Intelligent decision: A federal judge ruled today in Harrisburg, Penn., that “intelligent design” cannot be mentioned in biology classes in the Dover public school district, in what some are calling one of the biggest courtroom clashes on evolution since the 1925 Scopes “monkey” trial.

According to the Associated Press:

Dover Area School Board members violated the Constitution when they ordered that its biology curriculum must include the notion that life on Earth was produced by an unidentified intelligent cause, U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III said.

Several members repeatedly lied to cover their motives even while professing religious beliefs, he said.

The school board policy, adopted in October 2004, was believed to have been the first of its kind in the nation.

“The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy,” Jones wrote.

The board’s attorneys had said members were seeking to improve science education by exposing students to alternatives to Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection. Intelligent-design proponents argue that it cannot fully explain the existence of complex life forms.

The plaintiffs challenging the policy argued that intelligent design amounts to a secular repackaging of creationism, which the courts have already ruled cannot be taught in public schools.
[…]

Before anyone writes PR in outrage over Buck’s use of the phrase “Xmas,” read what one Florida historian says about how much “Christ” has historically been in Christmas.

Dr. Susan Parker of St. Augustine (aka, the nation’s oldest city) said the recent controversy is not only just that – recent – but didn’t exist for people with their hearts in the right place.

People writing letters and reports written centuries ago in Spanish colonial St. Augustine as well as many other parts of the world used the “X” substitute all the time.

Documents conserved in Spain, Cuba, Mexico and the United States reveal this practice.

It was just one more abbreviation in a time when almost everything was hand written. Fingers wearied as the pages of writing piled up and any way to shorten the task was welcome. Certainly the Franciscan friars, writing in their small rooms…did not think of using the X as taking Christ out of the word.

That would have been unthinkable. Throughout the 1600s and 1700s, the missionary friars shortened the Spanish word “Cristianos” as they wrote about the “indios Xianos” (Christian Indians) in Florida.

The X showed up also in the name Cristobal (Spanish for Christopher), too. We do not know if someone of that name felt slighted when it appeared as Xobal (that is, if Xobal could read).

Taking the Christ out of the word for Christmas was no concern, for the Spanish word for the holy day is “Navidad.”

So happy holidays and merry Xmas. Yeah, I said it.

Now you can follow the progress of the anti-Christmas insurgency as it advances toward the North Pole in an assault the pro-“Happy Holidays” rebel leaders have dubbed Operation Kris Kringle:

Top say’s its not a classified location. Guess thats why we didn’t scramble after that reindeer did a fly by. anyway sthat means I can post a photo so you can see what it’s like up here.

This is the forward post.

Hat Tip to DG@MM

Oops, Columba did it again! Florida’s First Lady has commissioned an official state Christmas ornament, depicting West Indian manatees, endangered marine mammals native to Florida. Of course, she failed to acknowledge the environmental policies of her husband, the gov, put the animal at risk. The Southwest Florida Herald Tribune’s Mark Zaloudek:

The official state marine mammal gets top billing this year in “Manatee Dance,” which depicts some manatees frolicking amid water lilies and papyrus. (Just for the record, manatees aren’t likely to eat water lilies, and you’d have a hard time finding papyrus in Florida waters inhabited by manatees, but hey, who am I to challenge an artist’s concept?)

Mark also didn’t mention that the normally gray sea cows are depicted in a cheerier than life red, while the water lillies and papyrus are in artificially festive green and gold. Hey, whatever works.

Jeb, meanwhile, has done so much to make manatees of any color extinct that he was issued an “F” by an environmental group in 2002.

Manatee advocates gathered today at the Florida Press Center to issue Governor Jeb Bush a report card on protection of his “favorite mammal.” Standing in front of a pile of 174 stuffed manatees, representing the number killed by watercraft since the Governor’s October 2000 Manatee Summit, Rodger Schlickeisen, President of the national environmental organization, Defenders of Wildlife, condemned Bush’s performance.

“The Governor receives an ‘F’ in manatee protection,” said Schlickeisen. “Not only has Governor Bush given meaningless lip service to manatee protection, but he is facilitating the active undermining of protections for this endangered animal by special interests and agency officials.”

This isn’t the first time Columba has failed to connect the dots between Bush talk and Bush action. Last month, she had the gall to urge local school officials to put more emphasis on art education. She didn’t mention that her husband cut the funding for such instruction, and that his unswerving emphasis on the FCAT – Florida Comprehensive Acheivement Test – leaves teachers no time for anything but teaching the test. Palm Beach Post:

Florida’s first lady challenged parents and the community to become more involved in arts education and noted the importance of private funding at a time when state and federal dollars are focused less on the arts and more on preparing students to pass standardized tests.

Speaking almost inaudibly at times, the petite, soft-spoken Columba Bush told her audience, “We all share in the responsibility of giving Florida’s children an education in the arts.”

Yeah, but some of us share it more than others, Columba.

Occasionally I leave the house: You won’t catch me at the mall until – well, never – but I have been out to stores and restaurants recently and I noticed that there is one arena in which the put-Christ-back-in-Christmas crowd is winning the Christmas wars: The piped-in music in commercial establishments is predominantly Christmas-related – by a factor, it seemed to me, of 10 to one.

In particular, we were in the Aaron Brothers art supplies store down the street for over an hour on Saturday. Could there be a more Jewish-sounding store name than Aaron Brothers? And we were in West Hollywood, in a metropolitan area that – according to unverified urban myth – has the third or fourth largest Jewish population in the world.

Nonetheless, while we were in the store, the satellite music channel playlist went from one Christmas hymn to another and another: “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” “Starry Starry Night” and even “Ave Maria.” Not a single song mentioned bells.

This is typical of rightwing tactics. They emphasize the visual predominance of “Happy Holidays” messages in commercial settings while carefully omitting a key sensory element: Sound.

Of course, the MSM hasn’t caught onto this and never will.

Btw, there’s evidence the public isn’t buying into the whole War on Christmas charade invented by Fox and friends:

Despite an avalanche of mentions on Fox News, The War on Christmas [written by Fox newsreader John Gibson] continues to do disappointing business. It’s nowhere near breaking through the New York Times best-seller’s list. It’s not even included on USA Today’s expanded list of the top 150 best selling books. In fact, according to Amazon.com’s sales rankings, The War on Christmas is stuck in the 200’s; No. 286 to be specific. The book has sold approximately 30,000 copies since hitting book store shelves nearly two months ago. That’d be decent business for a first-time non-fiction writer. But for a Fox News anchor whose employer won’t stop plugging the title, that sales total is middling at best, which only confirms how manufactured Fox News’ crusade is — even its loyal, Red State viewers aren’t buying it.

Associated Press:

Former Minnesota Sen. Eugene J. McCarthy, whose insurgent campaign toppled a sitting president in 1968 and forced the Democratic Party to take seriously his message against the Vietnam War, died Saturday. He was 89.

McCarthy died in his sleep at assisted living home in the Georgetown neighborhood where he had lived for the past few years, said his son, Michael.

Eugene McCarthy challenged President Lyndon B. Johnson for the 1968 Democratic nomination during growing debate over the Vietnam War. The challenge led to Johnson’s withdrawal from the race.

The former college professor, who ran for president five times in all, was in some ways an atypical politician, a man with a witty, erudite speaking style who wrote poetry in his spare time and was the author of several books.