Follow up

About 4 weeks ago I wrote about Rose Gentle's attempt to force the government into holding a full public enquiry over the legality of the invasion of Iraq. Not surprisingly their attempt has failed.

Bereaved mother told inquiry bid 'has no legal basis'

The families of five servicemen killed in Iraq have failed in their attempt to challenge the Government's decision to take Britain to war. They had been pressing for a full public inquiry into the legality of the invasion of Iraq, a move that has been repeatedly rejected by the Government.

The families believe that Tony Blair, who said there was no need to go "back over this ground again and again", should be made publicly accountable for Britain's part in the war. But the High Court yesterday rejected their argument, ruling that they did not have a reasonable basis for pursuing their case. The campaign for the inquiry has been led by Rose Gentle, from Glasgow, whose 19-year-old son Gordon, of the Royal Highland Fusiliers, was killed by a roadside bomb in 2004.

She has said: "All I want is for the Prime Minister to tell the truth about the war

The truth and Tony Bliar are not intimate bed fellows and the establishment has lined up to protect him.

Better news from the US. Intelligent design has been exposed for what it is, namely creationist nonsense masquerading as science.

Teaching of 'Intelligent Design' is outlawed

The campaign to try to force schools in the United States to teach an alternative to Darwinism has suffered a severe set-back after a judge ruled that to do so was a violation of the constitution. The judge also said that proponents of so-called Intelligent Design had repeatedly lied about the religious convictions that drove them.

In a ruling that will reverberate in schools across the country, US District Judge John Jones ruled the Dover school board in Pennsylvania had been wrong to insist that a statement about Intelligent Design (ID) be read to pupils during biology lessons. He said such a policy represented "breathtaking inanity. The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the board who voted for the ID Policy," the judge wrote in a 139-page opinion, following a six-week trial. "It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy."

The ruling is a blow Christian conservatives who in more than 30 states across the US have been pressing for the teaching of Creationism. Some of the members of the Dover school board which voted for the measure were fundamentalist Christians. A number of those members were ousted in an election last month and the president of the new school board said it was unlikely that they would appeal the judge's ruling.

The christians have been very clever out in the US. They are not taking on the full might of the federal government in their attempts to get their dumbass theories taught, but small school boards and local authorities where they can work people over one on one. Isn't there supposed to be a separation of church and state in the US? I've always thought it odd that in the UK where we have an established religion, where the Queen is head of the CofE, where bishops sit in the House of Lords, religion plays practically no role in government, yet in the US the christian right (sic) seems to dominate all political debate.

I was taught by one of those nasty little christian fascists. He taught me that as Sikhs use yogurt to wash the gurdwara flagpole during Vaisakha I should always wash my hands after meeting a Sikh because yogurt is dirty and so are they. He told me that wog stood for western oriental gentleman and so it was a compliment to call coloured people wogs. As I've argued before and will no doubt do again, religion is being used as a weapon to foist a narrow, bigoted agenda on an unsuspecting populous. Tolerance and respect for other faiths falls by the wayside. There is room for us all, but those of us with a secular viewpoint need to take the lead.