I frankly don't have as much time as I'd like to look through the comments following the items that appear on SWIFT, and I'm sure I thus miss a lot of good material. At this article, I discussed some differences between UK and USA English usage, and though I was tempted to get into car parts - the English have "boot," "lorry," and "petrol" where we have "trunk," "truck," and "gas" - I settled on some place names and proper names. The item got 1,826 hits and 37 comments within the first 24 hours, among which was one from "BillyJoe" that I believe needs my attention.

The androgynous BillyJoe asked:

And, pray tell, what is this doing in Swift?

Reader Frank Trumpy sends us this hilarious ad, a quite serious one, from a circular in his vast collection:

Fathers of Mercy

Dedicated To

THE IMMACULATE VIRGIN MARY AND THE MAGISTERIUM

need men to bring the Mercy of God to all.

Write: Vocation Director

Fathers of Mercy

South Union, KY 42283

Galileo: Nincompoop

Reader Dennis Middlebrooks of New York writes:

The History Channel aired a program called "The Next Nostradamus" Sunday night. The show began by claiming Nostradamus was right on target with his predictions and was "a mortal man with immortal insights into the future."  Incredibly, the show equates astrology with astronomy and states that Nostradamus developed a method to predict the future by casting horoscopes for the entire globe!  The show also claimed that Copernicus and Galileo were astrologers and described alchemy as the "science of converting lead into gold."  I kid you not.

In this article, I ran an item about one “astrologer Sir Bejaan Daruwala,” and I expressed my wonder that he’d been granted that honor, perhaps either for being an astrologer or for endorsing “Global Zodiac Rings and Pendants,” miraculous gems that vibrate the naïve into ecstasies of spending