Ouch.

[darch]

John E. Jones III has torn the Dover Area School Board a new one. Now I've read the opinion, I have some thoughts:

1. Judge Jones does not like it when people lie in his courtroom.
2. Judge Jones does not like it when people denigrate the role of the courts.
3. Judge Jones especially does not like wasting his time.
4. Do not taunt Happy Fun Judge Jones.

The opinion is long, but it seems that Judge Jones did not want to chance this particular issue coming to a head again. He found for the plaintiffs and had a lot of bad things to say about the mendacity of the school board and especially my own favorite guy, Bill Buckingham. While his declarations are fairly narrow, the basis is quite as broad as we could have hoped, taking on questions of ID as rebranded creationism and whether ID qualifies as science. He's not quite right about a couple of more arcane facts, but is unrelenting in making clear that the law is firmly on the side of the plaintiffs.

The one flat note is that Dover now has to cough up plaintiff's attorney fees. This would be sufficient reason to hate Bill Buckingham even if he weren't a stunning example of incompetence. Hopefully, this judgement will preserve other towns across this country from similar monetary waste.

It's been a long four months. But it was definitely worth it.

D'A