The Never-Ending Scopes Monkey Trial
The President* of China, Hu Jintao, has promulgated a list of eight virtues he would like all Chinese to incorporate into the conduct of their lives. Among them is "Uphold science; don't be ignorant and unenlightened." We should mass-produce large bronze plaques emblazened with that motto and hang them next to every copy of the Ten Commandments displayed in any school, courthouse, and public building.

*I am uncomfortable with the application of the title of president to non-democratically elected leaders. The President of Germany's job is purely ceremonial, but it is still an elective office. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran, is an anti-Semitic asshole of the highest order, but he's a more or less democratically elected antim-Semitic asshole. No one outside of the Chinese Communist Party** voted for Hu Jintao; so, I am irked that he is described as the President of China.

**China is no longer an economically Communist state, but no one should doubt the absolute power of the CCP over the Middle Kingdom.