Seattle-Based Think Tank

Seattle as a city is currently in danger of becoming the guy at the party with the undone zipper. When we come strutting out of the men's room anxious to talk about technology and the environment and progressive politics all anyone can see is the Discovery Institute hanging out of our pants. Seattlest cringes every time the national media references a particular "Seattle-based think tank" - They won't let us pretend for a minute that we're not ground zero of the Intelligent Design "controversy."

Of course, the Discovery Institute is here as opposed to elsewhere precisely because our location lends a certain amount of credibility to even the most inane arguments. "They do research of some kind in Seattle where all those engineers, programmers and molecular biologists live, so they must not be right-wing freakshows trying to send us into a new dark age!" They're a parasite on our intellectual reputation, but what are you going to do? You can't just throw a think tank out of town on their intelligently designed ear.

You just gotta let them hang around until the day they finally join the flat-earth people and the sun-orbits-us people as the comic relief in science textbooks. In the meantime don't take it too personally when the Daily Show or someone points and laughs at our open barn door. In case you missed it, The New Yorker takes a shot in this week's issue:

Day No. 6:

“Today I’m really going out there,” said the Lord God. “And I know it won’t be popular at first, and you’re all gonna be saying, ‘Earth to Lord God,’ but in a few million years it’s going to be timeless. I’m going to design a man.”

And everyone looked upon the man that the Lord God designed.

“It has your eyes,” Zeus told the Lord God.

“Does it stack?” inquired Allah.

“It has a naïve, folk-artsy, I-made-it-myself vibe,” said Buddha. The Inca sun god, however, only scoffed. “Been there. Evolution,” he said. “It’s called a shaved monkey.”

“I like it,” protested Buddha. “But it can’t work a strapless dress.” Everyone agreed on this point, so the Lord God announced, “Well, what if I give it nice round breasts and lose the penis?”

“Yes,” the gods said immediately.

“Now it’s intelligent,” said Aphrodite.

“But what if I made it blond?” giggled the Lord God.

“And what if I made you a booming offscreen voice in a lot of bad movies?” asked Aphrodite.