(H/t Oliver Willis) Mike Pence went on Hardball and had a hard time saying whether he believed in evolution. I know some readers here take a nuanced view on the issue — the Bible is metaphor, maybe God worked through evolutionary processes, etc. But that’s not the problem Pence is having here.

He has to deal with people in his party who believe that God put Adam & Eve on earth directly with no evolution from non-homo sapiens. He has to deal with people in his party who think fossils were put in the earth by the Devil to test the faithful. Unless and until Republican leaders are willing to just come out and say that, while their followers are free to believe and worship as they wish, the Republican leaders personally trust in the scientific method and believe that the available evidence suggests that the world was not created in a literal seven days and that humans evolved into humans over long periods of time (whether through a divinely guided plan or not), and that where rigorously conducted scientific study contradicts religious dogma, the appropriate thing is to govern based on the science rather than the religion. Unless and until the Republicans are willing to make these small steps, they are not going to be able to shake the reputation of being anti-science.

House Speaker Bauer tagged Gov. Daniels as the “Nowhere Man,” with respect to his less than clear leadership on the budget. He was vague, uninvolved until late in the game, and moved the goal posts.

Bauer is predictably hyperbolic about Daniels, but even Senators Long and Kenley were mildly critical of Daniels’ leadership on the budget. Senator Kenley said he was getting mixed messages from the Daniels’ administration on what was acceptable. Senator Long would only go so far as to say that “it was open to interpretation” about how clear people were. Only Rep. Bosma, who is all about the political game and very rarely about actual governance, seems to be claiming that Gov. Daniels set clear parameters.

Now, Gov. Daniels has moved the goal posts again, demanding that the legislature cut $1 billion from the budget proposal, based on a recent economic report. He is apparently projecting the numbers from April tax collections through 24 months. Senator Long, Senator Kenley and Rep. Bauer have challenged the Governor to outline a budget that he could approve. Gov. Daniels seems to be demurring, finding that his job is to “lay out the boundaries.”

So, now Gov. Daniels seems to be casting himself as a “big picture” guy. I’ve always sneered at “big picture” types. The devil is always in the details. That’s where the real work gets done, and the big picture means nothing without implementation. Often a “big picture” can’t be implemented, but that’s not entirely clear until you work on the details. I say this as a guy who would love to simply be an idea man. But, in myself, I recognize this as work-avoiding laziness. Most times, when I take care of the details, the big picture takes care of itself. The reverse is not true.

So, I’ll leave you with a quote from the often overlooked Henry Winkler/Michael Keaton film from 1982, “Night Shift:”

Wanna know why I carry this tape recorder? To tape things. See, I’m an idea man, Chuck. I got ideas coming at me all day… I couldn’t even fight ’em off if I wanted. Wait a second… hold the phone! Hold the phone! [speaking into tape recorder] Idea to eliminate garbage. Edible paper. You eat it, it’s gone! You eat it, it’s outta there! No more garbage! . . . . What if you mix the mayonnaise in the can, WITH the tunafish? Or… hold it! Chuck! I got it! Take LIVE tuna fish, and FEED ’em mayonnaise! Oh this is great. [speaks into tape recorder] Call Starkist!

Here is an interesting one. The Associated Press has an article out of California wherein a federal judge has held that a teacher violated the First Amendment Rights of a student by referring to Creationism as “superstitious nonsense.”

U.S. District Judge James Selna issued the ruling Friday after a 16-month legal battle between student Chad Farnan and his former teacher, James Corbett.

Farnan’s lawsuit alleged that Corbett made more than 20 statements that were disparaging to Christians and their beliefs.

The judge found that Corbett’s reference to creationism as “religious, superstitious nonsense” violated the First Amendment’s establishment clause. Courts have interpreted the clause as prohibiting government employees from displaying religious hostility.

I wonder where the line is — whether mainstream religions have special protections. Would Heaven’s Gate cultist be protected from having their religions beliefs disparaged?

The opinion is here (pdf) . Ed Brayton and his commenters have a pretty good discussion of the ruling here.

The crux of the matter is that religion gets special protection not given to other sorts of ideas by the U.S. Constitution. Parents are, to one degree or another, compelled to put their kids in public schools and/or support the public schools with their tax collars. Consequently, the courts have found that teachers, as government employees, are not permitted to be openly hostile to religion absent some legitimate government purpose. If the challenged action of the teacher serves some legitimate purpose, the challenged action furthermore cannot have the principal or primary effect of promoting or inhibiting religion. Lastly, the challenged action cannot foster an excessive entanglement with religion.

Ultimately, the court sided with the school and teacher on a large number of challenged statements and with the student on the one statement where the teacher referred to creationism as superstitious nonsense. Truth, in this context, is apparently not an absolute defense.

This AP story on the matter describes the confirmation process for Supreme Court Justices and mentions that it takes 60 votes to prevent a filibuster in the Senate. It neglects to mention, however, that many Senate Republicans are on record as to their deeply held conviction that the President (regardless of political party, one can safely assume) is entitled to an up-or-down vote on his judicial nominees.

(Reposting from last year) – Once again, it’s the First of May. According to Jonathan Coulton, a certain activity begins today:

This has some improper language and animated sex acts simulated to the limited extent possible for World of Warcraft animated figures. But, it’s a catchy tune about the First of May.

Howard Greninger, reporting for the Terre Haute TribStar, has an article entitled Vigo Commissioner Decker agrees to plead guilty to meth charge. The President of the Vigo County Board of Commissioners, David Decker, will resign his position and has “admitted to distributing 3.25 grams of a mixture or substance containing methamphetamine.”

Decker became a commissioner in 2007 and has been the board’s president since January 2008. Prior to that, he served on the Vigo County Council from 2000 to 2004. He also had 21 years of teaching experience. Prior to his election as commissioner, Decker was a teacher in technology education at Terre Haute South Vigo High School.

Maureen Groppe, writing for the Gannett News Service, has an article on continued resistance to confirmation of IU Law Professor, Dawn Johnsen, as President Obama’s head of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice. Republican opposition to her confirmation stems from her criticism of the office under President Bush — particularly with respect to the dubious justifications for torture — and her history as counsel for the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL).

Senator Lugar recently announced his intention to support her nomination. According to an article by Sylvia Smith in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, he is the first Republican to do so publicly.

Lugar’s support does not guarantee the Senate will confirm Johnsen. Sixty votes are needed to stave off a filibuster, and vote-counters say they are aware of close to 60 “yes” votes for Johnsen, but they are not declaring victory. One Democrat – Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson – has said he will vote against Johnsen.

Now that Arlen Specter isn’t facing a conservative primary challenge, it will be interesting to see whether he will switch positions on this issue in the wake of his defection from the Republican Party. Also, it will be interesting to see if the GOP can hold the votes of supposed moderates, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, both Republican Senators from Maine.

Amanda Marcotte has a very interesting entry at Pandagon on the subject of marriage and equality. Specifically, she is critiquing an opinion column in the Washington Post by Mark Regnerus, a sociology professor at the University of Texas who urges women (but only, apparently, women) to get married younger.

Marcotte, as I read her critique, asserts that conservatives want women to get married at a young age because this is an effective way to clip their wings and keep them malleable.

I suppose the good thing is that Regnerus is coming right out and stating a value that social conservatives tend to avoid baldly stating—they desire young marriage (for women), because it’s an effective tool at clipping women’s wings. But this is rarely stated outright. It is the whole reason for abstinence-only and other movements against making contraception available and acceptable to young people, though. The hope is that teenagers will get pregnant and “do the responsible thing”, i.e. they’re trying to use subterfuge to get the desired results.

It’s always tough to paint with a broad brush. I would not be at all surprised if a non-trivial number of social conservatives were motivated by exactly this. But, I suspect another non-trivial chunk of them have not thought deeply enough about their reasoning to have such explicitly sinister motivations. They have simply been taught that chastity before marriage, marrying young, reproducing often, and a structure where the woman’s unpaid labor supports the man’s career is simply the right way to do things and haven’t thought much beyond that. Sort of a “God said it, I believe it, that settles it,” kind of dynamic. And there are others who maybe aren’t vigilant about women’s rights and personal development but who also are not motivated by antagonism toward those things who support the idea of a young, subservient wife because they see it as leading to a more stable society for a variety of reasons and (fairly or not) see the sacrifice of female prerogatives as a reasonable sacrifice.

Regardless of the motivation of those who want a culture in which women tend to get married young, I think Ms. Marcotte accurately describes some of its effects. Why should we bemoan the decline in marriage for women at a young age? Per Regnerus:

[M]arriage wisely entered into remains good for the economy and the community, good for one’s personal well-being, good for wealth creation and, yes, good for the environment, too.

And, particularly for women, per Regnerus again, their “market value” declines with age as does their fertility.

“Market value” depends, I suppose, on the nature of the market and what is being bought and sold. If what is being bought is youthful good looks, inexperience, and pliability, I suppose Regnerus is correct. On the other hand, more mature women probably bring to the table a lot of what more mature men bring to the table — money and maturity among other things. Fertility, it’s true, doesn’t have an unlimited shelf life. But waiting until 25 or 30 probably isn’t going to eliminate your ability to have children with your spouse.

As Ms. Marcotte points out, the critical caveat in Prof. Regnerus’s statement about “marriage wisely entered into” is wisdom. The younger you are, typically the less wisdom you have. More important than innate intelligence or wisdom is the fact that at a younger age you have less data with which to make a decision. You don’t know your preferences, you haven’t experienced the world, and you have less of a notion about the kind of person you are and ultimately would like to be. In the case of women, contends Marcotte, that is more or less the point:

But I’d suggest that Regnerus, especially since he advises that only women marry young and therefore that they marry men significantly older, is not saying that people should be formed by marriage. He’s saying women should be. And the form that forming will take is obvious—the more malleable you are, the more likely you are to give into the pressure to be the support system for you husband, to give up your hopes and dreams to support his. The problem with older women (well, not problem—I’d say solution!) is that they are set in their ways, and that means they have more bargaining power in their relationships. If you already have your career, for instance, you know what you stand to lose if you give into the pressure to give it up. But if you don’t have it yet, it makes it much easier to let your husband’s needs and desires dictate the entire relationship.

I have suggested before that I am a fundamentally lazy person. I will go so far as to work hard now to facilitate laziness down the road. I cannot imagine the work it must take to be married to a woman you have molded and made dependent on you. In my case, I married a woman who, if anything, has a stronger will than my own and who has very definite opinions. If I had not, it seems to me, discussions at home would be so boring as to be not worth having. Additionally, she leads her own life apart from me which relieves me from the responsibility of coming home at the end of the day and having some sort of responsibility to let her live vicariously through my day. Sure, I might end up doing more of the house work, participating in more of the child rearing, and running more of a risk of not getting my way from time to time but ultimately even these things are more rewarding in the long run.

I believe I have a more rewarding relationship with my kids than fathers acting in the traditional mold. When I cook, I find that (surprise!) I love what’s being served for dinner. And, when you don’t get your way all the time, you’re not always to blame when things don’t work out. (And, honestly, I’m laid back enough that I rarely care enough to have a “way” that I need to get.) I suppose the primary way in which my marriage seems to fit the more traditional pattern Regnerus urges is that I am several years older than my wife. We didn’t have kids until I was 32 and she was 27. In my mind, that worked out well primarily because I matured as slowly as I could. I don’t think she would have found me to be a great spouse and co-parent if we had married when I was her age or had kids when I was 27.

Because I was able to burn off some energy before settling down, I don’t have an exaggerated view of what life without those responsibilities is like. I can see that the rewards outweigh the responsibilities. And, I feel like the stability is returned on her side for similar reasons.

I know people who have gotten married young and had it work out spectacularly. And I know people who have gotten married after waiting awhile and had it not work too well. That said, on balance, I think the reasons for waiting awhile to get married tend to outweigh reasons for getting married at a young age and think that Marcotte has the better of this particular argument.

The General Assembly is entering their last scheduled week. A special session is always possible, so this may not be the end of the story, but if they can get the budget and a fix for the unemployment system passed, they should be able to call it a session.

The budget will probably get worked out. They deal with that every two years. From the outside, it seems like the House and Senate are further apart than usual and the Governor is making vague rumblings of disapproval. (Governor – if you’re not going to consider a veto, your “demands” become “suggestions.”) But, I don’t get the feeling that there are any irreconcilable differences. I think the House and Senate will ultimately come up with something because they know they really have to as a practical matter — I’m not going to be one of those suggesting there is an immutable Constitutional requirement that the General Assembly pass a budget. The Governor will have some input but will most likely go along with anything the Senate and the House manage to get down to his office.

The unemployment insurance issue is more interesting. What happens if they don’t pass a change? Does the system seize up and freeze? Do the feds keep funding us? Are the consequences of inaction sufficiently clear to legislators to convince them they absolutely have to get something passed? If they don’t, is unemployment funding alone sufficient to convince the Governor to call a special session? I don’t know the answers to any of these things.

A last bit of significance, more to Indianapolis than to the rest of the State, is funding the Capital Improvement Board — the organization that pays the bills on the Colts and Pacers stadiums — as well as, I believe, other downtown development. If nothing gets done on that, I don’t see a special session in the offing to make it happen.

One money saving technique organizations use is to create a choke point in their bureaucracy in places where their customers might cost them money. Examples that leap immediately to mind are claims processing for insurers and customer service telephone centers — particularly where one of the services might be for customers wishing to cancel a subscription.

The State of Indiana is not blind to this money saving approach. Angela Mapes Turner, writing for the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette has an article on Indiana’s slow processing speed for approving food stamp requests.

During the final quarter of 2008, Indiana’s welfare agency failed to process almost a third of food stamp applications within its goal of two months, falling short of federal guidelines and leaving thousands of Hoosiers waiting for help.

The Family and Social Services Administration blamed its slow processing times on growing pains, an increased volume of food stamp applications and possible client errors.

But advocates for an overhaul of the welfare system say the delays extend beyond food stamps to other benefits and show modernization isn’t working.

My suspicion is that this slow response time is not a but, it’s a feature. Speediness in getting money out the door probably isn’t seen as a virtue. If you can’t beat them on the merits, screw ’em with procedure.

Cases are sometimes delayed because clients do not turn in paperwork on time, not because of agency tardiness. Barlow said that’s one reason why the state sticks with its 60-day authorization period, to allow clients more time.
. . .
“I’ve faxed things to them that they’re requesting. I know I’ve turned it in, but they’re saying that I didn’t,” she said. “It’s just thoroughly frustrating.”

Gill, 38, received one denial letter saying she had missed a phone appointment. She was told she was denied because she missed paperwork deadlines. Then she received another denial, saying she and her husband earned slightly more than the allowable maximum income.

Meanwhile, she was burning through minutes on her pay-as-you-go cell phone with the state’s welfare call center.

“It was such a process. I didn’t feel like an individual,” she said.