re: Intelligent design, evolution.

Referencing a recent newspaper front page article about the demand that "intelligent design" be taught to students attending public schools,

More specifically, liberal Catholics. For those of you who were worried that Ratzinger's rise to the papacy would shove the Church to the right, this is a good sign.

THE Vatican has issued a stout defence of Charles Darwin, voicing strong criticism of Christian fundamentalists who reject his theory of evolution and interpret the biblical account of creation literally.
Cardinal Paul Poupard, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, said the Genesis description of how God created the universe and Darwin's theory of evolution were "perfectly compatible" if the Bible were read correctly.
His statement was a clear attack on creationist campaigners in the US, who see evolution and the Genesis account as mutually exclusive.

This is nothing new - Catholics have been teaching a separation of faith and science for years - but it's nice to hear it out loud. And for the record, American Catholics are actually really progressive.

Alas for Kansas, the near-center of the stewing mass  that is Middle America, the place where intelligence and logic are set aside in favor of an almost horrifyingly sturdy dedication to theology. From the depths of this "Land of the Free, Home of the Passionately Obtuse" has emerged the latest effort to destroy science in the name of sophisticated mythology.

Soon--ever so soon, gentle readers--the education officials in Kansas will be deciding whether they should keep science as it is or if they should "spice it up a bit" and encourage questions about proven facets of science, as well as removing certain inconvenient aspects of what defines science. This bold step towards idiocy could open the floodgates for other states to follow in Kansas' footsteps, as the state drifts back to a time when turning lead into gold was a worthy endeavor and anesthesia was administered through solid whacks to the head with blunt instruments.

And while the once mighty state (the motto of which, ironically enough, is "To the stars through difficulties") takes a flying leap off the cusp of scholastic skill and spirals into the wastelands of failure, I shed a tear for what might have been.