Vatican, meet Darwin

Via Making Light: The Vatican has released a statement in support of Darwin and the Theory of Evolution. And in related news, on the SFF-W list Ashley notes that Pat Robertson told Dover, PA that God would smite it because they got rid of their schoolboard over intelligent design. "They'd get what they deserved, he thundered. So what happens? Iowa votes intelligent design in, and gets tornadoes. So far the weather is fine in PA."

Fencing Solo

Fencing class begins with twenty minutes of footwork drills, or as most of us like to call it, torture. Teeny weeny little advances, larger retreats, mixed in with jumps, lunges, appels, cross-steps forward or back, all faster than my lizard brain can decipher. And then there's forty minutes of class on top of that. And we pay for this. Tonight was cool, though: once all the advanced students who were just there for footwork disappeared, there was left only...me. So the instructor and I did forty minutes of attack work: beat-attacks, ripostes, disengage-attacks, and the like. I am so tired my hair hurts, and the atmosphere inside my fencing gear was distinctly swamplike, but boy was that fun.

Then I came home and had ice cream. And scotch. But not at the same time.