New York’s Columbia University allowed racist, misogynist, uranium-loving crazy man and Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speak his mind on campus this past week. And considering how small his mind is, it was quite a speech. He informed the American people that there were no homosexuals in Iran, that the Iranian government loves all people and hates war, that they don’t want to develop nuclear weapons, that Iranian women enjoy more freedom than women anywhere else in the world, that all the men are eight feet tall and the children have IQs of 90, that the country’s biggest exports are love, justice, kindness and dignity, and the moon (contrary to popular belief) is not made of green cheese … it is made of smoked Bega.

Buh-bye, Mahmoud. Come again soon.

Actually, I went on-line and read the Islamic Republic New Agency’s story of Mahmoud’s U.S. visit, and you know what it reminded me of? Remember when we first invaded Iraq in 2003, and Saddam Hussein’s information minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf went on TV to assure the world that, “There is no presence of American infidels in the city of Baghdad,” and you could see U.S. troops in the background moving through the city kicking butt and taking names? That’s what it reminded me of.

And speaking of Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf … how about some of Saeed ’s Greatest Hits (also known as “Bush’s Glory Days”):

“(Coalition forces are) not even within 100 miles of Baghdad. They are not in any place. They hold no place in Iraq. This is an illusion … they are trying to sell to the others an illusion.”

“(U.S.) infidels are committing suicide by the hundreds on the gates of Baghdad. Be assured, Baghdad is safe, protected.”

“These (televised) images are not the suburbs of Baghdad. From what I glimpsed, these gardens with rows of palm trees on the side, which you saw in the images, are located in the south of Abu Ghreib, where we have surrounded the Americans and British.”

“We have crushed the whole force which dared to venture (to Saddam International Airport). Now they’re outside the wall and the heroic Republican Guard is now in control of the whole area. So where are those villainous louts, those mercenaries?”

“We made them drink poison last night and Saddam Hussein’s soldiers and his great forces gave the Americans a lesson which will not be forgotten by history. Truly.”

Good job, Saeed … Inshallah, Mazel Tov and Hallelujah!

I was giving Katie Couric props a week or so back for acknowledging that some good has come from U.S. efforts in Iraq. But then she lapsed back into Couric mode when she spoke at the National Press Club this week, saying, “Everyone in this room would agree that people in this country were misled in terms of the rationale of this war.” Maybe in that room, Katie, but not necessarily in the rest of the country. But the one thing I thought worth commenting on was when she said, “I think the jury is still out as to whether democracy can really thrive in Iraq.” No, Katie, the jury reached a decision on that thousands of years ago, and the verdict is: Democracy definitely cannot thrive in Iraq. Or anywhere else in the Middle East. Their legacy is hatred, vendetta, war and death. Thus has it ever been, thus will it ever be (he said, waxing melodramatic).

Speaking of CBS anchors … disgraced anchorman (notice, I didn’t say “newsman”) Dan Rather has filed a $70 million lawsuit against CBS, saying, “Somebody, sometime has got to take a stand and say democracy cannot survive, much less thrive (where did I just heard a CBS anchor use the words “democracy” and “thrive” in the same sentence?) with the level of big corporate and big government interference and intimidation in news.” Rather’s still a bit PO’d that they canned his butt after he broke that bogus story about Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard a couple years ago, and then he continued to broadcast it and insist that even if the primary documents were faked, the story itself could have been true because he wanted so badly for it to be true because he hates Bush so much.

Dan, meet Saeed … Saeed, Dan. You guys have a lot in common.

Finally, as if anyone needs further proof that the New York Times is a shameless, liberal shill, they have finally admitted (after weeks of denying … so that makes them liars, too) that they gave a big $77,000 discount to moveon.org to run that ill-conceived “General Betray Us” ad. Personally, I believe the Times would have sold out for the standard going rate of 30 pieces of silver if moveon had asked them to.

The latest “Juice News”: O.J. Simpson’s revisited the jug after attempting thievery at a Las Vegas casino. And it wasn’t even one of them big, multi-billion dollar casino heists, either, like in Ocean’s 11 … just him and his posse breaking into a room at the Palace Station Casino and stealing some O.J. memorabilia. No big deal, just a little low-level armed robbery, huh? But prosecutors beg to differ ~ they’re coming at him with robbery, assault, kidnapping and maybe some other bad stuff to be announced. Probably won’t happen, but in theory O.J. could be looking at life behind bars. What a come-down, though, from his glory days as a double-murdering mad slasher in the high-end neighborhoods of L.A. Kinda like going from an Oscar win to a cameo on Hollywood Squares. Oh well. And his old defense team can’t help him now, they’re all bust ~ Shapiro’s out, Cochran’s dead. But buck up, Juice ~ I bet Gloria Allred would like a crack at you. You know what they say ~ once you go black, you’ll never go back. Y’all can use the “If I did it” defense. Good luck, crazy man … knew you’d find your way back to active infamy sooner or later.

Following the credo of politically correct censorship (that is, “No view may be tolerated or expressed that differs from my own”), Barry Manilow refused to appear on The View because he doesn’t agree with co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck’s … uh … views. Manilow, whose contribution to civilization is churning out maudlin pop music so saccharine it should come with a warning label ~ Danger: May Cause Diabetes ~ said, “I strongly disagree with her views. I think she’s dangerous and offensive. I will not be on the same stage as her.” See, Hasselbeck’s one of them hate-mongering Christian conservatives. No wonder little Barry finds her views dangerous and offensive. Perhaps he’d feel safer with one of them warm, fuzzy religious ideologies. Like, oh, say … Islam?

In a related story, a judge in Fort Lupton, Colorado has been imposing an extremely harsh sentence on offenders who violate the city’s noise ordinance. He’s making them listen to Barry Manilow music. Seriously. That’s not just cruel and unusual, that tips over into Abu Ghraib territory. Mercy, your honor, mercy!

What? No, you idiot ~ not “merci” … “mercy.” Leave it to some Frenchman to think an hour of “Mandy” and “Marry Me A Little” is something to relish. Idiot de masochist!

Quote of the Week: “I don’t think Margaret Thatcher would impugn the integrity of a commanding general in a time of war, as Hillary Clinton did, or require an army to give a schedule of their retreat to the enemy, as the Democrats are suggesting.” ~ Presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani, commenting on Hillary Clinton comparing herself to “Iron Lady” Margaret Thatcher

“President Hillary Rodam Clinton.” That gives me the shivers.

Let’s see … what else gives me the shivers? “President Barrack Obama”… shiver … “President Rudolph Giuliani” … shiver … “President John Edwards” … shiver, shudder … “President Newt Gingrich” … shiver, shudder, retch … I gotta stop. I’m scaring myself.

Oh, wait a minute … I got one … “President Fred Thompson” … no shudder, no shiver.

Researchers have concluded that cell phones may be harmless with short term use, but over extended periods may cause cancer. Their conclusion was based on experiments done with laboratory rats. Of course, the rats were eating the phones, not talking over them, so who knows what that whole thing really means in the first place?

According to a new Reuters/Zogby poll, the approval rating for the Democrat-controlled Congress has plummeted even lower than the all-time low of 14 percent they sank to back in July. Now their approval rating is down to 11 percent. Bush’s pitiful disapproval rating of 30 percent back in March only slipped one point to a pitiful 29 percent. In other words, 71 percent of the American people think George Bush stinks … but a whooping 89 percent thinks the Democrat Congress stinks. Personally, I think they all stink. I give Bush a five and Congress a triple-digit minus. And that’s being kind.

… Her name was Lola, she was a showgirl …

Barry … talking Havana, have a banana.

As everyone knows, in about five billion years the sun will deplete all its hydrogen, swell up to about 100 times its current size and explode. The good news is, astronomers now say it may be possible for the earth to survive all that. Yeah, right. I think I’m going to dust off that old fallout shelter my granddad build in the back yard anyway.

There were concerns that Bush hater and CBS Evening News anchorwoman Katie Couric had been taken over by a space pod or replaced with an automaton last week when she reported, “We hear so much about things going bad (in Iraq), but real progress has been made there in terms of security and stability … Fallujah is considered a real role model of something working right in Iraq.” But, evidently, it was neither a pod person nor a robot … it was really her saying that.

In a related story, hell has frozen over.

Of course, good ol’ Hillary ~ who shall not be moved ~ still insists that to believe there has been any progress made in Iraq requires a “willing suspension of disbelief.” Go, Hill!

“Go Hill.” If you say that really fast, it sounds like you’re saying, “go to …” Nevermind.

I read on Drudge that Russian president (and ex-KGB agent) Vladimir Putin “dissolved” the Russian government this week. Got rid of everybody. All of them. Dissolved them. In vats of acid, I think. All hail Mother Russia! The Cold War is dead … long live the Cold War!

The same day I read that story, I read another one said that Russia had also “exploded the world’s biggest non-nuclear bomb.” The blast area was something like 2,000 yards wide, not counting the concussive effect. But “non-nuclear”? What are they, a bunch of sissies? Come on, Putin ~ show some brass, man. Stick some plutonium in that bad boy. Poop or get off the pot, you know what I’m sayin’? All hail Mother Russia, baby! The Cold War rocks!

Quote of the week: “We want friendship ~ friendship to all. We love all nations and all human beings. Anyone who is killed, we are against it.” ~ Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who then added, “Of course, that’s not to say that the Jews shouldn’t be annihilated and all reference to Israel scoured from human memory.”

For those just tuning in … welcome to the End Times.

Those infamous African killer bees have taken up residence in New Orleans. The leader of the killer bees told reporters, “Oye ~ desde Katrina, nadie más quiere el lugar. También, las abejas de asesino son Demócratas. Amamos a este tipo Nagin.” Why the African bees were speaking in Spanish, or even speaking at all, wasn’t made clear.

Nepal Airlines was having mechanical problems with a couple of their Boeing 757s recently and had to suspend flights. They finally fixed the problem, though, by sacrificing two goats to Akash Bhairab, the Hindu sky god. Afterward, a senior airline official, Raju K.C., explained, “The snag in the plane has now been fixed and the aircraft has resumed its flights.” Sky gods love a good goat, though, don’t they?

Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Akash Bhairab!

Starbuck’s is jacking up their prices for the second time in less than a year. Experts predict that if the trend continues, coffee prices may crack the $100 a barrel mark “within months.” No, wait a minute … that’s the price of oil. Oil is predicted to crack the $100 a barrel mark. No … I mean corn. With increased production of ethanol, the price of corn will crack the $100 a bushel mark. No, wait … that’s the population of Bradley County. No, hold on a minute … back up, let me try that again. Oil has cracked $80 a barrel, caffeine has cracked 300mg per 16-oz. serving, the population of Bradley County has cracked 100k, Jimmy crack corn and … I don’t care.

This week has almost gotten completely away from me. It’s Saturday morning and I’m just now putting the column together. You may wonder, if today’s date is September 8, why is the column dated September 5. I did that because I usually try to have the column done by Wednesday, and Wednesday’s date was September 5. I’m pretending like today is Wednesday (although I’m not going into work, which I usually do on a Wednesday, because it’s really Saturday). So, yes, I guess that my saying Saturday is Wednesday proves unequivocally that I am a bald face, unapologetic lying son of a gun.

But honestly, wouldn’t a better question be ~ why do I even bother with these columns anymore? Habit, I suppose. Just habit.

But, that said, I don’t think I’m going to cobble the usual hodgepodge (or is it whizgiggle?) of nonsense together this time … because, after all, who really cares? Am I right? Instead, I going to talk to long-time reader jcar1620 because I sense in him (her? them? it?) a curious spirit questing for knowledge. Or not. Who knows?

Plus, at heart I am, after all, just another of your basic, garden variety, Bible-believing fundamentalist Christians who is faulty and flawed and pretty much an embarrassment to my church, but saved by grace anyway, thankee Jesus, whose house has many mansions and one of em’s for me. Or something like that.

So, anyway … jcar1620 emailed me last week and posed this question: “Why do some intelligent people disregard science? It seems to me that creationism and evolution could coexist. Only one theory seems more plausible to me, if they cannot. What if the “Big Bang” is God’s intelligent way of designing the universe? Not that you haven’t heard this before.”

Jcar1629, I have heard it before. And asked it. I have since concluded that intelligent people don’t necessarily disregard science. Most science anyway. Science explains why the earth is held in orbit, and why water becomes ice when exposed to extremely cold temperatures, and why pi are square and cornbread are round, and why de hip bone is connected to de leg bone, and de leg bone is connected to de ankle bone, and so on and so forth until there are no more mysteries left.

But a lot of science is hardly written in stone. Nor is the presentation of a lot of it objective. The science of global warming is a case in point. Mainly because global warming is the burning issue de jour and fraught with special interest agendas. Despite what professors AlGore and Michael Moore say (See? Even I am guilty of having an agenda), there is much disagreement and debate about the issue of whether the earth is warming or cooling or even paying attention (too much disagreement and debate, in fact, to delve into here ~ I just use it as an example). Basically, I think your query (and by “query,” I mean “question,” but with more grammatical pretentiousness) centers around “the Bible” (AKA, the “inerrant Word of God”). It’s interesting that you should even mention the Big Bang, because that’s been on my mind lately anyway. I think you’re right … I think the Big Bang occurred when God spoke existence into being. And the expanding universe is simply God’s Word still moving outward … still being measured and tracked and puzzled over by scientists. Sometimes science can’t see the forest for the tress, huh? (or can’t see God for the science?)

Now, as to evolution versus creationism, that’s a different matter. Personally, I hold to creationism simply because the Bible doesn’t say God created man through evolution. If He had, the Bible would say so. The Bible says He made man from the dust of the earth. God can do that because He’s God and God can do anything. In fact, that’s way He’s called “God.” And maybe God choose to make man through instantaneous creation rather than the more protracted (albeit, more easily acceptable, considering the size of our little brains ~ of which we only use 10 percent) evolution, because He thought it would be amusing to confound science. Yes? No? The heck are you even talking about, J.M.?

As far as one theory seeming more plausible than the other ~ why would it be easier to believe mankind sprang from nothingness, rather than believe God created us? Because it takes faith to believe that God could (or would) do such a thing? It doesn’t take faith to believe we popped into being out of nothing? Choose your poison. But choose carefully.

Anyway, I’ve actually met my word count obligation (which becomes increasingly more irrelevant in this age of Internet writing) and plus I’m really starting to get on my nerves with all these parentheticals (even though I continue to use them, obsessively, time and again), so me gonna close now. God bless and breed you all.