Yabba-Dabba-Do You Believe?

The last time I saw dinos and humans living in peaceful coexistence, it was on The Flintstones. Then came Jurassic Park to dispel those fantasies. But we still have Barney, don't we? And we also have this:

IN THE BEGINNING... The Creation Museum is now open in Petersburg, KY, offering the Biblical story of how the world began in a format rivaling anything from the Smithsonian Institution with claims science backs them up.

From WLWT-TV:

Evolution is derided at this 60,000-square-foot facility, packed with high-tech exhibits designed by an acclaimed theme-park artist, animatronic dinos and a massive ark hewn of wood. In this Old Testament version of history, dinosaurs appeared on the same day God created every other land animal. And what museum would be complete without fossils? Those dusty artifacts are also found here - hung in large glass cases in a room visitors spill into after taking a tour of Old Testament history. [The museum founder] says most fossils, like the ones stored in natural history museums around the world, were created by the massive flood detailed in the book of Genesis.

Scientists offer dismay and condemnation.

From Gregory Farrington, executive director of the California Academy of Sciences in SFGate:

Fundamental religion is based on unquestioning faith, science is based on reason that is continually questioning. They are very different paths. Visitors to the Creation Museum must understand that it is not a science museum -- it is a religious museum, whose re-imaginings of geological and biological evidence have no support from the scientific community.

The organization behind the museum offers a reasonable question:

Answers in Genesis founder Ken Ham said the vast majority of natural history museums and textbooks available to students are devoted to teaching evolution.

"And they're worried about one creation museum?" he said. "I think they're really concerned that we're going to get information out that they don't want people to hear."

True. And if this is the only museum your children visit, we at the Lightning Round would have cause for concern. But we have a different perspective. We see it as another church, without a steeple but with a fixed, multimedia sermon. We also know we live in a country where we are free to believe... or not.

We pose a question to the Creationists: What Would Jesus Do? Perhaps the answer is in John 8:32: "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

But what is the truth?

From NPR:

[Ham] rejects the idea that science has a lock on empirical evidence.

"All scientists have presuppositions that they start with that determine how they interpret evidence," he says, adding that scientists were not around to see dinosaurs walk the Earth anymore than creationists can claim to have been present to observe Adam and Eve.

Maybe it's time to end the debate over how the world began and work on the problems of the world today.

HANDS OFF. A New Hampshire man refused to shake Mitt Romney's hand because of the GOP presidential contender's Mormon faith.

From the AP:

"I'm one person who will not vote for a Mormon," said the disgruntled patron.

When Romney asked if he could shake the man's hand anyway, the diner refused.

In a follow-up interview, the patron said he plans to vote for Senator Hillary Clinton.

When your Lightning Round contacted him, we got this response: "He's a Mormon? Oh, sorry. At first I didn't hear that second 'M'."

YOU GOTTA BE KIDNEYING ME. A Dutch TV show called "The Big Donor" is offering the winner a kidney transplant from a dying woman. Doctors are shaking their heads, according to BBC:

"The scenario portrayed in this programme is ethically totally unacceptable," said Professor John Feehally, who has just ended his term as president of the UK's Renal Association.

"The show will not further understanding of transplants," he added. "Instead it will cause confusion and anxiety."

Here in America, inside sources tell your Lightning Round a similar show will offer a spinal transplant. Contestants will be drawn from Congress.

UPDATE: Hours after we went to blog, wire editor Dominic Duplex ran to us out of breath with this urgent dispatch from the AP:

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) - A Dutch television show in which a woman would supposedly donate a kidney to a contestant has been revealed as a hoax. Presenters say they were trying to pressure the government into reforming organ donation laws. The show says the three prospective recipients are real patients in need of transplants, and had been in on the hoax.

Heckuva way to lobby.

FAHRENHEIT 451. Used bookseller Tom Wayne wanted to get rid of some excess inventory, but he found he couldn't give his extra volumes away. So he burned them. And he enjoyed it.

From the AP:

"This is the funeral pyre for thought in America today," Wayne told spectators outside his bookstore as he lit the first batch of books.

Firefighters put out the burning pages because he didn't have a permit. Wayne says he'll get one and keep on burning until his entire supply of 20,000 books disintegrates into ash.

"After slogging through the tens of thousands of books we've slogged through and to accumulate that many and to have people turn you away when you take them somewhere, it's just kind of a knee-jerk reaction," he said. "And it's a good excuse for fun."

In all fairness, Wayne is offering to spare these volumes from the flames by selling them to you for $1 a book plus postage. But Wayne, there is recycling.

THAT'S ALL. Cindy Sheehan is stepping down from her role as anti-war activist, exasperated at what she sees as America's war mentality.

From the AP:

When she had first taken on Bush, Sheehan was a darling of the liberal left. "However, when I started to hold the Democratic Party to the same standards that I held the Republican Party, support for my cause started to erode and the 'left' started labeling me with the same slurs that the right used," she wrote.

She's now being accused of "cut and run."

WORD UP! Officials evacuated a high school in Edinburg, TX after finding a junky car in the parking lot painted with the words, "Da Bomb." Seven seniors are now in trouble.

From The Monitor of McAllen, TX:

All seven will graduate, Edinburg schools Superintendent Gilbert Garza said, but they won’t be attending Saturday’s graduation ceremony.

Garza was unsure if the district would try to press criminal charges against the students, however.

Meanwhile, faculty are getting a lesson in street slang -- old school, perhaps.

Look up "Da Bomb" on UrbanDictionary and you get:

A really stupid way of saying something's awesome... I mean how old is it now??

Which means our seven seniors are "wick," too.