MSM does FSM!

Incredibly, from the Wichita Eagle - Evolution debate spawns a saucy monster

Move over, Darwin. Stand aside, Intelligent Design.

The idea that a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the world is demanding equal time in Kansas biology classrooms.

In his corner are three moderate state school board members and a prominent Topeka attorney. They say this concept makes about as much sense as proposed science standards, favored by the board's religious conservative majority, that encourage schools to criticize evolution while they teach it.

Bobby Henderson of Corvallis, Ore., created the tongue-in-cheek deity and an accompanying mythology on the origin of mankind to satirize the Kansas Board of Education's ongoing flap over evolutionary theory.

Since June, when the spaghetti monster made his Internet debut, the parody religion has grown into a full-fledged Internet phenomenon.

Henderson said his Web site -- www.venganza.org -- has had 19 million visits, including 4 million in two days last week.

A search for "Flying Spaghetti Monster" on the Google search engine turns up 96,000 hits. Yahoo offers 171,000 Web pages on the topic.
...
Pedro Irigonegaray, a Topeka lawyer who defended evolution at board hearings in May, hasn't been touched by the noodly appendage.

But, he said, "I have made myself available to the spaghetti monster as counsel of record, at no charge."

Why?

"When I was in the hearings, I really felt like I was back in the 16th century," he said. "Why not allow every ridiculous notion to be taught in science classes?"
...
Conservative state school board member Kathy Martin of Clay Center said the spaghetti monster is only funny at first glance. "So they really think... serious criticism of evolution is a joke," she said.

"I think probably someone who is very creative doesn't have enough to do," she added. "I think I'll continue to eat my spaghetti and not believe in it."

Martin said she's received probably "dozens" of e-mails about the spaghetti monster. But, she added, "I don't consider it a legitimate movement at all."

"I don't mind the e-mails; I can just delete those," she said.

But when she got a phone message at her home from a man who politely urged her to support the teaching of spaghetti monster theory in the schools, she made a harassment complaint and turned the name and number he left on her machine over to the sheriff's department.
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while the spaghetti monster dominates the message traffic, a growing segment is advocating "intelligent falling," a creation of The Onion, a satirical newspaper.

Intelligent falling spoofs Intelligent Design by contending that gravity is an unproved theory and students should be taught the possibility that objects fall because a higher being is pushing them down.

I dunno if we win by turning the whole ID affair into a Monty Python sketch. But there is only one way to find out.