How is this the Democrat's failure? From what I can tell, they were all voting in favor of overriding the veto along with a number of Republicans. It was the Republican minority of a minority that successfully blocked the bipartisan attempt to provide health care to poor kids. This was "conservative" Republican obstructionism pure and simple. I have been unhappy with how the Democrats have performed thus far, but not on this. They did the best they could given the recalcitrance of the other side. Frankly, though, I think this a good thing. If they stick to their guns on the current bill, they can make sure that this is the epitome of a Pyhrric victory for Bush and his minions. This is a loss the good guys should be glad for. It provides an ongoing issue with which to hammer the thugs of the Republican party going into next year, a good issue for the Democratic nominee, and, should SCHIP be kicked far enough down the road, it can be expanded further and passed under a Democratic president. Without further compromise, this is a winning defeat for the good guys. I don't think that is to be moaned about. FISA on the other hand...

It says something about the Republicans that this is what they are doing. No wonder they govern incompetently, given that things like this shows them to be a party run by children. This is school yard garbage.

I still don't get the Hillary thing. I have my problems with her. She is too cautious and too conservative, though I will vote for her if she is the nominee. Whatever else she might be, she is a thoughtful, competent person. The thing is, though, that the whole Republican hatred of here is based on propaganda and hate utterly disconnected from reality. The woman is really pretty conservative in the classic sense (as opposed to "conservative" in the modern sense of hatred, incompetence, radical power grabs, cronyism, corruption, and economic irresponsibility), and yet they have spent almost two decades making her out to be a female version of Eugene Debs. Despite the fiction of the depiction, this is believed by the right. Are people really so afraid of strong women than they are easily fooled by such propaganda, or is this just a matter of proof that the Nazis were correct that lies repeated often enough will always be believed? I don't know. What frightens me, though, is that, were Hillary the nominee (likely), and were she elected (likely), I have no doubt that a right-wing nutjob steeped in all that hatred for her will attempt to assassinate her pretty quickly. I wonder if this weighs on her. She seems a good person. I wonder what it is like to have been such a target of such hatred for so long for so little reason. I wonder how much these considerations will be factored into the potential future decision on a running mate. (Sorry for the rambling)

Science has to change. Science may be understood as a recursive method of generation a correct picture or conception about the universe. Provision conceptions and descriptions are put forth, tested, and those that are thereby found accurate are retained. New conceptions and descriptions are put forward, tested, accepted or rejected, and so on. Old, accepted conceptions are not privileged, but are also tested even as they are used as springboards to new ideas. Some networks of conceptions such as evolutionary theory and atomic theory, after sufficient testing, are generally regarded as being really good descriptions of reality, and most of the work done on them are at the very margins where details are fleshed out (thankfully, this is still a fruitful effort, as I would otherwise be out of a job). Nothing, however, is regarded as set. If it were, then inquiry would stop. Science thus changes continually as our understanding of the universe grows in detail and nuance. How is this a bad thing? Fundamentalists fail to understand this as a good thing. They regard all they need to know as having been set down in their books, and no refinement be sought. In terms of advancing of understanding, this is a sterile course. For the comfort of certainty they get stasis. This is sad. Maybe it is the Unitarian Universalist in me, but I would think that the concept of God/god/gods/goddess/goddesses would be a proper one for continuous revision. Maybe it is just that I tend to think that this concept <<is>> a concept that we developed that I think this. I still don't see how it is a bad thing.

With all due respect, acceptance of evolutionary theory only requires a leap of faith if you don't know much about it. Study some basic texts to get yourself conversant with the basics. Then go to the nearest university library and peruse the literally millions of pages of research on various aspects of evolutionary biology in academic journals, and you will likely agree. As for the problems with inferential rather than observational science, we cannot directly observe individual electrons either. Does this mean that it is justifiable to believe that electrons don't exist, and that such phenomena as electricity are literally mediated by little demons? I don't think that religion is necessarily in conflict with science, but there is certainly a conflict between the universe that science describes and the universe described in fundamentalist readings of their basal documents. Genesis literally read presents an undeniably false description of the origins of the world, but not necessarily when read metaphorically. Science and religion are not the same, though they should both be studied and kept in mind. It is important to realize that religion and science seek to understand the universe and our place in it in very different ways, and it is not reasonable to attempt to understand each by the use of the lenses of the other. I cannot stress enough how important this is to keep in mind.