In the latest alien news...

1) Check out Google Satellite maps of the world. So much fun to look at individual buildings all over the world. You can even get a close up of baghdad. Very convenient for those probe-weilding visitors from beyond neptune. 2)

Dear Kansas: Why stop at "Intelligent Design?" What about Spaghetti Monsters? This open letter to the Kansas School Board takes it to task for teaching "Intelligent Design" (Biblical Creationism tarted up in scientific dress) in schools. The author points out that there are several compeeting theories that Kansas could teach its students, including the popular thesis that the universe was created by a "Flying Spaghetti Monster." There are pictures, too.

3) Scientology: Tom Cruise is crazy, we just didn't know how crazy he was:

Adding to all that stress is a series of very heavy theological revelations that begin with OT-III. The central creation story, according to Melton, Bartchy, Kent and the former member, is this: About 75 million years ago, a nefarious intergalactic warlord called Xenu rounded up the inhabitants of numerous planets, killed them, and brought them to Earth, then set off a chain reaction of cataclysmic volcanoes (the volcano pictured on the "Dianetics" cover was Hubbard's favorite symbol for the notion of breakthrough and self-actualization), which dispersed their thetans into the atmosphere. These thetans now fester inside the bodies of all humans. They are to be located in specific body parts and summoned out.

I'm pretty sure I could come up with a better religion than this. Hell, I'd rather worship the flying spaghetti monsters. It also makes me pity those poor people who used to get me to take 'personality tests' outside the scientology building back in Austin. These suspiciously well-dressed young individuals just wanted to check and see if i'm extroverted or introverted. Either that or they wanted to know my thetan count, in order to declare me the XXIth incarnation of Warlord Xenu. I'd prefer not to know either. Although, considering all those online personality tests, couldn't they come up with an online test to check your thetans and see if you're the XXIth incarnation of Warlord Xenu? I'd probably take that if I was bored one day at work. Then there'd be a cute little picture saying "Your personality indicates that you have a heavy concentration of thetans in your right thigh. This means you are extroverted, likely to solve problems with ease, work well in groups of furry creatures, and the MXVth incarnation of Vice-People's Warlord Xanidan. Your self assurance will eventually lead the victory of mankind over the flying spaghetti monsters. May Hubbard be with you." hm...maybe not. 4) And finally, this guy:

A California man facing life in prison for crashing his car into a UPS truck will not dispute that his actions resulted in the death of the driver when his trial opens Monday in Nevada County Superior Court. Instead, Scott Krause's defense will argue that the defendant believed he was trying to escape man-eating subterranean beings when he ran into Drew Reynolds' truck on Jan. 6, 2004.

Proving, once again, that Tom Cruise is the savior of mankind.