As a native Tennessean and a current resident of Alabama, I am terribly offended by Layne's remarks --- the food here is wonderful, and I demand he retract his statements. I will not stand idly by without confronting anti-barbecue bigotry.

If you're going to have a bad experience with lay clergy, Marjoe Gortner would definitely be one to haunt the nightmares for decades. I wonder if he's one of the earnest B-list celebrities prowling the GOP circuit like Larry Gatlin today.

They don't make films like Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw any more.

The funny thing is Layne taking "Jesusland" as some kind of threat. Since a large number of the unwashed 51% take Jesusland as a joke first, and an insult second, there's little chance of theocracy. If we can get rid of Ashcroft, the odds get even better, but that's predicated on Robert Tilton declining AGhood.

Theocracy? With the ACLU running the country? Fat chance. And speaking of theocracy, they should be more concerned with an Islamic Theocracy than a Christian one. Also, sorry to inform Mr. Layne, this country is symbiotic in economic relationships. To pare away either would destroy the other.

Gerard,

We can only hope that Ken Layne will attend a Doobie Brothers Revival Tour and that someone will slip LSB in his Pepsi and that he will go down front and center and dance like mad to "Jesus is Just All Right With Me." Otherwise I don't see much hope for him at this point.

(Hey if it's OK for Ken Layne not to make any sense I don't see why I have to!)

There is a BIG problem in the whole "Jesusland" meme. They assume they are taking the entire states. Why? Why should the conservative parts of each state be forced to seceed along with the big cities? Wouldn't that be doing the same thing to the conservative voters they claim is being done to them?

But it is even worse. Look at the county maps. Note that where the Dems did well, it was big cities metropolitan areas such as New York City, Chicago, LA and Frisco. Cities do not exist in a vacuum. They need food, and raw material for their factories, like timber and metal. They cannot produce it themselves. And these large cities would die if they did not take their bread baskets with them.

The rural counties can do without the big cities far better than the big cities can do without the farm country. They need to think about that, and their hypocracy concerning counties that did not vote for Kerry into secession.

Don't be silly, Ben. New York, San Francisco, Seattle and the rest of Enlightened America doesn't need to get bad food from those evil red states. They have plenty of grocery stores - good ones, like Dean & Deluca and Trader Joe's.

On a more serious note, didn't Ken used to be sane? I seem to recall it distinctly.