corrente

Dam' gummint ennyway, innerferin' wit' ar rats. Oops, this isn't from some hick town in the South, it's from Cedar Freakin' Rapids Iowa. How depressing is that?

(via Minneapolis Star-Tribune)

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa -- A church's plan for an old-fashioned book-burning has been thwarted by city and county fire codes.

Preachers and congregations throughout American history have built bonfires and tossed in books and other materials they believed offended God. The Rev. Scott Breedlove, pastor of The Jesus Church, wanted to rekindle that tradition in a July 28 ceremony where books, CDs, videos and clothing would have been thrown into the flames.

Not so fast, city officials said.

``We don't want a situation where people are burning rubbish as a recreational fire,'' said Brad Brenneman, the fire department's district chief.

Linn County won't go for a fire outside city limits, either. Officials said the county's air quality division prohibits the transporting of materials from the city to the county for burning.

Breedlove said a city fire inspector suggested shredding the offending material, but Breedlove said that wouldn't seem biblical.

The new plan calls for members of the church to throw materials into garbage cans and then light candles to symbolically ``burn'' the material.

How about we nominate Rev. Breedlove as Official Pastor of the Bush Administration, just so he can remind them as often as necessary of the "unbibilical" nature of paper-shredding? The Cedar Rapids Fire Department might chip in on his moving expenses too.