Why I'm Proud to Be a Swedish Boy

I am so grateful for my Swedish heritage when I read something like this. Swedes rise up and declare your secular militancy!

Swedish logo designer Bjorn Atldax did something that even the American ACLU could not do: He made walking advertisements among young Swedes for an anti-Christian message.

I don't know if it's really anti-Christian. It seems to me more as play with symbols. Also, if you're a gnostic and believe that Christians are mistaken in worshipping the current God (because Satan really took over at the crucifixion) then what could be more Christian than upsetting the current dogma? Anyway...

In tragically hip Sweden, where churchgoing has been declining for decades, Bjorn Atldax is seen as something of a folk hero. Secular Sweden is far more concerned about maintaining free speech.

Imagine that! A country that values free speech!

Go Ingrid! Go Jonas! Go Astrid, Ingemar, and Olaf! Go Sweden!

Out On a Limb: Olaf Predicts

(Holding the envelope to my forehead, a la Karnak the Magnificent)

"And the answer is California Republican Congressman Dana Rohrbacher."

(Tearing open the envelope at one end, flexing it slightly, blowing in to open it. Pulling out the paper inside.)

"Who will be one indicted congressional representative in the Abramoff bribery scandal?"

Now how would old Olaf, aka Karnak, know that, or guess it at least? Easy. Just read who's making excuses, the lamest excuses, for Abramoff, who was a Republican operative for decades and who has now pleaded guilty to numerous felony counts.

"They're portraying Jack as a monster. I see him more as a good person who's done bad things and has to be punished for doing bad things," Rohrabacher, a longtime friend of Abramoff, said in a phone interview.

Don't you just love that? "A good person who's done bad things." I'm sure that's true for most of your villains in the world, you know. They're just poor, tortured, misunderstood people who make themselves and their buddies rich by preying on others. But they're good people. Good people. Good people.

Hmmm. You'll recall how Chimpie is fond of that phrase: "He's a good person," or "They're good people," when speaking of his allies.

Now I know exactly what that means.

The Devil's Gouty Foot

Dick Cheney has been reported to be walking with a cane, and now has had to be checkedout for shortness of breath resulting from treatment for a "foot problem." It sounds like Dear Dickie is suffering from gout (yes, I'm exercising my Bill Frist option on long-range diagnosis). How perfect, how just like the aristocrats that once tyrannized France and England, so overfed on red meat and rich desserts that they reach a state of excessive uric acid in the bloodstream which manifests itself as pain in joints like the big toe. Overfilled with uric acid--how perfect is that? And even an old atheist like me begins to believe that Satan is real when I read Cheney's medical history.

McBride said the foot condition was not related to surgery last September to repair aneurysms behind both knees or the 64-year-old vice president's lengthy history of heart problems. He has had four heart attacks, quadruple bypass surgery, two artery-clearing angioplasties and an operation to implant a special pacemaker in his chest.

I mean, what's keeping this guy alive? Must be...Satan!

And what could a report of Dickie be without a quote from the Chimperor himself, who seems to be stuck in a groove when it comes to job assessments.

"The vice president's doing a great job on behalf of the American people," [Bush] said. "He's a very important member of the team."

Sounds like the end of the line for Dickie-poo, since the last time Chimpie gave such a ringing endorsement for an administration official, New Orleans was under water. Where's Brownie now?