Rick Casey, The Houston Chronicle, December 5, 2007 A recent flap at the Texas Education Agency demonstrates why we need to teach history better so we can teach science better. After nine years as the Texas Education Agency's science director, Chris Comer resigned after being suspended for appearing to oppose the "intelligent design" theory of the origins of the universe. TEA officials say other factors were involved in her firing, but e-mails obtained by the Austin American-Statesman make clear that Comer's scientific orthodoxy and apparent political heresy were a major factor. Her mortal sin was that in October she sent an e-mail to an Austin online community announcing an upcoming lecture by Barbara Forrest, a Southeast Louisiana University philosophy professor and co-author of Inside Creationism's Trojan Horse. Forrest is hardly alone in her notion that "intelligent design," which argues that gaps in evolution theory means that a Creator must be responsible for the universe, is itself the creation of biblical creationists. Two years ago a federal judge in Pennsylvania, after listening to six weeks of expert testimony and legal arguments, ruled a school board could not require the teaching of "intelligent design," which he called "creationism relabeled." Read More Here

Karen Matthews, The Associated Press, Dec 5, 2007 NEW YORK - The Archdiocese of New York is handing out coloring and comic books that warn children about sex predators, the first such effort by a Roman Catholic diocese in the United States. In the coloring book, a perky guardian angel tells children not to keep secrets from their parents, not to meet anyone from an Internet chat room and to allow only "certain people" like a doctor or parent to see "where your bathing suit would be." In a comic book version for children over 10, a teenager turns to St. Michael the Archangel for strength to report that two schoolmates are being sexually abused. Joseph Zwilling, a spokesman for the archdiocese, said the have been distributed to about 300 schools and 400 religious education programs to use as a resource. They are also free online. "It's to help young people to know situations they should not get into," he said. "How to be safe — but to try to do it in an age-appropriate and sensitive way." Some critics, while applauding the intent, say the books should say explicitly that trusted adults — including priests — may be the abusers. Read More Here

Walter Cronkite and David Krieger, CommonDreams, December 4, 2007 The American people no longer support the war in Iraq. The war is being carried on by a stubborn president who, like Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon during the Vietnam War, does not want to lose. But from the beginning this has been an ill-considered and poorly prosecuted war that, like the Vietnam War, has diminished respect for America. We believe Mr. Bush would like to drag the war on long enough to hand it off to another president. The war in Iraq reminds us of the tragedy of the Vietnam War. Both wars began with false assertions by the president to the American people and the Congress. Like Vietnam, the Iraq War has introduced a new vocabulary: "shock and awe," "mission accomplished," "the surge." Like Vietnam, we have destroyed cities in order to save them. It is not a strategy for success. The Bush administration has attempted to forestall ending the war by putting in more troops, but more troops will not solve the problem. We have lost the hearts and minds of most of the Iraqi people, and victory no longer seems to be even a remote possibility. It is time to end our occupation of Iraq, and bring our troops home. This war has had only limited body counts. There are reports that more than one million Iraqis have died in the war. These reports cannot be corroborated because the US military does not make public the number of the Iraqi dead and injured. There are also reports that some four million Iraqis have been displaced and are refugees either abroad or within their own country. Iraqis with the resources to leave the country have left. They are frightened. They don't trust the US, its allies or its mercenaries to protect them and their interests. Read More Here

Paul Krugman, The New York Times, December 7, 2007 Imagine this: It's the summer of 2009, and President Barack Obama is about to unveil his plan for universal health care. But his health policy experts have done the math, and they've concluded that the plan really needs to include a requirement that everyone have health insurance — a so-called mandate. Without a mandate, they find, the plan will fall far short of universal coverage. Worse yet, without a mandate health insurance will be much more expensive than it should be for those who do choose to buy it. But Mr. Obama knows that if he tries to include a mandate in the plan, he'll face a barrage of misleading attacks from conservatives who oppose universal health care in any form. And he'll have trouble responding — because he made the very same misleading attacks on Hillary Clinton and John Edwards during the race for the Democratic nomination. O.K., before I go any further, let's be clear: there is a huge divide between Republicans and Democrats on health care, and the Obama plan — although weaker than the Edwards or Clinton plans — is very much on the Democratic side of that divide. But lately Mr. Obama has been stressing his differences with his rivals by attacking their plans from the right — which means that he has been giving credence to false talking points that will be used against any Democratic health care plan a couple of years from now. Read More Here

I live in Omaha.  No, I didn't see the shooting at the Westroads Mall.   I don't shop that far west, since I live in what is laughingly called "Central Omaha."   And yes, it was a tragedy, and I will never make light of any such tragedy.  So this is the only toon I will publish on the subject.   But I do want to take this opportunity to vent about the hypocrisy of the media.  The nine people who died on Wednesday got international attention.  But that was a paltry figure compared to the rest of 2007 in Omaha.  In July alone, we averaged a shooting per DAY.   I have personally called 911 upon hearing gunshots from a vehicle speeding right by my house.  And how many of these news stories made national press?  Not bloody many.  Because, you see, this incident happened in a "nice" part of town.  Not like in that awful downtown area, where, you know, all the brown people live. And it really cheeses me off to see Fox News (and their clones) complaining that the Mall was a "gun-free" zone.    Seriously.   You see, we have a concealed-carry law here in Nebraska, but business owners are allowed to set policy that they don't allow weapons on their property. Now, I'll admit that you'd have to be a pretty stupid business owner to publicly advertise that there are no guns in your store, but that's the way the law was written.   All the same, every witness interviewed has repeated that there was no time to react before the kid finished his shooting spree and turned his weapon on himself.   I emphasize - this was the equivalent of a hit-and-run.  A drive-by in broad daylight.  Throw in a couple-dozen vigilantes and we'd have had a full-scale Tombstone on our hands, with at least twice the death toll. I guess I'm not really going anywhere with this, but I had to get it out.   We have real problems in this city - and in every city - that get ignored until they start affecting the beautiful people.    Robert Hawkins was an apt metaphor - he had a treatable mental condition that should have been caught before it came to this head.   So does Omaha.  So does the nation.