Hockey fans!

And now for something completely different....

......Any hockey fans out there? maybe some beer league players on you holiday shopping list?
Heads up! there are just 2 days left to acquire the collectible, First Ceremonial Labatt Hockey Beer Bag, now being auctioned to the highest bidder on eBay. Click here for the full story. Bidding is hot, as there is a movement in Canada to reclaim the expatriated bag :-)
100 percent of the proceeds will be donated to the Save Babies Through Screening Foundation, a national nonprofit charity working to prevent disabilities and early death resulting from disorders detectable through newborn screening.
Click on the link below (or paste it in your browser) to bid on the now famous Labatt Beer Bag.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Labatt-Hockey-Beer-Bag-Previously-Unavailable-in-USA_W0QQitemZ7205155437QQcategoryZ58113QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Vote for Impeachment

Recently I was scratching my head over a poll taken after Bush's Oval Office speech, showing that something like 41% of Americans still approve of Bush's handling of the war in Iraq (who are these people? don't they read or listen to the news? how can they possibly approve of a trumped-up war based on flagrant lies that has killed thousands, with no end in sight? Since when is it patriotic to support war-profiteering and torture and anarchy? Are they just in denial, or can they really be so gullible as to believe the Shrub's latest speech? Tricky Dick nailed himself with only one line "I am not a crook." But Bush droned on and on with his implausible denials -- we don't torture, the war is going well, etc. etc.)

Anyway, it is reassuring to see the results of this MSNBC poll.

Creationism Is Not Science

Well, duh. And didn't the Supreme Court rule very clearly, way back in 1987, that creationism cannot be taught in public schools? y'know, because of that whole Constitutional separation of church and state thing.

But neither logic nor the law has ever been a barrier to a certain breed of fundamentalist faithful for whom church and Sunday school are inadequate venues to teach their religion. They persist in trying to ram the tenets of their belief system down the gullets of public school students.

Their latest approach has been to promulgate as a "science" the theory of so-called "intelligent design." The proponents of this theory disingenuously avoid any mention of You-Know-Who, but insist that living beings are so complex, that, golly gee whiz, they couldn't possibly have evolved according to mere scientific principles -- no, they must have been created by an unidentified, nameless (wink wink, nudge nudge) Intelligent Designer.

When this theory was urged on a school district in Dover, Pennsylvania, it caused a rift in the town and eventually landed in the Federal courts. (For a fascinating and colorful report of the case, check out The New Yorker issue of Dec. 5, 2005; click here for a Q & A with the author)

U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III (a Republican and Bush appointee) has just ruled that the school district cannot teach 'intelligent design' as an alternative to evolution, because it is a religious belief -- not a science, but a mere re-labeling of creationism, which relies on the existence of a Christian God. (click here for Washington Post story.)

Well, phew. That's settled. Until the fundamentalists come up with some other disguise for imposing their religious beliefs on scientific education.

C'mon, folks....you don't have to be ignorant to be faithful. Many scientists are devout believers in God. They cite the wonders they discover through science as confirming their belief in a supreme being. But that doesn't stop them from adhering to scientific principles.

Human-kind, whether evolved over millions of years from the primeval ooze or landing fully grown in the Garden of Eden, is possessed of a relatively large brain.

For God's sake (in the literal, not blasphemous, sense) -- use it. Or lose it.