To Rick Santorum and John Cornyn and the others who are apoplectic that the nation doesn't "just trust" them to get this whole war on terror right: WHAT THE HELL DID YOU EXPECT?

Just because you think George W. Bush is a likable guy and you all can maybe have a beer with him doesn't mean he's somebody that we just automatically trust. He and you are all THE GOVERNMENT. You may remember that these United States of America were formed on the notion that you cannot completely trust government, which is why the Founding Fathers came up with a thing called "separation of powers", with no branch of government being able to act without being first checked by the others. Governmental restraint by the law is the foundation of our society. It's what ensures we don't become what we despise: a dictatorship.

Now I'm as disturbed as anybody about why the New York Times didn't get this out as soon as it knew, but I am not going along with these sychophants with aspirations of their own who seem to think standing with Bush and against our fundamental rights as Americans is a good idea. The President of the United States BROKE THE LAW in clear, obvious, arrogant, and defiant fashion. He and anyone who was involved in this should be impeached, removed from office, tried, convicted and sent to prison. Anyone who stands with him deserves to be voted out of office and replaced with someone who will actually uphold the Constitution. We've spiraled to some depths as a nation since this thug became Leader of the Free World, but we still know what's right and what's wrong. This was, as Arlen Specter says, clearly and categorically wrong. Let the hearings begin. Hold these criminals accountable, for the sake of the country, PLEASE.

I listened to NPR's very well done piece yesterday about the ruling in the Dover Intelligent Design case. I was particularly impressed by the judge's ruling, which was thorough, detailed and unassailable. "Intelligent Design" as the fundamentalists posing as scientists and experts would frame it, is not science. In point of fact, what these people would like to do is extinguish scientific inquiry altogether and substitute it with dogma and unquestioning "faith".

I've seen this kind of thinking modeled before. It's not much more than blind submission to a set of ideas without any inquiry into whether any of them are valid. It's part of the "group non-think" of the Religious Right which I've come to believe is dangerous in a free society where competing ideas are vigorously debated. The creationists don't want debate, and they want the law to say that there should be no debate, and they want to force feed their dogma on the rest of us.

Now the idea of "intelligent design" and evolution being debated is an interesting one. But let's be honest about the debate we're having. The reason for scientific inquiry is to help us learn and understand what we don't know. Evolutionary theory has limits and any honest scientist will simply say, "I don't know", when reaching those limits. Intelligent Design theorists, assuming there are any of any scientific weight should acknowledge that their understanding is also limited. I can say that the universe is marvelously complex and entirely too vast to be just a random occurence. There must be an Intelligence at work here. But I'm speaking as a lay person with a particular belief, not a scientist. I have no method of inquiry beyond my own day to day existence of attempting to connect with this Vast Intelligence. That's not going to pass muster with any reputable scientist, and it shouldn't. I don't have the tools to prove my belief scientifically. I would not be so arrogant as to assume that I can teach my belief in a public school biology setting. These "non thinkers" however, are trying to do exactly that. Thank God that reason still prevails in this country! The judge got it entirely right, upheld the Constitution, and stuck a finger in the eye of those who would call the ruling, "judicial activism".

I take note also of the fact that the Federal Judge in this case was appointed by George W. Bush, who as we all know, has not evolved very much.

As to what "Intelligence" designed George W. Bush,(who must be kicking himself for appointing such a "staunch conservative" to the Federal Bench), God only knows.