A good start to the New Year

Thoughts from Kansas has won two Best of 2007 contests. An entry about the vacuity of intelligent design will be in Open Lab 2007, an anthology of the best science blogging of 2007. And my nomination of "The Vitteruvian Man," David Vitter, for Talking Points Memo's Golden Dukes award, prevailed.

In a normal year, Vitter's multistate whoremongering (possibly while wearing diapers) would have been a shoo-in for the category of Best Scandal: Sex and Generalized Carnality. The year that just ended had a bumper crop of elaborate sex scandals, though, from Larry Craig's infamous "wide stance" to a Florida legislator's attempt to pay an undercover cop for gay sex (and subsequent claim that it was actually just a reflection of his racism, not a fetish for gay sex in bathrooms). Thankfully, the judges rose to the challenge, and treated Vitter to the spanking he deserved. No word yet on whether he enjoyed it.

On a side note, my real issue with Vitter was a grudge left over from when we beat back his $100,000 earmark for a creationist group to "improve science education." He called me (and others who objected to his use of federal funds to promote creationism) "hysterics," but I think I've had my revenge.

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