Unintelligent design.

Stealing valuable time from his busy schedule of clearing brush on what apparently is the most brush-infested ranch in the country, President Brush encouraged our country's school districts to incorporate into their teaching plans both sides of the debate regarding the development of humanity: evolution, the theory that man descended from an infinite number of apes typing on an infinite number of typewriters, and Intelligent Design, the idea that an unseen force (not necessarily god--but not ungodlike either) nudged our genes with big giant invisible fingers to the point where no child is left behind.

This is shocking to the same degree that goats eat shoes. Especially to anyone who's been semi-cognizant the last five years and watched Mr. Bush work his backward magic personally disproving Darwin with a series of policies stripping workers and minorities and women and anyone who isn't an energy producer of their rights.

Not only does the President not believe in evolution, but ironically he has become his own best argument. Not to mention that ID is just Creationism with a container load of aluminum siding tacked on. They try to dress it up as science, but then the lab coat slips and the collar emerges whenever you ask just who this Intelligent Designer behind the Intelligent Design is and the answer comes: "I don't know, who do YOU think it is?" OK. Hasn't anybody figured out that all these Creationism adherents have never copped to the fact that over the years religion itself has adapted?

One of the logic wedges Intelligent Designers like to jump onto with both semantic feet is the fact that Charles Darwin called his discovery "The Theory of Evolution." "See. It's just a theory!" Oh come on, grow up. What's next? Are you going to require the Principle of Atomic Force to attend PTA meetings? What about the Law of Gravity? Does an initiative for repeal lie in its immediate future?

The theory of Intelligent Design maintains life on Earth is too complex to have developed through evolution. Too complex? Oh, no! You mean there are things we don't know? Heaven forbid.

Of course there are things we don't know. We have brains the size of peas. And I tell you, we keep dumbing down our schools, it won't be long before the concept of mint fudge seems complicated. Not to mention the concept of innocent until proven guilty. Wasn't too long ago people thought a solar eclipse was a dragon eating the sun as it rode across the sky on the back of a giant turtle. But that was just my Uncle Bud draining a six-pack on his riding mower.

Now don't get me wrong, the Bible is a great book, but it has as much to do with science as gummy bears have to do with aerospace navigation. As far as science goes: It makes a great paperweight. How soon before 2 + 2 equals whatever God wants it to be? Back in the seventeenth century, Galileo proposed the Earth revolved around the sun, not the other way around, and was promptly convicted of heresy and imprisoned for the rest of his life at a time when home detention did not include even halfway decent satellite reception. In response to his pardon from the Catholic Church 400 years later, Galileo conveniently was unavailable for comment.

If these people are really seeking alternative theories as to how life originated, I got a doozy. Santa killed the evil Martian overlords and flew us here from Pluto on his sled. How about that? Hey, it's a theory! And I want to see it included on the blackboard of every science classroom as part of the new curriculum: Evolution, Intelligent Design, and Santa's Sled. At least my Santa Sled Theory is flexible enough to explain the reason for the human appendix--Martian mark of the insurgent.

Political comic Will Durst still has his appendix.