It can be so funny watching the Christian Taliban stumble with its latest scheme to undermine the teaching of evolution in public school science classes: “Intelligent Design”

The theory, based on the odd assumption that a high degree of complexity necessitates an intelligent designer, may seem superficially helpful to the Talibanists' cause. However, if humans were designed, rather than being the products of evolution, there is a significant problem: aspects of human anatomy and physiology that do not work very well.

In Christian theology, the deity is all-wise, all-powerful, and all-knowing. Such a deity could not produce organisms with flaws such as the following.

1. Humans have an appendix, an organ that accomplishes nothing for us and can kill us if it gets infected, which is a reasonably common occurance.


2. Male-pattern baldness


3. The human cravings for foods that are bad for us.

While items 1 and 3 are easily explained in evolutionary terms, they could only be the results of an intelligent, but imperfect designer, bad news for Christianity. The appendix is a reduced vestige of a caecum, an area of the intestinal tract that primates use to digest cellulose. Digestion of cellulose no longer is done by humans, who can get their nutritional needs met through meat and the remaining molecules of plants.

Humans crave fat and salt because both were scarce for our ancestors. However, in a perfectly designed organism, cravings would match the current dietary environment.

As for items 2, it can be explained through the concept of neutral mutation. Mutations that have no impact on reproduction (and survival's impact is on the organism's ability to reproduce) have no selective pressures and can become randomly incorporated through a process of what is called “genetic drift.” Males going bald would have little or no impact on reproductive levels, especially among ancestors that seldom lived past the age of 30, and started breeding in their early teens.

“Intelligent Design” is as unChristian as it is unscientific. It is so funny when the Christian fundamentalists end up undermining their own faiths while trying to undermine scientific facts that threaten their faiths. If “Intelligent Design” did not threaten science education, it would just be part of a litany of unintentional humor by religious extremists.

The Today Show's Gene Shalit showed tremendous immaturity and homophobia in his 1/5/06 review of Brokeback Mountain. Shalit refers to one of the characters as a "sexual predator," because he goes after the man he loves. If a leading man was pursuing the woman he loves, he wouldn't be referred to as a "sexual predator." This double-standard completely discredits Shalit and his review.

Also, Shalit's nervous, smirking style during the review is what one would expect in a video podcast from a junior high school student. If Shalit is too immature to review movies involving same-sex love, then those movies should be assigned to a mature adult.

GLAAD has video of the embarrassing review on its web site.

You can join in MoveOn.org's efforts to stop the nomination of Samuel Alito, a militant, anti-American fundamentalist, to the US Supreme Court.

Send letters to your Senators!

Here are some quotes from MoveOn's email on the subject.

AFL-CIO

We are compelled to oppose [Alito's] nomination to be an Associate Justice on the United States Supreme Court. ...Judge Alito's decisions and dissents show a disturbing tendency to take an extremely narrow and restrictive view of laws passed by Congress to protect workers' rights, resulting in workers being deprived of wage and hour, health and safety, anti-discrimination, pension and other important protections.

NAACP

"We have undertaken an extensive review of Judge Alito's civil rights record spanning his career as a lawyer and a judge...As a result we have concluded that Judge Alito's confirmation would cause a substantial shift in the Supreme Court's jurisprudence on civil rights and that his confirmation would be to the detriment of the nation. Thus, we are compelled to oppose his nomination.

Sierra Club

In the first such move since the Bork nomination of 1987, on December 20 the Sierra Club joined with other national environmental groups to urge Senators to oppose the confirmation of Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court. Americans deserve mainstream, independent Justices, with unassailable integrity, who will protect individual rights and freedoms. Unfortunately, Judge Alito's opinions and other statements, combined with a disturbing lack of candor since being nominated, show that Judge Alito cannot be trusted to protect those rights and freedoms.

NARAL Pro-Choice America

Samuel Alito, Jr. of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit is an anti-choice jurist. As a member of the three-judge panel that heard Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey before the case went to the Supreme Court, Alito wrote a dissent in which he argued to uphold even more abortion restrictions than the Supreme Court eventually upheld in its now-famous decision. Alito, who has been called "a favorite son of the political right," would likely vote to eviscerate or eliminate the protections of Roe as a member of the Supreme Court.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State

According to Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr., the First Amendment puts
few limitations on politically powerful majorities' ability to use the
machinery of government to advance their religious views, even at
the expense of the religious freedom of minorities. Replacing Justice
Sandra Day O'Connor with Judge Alito would fundamentally alter
First Amendment law and immediately put at risk many of the crucial
protections for religious minorities that the Supreme Court has
recognized and consistently enforced over the past sixty years.

The Human Rights Campaign

As a Judge, Samuel Alito struck down a school policy that protected gay students from harassment. He is far to the right of Justice O'Connor on due process and reproductive rights. Judge Alito's narrow view of Congress would dangerously threaten Congress' power to enact non-discrimination legislation protecting citizens and has failed to distance himself from a group that advocated discrimination of which he was a member. In short, Judge Alito is the wrong choice for the Supreme Court.

People for the American Way

Samuel Alito has been a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit since his appointment by the first President Bush in 1990. In that time, Alito has compiled an extensive, extreme right-wing judicial record on numerous matters of importance to the protection of the rights and interests of ordinary Americans—a record that has earned him the nickname "Scalito" for his ideological resemblance to Justice Antonin Scalia. Alito's judicial opinions demonstrate that he is an out of the mainstream opponent of fundamental legal rights and protections for all Americans and must not be confirmed to the Supreme Court.

One of the funniest things is seeing some schmuck rev up a motorcycle really loud, even though the guy isn't trying to go any faster. He may think he is letting the world know who macho he is, but the real message being sent is quite different. When people hear a really loud motorcycle, the natural and logical conclusion is that the owner is overcompensating for an extremely small penis.

Of course, National Rifle Association stickers are even worse, especially the ones that say that no one will ever take the owner's gun away. NRA stickers scream “man with tiny penis who cannot get an erection without Viagra or some other drug.”

And, gun magazines are hysterical. Macho-acting man/boys hold guns the way that tops hold their schlongs in gay porno movies. Guns as phallic symbols and castration anxieties have huge psychological influences over gun nuts. I think the main reason this aspect of the firearm fanatics doesn't get much press is that people are afraid of getting shot by an impotent gun owner with a penis so small he has trouble finding it.

The Bush regime's latest talking point, that leaving Iraq would turn the country over to “enemies,” reveals more than what they would like.

The main Shi'ite parties are anti-American parties tied to the Shia regime in Iran. Chalabi, the Bush regime's main point man in Iraq, is a well-known Iranian spy. The Shias are letting US troops do battlefield combat with their Sunni enemies while their police forces are disappearing Sunni civilians in much the way that Latin American dictatorships supported by the Reagan Administration did.

The Bush regime has already handed Iraq over to enemies of the US. In fact, they have converted the entire country into enemies of the US. The Bush people are tyring to set conditions where we never can leave Iraq, because there aren't any US-friendly Iraqis left to turn over the country to.

So, what is Bush's cabal really worried about? If they pull our troops out of Iraq, Halliburton and other GOP cronies will lose their gravy train. The last thing the Bush regime wants is for Iraqis getting jobs rebuilding their country. They would rather see their cronies bill the US government endlessly while producing little or nothing of any value for the Iraqi people.

NBC's Medium features bad writing, horrible acting, and a goofy premise. But, that doesn't stop some people from watching it. However, the show could have a damaging effect if viewers cannot distinguish television from reality.

Given the overly superstitious nature of our society, NBC has a responsibility to run a disclaimer similar to the following:

This show is a fantasy. In real life, psychic powers do not exist. “Mediums” do not help police solve crimes. Do not be taken in by “mediums” pretending that they can help you communicate with the dead.

The Skeptic's Dictionary has an excellent article on mediums.

Very little that Republican politicians do could shock me, but the latest Bill Frist scandal is outrageous. It turns out a so-called AIDS charity, “World of Hope Inc.,” started by Frist has become a slush fund for Frist's cronies.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051217/ap_on_go_co/frist_charity

A particularly damaging passage from the article:

The rest of the money went to overhead. That included $456,125 in consulting fees to two firms run by Frist's longtime political fundraiser, Linus Catignani. One is jointly run by Linda Bond, the wife of Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Mo.

Frist is already facing allegations of insider trading. One has to wonder how much else is going on the leader of Senate Republicans.

Will Log Cabin demand Frist's resignation from the Senate or are they happy that he is looting money for people with AIDS?

(with apologies to no one)

Verse 1:
It's the most horrible time of the year.
With families fighting and siblings yelling that
“His toy cost more!”
It's the most annoying time of the year.

Verse 2:
It's the crap-crapiest time of the year.
With O'Reilly yapping and parents a-snapping,
When mobs hit the mall,
It's the crud-crudiest time of the year.

Bridge:
There'll be wrists that get slashed up, some rivers for drowning,
and some will have pills in big gulps.
There'll be hospital visits and tragic demises,
and some will slide off of the road.

Verse3:
It's the most horrible time of the year.
There'll by panic shopping, and jaws will be dropping,
when in-laws are near.
It's most depressing time of the year.

I've never been much of a fan of her music, but I always have thought that Barbra Streisand is a good person. Recent events have shown how good of a person she can be.

Ms. Streisand has made the news by cancelling her subscription to the Los Angeles Times, in response to the firing of liberal, anti-war columnist Robert Scheer. As previously discussed here, the firing was the result of Times publisher Jack Johnson's ire over Scheer's columns criticizing Bush's war in Iraq.

She points out that Scheer's replacement, Jonah Goldberg, cannot “be trusted to provide me with accurate, unbiased news and forthright opinions.” As readers of this rightist columnist know, his pieces generally involve disjointed regurgitations of GOP talking points. It would be difficult to know what, if anything, Goldberg really stands for, given his utter lack of originality.

This would be a good time to remind people to Contact the L.A. Times and demand that Robert Scheer be rehired.

Every year, some people bemoan that others aren't living up to the original meaning of Christmas. If only they knew what that original meaning actually was.

Christmas originally was the Saturnalia, a Roman Solstice celebration which involved an orgy of sex, wine, and food.

If you want to celebrate the true meaning of Christmas, eat like a pig; get drunk; go to an orgy; and celebrate a fertility goddess.

Some fundamentalist Christians have found out about this. Enjoy a cute rant by a fundie who doesn't want other fundies to celebrate Christmas.

http://www.ynca.com/christmas.htm

Rightist Connecticut Senator and phony Democrat, Joseph Lieberman, has shown an even greater willingness to lick the boots of the Bush regime, once again attacking Democrats who are speaking out against Bush's illegal and unAmerican war in Iraq.

Anyone who is paying attention to what is going on in Iraq knows that the war in helping Al Queda's terrorist recruitment efforts enormously. In an excellent Alternet article, Fawaz A. Gerges points out something terribly important:

Iraq is slowly and gradually replacing other theaters as a forward base for the new jihad. Today, a large concentration of active jihadis exists in Iraq, not in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen or Saudi Arabia. According to a 2005 report by the National Intelligence Council, the CIA director's think tank: "The al-Qa'ida membership that was distinguished by having trained in Afghanistan will gradually dissipate, to be replaced in part by the dispersion of the experienced survivors of the conflict in Iraq." This report took a year to produce and includes the analysis of 1000 U.S. and foreign specialists, and represents the conclusion of American intelligence, which cannot be dismissed as politically and ideologically biased and antiwar.

In his desperation to pander to the Bush regime, Lieberman is helping our nation's greatest enemy, Osama bin Laden. In the process, he is furthering the political agenda of the people who rammed airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. It's time for Lieberman to retire. He has nothing to offer our country.