Come back, Clarence, we need you

Developments on the science front, first from the NYT:

Starting this summer, the [Texas] state education board will determine the curriculum for the next decade and decide whether the “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution should be taught. The benign-sounding phrase, some argue, is a reasonable effort at balance. But critics say it is a new strategy taking shape across the nation to undermine the teaching of evolution, a way for students to hear religious objections under the heading of scientific discourse.

My goodness ... the pinheads are still trying to eliminate the teaching of the basis of biology. Read it all here,
And from the neat science blog, The Loom, evolution in action:

One of the most important experiments in evolution is going on right now in a laboratory in Michigan State University. A dozen flasks full of E. coli are sloshing around on a gently rocking table. The bacteria in those flasks has been evolving since 1988--for over 44,000 generations. And because they've been so carefully observed all that time, they've revealed some important lessons about how evolution works.

And, for all of that fascinating story, click here. We can't make it into the 21st Century if we can't make it into the 20th.