I am reading this article trying to wrap my mind around all of these perspectives and I find myself approaching both beliefs from a philosphical perspective. Neither is a proven concept and I think that both raise very important ideas and could really help teach students to think for themselves. Intelligent Design is not a science no matter how many ways you present it or show how Darwinism has not been proven. Critical thinking people who have learned to learn are what I want to see coming out of our school system. Lets teach them that there are many different ways to view beliefs on God and creation and have a class on that. It does no good to push religious dogma into science classes simply because there is no good proven idea on how man was created or life itself for that matter. It would be synonmous to having heaven and hell being presented in science because we have no proven scientific data on what happens after death.

Wow! Those are some very involved concepts. I don't know if you are doing a good thing or not either. I can understand your friends at Greenpeace. It would be brilliant if we could actually implement some real enviromental change so that we didn't have to run the risk of altering an enzyme or some bacteria that has far reaching consequences that we can not even speculate about. It is distrurbing that we still have this false sense of being able to use some new science to bail us out of irresponsible enviromental behavior and policies.

That's the argument of flexibility, " Scalia said, "and it goes something like this: 'The Constitution is over 200 years old and societies change. It has to change with society, like a living organism, or it will become brittle and break.' But you would have to be an idiot to believe that."

The belief or exepectation that the framers of the Constitution were all knowing and without error in the perceptions of what freedom means or will mean in 200+ years let alone 25 or 50 years is unreasonable. In my opinion it is a copout and allows those of us who have less than favorable views of certain members of our society to hide behind the term "scrict constructionist" whenever they want to impose their values or limit the rights of the minority in favor of the majority. The Constitution in my humble opinion was more of a strong base. A document that a free society would be able to build on to be applicable in humanities ever changing times. As far as societies go it would behoove us to learn form some of our predecessors like the Roman and Chinese Dynasties. They too came from the perspective that they were the greatest societies or empires in the world. You will find that those times when they were most flexible and open minded about change were the mile stones in their histories that allowed them to continue and grow. It is only when people believe that all that is good and right has allready been expressed and there is no need for further dialogue or no possible way that these wonderful concepts could ever be improved is when we begin our decline.

Expect Democrats and some Republicans to insist that they have won some significant improvements to the Patriot Act. Don't believe it. The few minor concessions they got from the White House are a fig leaf to disguise a complete about-face. Thanks to this deal, the White House will be emboldened in its fear-mongering, Democrats will be perceived as timid, and the American people will still face the prospect of government intrusion into their private affairs. Some deal.

I do not understand why the preoccupation with the fight over the Patriot Act. The President has already shown that he believes that he can do anything he deems necessary so long as he labels it a tool to be used in the War on Terror. Each and every time he gets in hot water whether it be over the lack of weapons of mass destruction or secret wire taps the Administration plays the fear card. Either they use 9/11 or they paint images of a nuclear mushroom cloud as in Condi Rice's on air remarks or Collin Powell's address to the United Nations. While I agree that certain aspects of the Patriot Act are dangerous and unnecessary; I also believe that it has no real influence over what the government will actually do. It is time to be concerned. We have few prospects for real leadership in either party and those that show any potential for going against the grain are disposed of as soon as their usefullness has expired, as with Paul Hackett of Ohio. I appreciate Senator Feingold's candor regarding the Patriot Act and his acknowledgment of the fear mongering. However, we have not asked ourselves a very fundamental question. With all that we now know, what shall we or can we do about it? It seems to me that these problems are all a part of a much bigger problem which I believe is a systemic problem; how power and influence overshadows the best and most important purpose of our government; to represent and address the needs of it's citizenary.