Two stories that get a great big WTF?!

Story #1:

A Liberty University student has been arrested for making bombs. Mark David Uhl was in the Army ROTC at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, and he told a family member that he made bombs and planned to attend Jerry Falwell's funeral.

According to police, the bombs were not to harm the Falwell family or disrupt the funeral, but may have been a response to the [insert your favorite 'insane' adjective here] members of Westboro Baptist Church who had planned to protest at Falwell's funeral. You may have heard of Westboro Baptist Church, home of the Reverend (to misuse that word) Fred Phelps, and the creators of the 'GodHatesFags' web site.

According to the Associated Press, "The Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church sent about a dozen members to protest across the street from the funeral, claiming Falwell was a friend to gays. The group also has picketed soldiers' burials, claiming the deaths are God's punishment for a nation that supports homosexuality."

So what we learn here, kids, is that news travels slow to Westboro Baptist. In fact, it apparently doesn't travel at all because anyone with two brain cells knows that Falwell was no friend to gays. After all, it was Falwell, who said in 1997 that "gay folks would just as soon kill you as look at you."

If stupidity was contagious, then Westboro Baptist should have been quarantined long ago.

Oh, and thanks to Uhl for proving that religious fundamentalism isn't just for Muslims.

Story #2:

If you've been wondering what David Duke's racist brethren have been up to, wonder no more, for fliers have recently appeared in a predominantly black neighborhood in Wetumpka, Alabama.

Said fliers include a news story about Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom, two whites who were gruesomly tortured and mutilated by five black suspects. The creator of the flier claims that the national media did not cover the story because the victims were white and asked why Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Morris Dees (of the Southern Poverty Law Center) did not rush to the defense of the victims' families.

Of course, the flier asks the readers to visit stormfront.org and, of course, davidduke.com.

So now, we're left to wonder if this is just the beginning of something more, and if Duke will crawl out from the shadows to promote more closed-mindedness and bigotry.

According to Wetumpka police, they know about the flier, but cannot do anything because, so far, no crime has been committed. Let's hope a crime doesn't happen.