Ante Meridiem Eye Openers-April 18, 2008CE

1) I woke up this morning and after wondering what the hell was happening (The tv was on Lifetime, where I had fallen sleep watching The Golden Girls) I turn to GMA and find the New Madrid Fault Line produced a 5.4 magnitude earthquake in southern Illinois. No lasting damage and apparently no one was hurt. So I get to the AMEO and almost every one of of regular sources has a story on the quake. Except they don't. USA Today, The New York Times and Time Magazine all just use the AP story. Newsvine gets a pass because that's what they do, but CNN's coverage was obviously derivative. It's nothing new, just something I wished to point out.

2) I watched The Colbert Report last night in anticipation of Sen. Hilary Clinton's appearance, and got so much more. Hilary did her thing, but the best was yet to come. Near the end Sen. John Edwards came out and did The Word. Except the signature Colbert Report feature was changed to the "edWords". He did a magnificent job and his sense of humor might be the best in politics. He truly seemed to enjoy poking fun at himself:

Then Obama came on and put distractions on notice, as far as I know the first time another person has had that honor:


It was superb. That's all there is to it.

3) In sports news, Steve McNair, the greatest quarterback to come out of Alcorn State in 1995, has finally retired. When asked for comment, Muhammad Ali, Hank Aaron, and Gordie Howe all said, " Well, it's about time!" In Baseball, the Rockies and the Padres battled 1-1 until the 22nd inning last night. To put that in perspective, if you were supposed to eat 9 steaks, but instead had to eat 22 steaks, it would get a little bit much, right? Finally ESPN has a top 50 of the greatest NFL busts. 1-15. 16-30. 31-50. Why they felt that 50 was the right number is beyond me, but whatever. It's ESPN, they can-and will-do anything they goddamn well please, thank you very little. You putz.

4) Yea, like marriage! Thank you, thank you. Be sure to tip your waitresses.

5) Newsweek looks at the Eastern Orthodox side of things when it comes to Pope Nazi I's visit to America. A sample:

"I'm glad a Christian leader is getting the paparazzi treatment, but it's not spiritually significant for us," says churchgoer Maria Sund. "We're obviously not Catholic—you know about the Schism of 1054. The papacy is a well-established machine at this point, I don't think it's going to reunite with us, like some people believe." For her the Catholic Church is too liberal and too historically divided from the Orthodox."

Are you kidding? Are the Orthodox still stoning people and storing food in earthenware jugs? Too liberal? They absolved Galileo Galilei in 1992 for Christ sake. They decided in 1992 that the earth revolved around the sun. Keep in mind, by 1992 we had visited the moon several times over and Whoopie Goldberg was a star. Conclusive proof there is no God.

Well, that's about it. It's like Galileo said: "Surely, God could have caused birds to fly with their bones made of solid gold, with their veins full of quicksilver, with their flesh heavier than lead, and with their wings exceedingly small. He did not, and that ought to show something. It is only in order to shield your ignorance that you put the Lord at every turn to the refuge of a miracle.