“Intelligent Design” seems to be the buzzword du jour.

This makes me angry. Very angry. Terrified that suddenly, we could be teaching our children science using theories and ideas that aren’t based in any kind of science.

Frankly, religious education is the place to teach these ideas, not the same classes that dissect amphibians and learn the basic principles of chemistry. Science is–and always has been–grounded in research, in discovery, in experimentation. In theory, yes, but theories that just so happen to have a lot of EVIDENCE that makes them credible.

Religion doesn’t belong in that classroom. Period.

Ed. to Add: Thought I’d add a quote from the Time piece that sums up how I feel about this. “[Intelligent Design] appalls the many scientists and science teachers who believe in evolution and also believe in God. ‘I accept evolution as the best scientific explanation for life as we know it,’ says Jeremy Mohn, a self-described “very religious” Methodist who teaches biology at Blue Valley Northwest High School, just a few minutes’ drive from Bingman’s school. ‘I also believe that God is ultimately responsible for the process. But it’s not our job to dust for fingerprints.’”

Mark Frauenfelder at boingboing points out author Mark Dery’s hilariously over-the-top yet absolutely dead-on rant on “Not One More Damn Dime Day”, the “economic boycott” intended to “protest” yesterday’s Presidential inauguration. Awesome.

The Catholic church defrocked the Irish-born priest who upset the men’s Olympic marathon in Athens last summer by leaping on the front-runner.

…Earlier Horan arrived at the Archbishop’s House armed with press releases and a mini tape recorder. Before going into the meeting he performed an Irish jig and preached the importance of the bible.

Horan was given a one-year suspended sentence by a Greek court last September after leaping on Brazilian runner Vanderli de Lima during the marathon, ruining his chances of winning the gold medal.

The Roman Catholic priest claimed that he was highlighting the “second coming” of Jesus Christ.

[via Warren]

Outgoing Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, in an interview with The Australian, on his reflections and thoughts about the ups and downs of the last four years:

And Armitage’s disappointments? Not a lugubrious person, Armitage doesn’t nominate disappointments spontaneously. But he’ll answer a question honestly: “I’m disappointed that Iraq hasn’t turned out better. And that we weren’t able to move forward more meaningfully in the Middle East peace process.”
Then, after a minute’s pause, he adds a third regret: “The biggest regret is that we didn’t stop 9/11. And then in the wake of 9/11, instead of redoubling what is our traditional export of hope and optimism we exported our fear and our anger. And presented a very intense and angry face to the world. I regret that a lot.”

That’s probably the best summation of the last three years that anyone has ever made.

[via Kevin Drum]

Isn’t about time for the bubble to burst??

An article in today’s Washington Post tells us that property values in my beloved Arlington have gone up yet again. Up by 24 percent, in fact, in just one year. Looking across the last three years puts the jump at a whopping 70 percent increase.

70 percent?!? That’s nuts!!

Of course, we’ve all known this was happening. I live in a small, two-bedroom, one-bathroom rowhouse with an unfinished basement. All the houses in my neighborhood are identical in layout to mine (although some have finished basements with an extra bath). In the five years I’ve lived here, I’ve seen the resale value of these little boogers shoot up from around $200,000 to nearly $400,000! I couldn’t even afford to buy the front yard if I tried.

All I can say is, Thank God I did not try to buy a place, because I’d probably be living either in BFE or a slum in the city right now. Honestly, I don’t understand how people are affording these insane housing prices.

Another trend I’ve noticed in Arlington is the practice of destroy & build. Instead of fixing up or remodeling older houses, buyers are instead tearing them down completely and building new-fangled, gigundous homes.

I might understand this a little better if there were structural flaws in the homes. Sometimes, it can be less expensive to build anew rather than to fix and add-on. However, I can’t imagine this is the case in all these new homes.

Is this just a DC bubble, or is this happening back in the homestead as well?

Oh, you thought that now that the election’s over, you can forget all about all that crazy stuff we talked about for months on end? Well, good news, then: your President does, too:

President Bush said the public’s decision to reelect him was a ratification of his approach toward Iraq and that there was no reason to hold any administration officials accountable for mistakes or misjudgments in prewar planning or managing the violent aftermath.

“We had an accountability moment, and that’s called the 2004 elections,” Bush said in an interview with The Washington Post. “The American people listened to different assessments made about what was taking place in Iraq, and they looked at the two candidates, and chose me.”

With the Iraq elections two weeks away and no signs of the deadly insurgency abating, Bush set no timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops and twice declined to endorse Secretary of State Colin L. Powell’s recent statement that the number of Americans serving in Iraq could be reduced by year’s end. Bush said he will not ask Congress to expand the size of the National Guard or regular Army, as some lawmakers and military experts have proposed.

…Last week, Powell said U.S. troop levels could be reduced this year, but Bush said it is premature to judge how many U.S. men and women will be needed to defeat the insurgency and plant a new and sustainable government. He also declined to pledge to significantly reduce U.S. troop levels before the end of his second term in January 2009.

…Bush acknowledged that the United States’ standing has diminished in some parts of the world and said he has asked Condoleezza Rice, his nominee to replace Powell at the State Department, to embark on a public diplomacy campaign that “explains our motives and explains our intentions.”

Bush acknowledged that “some of the decisions I’ve made up to now have affected our standing in parts of the world,” but predicted that most Muslims will eventually see America as a beacon of freedom and democracy.

“An accountability moment”?

I can’t believe that I actually read that. No, more — I can’t believe that a man who sits in the highest office in this country would be flippant enough to say that out loud, in public and unironically. “An accountability moment”!? As if re-electing the President not only validated his policies but absolved both he and his administration from responsibility for any mistakes or misjudgments? A reverse-Presidential pardon?

Here’s a transcript of the interview itself (WaPo registration probably required, I was already signed in so I don’t know for sure.) Read it. This isn’t a case where his answers were taken out of context — the question was put to him directly, why hasn’t anyone been held accountable for mistakes in prewar planning and postwar operations? Because of “an accountability moment.” Unambiguous, flat out, unironic and direct. Because America voted for me.

I’m not so blind–left that I think President Bush is really Dr. Evil in disguise, but this refusal to acknowledge 1) that mistakes or misjudgments in pre- and post-war planning exist (such as, ferinstance, that no weapons of mass destruction were ever found in Iraq) and 2) that the 2004 election wasn’t a yea-or-nay vote on his policies but a choice between two deeply flawed candidates in an unstable wartime environment, is deeply, deeply troubling. (Never mind my quibbles with the rest of his comments, in which he reveals that the constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, which he trumpeted throughout the campaign and used like a bludgeon against his wishy-washy opponent, is dead and has no support from the White House — a ghost, a campaign tactic that was all about pandering to the right and scaring the center, IMHO.) Call it just extraordinary confidence in his own choices if you must (and some no doubt have and will), but it strikes me as overconfidence, bordering on unthinking arrogance. And that, to me, spells trouble in the next four years — because if nobody’s worth holding accountable for what’s happened to date, who is? Where’s the line? Where does the buck stop?

Because I don’t think it’s in this White House.

So Friday Carl’s daycare teachers reported that he had a whopping two servings of hamburger for lunch. We were impressed with his appetite, but thought little else of it. Gus’s son eating a lot of meat is certainly not news to anyone.

Then Saturday Carl starts making this hand signal every time he wants something we’re eating coupled with something sounding much like the word “more”. Impressed with his verbal ability we give him whatever he’s asked for (as we are wont to do) and went on thinking his vocabulary was really coming along.

Then by Sunday the hand gesture was more than we could brush off. He did it EVERY time. Tapping his little fingers together and staring intently at his nearly empty plate. So I did a little looking into it and it seems our boy has picked up more than just a verbal vocabulary, he’s started to sign.

Maybe that daycare investment is worth it afterall. Can’t wait until tomorrow morning to talk to his teachers and see what else he might be trying to tell us. Amazing!