It came from underground!

Searchers shovel Northwest dirt seeking giant worm:

MOSCOW, Idaho – The giant Palouse earthworm has taken on mythic qualities in this vast agricultural region that stretches from eastern Washington into the Idaho panhandle — its very name evoking the fictional sandworms from "Dune" or those vicious creatures from the movie "Tremors."

The worm is said to secrete a lily-like smell when handled, spit at predators, and live in burrows 15 feet deep. There have been only a handful of sightings.

But scientists hope to change that this summer with researchers scouring the Palouse region in hopes of finding more of the giant earthworms. Conservationists also want the Obama administration to protect the worm as an endangered species, even though little research has been done on it.

Update 4/27/10 The worms have been found!

SPOKANE, Wash. — Two living specimens of the fabled giant Palouse earthworm have been captured for the first time in two decades in what represents a significant discovery of a creature that has achieved a mythic status in the area.

The giant Palouse earthworm has fascinated scientists for decades after long being written off as an extinct creature. Reports suggested that the worms had a penchant for spitting and smelled like lilies, further enhancing the myth of the earthworm in the agricultural Palouse region on the Washington-Idaho border.

"It's a good day for the worm," said University of Idaho soil scientist Jodi Johnson-Maynard in Moscow, Idaho, who has been leading the search

The recent discovery of the worms appeared to dispel the myth about the creature's appearance. They don't spit, or smell like lilies, and aren't even that giant.

Rank hypocrisy

In the 'I've got mine, fuck you, poor people' attitude of the Republicans who then turn and demand pet projects be paid for by taxpayers' dollars.

Mark Schmitt for the Guardian:

This, not Larry Craig's awkwardly closeted sexuality, is the hypocrisy that matters. This hypocrisy consists not in a failure to reconcile public and private life, but in two public positions that are in absolute contradiction to one another: The belief that people must make it on their own, with no "whining" and no help from government, coexisting with a staggering, slavish dependence on government - and the federal government, and thus taxpayers of the rest of America, in particular.

In a foreshadowing of Risch's comment about the New Orleans victims, the author Marc Reisner, whose 1986 book Cadillac Desert is the finest account of these Western politics, quotes one of the Teton dam's earlier opponents about the culture of this part of Idaho: they "get burned up when they hear about someone buying a bottle of mouthwash with food stamps. But they love big water projects. They only object to nickle-and-dime welfare. They love it in great big gobs."

This is the culture in which American conservatism - from Barry Goldwater's Arizona to Ronald Reagan's southern California, to George Bush's Texas, where great wealth was made possible because the government subsidized money losing oil companies - was bred. It is a culture of self-delusion and hypocrisy that excuses great cruelty. And it's far more dangerous than a poor old man in airport lavatory.

Representative Sali suddenly realizes he has cooties

Because a Hindu was allowed to pray aloud on the floor of the House and we have an actual breathing Muslim member of Congress. Who has been there since this session started. Which was in January. Of this year. Not too quick off the mark is he?

PZ Myers:

Last month, the U.S. Senate was opened for the first time ever with a Hindu prayer. Although the event generated little outrage on Capitol Hill, Representative Bill Sali (R-Idaho) is one member of Congress who believes the prayer should have never been allowed.

"We have not only a Hindu prayer being offered in the Senate, we have a Muslim member of the House of Representatives now, Keith Ellison from Minnesota. Those are changes -- and they are not what was envisioned by the Founding Fathers," asserts Sali.

Sali says America was built on Christian principles that were derived from scripture. He also says the only way the United States has been allowed to exist in a world that is so hostile to Christian principles is through "the protective hand of God."

Maha of Mahablog:

In fact, one of the Founders did speak to this. Thomas Jefferson wrote about this in his autobiography, discussing the adoption of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom:

The bill for establishing religious freedom, the principles of which had, to a certain degree, been enacted before, I had drawn in all the latitude of reason & right. It still met with opposition; but, with some mutilations in the preamble, it was finally passed; and a singular proposition proved that it’s protection of opinion was meant to be universal. Where the preamble declares that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting the word “Jesus Christ,” so that it should read “a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion.” The insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of it’s protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo, and infidel of every denomination.

Seems pretty clear to me. It’s a shame we elect people like Bill Sali who doesn’t share America’s true founding values, huh?

David Neiwert of Orcinus:

But what we do know about them is that they believed in the freedom of religion. It's one of America's true founding values. See, e.g., the First Amendment.

If you talk to most Christians, actually, they get this. They understand that the freedom of religion -- the absolute freedom to find and practice any belief system you like, whether it's Abyssynian fire worship or atheism -- is what keeps us all together as Americans. It's our national glue. That's because it prevents any one belief system from imposing its values on any of the others. It implies an automatic respect for others' private religious beliefs.

This is true of a number of fairly conservative belief systems, including Mormonism (see the onrunning battle within the Republican religious right over Mitt Romney's candidacy), Catholicism (which has a long history of facing outrageous discrimination and demonization in America, e.g., the anti-Catholic Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s), and, for that matter, Islam, which behaviorally speaking is generally quite conservative, especially by Western standards.

People who come from these faiths instinctively understand that what enables them to practice their faiths as they wish is the freedom of religion. And Keith Ellison's presence in the House, and the saying of a Hindu prayer in the Senate, are crystalline examples of that freedom in action.

No one can say whether the Founding Fathers could have envisioned a day when international trade and communication were daily commonplaces in American lives; when immigrants would come to our shores from around the globe, bringing with them not just industry and creativity but also their various religious beliefs; when Muslims would become Americans and Americans Muslims. But that day certainly has come to pass. And in a competitive global economy fueled by the high technology we produce, we are the better for it.

Moreover, it's important to understand that Sali's words amount to hatemongering: He is arguing that Muslims do not belong in American society. This kind of exclusionism is not just profoundly antidemocratic, it's incredibly counterproductive in the 21st century.

Nor can Sali say legitimately that Muslims do not deserve representation on the floor of Congress. By definition in our democracy, Muslims have earned representation in the House by electing one of their own there.

Sali also clearly suggests that allowing Muslims to say prayers in Congress would at best alienate what he thinks is the Christian God, and at worst perhaps bring down His wrath on them. If that isn't an argument for excluding them, I don't know what it is.

Pastordan of Street Prophets has the last word:

Amidst the obvious intolerant jackass fireworks, Sali's use of scripture is easy to skip over. But the Matthew text he cites is not to be missed:

‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax-collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Wouldn't this say, you know, the exact opposite of what Sali intended?

Little wonder then that Right Wing Watch follows up the blockquote with this summary:

Sali, with the backing of the Club for Growth and a following of social conservatives, won a divisive Republican primary in his GOP district last year, despite warnings from fellow Republicans that Sali was “an absolute idiot.”

Sounds about right to me.

Amen!