....but first: Allie - say thanks to your father for me...

re: satire or not? I'm by no means sure, but I've read much of what Mr. Keillor has written. My impression is that he is a writer - in the sense of someone who loves words and chooses them carefully.

But I think it probably is satire. I don't know if he chose his own headline, but the juxtaposition of the folksy "bygones" with "war crimes" is rather jarring.

But the main thing is: why trains? Why not airplanes, or potholes, or snow removal? Why choose having the trains run on time, the ultimate sardonic metaphor of ends justifying means?

I dunno, it would seem very much more coincidental and sloppy than I'd like to think him capable of as a writer that I admire.

As for why he hasn't spoken up up to clue us in, why would he? He must have known what the reaction would be, and if he'd wanted to explain himself, he would have already (and maybe he did).

Anyway, Mr. Keillor, if you are serious, then I'd simply ask, why not the liquor store robbers or car thieves? I'm sure their families would like them back as well, and if we only allowed bygones to be bygones....

If it is satire, then congratulations, I think you may have found that story you lost in the Portland train station.

Where were all these commentors and conservatives against political retribution during Clinton's impeachment trial?

...worry. If it gets here in some sort of epidemic fashion, then I'll pay attention, but until then I'm just going to relax and continue licking pig snouts whenever I feel like it.

The problem with this notion that voters will soon embrace Republican ideology is that Republicans have been in power for most of the past 40 years, including the past 8. During that time, they screwed the pooch. The fact that Gingritch must now resort to fantasy to smear his opponant, shows that the Republicans have not learned a thing.

The American people are smart enough to recognize that a 3% tax cut for the middle class does not make us Sweeden. Gingritch in particular is in no position to talk. It turned out that his Contract was, indeed, ON American, not with her.

Wingnut skillfully illustrates how one can take a few facts out of context and make it appear that the Obama administration is anti-science,

when it certainly is not. Earlier in the piece he illustrated with equal skill that one can do the same to make the Bush administration appear to have been pro-science when it was not.

He even made a valient attempt to make the argument that Bush policies on stem cells, one of the most outrageously anti-science policies in decades, were pro-science. Thatrtevvggggggea

n

.....I note my letter around page 10 kind of trailed off. I was trying to get the post in before the Ambien kicked in, but didn't quite make it.

Anyway, I was just saying that Bush's stem cell policy was profoundly anti-science, and the fact that wingnut thinks it science-positive only shows that He doesn't get science at all.

Sorry Doc, but a quantum leap is not "by definition" the smallest leap one can make. A quantum leap is instead a leap of any length where the leaper does not appear to have passed through the space between the origin and the destination ( or through any space for that matter). The leaper is at one location in one instant and somewhere else the next instant. And really this is not an adequate definition either, since the essence of quantal theory is that you are uncertain of the location of the leaper at a given instant. You only know the bounds of where the leaper might be and the leapers energy. Indeed, in the truest essence of these odd physics, there is no leap. The leaped is everywhere at once. The quantal chicken may or may not have lept the road, but last time I saw her she was moving really fast!

While it may be true that a short quantum leap is a higher probability event than a long one, large leaps can exist, and this, smallness is not essential to the definition. Indeed, in a sense one could argue that the 'smallest' definition implies the opposite of what makes a quantal leap what it is. The smallest possible non-zero leap would be to the next adjacent scintilla of space, and this not quantal at all because it lacks the essential quantal characteristic of having disappeared from one spot and appeared in another.

All Hail Heisenberg!

OMG! Seriously?

Let's get a few things straight. The Theories of Evolution and Natural Selection are scientific explanations for the development of life on Earth. They are in and of themselves comprehensive explanations of the same, and are fully supported by giga-shitloads of actual tangible data. . Creationism is a religous explanation, not supported by scientific evidence. Spaghetti Monsterism is a parody of the creation story that was concocted from whole cloth to illustrate that one could come up with a creation myth supported by the same amount of tangible evidence as the Judeo/Christian creation story (and to poke some fun at global warmers too). The other creation ideas you mention are simply errant nonsense. None of these ideas belong on the same level as Evolution and Natural Selection.

Teaching nonsense to kids is not opening their minds, it addling them. Should creationism be taught in schools?Maybe. Maybe it should be taught in comparative religions class, or maybe in Social Studies. Should Spaghetti Monsterism? Sure! If you are trying to make a point about the validity of one creation myth vs another. But they should not be taught in science because THEY ARE NOT SCIENCE!!

As far as your ideas about GlobalnWarmimg ryderedzffrsfdfd