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It used to be that to call someone a Neandertal, was to hurl a telling insult. You basically were saying, your kinda dumb, kinda out of touch with the world, and kinda doomed to extinction.

No more.

What I love most about science is it’s lack of certainty. Nothing is ever written in stone, but all is subject to the proviso of: “This is true, so far as we know now.”

For decades, perhaps longer, Neandertals were relegated to the failed category. A dead end hominid that couldn’t cut it in a modern world and died out.

Genetics and that wonderful world of genome testing has virtually proven evolution to be true, and at the same time, has re-written the human family tree. That’s why the field is so darned exciting.

Michael Shermer, science writer for Scientific American and Skeptic, explains how Neandertals are now re-categorized as homo sapiens neadertalensis, the sapiens being new. For indeed, they were not a dead end but in fact contribute to the genome that you and I today share. I have no idea why I am glad it is true, but I am.

It’s not so hot today, so far that is. I haven’t even heard a weather report. Not that that means anything if I did. They said we would be hot this week, but would have little actual rain. So far, in three days we’ve had at least three inches. So listening to them is wasting precious minutes of my day. I think mold is growing everywhere, and I’m thinking that weeds will be popping up through the floor any moment. This is SO tiresome.

I read this next one earlier today, but D-Cap explains it in his perfect style and wit. The Phyllis Schafly “son” has joined ma-ma in loolo land, now claiming that Einstein and general relativity is all bunk and just another of those liberal lies. Oh Lordy, Lordy, when will the teabaggin’ crazies combine to make up one good brain?

By the by. I LOVE Greek style yogurt. It is so fantastic that it doesn’t even compare to the regular type. Anybody know why the freakin’ stuff costs an arm and a leg? Is there some serious process that costs billions to create it like this? I would love to know.

William Lindsay has an interesting post at Bilgrimage about the tea party phenom as well as how the elites who have little to do with you and me control these conversations. Interesting take on Catholic conversation and gender domination. As many of us have said, we are the mere puppets in this charade of a national debate. We control no agenda, no topic.

I don’t know about you, but I’m so deathly sick of every politician, right or left who has the unmitigated gall to speak for me in that smarmy “The American people don’t like. . . .” Not a damn one of you has a clue what I don’t like or do. So speak for yourself, since you obviously only vote for yourself.

Big Think does a great article on Ground Zero and religious freedom. Lots of good links so you can continue learning. As I’ve said before, this situation has all the makings of tragedy in the making. In saner heads do not prevail. Be one of the sane ones. Make your opinion known by supporting Muslims in your community, writing letters to the editor, and speaking out clearly. The haters (who are always complaining they are being denied the right to their religion) cannot be allowed to win this one.

I included this one for fun. Ala Sharron Angle’s “I want you to ask the questions I want to answer so that the message we want out there is out there,” state Texan GOP’er, Debbie Riddle was taken aback when Anderson Cooper asked her to provide proof of her allegations. She alleges that terrorists were sending in sleeper pregnant women to give birth to American citizens who would in twenty or so years commit acts of terror. She got this info from FBI sources. She could not, of course, come up with any such sources and ended by accusing Cooper of grilling her, and that his network had not warned her to be prepared with actual answers. TOO FUNNY.

I swear, some day we are gonna find that this was all a monumental comedy hoax perpetrated by Candid Camera. I mean really, how do you grow up to adulthood with no brain? Yet if we listen to the Gopers, apparently dozens of them do.

We hear tell that Dan Quayle dubious VP under Bush numb nuts #1, and all around IQ misfit, has spawned a child called Ben who is carrying on the family dull tradition. Running for office he is calling Obama hands down the worst president in US history. This said with tongue in cheek no doubt. Coming from such illustrious parentage, one can but exclaim–Anyone for duck hunting? But he is running in Arizona, proof positive that the Continental US  is sagging southwest due to an excess of poop. A high colonic please!

Speaking of empty skulls,  I saw an interview with the guy who played piano for years at the WH. He was at Blair House when the Numb nuts #1 returned with the clan following his inauguration. Piano player said he recognized most of the Bushie family members, even the weird one who sat alone in the corner. Any guess who that might be?’

A very long, but very thorough article at Atlantic by Jeffrey Goldberg on Iran, Israel, and US foreign policy. A long haul, but then you come here to learn where to go to be informed right?

And just for fun, here’s a little post about how the British are gearing up to make nice with all the Olympic visitors come 2012. How to talk to foreigners! Enjoy! (Read the comments!)

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