Who Says Voting Can't Change Things?
Here is a story of a real upset that proves again that when voters make up their minds to stand up for something and vote that way, they can have an impact. The following was from Yahoo! News and Reuters:

'Intelligent-design' school board ousted in Penn
By Jon Hurdle Wed Nov 9,12:35 AM ET

DOVER, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - Voters on Tuesday ousted a Pennsylvania local school board that promoted an "intelligent-design" alternative to teaching evolution, and elected a new slate of candidates who promised to remove the concept from science classes.

The board of Dover Area School District in south-central Pennsylvania lost eight of its nine incumbents in an upset election that surprised even the challengers, who had been hoping for a bare majority to take control of the board.

The new board, which includes teachers, opposed the incumbents' policy of including intelligent design in science classes.

What a great civics lesson for the students of Dover, PA. I tend to be one of those who feels that I.D. is not science, never has been science, never will be science. It is an article of faith. There is no reason in the world why we need to have a conflict between science and faith.

I tend to side with the Cardinal in this story from last week on Yahoo! News from the Associated Press.

Fri Nov 4,10:12 AM ET VATICAN CITY -
A Vatican cardinal said Thursday the faithful should listen to what secular modern science has to offer, warning that religion risks turning into "fundamentalism" if it ignores scientific reason.

Cardinal Paul Poupard, who heads the Pontifical Council for Culture, made the comments at a news conference on a Vatican project to help end the "mutual prejudice" between religion and science that has long bedeviled the Roman Catholic Church and is part of the evolution debate in the United States.

The Vatican project was inspired by Pope John Paul II's 1992 declaration that the church's 17th-century denunciation of Galileo was an error resulting from "tragic mutual incomprehension." Galileo was condemned for supporting Nicolaus Copernicus' discovery that the Earth revolved around the sun; church teaching at the time placed Earth at the center of the universe.

"The permanent lesson that the Galileo case represents pushes us to keep alive the dialogue between the various disciplines, and in particular between theology and the natural sciences, if we want to prevent similar episodes from repeating themselves in the future," Poupard said.

"The faithful have the obligation to listen to that which secular modern science has to offer, just as we ask that knowledge of the faith be taken in consideration as an expert voice in humanity."

I guess that shows that people can learn from their mistakes in the past and seek to be an intelligent voice in what can be a raucous debate.