The Lone Truther Rides Again – The Queen Pelosi Adventure

A thunderstorm darkened the sky west of Lone Ranger Ridge where our heros sat their horses.  Lightning stabbed the sky and thunder rolled across the desert that moments before was hotter and drier than a buzzard’s belly. It was early summer but the high peaks still carried their winter blanket of snow.  If you were very still and listened very carefully, you could just hear the strains of the “William Tell Overture” swelling in the far distance.  Overhead, a small jet left a contrail in the empty spaces between the thunder clouds.

“Kemo Sabe,” said Tonto, “It is 1880.  What’s a contrail?”

“That Tonto, is the trail of a jet airplane that will be invented in about 65 years.  Until then, we’re stuck riding these horses, getting saddle sores. But, on the other hand, we can smell the wind blowing off that thunderstorm and the people on that airplane can’t.”

“There are people on that little tiny silver thing?”

C-20B Plane that Pelosi Used 19 Times in Two Years

“Yes.  That is the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States of America.  She is third in line to be the President of the United States of America; just two heartbeats away from the most powerful job in the world.”

“She gets her own airplane?”

“Yep.  One day in the far future America will be attacked by terrorists — Americans will call it ‘9-11′ — and right after the attack the President of the United States will decide that the Speaker of the House needs security and an Air Force plane to protect her.  Before 9-11 Speakers flew commercial just like everybody else. After 9-11, the Speaker was a Republican named Hastert. He flew home every single weekend but nobody complained about him.”

“What’s an Air Force, Kemo Sabe?”

C-37A that Speaker Pelosi Used Once

“Never mind that Tonto. What’s important is what they are going to say about her on the internet.  They are going to say that she flies home every weekend on a great big jet called a ‘757′ which carries 200 people and costs $60,000 just to fly it one-way from Washington, D.C. to San Francisco which is her home.”

“That’s a lot of money.  What’s the ‘internet’, Lone Truther?”

The Lone Truther twisted in the saddle and said, “How should I know?  It’s 1880.  Anyway, what they say on the internet is wrong. Apparently lots of stuff on the internet is wrong but people believe it anyway. The plane the Air Force assigned the speaker is a Gulfstream III (C-20B) that seats 12 people, not 200. In the winter, sometimes it can’t fly all the way to California because of the Jet Stream and has to refuel.”

Our heroes began riding off the ridge, careful not to skyline themselves for this was the Old West and a man could get killed without even knowing it.  Danger lurked behind every sagebrush bush.  Only four years earlier Custer and his command had been wiped out.

The 757 She Never Flew Home

“What is worse Tonto, that email says that Pelosi flies home every weekend.  But that was Hastert, not her.  In all of 2007 and 2008 she only went home 20 times and 19 of those times she flew on the little C-20B.  One time she flew on a slightly bigger C-37A, another Gulfstream that only holds 12 people but has a longer range. That’s it and yet they accuse her of being ‘Queen Nancy! She never took a 757 home.  Not once.”

“Why don’t those people worry about something important, Kemo Sabe?  Like that rattlesnake your horse ‘Sliver’ is about to step on.”

And with a hearty “Hi Ho Sliver, Away!” the Lone Truther rode off in a cloud of dust that could be seen by every bad guy in a hundred miles. Tonto just ambled along, listening to the music.

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More exciting adventures of the Lone Truther can be found at this link. They are absolutely free and worth every penny!  Just click and scroll down.

The Father of Modern Conservatism

The Lone Truther is saddled up and rides again tomorrow.  The Lone Truther believes – with  Edmund Burke, the father of modern conservatism – that, “Facts are to the mind what food is to the body.”

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More about Burke here.

Illegal Immigrants in Kansas -The Lone Truther Rides Again

For seven days the man known as the Lone Truther rode Coronado’s ghost trails, up out of the Sonoran Desert and across the Chihuahuan Desert.  For seven days he heard no sound but the creaking of his saddle and Silver’s steady clip-clop, clip-clop, on the sun-baked earth.  For seven days he avoided sky-lining himself, watching always for the tell-tale puff of dust in the distance or the talking-smoke that would tell him the Apaches had seen him.

The only things the Lone Truther knew about the Apaches was what he read in the Louis L’Amour books.   Which meant that he knew they were the world’s greatest guerilla fighters and that they could hide where no other man could hide. Tonto had warned him about this ride; told him that an Apache could kill you so fast you wouldn’t even know you were dead.  But he and Tonto were only fictional characters, invented in a time of stereotyping Native Americans, so what did he know really?

He wished Tonto had come along, but when he told Tonto of the cry for help from his old friends, the Wheathorns in Kansas, Tonto had wanted to know exactly what is was that the Wheathorns needed saving from.

“They’re surrounded, Tonto!”

“By whom are they surrounded, Kemo Sabe?”

“Illegal immigrants!”

“In Kansas?” asked Tonto, incredulously.

“Yes, Tonto!”

“Kemo Sabe, stop using exclamation points.  You know I can’t stand that.  And I refuse to believe there are enough illegal immigrants in all of Kansas to surround anybody.  You go by yourself.”

And so the Lone Truther had ridden out alone.  He had no choice.  He had known the Wheathorns since he was a little boy and he loved them as much as he loved his own family.  They were family to him. He would have ridden across all the deserts of the world to answer their call.

Deporting Bisbee Miners

He knew the history of the Mexican immigrants well.  Born and raised in America’s Southwest, all land taken from Mexico at the point of a gun in 1848 — in a war Abraham Lincoln had opposed —  the Lone Truther knew that the United States alternated between exploiting cheap Mexican labor when it was needed and deporting the Mexican workers when it was not.  Between 1850 and 1888 55,000 field hands and more than 60% of the workers in Southwestern mines and railroads were from Mexico.  Mexican labor was the fuel — the inexpensive fuel – that drove the agricultural revolution in the American West between 1900 and 1920.

Besides, Americans were always getting themselves involved in wars. While the young people were off fighting and dying, capitalism needed more labor and it was always right there, just south of the border.  Then, when the war was over, and the remaining young people returned and needed jobs, the country devised ways of getting rid of the Mexican workers.  In the aftermath of World War One, the United States even created the Border Patrol to keep new laborers out of the country and to find and escort out the invited ones already in the country. Then came the Great Depression and the clamor to get rid of that cheap labor pool was loud, long, and ugly.  But then World War II arrived and all that labor was needed again and back came the Mexican laborers.  A recession followed the Korean War and out they went again.  By the time 21st Century arrived, the country was in yet another recession and it was time to get rid of the workers again.  Economic boom and bust; get them in, get them out.  The cycle was depressingly predictable.

It was true that the 12 million or so Mexican workers; all those motel maids, meat packers, and yard workers doing work that no U.S. citizen wanted their children to do, had broken one law — working in the U.S. without a Green Card — but they had not broken another, bigger law: The law of supply and demand.

Still, if they had surrounded his friends in Kansas, the Lone Truther would deal with them.  With his six-shooter if necessary.  He didn’t know exactly what he would do if there were more than six.  Maybe they’d give him time to reload.

But when he got there at the end of his long ride, the farmhouse was placid and all was well.  Sheriffs Earp, Arpeggio, and Johnson had gotten there first, rousted the immigrants, and Kansas was safe again.  The Lone Truther stayed for a couple of days, helping with the undone yard work, meat packing, and motel cleaning, but then it was time to go west again.  Born under a wandering star, he had to go back to where they called the wind Maria.

As he rode off into the sunset, the Lone Truther missed Tonto.  He wanted him by his side when he rode out of Kansas and into Oklahoma so he could say, “We’re not in Kansas anymore, Tonto.”

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For more on the economic development of the American West, the Lone Truther recommends a survey by one of his college professors, Gerald D. Nash, The Federal Landscape:  An Economic History of the Twentieth-Century West. You can buy it from the University of Arizona Press at this link.

The Lone Truther Rides Again – Illegal Immigration Part 2

Sheriff Arpeggio and the Lone Truther sipped their coffee. Not $4.00 a cup Starbucks coffee either, just good cowboy coffee boiled over the fire with the grounds settled by a good dash of cold water in the pot.

The Lone Truther studied the email about illegal immigrants again. “Sheriff, this email alleges that, ‘95% of warrants for murder in Los Angeles and of people on the most wanted list in Los Angeles are illegal aliens.’”

“Bah. LAPD doesn’t keep that kind of data. Somebody made that up. Besides, LAPD clears 2/3rds of its homicide cases and more than 1/3 of the remainder are fugitives who are later convicted in other countries. That one didn’t worry me at all.”

“The Sheriff is right, “ added Tonto. “I’m looking at the LA most wanted list right now.”

“Plus, said the Sheriff, “that email claims that nearly 35% of all inmates in California detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally. It’s 23% in Los Angeles jails and it includes all illegal aliens including a bunch from Asia.”

“What is next?” asked Tonto.

“Over 300,000 illegal aliens in Los Angeles County are living in garages.”

“Oh, that’s fine. I wonder why the people of Los Angeles haven’t noticed all those people in their garages. Do you or LAPD get many calls about that Sheriff?”

“Hardly any.”

“I thought so,” said the Lone Truther. “Here’s one for you to look up Tonto. It says, ‘The FBI reports half of all gang members in Los Angeles are most likely illegal aliens from south of the border.’”

“Kemo Sabe, that was not even the FBI. It was a study by California authorities 13 years ago about one gang in cahoots with Mexican drug runners.”

The Lone Ranger grimaced as he read the next one. “21 radio stations in L. A. are Spanish speaking. What’s a radio station?”

“We got 90 some odd radio stations in LA,” said Sheriff Arpeggio. “And the First Amendment. Don’t know why that is relevant to anything.”

“But this email also says you got 5.1 million people who speak English and 3.9 million who speak Spanish.”

Tonto chuckled. “Yeah and most of the 3.9 million who speak Spanish also speak English. I wonder how many of the 5.1 million who speak English can speak a word of Spanish. Besides, the numbers don’t add up Sheriff. What are the other one million people speaking?”

The Lone Truther chimed in. “We have to remember not to believe everything we read. It says this was all in the Los Angeles Times.”

“But it wasn’t,” said Tonto. “It was from all over the place and was written by somebody who thinks every Hispanic is an illegal alien which will come as quite a shock to the 45 Million who are here legally. Heck, over in New Mexico 44% of their population is Hispanic and a lot of those families have been here for 400 years!”

"Passed by here the Governor Don Juan de Onate, from the discovery of the Sea of the South on the 16th of April, 1605.

“What about this last one?” asked the Sheriff. “Less than 2% of illegal aliens are picking our crops, but 29% are on welfare. Over 70% of the United States ‘ annual population growth (and over 90% of California , Florida , and New York ) results from immigration.”

The Lone Truther scratched his head. “That’s impossible. Illegal aliens can’t get welfare. And how does he know that less than 2% of illegals are picking our crops? I guess the rest are living in garages in Los Angeles, making babies, murdering their landlords and driving to their white-collar jobs in Santa Monica?”

The Sheriff said, “Well this sure will help. Now I can tell my citizens not to worry so much.”

San Francisco de Assisi Mission Church, Ranchos de Taos

“Sheriff, this whole thing is a pack of lies. Whoever wrote it is ignorant, a racist, or a liar or all three. Tell em that. And tell them to take a breath. Except for Tonto and his people, we’re all immigrants here. Remind them that more than a million Hispanics are veterans of the United States Armed Forces!”

The Lone Truther put more wood on the fire. “Why don’t you stay for dinner, Sheriff?”

“Don’t mind if I do. If your food is as good as your coffee it’ll be fine. What are you having?”

“Buffalo steak with sauteed mushrooms and some of Tonto’s special sun-dried tomatoes.”

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The data for these posts about “Just One State,” about illegal immigration came primarily from U.S. Census Bureau data. Various forms of the email have been floating around since at least 2002. Snopes dealt with the 2006 version but, as far as we can tell, has not updated its information since then. Specific Census Bureau data for Los Angeles County is here.

Statistics regarding illegal immigration came from the Department of Homeland Security.

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UPDATE

The Washington Post editorializes about Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Phoenix and his policies regarding illegal immigrants today.  Any resemblance between the real Sheriff Arpaio of Phoenix and my Sheriff Arpeggio is, of course, purely coincidental.

The Lone Truther Rides Again – Illegal Immigration

Tonto and the Lone Truther were sitting around the campfire, having a beer. (Actually, the Lone Truther and Tonto never drank alcoholic beverages of any kind. They had to maintain their sobriety at all times in case they were called upon to defend the American Way. But we have them drinking a beer so ordinary Americans will understand that beneath his mask, the Lone Truther was just another ordinary American doing extraordinary things. Tonto did, occasionally and only by accident, confuse sun-dried tomatoes and peyote buttons. And the Lone Truther may have occasionally picked hallucinogenic mushrooms and sauteed them with buffalo steaks but there is no historical proof one way or the other.)

Tonto stood up suddenly and said, “Kemo Sabe, I smell dust on the wind. I think a rider is coming in. The Lone Truther stood up and looked. “You’re right Tonto. See that rider, hell bent for leather, coming up the trail? I believe it is Sheriff Arpeggio of Los Angeles town. Better get the coffee ready. The Sheriff doesn’t drink alcohol while on duty and I am sure he is killing that horse because he needs our urgent help!”

Before the cowboy coffee could get to a boil, the Sheriff rode into camp. “Boys,” he said, “I got me a big problem!”

“Have a sit Sheriff and tell us all about it. The coffee will be ready in a minute,” replied the Lone Truther. Tonto didn’t talk much with the Sheriff around. Once the Sheriff had asked to see Tonto’s green card. Their relationship had been icy after Tonto pointed out to the Sheriff that his people had lived here several centuries longer the Sheriff’s. The Sheriff took offense when Tonto asked to see his passport.

“What is that brings you all the way out here in such a hurry, Sheriff?”

“I just got this email called Just One State about them illegal aliens. I got me millions of illegal immigrants living in my town! Take a look.”

The Lone Truther took a look and said, “Something fishy about this Sheriff. Tonto. Fire up the computer. We got research to do.”

Tonto lit a small, smokeless, Indian-style fire under the computer. “Okay, Kemo Sabe, I’m ready.”

“OK, Tonto. The first thing this email says is that 40% of all the workers in Los Angeles County are working for cash and not paying their taxes because they are illegal immigrants.”

“Why that’s absurd on its face, Kemo Sabe. 9.9 Million people live in Los Angeles county. 4.9 million of them are in the work force. If that email is right, 2 million people in Los Angeles are illegal workers. You’d have to count all those workers’ family members too. Half the entire population of LA would be illegal and that’s more than the entire Hispanic population which is 47% and most of them are U.S. citizens. Besides 2.7 million of the jobs in Los Angeles are white-collar jobs and illegal immigrants don’t get those. What is more, 3 million workers in LA drive their own cars to work everyday. Illegal aliens can’t get drivers’ licenses. If that statistic were true, the LAPD would be picking up vast numbers of them everyday and they’re not.”

The Lone Truther looked again at the email. “Sheriff,” he said, “ we’ve got 304,000,000 people in this country. According the the Department of Homeland Security — and don’t forget that’s the agency with the biggest motive of all to exaggerate the number so it can get more money in its budget — there are only 11.6 million illegal immigrants here. Suppose they are right. That’s less than 4% of the population. And only 7.6 million of those are Hispanic or Latino. That’s only 2.5% of everybody alive in this country right now. What’s everybody so worked up about?”

“Well sir,” said Sheriff Arpeggio, “they’re breaking the law and lots of people are really upset about that. Plus, folks are afraid of people who are different and whose birth rate is so much higher. They think the Hispanics are taking over the country. And look here at what this email says, ‘Over 2/3 of all births in Los Angeles County are to illegal alien Mexicans on Medi-Cal, whose births were paid for by taxpayers.’”

“Kemo Sabe, that is ridiculous, said Tonto. “That’s all Hispanic births in Los Angeles in 2001. Every single one. Whoever wrote that email thinks that anyone with a Hispanic last name is an illegal alien. But it is true that Hispanics have higher birthrates.”

“Yes,” said Sheriff Arpeggio, “I’ve heard that in Los Angeles a woman gives birth every thirty seconds.”

“Sheriff, you must find that woman and stop her!”

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Stay tuned for the conclusion of this exciting episode of “The Lone Truther Rides Again!”

Curses on You Lawyers!

A screed about lawyers landed in our inbox this week. Democrats, you see, are the party of the “lawyers.” The article is called — diction be damned — “Why this country is going down.” It’s basic premise is that all lawyers are Democrats and all Democrats are lawyers. Here is a sample:

The Democrat[sic] Party has become the Lawyers’ Party.

The Republican Party is made up of real people doing real work. The Democrat[sic] Party is made up of lawyers.

The Democrat[sic] Party is made up of lawyers. Democrats mock and scorn men who create wealth, like Bush and Cheney, or who heal the sick, like Frist, or who immerse themselves in history, like Gingrich.

The Lawyers’ Party sees these sorts of people, who provide goods and services that people want, as the enemies of America .

Most Americans know that a republic in which every major government action must be blessed by nine unelected judges is not what Washington intended in 1789.

Those five sentences inhabit a fact-free zone. Not one is true. But they are the basis of the entire piece. Hiding in the verbiage, they are not easy to spot. Drag them out to the light of day and they shrivel.

But we knew at the outset that this is propaganda, not serious republican discourse. The title tells us that. “Going down?” What does that mean — in this context? Does it mean our political system? Our culture? Our population? Our economy? We’re not told. Perhaps the author means something along the lines of, “It’s just like the decline and fall of the Roman Empire.” But that can’t be right. There is no evidence of that. Whatever the title means is left to the reader to fill in. (Which, as we will see, is the point of ambiguous language. Your reader can project whatever she wants onto it. It also saves the writer a lot of hard work.)

In the first paragraph the author launches into the “Democrat[sic] Party.” That is our second clue that we’re in propaganda-land and not in a serious discussion between citizens of the Republic. It is the Democratic Party. Conversation and persuasion begin, as we’ve known since at least Aristotle, with mutual respect; not denigration and demonization. Imagine having a conversation with a man named Bill. He’s not going to hear much of what you say if you call him “Little Billy” all the time.

The few facts presented are patronizingly selective. For instance, here is a list of businessmen-politicians:

The Republican Party is different. President Bush and Vice President Cheney were not lawyers, but businessmen. The leaders of the Republican Revolution were not lawyers. Newt Gingrich was a history professor; Tom Delay was an exterminator; and, Dick Armey was an economist. House Minority Leader Boehner was a plastic manufacturer, not a lawyer. The former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is a heart surgeon.

You’ll note that the list leaves out two of the real businessmen who served as president in the 20th Century; Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter. While it is too early for history to weigh in on the successes and failures of George W. Bush’s presidency, no one seriously argues that either the Hoover or the Carter presidency were successes. Which is why the piece omits both. Both businessmen failed as presidents and that undermines the idea that non-lawyer businessmen make better presidents.

A second significant omission — again because it is evidence contrary to the belief embraced — is that only Democrats become lawyers and only Democratic lawyers reach the high levels of our government. That is not right. For example, the person who sent this email — on a federally funded, taxpayer paid email account — works for a Republican Congressman seeking to replace Republican Senator Pete Domenici, a lawyer. And, as I have noted elsewhere, 78% of all federal judges in the United States today were appointed by Republican presidents. Seven of the nine members of the Supreme Court were put there by a Republican president. None are liberals. No mention is made of all the lawyers working in the Republican controlled Executive Branch.

Even the Republican lawyer-president Richard Nixon is absent. I wonder why?

The piece misses entirely the downside of legislator-lawyers. Lawyers, by training and inclination, are verbal. Most believe that problems can be solved by talking and writing. That is true only some of the time.

In addition, most political beliefs are emotionally based and not rational; you don’t talk people out of them, although lawyers are always trying. Innumerable scientific studies show that all of us reject factual information that collides with our emotional beliefs. Emotion trumps reason.

Besides, the author is crying “Wolf!” The current Congress has 215 lawyers, but it also has 189 businessmen and women. And, just to pick another profession at random, 128 are veterans of the military. It is a risky business, this smearing of Congressmen on the basis of prior occupation; you end up criticizing our soldiers. (Or professional musicians. There are three of those in Congress.)

This piece adds nothing to our civic discourse. Patriots do not engage in such folderol, they converse with fellow citizens with respect. Lawyers are often well-deserving butts of lawyer jokes. (How do you save a drowning lawyer? Take your foot off his head.) But lawyers are useful. Many are capitalism’s mechanics: They grease our economic wheels by making business transactions possible. Many more operate the executive branches of the federal and state governments. Some still strive mightily as courtroom adversaries. (Half of those work for businesses, not employees of businesses.) And a few go into politics.

Politics, like other professions, is an honorable calling — if pursued honorably. So is a life spent teaching, serving in the military, treating illnesses or being a lawyer. Lawyers are trained to communicate clearly and to persuade, two of the most important skills of a successful politician. As Republican-lawyer John Yoo reminds us, they also serve as constitutional advisers, deal-makers, and investigators.

Small wonder then that they gravitate to politics and governing. Where would the nation be had it not been blessed with some of these lawyers: Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, James Madison, Daniel Webster, John Marshall, Robert Jackson, Thurgood Marshall?

Let me say this again: It does nothing to help meet our Nation’s challenges to scapegoat one another. We’re all in this together. And the overwhelming majority of us are people of good will. Even the lawyers.

Which reminds me, the author leaves out one of the most skilled lawyers of the Illinois bar. From humble, unschooled beginnings he rose to be one of the most famous lawyers in Illinois. He represented the titans of capitalism of those days, the railroads, arguing several cases on their behalf before the Supreme Court of Illinois. He even argued one case before the United States Supreme Court. And he represented the downtrodden and oppressed as well, occasionally defending even accused murderers, sometimes for free. He went into politics too. As a Republican. His name was Abraham Lincoln.

The Lone Truther – The Holocaust and the University of Kentucky

From time to time we get questionable emails in our inbox. Today we begin a new program to deal with them. It’s time for this week’s episode of THE LONE TRUTHER.

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Announcer: COME WITH US NOW TO THOSE THRILLING DAYS OF YESTERYEAR

cue the music: tatatump, tatatump, tatatumptump tump

Announcer: IN A CLOUD OF DUST AND A HEARTY “HI-HO SILVER,” THE LONE TRUTHER RIDES AGAIN!

Camera pans in on our hero and his trusty side-kick Tanto sitting around the campfire in the wilderness. Crickets chirp and coyotes howl in the background. . .

LT: Well, Tanto. We’ll have to check this out. Somebody is claiming that the University of Kentucky removed a class about the Holocaust from its curriculum for fear of offending Muslims. You ride into town, get beat up and then come back and tell me if anyone is getting this email.

T: Kemo Sabe, why do I always have to get beat up?

LT: Because it’s in the script every week.

T: Ugh. I think it is time for the writers to take a hike. A nice long hike.

Tanto leaves. The LONE TRUTHER pours himself another cup of coffee and wanders off into the desert to look at the stars. Sometime later TANTO returns. . . .

LT: Well, Tanto. Only one black eye this week. What did you find out?

T: Kemo Sabe, an email is floating around alleging that the Holocaust has been removed from the curriculum at the University of Kentucky. Here is a copy.

The LONE TRUTHER reads. . . .

IN MEMORIAM — This week the University of Kentucky removed The Holocaust from its school curriculum because it “offended” the Muslim population which claims it never occurred. This is a frightening portent of the fear that is gripping the world and how easily each country is giving into it. It is now more than 60 years since the Second World War in Europe ended. This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the six million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians and 1,900 Catholic priests who were murdered, massacred, raped, burned, starved and humiliated with the German and Russian peoples looking the other way! Now more than ever, with Iran among others claiming the Holocaust to be “a myth,” it is imperative to make sure the world never forgets. This e-mail is intended to reach 40 million people worldwide! Join us and be a link in the memorial chain.

LT: Well, Tanto. This looks suspicious. Look at this: “German and Russian peoples looking the other way! ” That would have been a little difficult given how rapidly they were killing one another. And why would a Muslim be offended by teaching about the Holocaust? Muslims didn’t murder the Jews; the Nazis did that. Muslims didn’t invade Russia nor did they rape and kill Germans. Stalin murdered Russians no matter what their religious beliefs. The writer of the email is anonymous. And I don’t like those exclamation points either. We’d better check this out.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the citizenry waits with baited breath. Pretty soon the LONE TRUTHER AND TANTO ride into the ranch yard in a cloud of dust.

Innocent Citizen No. 1 – Good thing they don’t have a helicopter. We wouldn’t have any topsoil left.

LT: Innocent citizens, lend me your ears! There is NO truth in the email. It is all false! Made up! You can return safely to your homes now. Here is what TANTO and I found out:

1.) The University of Kentucky was compelled by this email to issue a press release denying it which you can read here:

2. ) The story originated in the United Kingdom which has the same initials as the University of Kentucky.

But it wasn’t true even about the UK. Read here.

The sun begins to set in the West. . .

Innocent citizen number 2: Where else would it set?

Cue the music . . . .tatatump, tatatump, tatatumptump tump. . . .

THE LONE TRUTHER and his trusty side-kick TANTO ride off into the sunset . . .We hear the plaintive call, “Hi-Ho Silver” as they ride off.

Innocent Citizen No. 1: Who was that masked man? I didn’t even get a chance to thank him.

Innocent Citizen No. 2: Why, that was the LONE TRUTHER!

The end.