Well, why doesn't the government pay for it?

In the long ago and far away, it was considered very amusing when a child said of a project whose finances were uncertain: "Well, why doesn't the government pay for it?" That stopped being funny in the Johnson administration, if not before. But there are still a few who haven't gotten the word, including Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. The last is the gent to wants to build a mosque and Islamic cultural center next door to Ground Zero. He thinks it would be a dandy idea if we (that is, the American taxpayer) not only agreed that it's a dandy idea, but helped pay for it as well. Toward that end, he has applied for $5 million from a U.S. government fund established for the purpose of--are you ready?--rebuilding lower Manhattan after the 9/11 terrorist strike. Yes. In the immortal words of Dave Barry, I am not making this up. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford