Posted on 11/01/2005 8:17:35 AM PST by Right Wing Professor
HARRISBURG After Alan Bonsell finished his testimony Monday, in which he accused two local newspaper reporters of making up the information that drove the Dover Area School District into a First Amendment lawsuit, Judge John E. Jones III demanded to see a copy of Bonsell's previous sworn statements.
Steve Harvey, the plaintiffs' attorney who had cross-examined the Dover Area school board member, offered to provide a clean copy later in chambers.
"I want it now if you have it," the federal judge said. At the end of the first day of the sixth week of Dover's court battle over intelligent design in U.S. Middle District Court, Jones had some questions.
Bonsell sat quietly on the stand chewing gum and swiveling in his chair as Jones reviewed the man's Jan. 3 deposition in which he denied knowing anyone, besides his father, who had been involved in donating copies of the textbook "Of Pandas and People" to the Dover school district.
After he finished reading, Jones asked Bonsell when he became aware that his father, Donald, was in possession of an $850 check used to purchase copies of the pro-intelligent design textbook.
Bonsell said he had given the check to his father.
Last week, former board member Bill Buckingham testified he handed the check, dated Oct. 4, 2004, to Alan Bonsell and asked him to forward it to Donald Bonsell. Written in the check's memo line were the words: "for Pandas and People books."
"You tell me why you didn't say Mr. Buckingham was involved," a visibly angry Jones said, staring at Bonsell as he read from his deposition.
Bonsell said he misspoke. And then, "That's my fault, your honor."
Bonsell said he didn't think it mattered because Buckingham had not actually donated any of his money. Rather, the money had been collected from members of his church.
But Jones pointed out that Bonsell had said he had never spoken to anybody else about the donations.
The judge also wanted to know why the money needed to be forwarded to his father, why Buckingham couldn't have purchased the books himself.
Bonsell stammered.
"I still haven't heard an answer from you," Jones said.
"He said he'd take it off the table," Bonsell said.
"You knew you were under oath?" Jones asked at one point.
Later, outside the courthouse, plaintiffs' attorneys had no comment on Jones' questioning, and Dover's attorney Patrick Gillen had little to say.
"I won't speculate" about the judge's actions, Gillen said. "I'm confident that he's seeking the truth in these proceedings."
Jones' exchange with Bonsell was the second time the judge has intervened in testimony and questioned school board members on his own. On Friday, Jones asked Heather Geesey about her newly acquired recollection that board members at June 2004 meetings were publicly discussing intelligent design, rather than creationism as reported in the media.
In her deposition, Geesey had been unable to recall details about board discussions during the meetings.
Much of Bonsell's testimony echoed Buckingham's from last week.
Buckingham testified about donations from his church. But like Bonsell, Buckingham said initially, in his first deposition on Jan. 3, that he didn't know from where the 60 donated copies came.
Before Bonsell was forced to defend his past recollections, he spent much of his time on the stand accusing the local press, in particular two reporters Heidi Bernhard-Bubb, a freelance writer with The York Dispatch, and Joe Maldonado, a freelance writer with the York Daily Record/Sunday News of incorrectly reporting that board members had said "creationism" at the June 2004 board meetings rather than "intelligent design."
Bonsell said the media continues to misrepresent the case and the concept of intelligent design the idea that life's complexity demands a designer.
Harvey wanted to know why he keeps talking to reporters, since he doesn't feel they are correctly reporting the facts.
Bonsell said because he hoped "some of the truth would get out."
Before Bonsell's testimony Monday, former board member Jane Cleaver had also testified that board members had been talking about intelligent design at the June 2004 board meetings, but the local newspapers reported they were saying creationism.
However, under cross-examination, she said she was unsure if intelligent design had been brought up at meetings in June or later at the July board meeting.
Whether board members were talking about creationism then is important to Dover's First Amendment battle. Attorneys for the 11 parents suing the district over the mention of intelligent design in biology class say board members were motivated by religious beliefs, one of the prongs used by the courts to determine whether an action violates the constitutional guarantee of separation of church and state.
At the Jan. 3 depositions, board members Bonsell, Buckingham, Harkins and Supt. Nilsen all said they did not remember other board members talking about creationism at the June 2004 meetings.
Cleaver, like Bonsell, blamed the reporters, particularly Maldonado, for making up their stories.
"Joe doesn't know how to tell the truth," Cleaver said. "Joe only knows how tell a lie."
Last week, both Maldonado and Bernhard-Bubb testified to the accuracy of their articles. They said no board members ever requested a correction from articles about the meetings.
How it's designed or who designed it?
This thread is about the lying, perjurious, mush-heads from the Dover School board who are getting the asses handed to them in court, under oath. They will be very lucky if they don't end up in jail for their stunts.
Somebody is desperate to change the subject, to anything except that, so..... DARWINCENTRAL has issued a FLASH TRAFFIC message over the low-frequency GALAPAGOS NET:
PLEASE DON'T FEED THE DISRUPTOR TROLLS!
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Oh, you're probably right. Reticules have little to do with science.
Here's a reticule. I can't see the connection:
So, if creationism is a manual transmission, and evolution is an automatic transmission, what is intelligent design? One of those dashboard shifters like on an old Pontiacs?
LOL!
Don't hold back now. How do you really feel about the Dover School Board?
I do not believe the Penatuch to be mythical. What proof of this do you have?
Nah, that's not it.
We lose because we misrepresent what science thinks in a science class. Same way we lose if we do a 10 minute disclamer in english class that illiterate street rap is a valid alternative to learning proper english grammar.
Evolution is backed up by 150 years of evidence and testing. It's as close a representation of reality as you are likely to get in science.
It's in the part about supporting public education.
A pogo stick made up to look like a rocket.
I figured out the "reticule" thingie.
One of the most common misspellings of "ridicule" here on FR is "redicule." If you run the spell checker here on "redicule," the first choice it offers is "reticule."
Of course, the second choice is "ridicule," but I suppose if you can't spell it, the spelling checker's not much use, eh?
I think the whole thing is reticulated!!!
Can you post it please?
It's a manual with a bad clutch, forcing power-shifting.
You have to use your own. I imagine that for example passages which urge people to hate their families if they want to be saved are tempered by your knowledge that loving your family is a desirable state. Passages which speak of creatures with bones of brass, the earth being a "circle" rather than a "globe", the foundations of the earth, stars falling to the earth from heaven, Jesus being shown by Satan all the kingdoms of the earth from a high mountain etc etc etc are obvious allegories even to you presumably. Now many Christians know that the physical evidence indicates that there was not a worldwide flood around 5kya, so they read the Noah story as an allegory, for example. You don't trust the experts who tell you of this lack of physical evidence for the flood, so you do believe in it (I think, from your previous posts)
There is nothing sacrosanct about evolution. It is a scientific theory, not a matter of faith. No scientific alternative has been found. That's the problem.
Do you not believe the Noah story then? If you believe the Noah story your interpretation clashes with genetics, geology, paleontology, etc. For the Noah story to be true we'd end up throwing away most of science.
Why, thank you for asking!
I think they are an example of the sort of people associated with Creationism/ID who are hijacking the conservative political movement for the purpose of advancing their own agenda, and if not stopped and repudiated, will become the scourge of conservatives everywhere.
They are, for the most part, intellectual midgets with at best a feeble understanding of science, and an even more feeble sense if integrity and honesty. This should come as no surprise to anyone who has had their eyes open while reading CREVO threads on FR for the past several years. Over and over and over, we are confronted with bogus arguments, out-of-context quotes, plagiarisms, and outright lies by the anti-science Luddites who want to jam their insane weirdness into the public school curriculum, bypassing the normal process of scientific peer-review by substituting the political process at the level of the local school board in its stead.
Finally, under oath, the true face of the Creationist/ID movement has been exposed in this trial, and for once the publc can see what these people are all about: perjury, lies, and deceptions to hide their true motives to get a tarted-up version of Creationism into the science class of public schools. These people are the Salem Witch hunters, circa the 21st Century. Like their bretheren in Massachusetts little more than 300 years ago, they, too, will lie and perjure themselves under oath to get what they want, in their petty war against all who do not share their peculiar beliefs.
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