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THE SMITHSONIAN, AMERICA’S TROJAN HORSE? The Smithsonian Institution, a private/public enterprise founded by James Smithson, a Brit who had never even visited the United States, was designated to be built, “for the increase & diffusion of Knowledge among men” and by 1855 by act of Congress it was established and fully constructed on the Washington Mall. By any estimation, the Smithsonian complex of 19 museums, 9 research centers, and 140 affililiated museums worldwide has to be considered the pearl of Washington, D.C. It opens its huge doors free to millions of public visitors annually who marvel at its exhibits even...

Washington, DC -- A new exhibit at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery celebrates women's contributions to America but honors a handful of abortion advocates. The exhibit touts Margaret Sanger, the founder of the nation's largest abortion business, Planned Parenthood, and others. Read the full story and take action at: http://www.LifeNews.com/nat4423.html

WASHINGTON — Some mysteries are such fun you almost don't want to know the truth. That may help explain why people are fascinated with crystal skulls. "People like to believe in something greater than themselves," Smithsonian anthropologist Jane MacLaren Walsh said, and crystal skulls are mysterious and beautiful.

In honor of NASA's 50th anniversary, the Smithsonian Institution's Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and NASA are partnering on this year's Folklife Festival. The festival will be held Wednesday, June 25 through Sunday, June 29, and Wednesday, July 2 through Sunday, July 6, outdoors on the National Mall between Seventh and 14th Streets. Festival hours are from 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. EDT each day, with special evening events including concerts and movie screenings beginning at 6 p.m. The program "NASA: 50 Years and Beyond," will include presentations, hands-on educational activities, demonstrations and exhibits that will highlight the agency's...

Male Bird At Smithsonian's National Zoo Has Special Reason To Celebrate Father's DayTwo of the four new rhea chicks at the Smithsonian's National Zoo nest in the feathers of their father. The chicks hatched on April 20 and were the first rhea chicks to hatch at the National Zoo in 30 years. Dedicated fathers, it is the male rhea who incubates the eggs and protects the chicks after they hatch. The Zoo is now home to a total of seven rheas: a male, two females, and the four new chicks. (Credit: Copyright Mehgan Murphy/Smithsonian’s National Zoo) ScienceDaily (Jun. 15, 2008)...

Is fifth-grader Kenton Stufflebeam smarter than the Smithsonian? The 11-year-old boy, who lives in Allegan but attends Alamo Elementary School near Kalamazoo, went with his family during winter break to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington.Since it opened in 1981, millions of people have paraded past the museum's Tower of Time, a display involving prehistoric time. Not one visitor had reported anything amiss with the exhibit until Kenton noticed that a notation, in bold lettering, identified the Precambrian as an era.Kenton knew that was wrong. His fifth-grade teacher, John Chapman, had nearly made the same mistake...

D.C. Fire Hazmat Teams responded to an apparent suicide in the District after fire officials said the man may have killed himself using cyanide. Police got a call around 4:30 p.m. on Monday for an unconscious male at a house in the 4300 block of 36th Street. Two officers responded and found a man laying next to a small vile of cyanide. Immediately, fire officials said police left the home and called in the hazmat crew, which is standard procedure. -snip-

The Smithsonian Institution, beleaguered by questions over how much it pays its executives and how they spend the organization's money, said Saturday it has picked Georgia Tech President G. Wayne Clough as its new leader. Clough will become the 12th secretary of the world's largest museum and research complex on July 1, assuming control of an institution that has been in turmoil in the past year. Clough will usher in a new era, "bringing a unique combination of academic achievement, talent, leadership skills and experience in public service, science, management and development," Smithsonian board Chairman Roger Sant said in a...

Politically Correct Donations Only by: Don Irvine, November 06, 2007 The Washington Post reported Saturday that the Smithsonian Institution has put on hold a $5 million donation from the American Petroleum Institute over objections from two of the museum complex's Board of Regents including U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) about accepting money from the oil industry for a project on the world's oceans. The main objection came from the regents' longtime executive committee chairman Roger Sant who ironically made his fortune as the founder of power company AES which is a member of the American Petroleum Institute. Since that time...

TOKYO — Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma said the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan by the United States during World War II was an inevitable way to end the war, a news report said Saturday. "I understand that the bombing ended the war, and I think that it couldn't be helped," Kyodo News agency quoted Kyuma as saying in a speech at a university in Chiba, just east of Tokyo. Kyuma's remarks drew immediate criticism from Japanese atomic bomb survivors. "The U.S. justifies the bombings saying they saved many American lives," said Nobuo Miyake, 78, director-general of a group of...

The Dulles International Airport Rotary Club along with Districts 7610, 7600 and 7620 are sponsoring a fundraiser for recuperating veterans at the Naval Medical Center and Walter Reed Sunday, July 1 at the Hilton parking lot at 13869 Park Center Rd., Herndon, VA from 11-5. The Dulles International Airport Rotary Club along with Districts 7610, 7600 and 7620 are sponsoring a fundraiser for recuperating veterans at the Naval Medical Center and Walter Reed Sunday, July 1 at the Hilton parking lot at 13869 Park Center Rd., Herndon, VA from 11-5. Proceeds will go to support "NASM on the Road" a...

Former Smithsonian secretary Lawrence M. Small took nearly 10 weeks of vacation a year during seven years running the vast museum complex and was absent from his job 550 workdays while earning $5.7 million on outside work, according to an independent commission report to be released today. The Smithsonian's second-ranking official, Sheila P. Burke, was absent from her job as deputy secretary for 400 days while earning $10 million over six years on non-museum work.....

Contact: Dolores Piperno pipernod@si.edu 202-633-1912 Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute Smithsonian scientists connect climate change, origins of agriculture in Mexico Cores from Laguna Tuxpan in Mexico's Iguala Valley, provided evidence for maize and squash cultivation along its edges by ~8000 B.P. and for the major dry event between 1800 and... New charcoal and plant microfossil evidence from Mexico’s Central Balsas valley links a pivotal cultural shift, crop domestication in the New World, to local and regional environmental history. Agriculture in the Balsas valley originated and diversified during the warm, wet, postglacial period following the much cooler and drier climate in the...

WASHINGTON - The Smithsonian Institution toned down an exhibit on climate change in the Arctic for fear of angering Congress and the Bush administration, says a former administrator at the museum. Among other things, the script, or official text, of last year's exhibit was rewritten to minimize and inject more uncertainty into the relationship between global warming and humans, said Robert Sullivan, who was associate director in charge of exhibitions at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. Also, officials omitted scientists' interpretation of some research and let visitors draw their own conclusions from the data, he said. In addition,...

It's been politicized and kitschified, and its luster is gone. The Smithsonian needs to get back to basics.The Smithsonian has just awakened from a leadership nightmare. On this groggy morning after, it finds itself soiled by commercialism, Disneyfication and politicization, and sorely in need of a meticulous scrubbing. Supporters of now-departed secretary Lawrence M. Small have characterized the former banking executive's tenure at the Smithsonian's helm as a "clash of cultures," positing crisp, data-based corporate values on Small's side and airy, ivory-tower academic values on the other. Nothing is further from the truth. The Smithsonian is blessed with competent, high-performing...

Monday, March 26, 2007; 1:02 PM Lawrence M. Small, the banker who took over the Smithsonian Institution seven years ago, was replaced Monday, according to congressional sources. Roger Sant, head of the Smithsonian's executive committee, was expected to make an announcement this afternoon. Small's management of the Smithsonian has been sharply criticized by members of Congress, and his compensation and spending practices have been subjected to scrutiny by the Smithsonian's inspector general. Last week, two separate committees were appointed to look into management operations at the museum complex, which includes 18 museums and research facilities as well as the National...

The former Smithsonian inspector general who launched an audit of high-ranking officials and their business practices said yesterday that Secretary Lawrence M. Small tried to pressure her to drop the inquiry shortly after she announced it last year. Debra S. Ritt said Small called her before the audit was widened to include his own compensation, but she still found it highly inappropriate. Ritt reported to Small at the time. Ritt resigned in June about a week after broadening the audit -- originally a review of Smithsonian Business Ventures accounting and executive compensation -- to include Small's compensation, which is $915,698...

Internal Smithsonian documents offer a glimpse into what one senator called the "Dom Perignon" lifestyle of the taxpayer-supported institution's chief official, who turned in a $15,000 receipt for the replacement of French doors at his home and spent $48,000 for two chairs, a conference table and upholstery for his office suite. Smithsonian Secretary Lawrence M. Small's spending has been the subject of intense public scrutiny after The Washington Post published details last month from a confidential inspector general's report delving into his $2 million in housing and office expenses over the past six years. Spreadsheets and invoices obtained by The...

The vaunted Smithsonian Institution, highly regarded for promoting knowledge and science, is embroiled in a scandal for censoring scientific inquiry. It would be amusing when the mouthpieces of political correctness abandoned their mantra of freedom and tolerance to squash a threat to their power, if so much were not at stake. Consider the case of the squashing of Dr. Richard Sternberg, a former research associate at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) and a distinguished evolutionary biologist with two doctorates in biology. Dr. Sternberg’s sin was to allow a scientific article critical of neo-Darwinism to be published in...

March 16, 2007 Last summer we went to Vietnam to shoot several "War Stories" episodes for FOX News Channel. As one might expect in a communist country where they take red tape very seriously, my producers spent weeks before our trip filling out forms, questionnaires and documents required by numerous government bureaucracies. In the process it became evident that not all the folks in Hanoi were on the same sheet of music -- but after several weeks of negotiation we were able to accomplish all that we set out to do and more, thanks to their cooperation. As it turns...

For more than 160 years the Smithsonian Institution made America's remarkable history available to one and all. In keeping with founder James Smithson's benevolent vision of "an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men," the institution's taxpayer-subsidized museums, exhibits and archives used to be open to the general public, students and legitimate researchers. But not anymore -- and it's an outrage that I'm taking personally. My "War Stories" producers and I asked for access to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Washington's Dulles International Airport. We were commencing production of a...

Tattoos - The Ancient and Mysterious History By Cate Lineberry Humans have marked their bodies with tattoos for thousands of years. These permanent designs—sometimes plain, sometimes elaborate, always personal—have served as amulets, status symbols, declarations of love, signs of religious beliefs, adornments and even forms of punishment. Joann Fletcher, research fellow in the department of archaeology at the University of York in Britain, describes the history of tattoos and their cultural significance to people around the world, from the famous " Iceman," a 5,200-year-old frozen mummy, to today’s Maori. What is the earliest evidence of tattoos? In terms of tattoos...

© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com A new report from the U.S. House of Representatives has condemned officials at the Smithsonian Institution for imposing a religious test on scientists who work there. And it suggests their attacks on a scientist who just edited an article on intelligent design are just the tip of the iceberg of an industry-wide fear of anything that suggests man might not have come from a puddle of sludge. Dr. Richard Sternberg The report, which cited a "strong religious and political component" in the dispute, was prompted by a complaint from Dr. Richard Sternberg, who holds biology doctorates from...

A visitor walks past the Apollo 16 lunar capsule on display at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala., Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2006. NASA engineers designing the next U.S. moon rocket are getting ideas from old museum pieces including the hatch from the 34-year-old capsule. (AP Photo/Rob Carr) HUNTSVILLE, Ala. - Jim Snoddy and other NASA engineers didn't just go to the drawing board or a warehouse when they needed ideas - and parts - for America's next lunar rocket. They went to space museums. ...tight deadlines and uncertain budgets...[forces]NASA [to] both cannibaliz[e] and analyz[e] pieces of...

Smithsonian tweaks show after Mormon complaints Associated Press Salt Lake City, Utah — Smithsonian Museum curators changed a new Washington exhibit after two Utah congressmen and others complained that it portrayed Mormon church founders in a negative light. The National Portrait Gallery's American Origins display pays tribute to influential Americans from 1600 to 1900, including Joseph Smith, founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and Brigham Young, the second leader of the faith. The text accompanying portraits of Smith and Young offended at least two Washington-area church members who got a sneak preview of the display. The...

WASHINGTON — In a dim hallway in the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History, anthropologist David Hunt opens a dingy green cabinet and pulls out a drawer full of human bones. "This," he says, "is Grover Krantz." The bones are arranged carefully. In the front right corner is Krantz's skull, propped on his lower jaw. Next to that are the long bones of his legs and arms. Plastic bags hold the smaller bones of his ribs, hands and feet. They're gray and smell a little musty. Behind the skull is an old film canister. Hunt picks it up. "Grover...

Catholic League president Bill Donohue wrote a letter today to the members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, the Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of the Smithsonian magazine and the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.  His letter, available here, concerns an article in the June edition of the Smithsonian by James Carroll titled, “Who Was Mary Magdalene?”    Donohue summarizes his position as follows:   “James Carroll has a long record of seeking to discredit the historical record of the Catholic Church so as to impugn its credibility today on issues that have...

Free admission to the Smithsonian Institution's museums and National Zoo stands out in the District, where everything has its price. But with deteriorating buildings, a maintenance backlog in the billions and fewer public dollars to spare, one member of Congress says no fees makes no sense. "I cannot understand why we don't charge a fee," Rep. James P. Moran, Virginia Democrat, said after hearing House testimony about insufficient funds for repairs. The Smithsonian in its 160-year history has never charged to visit the museums, stocked with displays of everything from dinosaur bones and the Hope Diamond to the original Star-Spangled...

TICONDEROGA, N.Y. (AP) - May 11, 2006 - Chocolate was more than a treat for the Continental Army – it was their MRE's. Rodney Snyder, a historian for candy maker Mars, Incorporated, says the soldiers in the Continental Army would have a couple of cups of hot chocolate in the morning and be good until lunch. He says chocolate was a staple of Revolutionary War rations. Mars is out with a new line of products based on old recipes. American Heritage Chocolate was introduced at a historic fort in upstate New York yesterday. The products will be sold at just...

Paris, Louvre: EUR 8.5. Paris, Ascension de la Tour Eiffel: EUR 4.2 1er etage; EUR 11, Sommet. London, Madame Tussauds: £23.99 [$42 adults]; £19.99 [$35.45 children]. London, Buckingham Palace: £14 [$24.83 adults]; £12.50 pounds [$22.17 students]. Venice, Musei Civici Veneziani (The Museums of St. Mark's Square): EUR 11. Rome, Musei Vaticani: EUR 12. Florence, Firenze Mvsei, Galleria dell'Accademia (Omaggio al David): EUR 8. New York: Statue of Liberty ferry, $17. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, $15. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, $0. Washington, D.C.: Washington Monument, $0. Value of viewing all of the above: Priceless.

The president and first lady met in the Oval Office with representatives from various organizations honored for their support of the U.S. military. President Bush welcomed Peru's President Toledo to the White House. Click here for his remarks. Bush addressed the National Newspaper Association Conference. Click here to read his remarks. He commented on the port debate. Click here for article "Norton is resigning after five years as" Interior Secretary, "the Associated Press has learned. Norton planned to announce her decision Friday, March 10, 2006, a senior government official and another source familiar with her decision told the AP," per...

ST. LOUIS—The first humans to spread across North America may have been seal hunters from France and Spain. This runs counter to the long-held belief that the first human entry into the Americas was a crossing of a land-ice bridge that spanned the Bering Strait about 13,500 years ago. The new thinking was outlined here Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The tools don’t match Recent studies have suggested that the glaciers that helped form the bridge connecting Siberia and Alaska began receding around 17,000 to 13,000 years ago, leaving very little...

p>The Talk Shows Sunday, December 4th, 2005 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Stephen Hadley, President Bush's national security adviser; Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.; Douglas Owsley, division head for physical anthropology at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History. MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.; Thomas Kean, chairman, and Lee Hamilton, vice chairman, of the Sept. 11 investigative commission. FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. THIS WEEK (ABC): Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa.; Hadley; New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin. LATE EDITION (CNN) : Hadley; Sens. Joseph Biden,...

DALLAS -- The modified soft-serve ice cream machine that a Dallas restaurateur first used to mass-produce frozen margaritas has found its way to the Smithsonian. The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History recently acquired the 34-year-old machine, adding it to a collection of cultural markers. "I have a pretty fertile imagination. I have big dreams," said Mariano Martinez, owner of the Dallas restaurant Mariano Hacienda. "But this is beyond what I ever imagined." In 1971, Martinez was just trying to run a restaurant, not become an inventor. But with a desire to create something to set his eatery apart and...

Among thin-skinned elites, the worst name one can call an American Indian is "redskin." According to a recent Washington Post report, the term is considered a "gross pejorative" that has been used "for centuries to disparage and humiliate an entire people." Not so, says Smithsonian Institution linguist Ives Goddard. He spent months researching the term's history and determined it was coined by 18th-century Indians to distinguish themselves from white people. When redskin first appeared as an English expression in the 1800s, "it came in the most respectful context and at the highest level," he told the Post. The most notable...

rocketed into history in the skies over Mojave in the first privately funded, manned space flight. On Oct. 5, 2005, SpaceShipOne will take its place with other icons in the history of flight, as it is unveiled in the Milestones of Flight Gallery of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. The spacecraft, the creation of designer extraordinaire Burt Rutan and his Scaled Composites team, will hang suspended between Chuck Yeager's Bell X-1, the first aircraft to break the sound barrier, and Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis, the first aircraft to complete a solo flight across the Atlantic. "It...

Evolutionary biologist Richard Sternberg made charges of discrimination and retaliation against the Smithsonian Institute and Natural History Museum for actions they took in reaction to his allowing an article on Intelligent Design to be peer reviewed and published in a scientific journal. The story points to an independent investigation into the matter by the U.S. Office of Special Council. This Federal probe confirms and documents discrimination and bias against Intelligent Design.

Evolutionary biologist Richard Sternberg made a fateful decision a year ago. As editor of the hitherto obscure Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, Sternberg decided to publish a paper making the case for "intelligent design," a controversial theory that holds that the machinery of life is so complex as to require the hand -- subtle or not -- of an intelligent creator. Within hours of publication, senior scientists at the Smithsonian Institution -- which has helped fund and run the journal -- lashed out at Sternberg as a shoddy scientist and a closet Bible thumper.

The Smithsonian Institution is a national treasure of which every American can legitimately feel a sense of personal ownership. Considering this, I'd imagine widespread displeasure as more Americans become aware that senior scientists at the publicly funded Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History have reportedly been creating a "hostile work environment" for one of their colleagues merely because he published a controversial idea in a biology journal. The controversial idea is Intelligent Design, the scientific critique of neo-Darwinism. The persecuted Smithsonian scientist is Richard von Sternberg, the holder of two PhDs in biology (one in theoretical biology, the other in...

A preliminary federal investigation supports a government scientist's complaint that he was shown bias by Smithsonian Institution colleagues after a science journal he edited published a report on the theory of "intelligent design." However, the Office of Special Counsel informed the complainant, Richard Sternberg, that it is ending the probe into the case because of jurisdictional questions and the Smithsonian's refusal to "voluntarily participate in any additional investigation" into his grievance. [Snip, because we must excerpt articles from this source] Mr. Sternberg, a research associate at the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History, said he was "singled out for harassment and...

IF YOU WANT A VISION of hell, look here: the national mall in Washington, D.C., at noon on a summer's day. Mom and Dad and Buddy and Sis stand on the treeless expanse, baked by the pitiless sun, looking lost. Dad wears a muscle-beach T-shirt stretched over a Cheesecake Factory body, his hair matted in shiny ringlets round the crown of his head. Sweat begins to show at the waistband of Mom's stretch pants. The air is hung with scrims of haze. To one side the Capitol building shimmers in ghostly outline. To the other, the Lincoln Memorial looms in...

WASHINGTON - The rusty iron coffin stubbornly resisted hammer and chisel as researchers in a warm Smithsonian laboratory sought a glimpse of an American who lived more than a century and a half ago. An electric drill, its orange cord snaking around the pre-Civil War artifact, finally freed the lid. "This is a person and we want to tell this person's story. She is our primary obligation," anthropologist Doug Owsley said as the lid was lifted to reveal a young body wrapped in a brown shroud. Story continues below ↓ advertisement The scientists hope to identify the remains so they...

There are about 60 unpublished photos from the landmark 1925 Tennessee trial over teaching evolution in school. Washington, DC -- The Smithsonian says it has found a trove of photographs from the famous Scopes Monkey Trial. A historian at the Washington institution says the "stunning photographs are the discovery of a lifetime." There are about 60 unpublished photos from the landmark 1925 Tennessee trial over teaching evolution in school. One photo shows Clarence Darrow challenging William Jennings Bryan in the trial. Darrow represented biology teacher John Scopes, who was charged with teaching evolution. Bryan prosecuted the case, gaining a conviction....

JANETTE Howard has kept a low profile since arriving in Washington with Prime Minister John Howard, but a $20,000 diamond drew her into the public spotlight today. The glittering 2.09 carat, cognac-coloured diamond was presented to Washington's famous Smithsonian Museum by Mrs Howard on behalf of Sydney jeweller Nicola Cerrone and Rio Tinto's Argyle diamond mine in Western Australia. The museum has an extensive collection of gemstones from around the world, but the Argyle diamond is its first from Australia. Wearing a borrowed gold Cerrone broach featuring champagne and cognac diamonds on her pale lemon suit jacket, Mrs Howard was...

A government report has found that many of the institution’s buildings have fallen into disrepairWASHINGTON, DC. A report by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) has found that the Smithsonian Institution requires urgent funding if it is to maintain its 660 buildings and care for the millions of objects, documents, and photographs in its collections over the next decade. The study describes “a broad decline” in the Smithsonian’s aging empire of 18 museums, 10 science centres and zoos, and other facilities, many of which have suffered “structural deterioration” and “chronic leaks” so severe that they have limited access to their...

Beatle John Lennon's Childhood Stamp Album Acquired by Postal Museum The Associated Press Jun 24, 2005 WASHINGTON (AP) - Beatles star John Lennon collected stamps as a schoolboy - and the public will soon have a chance to see them. The Smithsonian's National Postal Museum announced Friday it has acquired Lennon's stamp album and plans to display it in October. The museum purchased the album from a British stamp dealer but declined to disclose the purchase price. The museum said the album contains more than 550 stamps from around the world, including many from former British colonies such as India...

The Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History has withdrawn its co-sponsorship of a showing later this month of a film that supports the theory of "intelligent design." The museum said it would not cancel the screening of the film, "The Privileged Planet," but would return the $16,000 that the Discovery Institute, an organization that promotes a skeptical view of the Darwinian theory of evolution, had paid it. Proposals for events at the National Museum of Natural History are reviewed by members of the staff, and it shares sponsorship of all events. After the news of the showing caused controversy,...

The work of an Iowa State University assistant professor has made its way into the Smithsonian Institute. A 60-minute documentary titled "The Privileged Planet: The Search for Purpose in the Universe" will premiere at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History on June 23. The film is based on a book co-authored by Guillermo Gonzalez, an ISU assistant professor of astronomy and physics. "I am very pleased that it is going to be shown at such an important locale," Gonzalez said. Gonzalez's theory in "The Privileged Planet" creates a link between the design for life and scientific discovery. The rare...

Excerpt -- Cross Purposes -- Mexican immigrants are defying expectations in this country-and changing the landscape back home. The presence of undocumented Mexicans, who account for perhaps 60 percent of the 12 million or so foreigners living illegally in this country, remains the most contentious issue between the United States and its southern neighbor. For decades, undocumented Mexicans have taken the jobs that nobody else seemed to want, while fending off charges that they were not only depriving Americans of gainful employment but were also lowering the wage for some blue-collar jobs. The surprising reality, however, is that Mexico's immigrants...

Fossils at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History have been used to prove the theory of evolution. Next month the museum will play host to a film intended to undercut evolution. The Discovery Institute, a group in Seattle that supports an alternative theory, "intelligent design," is announcing on its Web site that it and the director of the museum "are happy to announce the national premiere and private evening reception" on June 23 for the movie, "The Privileged Planet: The Search for Purpose in the Universe." The film is a documentary based on a 2004 book by Guillermo...