also read her words. In the course of the interview she called separation of church and state "that lie we have been told," claimed the founding fathers did not intent America to be a nation of secular laws, and warned "if you’re not electing Christians then in essence you are going to legislate sin." Mustang Bobby has the highlights here.

Naturally a few people who are not far-right, Christian fundamentalists did read her words--some of them members of the liberal press and even unhinged, leftist bloggers--and the poo hit the fan. Harris' explanation/non-apology amounts to,"I was telling a special interest group what they wanted to hear and some of my best friends are Jewish." To make the second point crystal clear, her statement made sure to throw the term "Judeo-Christian" around a lot.

"Judeo-Christian" is one of the more vile bits of double-speak in our political lexicon. For years that term was only used by academics in the humanities and social sciences to make some vague generalizations about Mediterranean and European culture. At some point in the near past it was adopted by right-wing culture warriors in an effort to pry Jewish voters away from the Democratic Party.

Historically, the modern religious right has been a Protestant movement. As they have become a real political power, their leaders realized that they needed to expand their coalition in order to be large enough to rule. Leaders of the Republican Party, in their complicated dance of captive and captor with the religious right, saw an opportunity to poach on some traditionally Democratic voter groups by adopting a modified version of the language of the religious right.

The key was to get the religious right to disguise some of its purely Protestant associations and distance itself from its overt anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic history. American Protestantism, in general, was already headed in this direction, but the rise of Christian Zionism among fundamentalists and their apocalyptic fascination with Israel greatly aided this effort. The phrase "Judeo-Christian values" was the perfect marketing phrase to tell conservative Catholics and Jews that they had something in common with religious right Protestants and that they should all vote for the same slate of candidates.

So far, this marketing campaign has been more successful among Catholics than it has been among Jews. Too often, leaders of the religious right let slip old attitudes. In 1999 Jerry Falwell stated of the Antichrist, "Of course he'll be Jewish." That same year the Southern Baptist Convention restated converting the Jews as a major goal. And many Jews can't help but notice that the central apocalyptic narrative of Christian Zionism, as luridly told in books like the Left Behind series, is that the Jews will all gather into Israel where they can be conveniently killed to bring about the second coming of Christ. Only a tiny number of converts will survive.

In political discourse coming from the religious right, "Judeo-Christian" is essentially a code phrase that means "you should vote for us, you greedy Christ killers." Harris shows the true colors of the religious right when, speaking to a Christian audience, she conveniently forgets to include Jews among the exclusive possessors of morality who should rule this country. There might be some legitimate reasons why a Florida Jew might vote for such a person, but religion and morality should not be among them.

In the next installment of "Stupid Words I Never Want to Hear You Using" I'll explain why drunken lout Christopher Hitchens deserves to be thrown in a volcano for coining the neologism "Islamo-Fascist."

You guys are the greatest
Last night at 9:37 Pacific Time, I logged my seventy-five thousandth visitor. The magic visit came from UC, Irvine. Thanks to all thee people who linked to give me traffic, to all the people who visited, and to all who stopped to say happy birthday. Thanks especially to Coturnix, whose almost daily links prevented the traffic from ever slowing down and allowed me to meet my goal right on schedule.