FLASH! Most Americans Unamerican

Asking hard questions of an administration during wartime is apparently unamerican. So, apparently, is asking hard questions about sketchy fast-tracked healthcare legislation, according to a new op/ed article in USA Today by Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer. It's a wonder they haven't thrown me out of the country.

Every crisis is another opportunity for a Federal power grab. If you can name a time when our government hasn't used the fear and pain of the people to give itself more permanent powers, then please draw it to my attention. To our increasingly power-hungry gorilla government, I have this to say:



Also, I hereby offer unlimited high-fives to anyone who can determine the person who said the following without the aid of search engines:

"I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with this administration somehow you're not patriotic. We should stand up and say we are Americans and we have a right to debate and disagree with any administration."

Add your guesses to the combox below!

I Posted This A Long Time Ago, But I Find It To Be Very Much Worth Revisiting.

I only bring it up because I find parallels between this and the magical health care reform that will soon provide for all of my bodily ills if I just have faith in it.

Thi$ Day In Hi$tory

On August 5, 1861, the United States Government under President Abraham Lincoln levied the first ever income tax, which demanded 3% of the income of persons making $800 per year or more.

I wonder what my life would be like if I was able to keep 97% of my income...

The Most Hilarious Piece Of Speculative Pseudojournalism On Michael Phelps And The Pope That I've Read So Far

Editor's Warning: Do not read the following without eating; you may have to clean your screen and keyboard afterward.

From deadspin.com comes the "truth" about why the moustacheless heir to the Throne of Spitz decided to sleep in instead of going to Castel Gandolfo:

It's not because he got high (as we all know, the Pope smokes dope). The reason famous fish-person Michael Phelps won't meet with the Nazi Pope is buried deep in his family history, as revealed on his Wikipedia page.

It's all because of these seemingly unimportant words, from the "Personal Life" section of his user-generated biography: "His father, Fred Phelps...."

Michael Phelps' father is Fred Phelps. Unless there is more than one Fred Phelps in America, that means the Olympic champion swimmer's father is the psychotic ruler of the Westboro Baptist Church, and the creator of the famous slogan and website "God Hates Fags" and its slightly lesser known campaign, "Priests Rape Boys."

Given the statistical impossibility of the name "Fred" and the surname "Phelps" ever being combined in more than one person, it would appear that the author's logic is flawless.

Do yourself a favor and read the whole thing. It has all the piss and vinegar of a Jack Chick tirade combined with killer Lone Gunman action. Some things are just too hilarious to make me mad.

Upon The Feast Of St. Alphonsus Liguori

The publishing house named after him needs my completed transcript 14 days from now.

If you're having trouble figuring out who St. Alphonsus is, here's a hint: He's the guy who wrote this.

A Windy Inheritance

On July 21, 1925, Tennessee schoolteacher John Scopes was found guilty of teaching evolution and fined $100, perhaps the lowest price ever paid by any martyr for any cause.

Historically, the "Monkey Trial" of 1925 has been often used to pit science and religion against one another. Less understood is how much this trial represented the divisions in American society between rural and urban cultures, academia and the working classes, populists and elitists, conservatives and progressives, and North and South. And perhaps the biggest question at all posed by the trial is whether or not majority opinion is sufficent to define truth. None of these intricacies, by the way, are adequately or fairly explored in that lousy piece of big-city elitist propaganda known as Inherit the Wind.

(Longtime readers of this blog will recall that a couple of years back, I posted a six-part series on the historiography of this infamous event. Fun stuff.)

Upon The Feast Of St. Lawrence Of Brindisi

In addition to the Italian he was raised speaking, and the Latin he used in Church, he studied French, German, Greek, Spanish, Syriac, and Hebrew.

St. Lawrence, if you're reading this:

prega per noi!

ora pro nobis!

priez pour nous!

bitte für uns!

προσεύχονται για μας!

ora para nosotros!

להתפלל עבור לנו!

(and my apologies, Fra Lorenzo- I don't know how to ask for your prayers in Syriac.)

The Reason I'm Glad That I Am On The Mailing List For Christian Country Music Trade Publications...

...is because I get to see what happens when The Power Team meets Cletus T. Judd.

Public Service Announcement

Again, apologies for my absence. I have a book due to the publisher one month from today.

In the meantime, do yourselves a favor and watch the following- more people might be affected by the condition in the below video than you realize.