Santorum is the least popular senator among his constituents, and is the most likely to be unseated in 2006. My view is that Casey will beat him. There is reason to his half-retreat from madness.

But in general the Pat Robertson episode probably really sent this whole issue south (no pun intended) for the GOP. If Bush or Santorum had repeated their earlier pro-ID comments they would have sounded too much like Pat.

It really is a joy watching him inflicting damage. He's a walking talking PR desaster. Way to go, Pat!

So, is Santorum now a flip-flopper? Can't wait to to see those swift boat style ads from Pat about Santorum :)

Sorry for this: ONLY 15 percent of Americans believe in evolution! How are we still a worldpower?

"We'll be too stupid to cook crystal meth."

ROFL!!!!!

You know I have long wondered how we are still the World Super Power when we are so...insanely...STUPID. Not just stupid, but paronoid as well. We're terrified of anthrax in the mail, terrorists bombing buildings, terrorists hijacking airplanes, killer bees, black people, guns, bird-flu, mad-cow, HIV, 2nd hand smoke etc etc etc....

How in the hell do we operate when most Americans are running around screaming? I realized that it's only the common apathetic American that completely trusts their government that does this. IE The majority of the nation that didn't even vote last presidential election. These people are not the ones actually making the decisions or running our country. They're your Wal-Mart employees who are too busy trying to scrape a living together that they probably haven't even had time to realize the BS that our goverment has been pulling.

And no, their apathy is not a good thing at all. They need to stop just trusting the government and FOX News and actually do a little interpretation themselves. There in is the problem though...how do you convince the majority of lazy Americans to...well...READ? Hell I can barely motivate myself to read my textbooks and I'm a college student - imagine how much harder it is to convince the Grocery Clerk to actually read the Downing Street Memo?

"Blah blah I hate my country because I'm so smart and blah blah"

Hey raving jackass, perhaps you can explain how someone can be 'running around screaming' and be 'apathetic'? Where does someone learn this type of idiocy?

"I can barely motivate myself to read my textbooks and I'm a college student"

Ah ha.

Plonk.

I make up part of the 85% of Americans who do not believe in evolution. I choose to believe in what the Bible says instead of what science theorizes. Having faith in things that on their surface seem totally absurd (the great flood, the Ark, the parting of the Red Sea, the burning bush, a baby born of a virgin, the resurrection, etc.) is what produces the peace that religion can bring to a person and a nation. Believing in those things which any educated person should normally find totally impossible is the reason most people who consider themselves religious have peace and joy in their lives. Faith in God brings calm to my life.

I was most impressed by Michigan which is not only against Evolution but Global warming as well. Way to insure the future goes down the crapper. Poindexter, getting all of them to read is reaching too far...getting them to stop taking everything at face value would be a better aim.

Joe,

What's your point? Do you always cut and paste text and add witless dung?

Idiocy??? Isn't it time for you to go point at the kettle and call it something? (not saying poindexter is the pot)

"Believing in those things which any educated person should normally find totally impossible is the reason most people who consider themselves religious have peace and joy in their lives. Faith in God brings calm to my life."

Though I wouldn't go as far as to say "most people", I agree that faith is incredibly powerful and can be a source of peace and joy. Polarizing issues that send some people to either extreme of the political spectrum help to undermine individual thought. By dividing the populace on issues like evolution, we erect barriers from false stereotypes, which causes the dialogue to stagnate. I agree with evolutionary theory (and it is a theory), but theories on the origins of life are too sketchy. Does it seem a reasonable timeframe to have such evolutionary diversification in less than 4 billion years? Does it seem a reasonable timeframe to have such diverse organisms after 6 days of Creation? Though we have several different forms of evidence for evolutionary theory and the origin of life, the puzzle pieces that fossil records and carbon dating provide are not complete. They are pieces without coherence as a whole. Not to say that I believe in Creationism or Intelligent Design, but I merely want to suggest that our notions of what is fact may be leaps of faith in and of themselves. Perhaps instead polarizing people over this issue, we should develop a forum of dialogue that aims at truth. What I see as truth is not simply fact, but the magical alchemy of fact and humanistic value that will give us an exacting science that will show us the what and how, and an enlightening mythology that will give us the why. We must know both the possible and the impossible, the explanation of how the physical world works as well as the personal significance we assign through our own faith.

Having a functioning, rational intellect gives me plenty of peace and joy in my life. I've always liked the power of a healthy brain. It's one of the reasons I've never taken drugs. Why mess with a good thing?

religion could never come close to satisfying my intellectual needs.