As you probably heard, teaching Intelligent Design in the science classroom as an alternative to evolution has been deemed unconstitutional by a US district court. The emmenently rational judge said:

Until yesterday, I'd been quite taken with my newly adopted state of California. The Bay Area seems to be a fun place to live. On my trip down to Santa Barbara for Thanksgiving, I had a real appreciation for the beauty and landscape of California.

I've been thinking about the issue of soldiers-for-hire, or "military contractors" or, just plain mercenaries, which is what they are, and what I will call them from now on. One of the things that has made the Iraq war unique has been the way the US has depended upon mercenaries to do a wide range of tasks in Iraq.

Jesus General said it better than I could possibly say it about the current state of affairs of this country. By the way, Jeus General is just a great blog to read, really funny stuff, usually (although this post was not satire.)

I'm not sure how I managed to make my way into this stellar group, but I'm part of the crew launching the new blog, called Talk to Action. This site is focused on the theocratic Christian Right, and how to counter it. Fred Clarkson, one of the founders, has a great post on Kos, which explains the why and wherefore of the site.

First, a short preface note. For those of you that might not know, I was trained, and worked as, a biologist for almost 20 years (if you count graduate school.) I know evolutionary theory, and I know science.

E.O. Wilson says, in an introduction to a new compilation of the work of Charles Darwin:

A press release by the organization called Americans United for Separation of Church and State made me ponder. The background is the recent news that a church in Pasadena, CA (All Saints Episcopal Church) is being investigated by the IRS because of an anti-war sermon. Here is their concluding paragraph:

Believe it or not, I found this on the White House website, as a header for some press releases and such from 2002. Amazing, huh? I guess they figured it meant that the Iraqi's were in denial and deceptive, but we know now that it was Bush and co.'s deception and denial that was the real deal here.

This is staggering. Bush has borrowed more money than all 42 other presidents before him combined. Presidents one through 42 borrowed $1.01 Trillion dollars total from foreign banks and governments. #43 has borrowed $1.05 trillion. Guess who is going to be paying that bill? Not the wealthy, you can bet.

I haven't yet blogged on the Avian Flu issue because I've been pretty unsure about it, even with my scientific training. On one hand, there definitely seems to be some evidence, and reasonable suggestions that avian flu is a possible real danger to the world. On the other hand, it's not a danger yet, and it is very hard to tell whether or not it will become one.

Here's what I know so far: