A little intelligent design in your stocking, by George

'Tis the season, when people step on your toes, grab the last hot toy from your sweaty palms but wish you a Merry Christmas anyway. All this forced good will gets on my nerves. And just when I think it cannot get any worse, George W. Bush does something that really sends me over the edge.

This year, I've read, the President and his ever lovely Stepford wife have chosen as their Christmas greeting an Old Testament quotation from Nehemiah, which seems to affirm his belief in intelligent design, you know, Creationism by another name. Other presidents were happy to settle for a non-denominational "Season's Greetings," but not George.

Christmas in the United States has nothing to do with the birth of anybody, much less the Christian Christ and I will not bore you with my treasure trove of Christmas trivia from around the world. Suffice to say, it's a pagan mid-Winter festival dressed up in religious attire. And if you are going to practice Peace on Earth and Good Will to Men in December, why can't you do so during the 11 preceding months?

Now, I am willing to bet that if confronted, George will make doe eyes and claim that the passage about how the Lord made the heaven's and earth has nothing to do with intelligent design, and, because it comes from the Old Testament, it isn't even Christian, so there. Begging the question about who, other than fundamentalist Christians, believe that the Theory of Evolution is so much anti-Christian poppy cock.

What really offends me about the Shrub (and let me count the ways), is that his choice of a religious theme shows a lack of respect for the non-Christians who receive it. I assume, of course, and I could be wrong, that George will send the card to various ambassadors, for example, some of whom just might not be Christian. I guess the religious intolerance comes without extra charge.

I don't really care what flavor of worship turns you on, that's your business. But I do resent the Christian aspects of this very secular celebration and I know that those crazy Puritans who first fled to the Colonies did so in part to be away from the kind of Christmas frivolities we take for granted. The kind of fundamentalist pandering appeals to the yokels in Kansas who built a "science" museum to Creationism, but it should fill the majority of US citizens, who do not buy into this political-religious cant with horror and disgust. Loving the Lord, in whatever permutation, has nothing to do with patriotism, regardless of what George Waterboard Bush says.

As far as I'm concerned this proves there is no God. If God existed, he (or she) would have struck Georgie and his fundamentalist pals stone dead years ago. Meanwhile, I'm counting down the days until the next election, and I don't care who wins as long as it isn't Mike Huckabee.

Oh, by the way, Happy Holidays!