In the United States we have a “drug czar,” a “terrorism czar,” a (newly appointed) “pay czar”, a “cybersecurity czar”, a “war czar”, an “energy czar,” a "copyright czar," a “food safety czar,” and we even have a “hurricane Katrina recovery czar.” This wouldn’t be alarming if this was the Roman Empire (the term was originally derived from word Caesar and meant emperor) or 13th century Russia, but it’s not, it’s 21st century America a coun

In the end, it was Sarai who solved the fertility problem. She suggested that Abram have sex with her Egyptian slave, Hagar. Abram enthusiastically followed her suggestion.

Commentary: I suppose that I shouldn't ask whether Hagar was consulted in this arrangement.

Watch for the Mega-Shark cameo...

About this time, Abram discovered a small flaw in God’s divine plan to make his offspring as numerous as the dust of the earth: his wife was sterile. So when God came to him in a vision with more promises of greatness and plentiful offspring, Abram pointed out that Sarai’s advanced age and well-documented sterility could present a problem.

There was at this time a war between nine kings of various tribes of ites and ims. Four of the kings defeated the other five, including the king of Sodom. The victors pillaged the possessions of the vanquished and took their people captive, including Abram’s nephew, Lot, who had been chilling in Sodom. When Abram heard of the kidnapping, he chased the four kings with 318 of his servants. He split his forces (all 318 of them) and rescued the captives and their possessions.

Commentary: Obviously, these were not the most powerful kings ever to rule the Middle East.

So Abram, Sarai, and Lot, enriched by the prostitution business, headed back north to Canaan. They were so rich that the land couldn’t support all their flocks, and their herdsman started to squabble, so Abram told Lot to go one way, and he would go the other. Lot went east to the wicked city of Sodom, and Abram went west.

Commentary: Lot did not have a good head for real estate.

When Lot was gone, God promised Abram that all the land as far as he could see would soon be his and that his offspring would be as numerous as the dust of the earth.

When Abram turned 75, God told him to move out of his father’s house.

Commentary: I have to agree with God on this one.

To encourage him, God promised: “I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you great. You shall become a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and he who curses you, I will curse. All the families of the earth will be blessed through you.”

Commentary: I think that God had a little man-crush on Abram.

Apparently, diving boards may be as common as a live dinosaur. Pool companies refuse to install them because they are afraid of liability claims should they fail and Homeowner insurers don’t want to insure homes with diving boards for the same reason. Because businesses are so afraid to get sued the younger generation of kids are deprived of the joy of a well executed cannon ball or the satisfaction of a diving into the pool like a seal getting after fish.

The descendents of Nimrod, the mighty trapper before God, settled in the valley of Shinar. Once they were settled, they decided that it would be fun to build a really tall tower that reached the sky, so that’s what they did.

Then God came around to check out their tower, and he apparently wasn’t too pleased because he said,

“They are a single people, all having one language, and this is the first thing they do! Now nothing they plan to do will be unattainable for them! Come, let us descend and confuse their speech, so that one person will not understand another's speech.”

This is another boring chapter. It’s just a list Noah’s kids and grandkids and great grandkids who founded seventy nations between them, including a bunch of “ites”  (Canaanites, Jebusites, Amorites, Girgashites, Hivites, Overbites, Arkites, Sinites, Arvadites, Uptites, and Chamathites) and a few “ims” (Ludim, Anamim, Wetdrim, Lehabhim, Naftuchim, Pathrusim, Casluchim, Caphtorim, and Shavincrim). I didn’t count seventy, but that’s what the Great Rabbi says, and he is one wise counter.

There is one line, however, that makes the whole chapter worth reading:

When we last left our hero, Noah had disembarked from the ship and sacrificed a few clean animals to thank God for not drowning him, his family, and all the animals (except the sacrificed ones). God blessed Noah and his children, and in case they had forgotten, reminded them to be fruitful and multiply.

Commentary: Sometimes, God reminds me of my mother.

God also gave the people permission to eat the animals, though He forbade them from eating live animals.

After forty days, God, sealed the wellsprings of the deep and the floodgates of heaven. Then he created a wind that caused the floodwaters to gradually subside.

Commentary: Where did the floodwaters subside to?

After seven months, the boat ran aground on a mountain. After ten months, the mountain peaks became visible.

Commentary: What exactly did the lions eat for ten months? Just wondering…

God tells Noah to bring the animals again, but this time he specified seven pairs of each clean species and one pair of each unclean species.

Commentary: The Great Rabbi Ezekiel Bezekiel wrote,

“The Lord in his infinite foresight commanded Noah to bring seven pairs of each clean animal so that he might earn the Lord’s blessing by offering the additional pairs as holy sacrifices to His mercy.”

The “sons of God” thought that human women were hot, so they took the ones that they wanted. The offspring (God’s grandchildren) were mighty giants. Meanwhile, God decided that humans were living too long, so he cut their maximum life spans to 120.

This chapter is just a list of Seth’s descendents and their spirited competition to see who could live the longest. I will spare the reader its boringness except to say that the consensus winner was Methuselah, who died at the ripe age of 969. However, supporters of Methuselah’s father, Enoch, dispute the result. God transported Enoch directly to paradise while he was a still young lad of 365, so technically, he didn’t die. The Great Rabbi Ezekiel Bezekiel exhibits Solomon-like wisdom in his proposed resolution:

There is something about picking a ridiculous concept and building a website around it that puts a quiver in my liver.  Today I found two websites that are mind-blowingly awesome, if only for the fact that they straddle the line between absolutely outlandish and categorically awesome.  I encourage you to visit these sites and bask in their preposterous magnificence.

1)  Black People Love Us - The blacks just can't get enough of them!
http://www.blackpeopleloveus.com/

May 13, 2029

Twenty-six years after invading Iraq, the United States closed its military bases and evacuated the last American soldiers from Iraqi soil.

In an address to soldiers at Fort Bragg, President George Prescott Bush praised the U.S. military for accomplishing the mission that his uncle, former President George W. Bush, had set before them in 2003.

In a comprehensive study, voting experts recently conducted a series of interviews, polls, and focus groups to find out why American voters turned away from Republicans in 2008. While many reasons were cited, analysts observed a clear consensus among swing voters who had voted for President George Bush and other Republican candidates prior to 2006 but changed to Democratic tickets in the past two years.

Having gained the knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve set about going forth and multiplying, which is what God said that he wanted them to do in the first place. They had two sons, Cain and Abel. Cain became a farmer and Abel a shepherd. Cain offered some of his crops to God, but Abel offered his fattest sheep, so God loved Abel and ignored Cain.

Commentary: Couldn’t God make his own sheep? That’s like giving eggs to a chicken.