Waiting in the Mullah Billdoug's inbox this morning was this letter from a Mr. Mike Riddle, professor of creationist meteorology at Oral Roberts University, whom Dr. Robinson quoted yesterday on the "pseudo-rapture" Tuesday. He writes:

Dear Mullah Billdoug,

I don't know why I bother writing to you people, who are obviously Arabs and atheists, but I am, after all, an educator, and committed to the task set us by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to make disciples of all nations, so here goes.

First off, while I don't have a graduate degree in Creationist Meteorology (none is currently offered by any American university!), I have taken several very demanding extension courses in meteorology. And while I know this won't mean anything to a bunch of freethinkers like yourselves, the Good Lord in Heaven has taught me more about weather than most people learn in a three-year Ph.D. program in meteorology. So you don't need to snipe at my credentials. They are precisely what Our Lord God wants them to be, to do His work.

Second, you misquoted me. You quoted me as saying "Here we have a perfect example"--but I didn't use the word "example" at all! I used an entirely different word: "case." My exact words were "Here we have a perfect case." If this is a perfect example or case of your journalistic integrity, well--I think we know just how far we can trust your comments on resurrection and time travel!

Thirdly, and lastly, but far from leastly, your editorial staff have once again blundered into territory where they quite simply lack the Bible-based science to know what the heck they're talking about. I am referring to the post on "robot goats vs. dervishes", a thin tissue of outlandish theories and out-and-out fabrications that doesn't deserve to be considered alongside serious scientific creationism. This is the paragraph that particularly, if you'll excuse the pun, "gets my goat":

"Others disagree with the robot theory, noting that there are verified reports of assassin dervishes dressed in goat suits raining out of the sky and wreaking havoc, especially after a convergence of storm fronts. 'Over a thousand rained down on Bainesville, Georgia, after Hurricane Floyd bumped into Hurricane Barney,' says local rapture scientist and weatherman Randy Stutz. 'Killed everyone on the town square. Just ripped out their throats with their nasty yellow teeth, then took off their goat suits and ran away. Robots goats from God, my ass. Satan is the one with the goats and the dervishes.'"

Precisely how is that paragraph wrong? Let me count the ways.

1. Barney Stutz. I know Randy. He's a good God-fearing church-going tithing man, though maybe he beats his wife a little more than the Good Lord would want. But he isn't a rapture scientist or a weatherman. Or else he's a weatherman only in the sense that any two-bit actor who stands up in front of a blue screen and reads off a teleprompter is a "weatherman." He knows nothing about Bible-based weather patterns. Why, he's never even taught Sunday School! So how could he possibly have mastered the finer points of creationist rapturology or meteorology? You tell me that. I'm waiting.

2. Assassin dervishes. There's no such thing! Do you even own a copy of the Holy Scriptures? If you do, open it. If you don't, borrow a copy and open it. Or, I don't know, go to crosswalk.com and run a search for "assassin dervish." Didn't find it, did you? That's because there quite simply is no mention in God's Holy Book of such a fanciful creature. And there is no mention of assassin dervishes because they don't exist. Pure and simple. You can take that one to church, my friends.

3. In no part of this elaborate fable is the true Scriptural precedent for goats raining out of the sky mentioned. Did you not think to check the Bible, to determine whether in fact there were cases where goats had rained out of the heavens? Turn your Bibles to Exodus 8:16-18: "And the LORD said unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Stretch out thy rod, and smite the hard-packed soil at the crest of the hill, that goats may rain out of the heavens throughout all the land of Egypt. And they did so; for Aaron stretched out his hand with his rod, and smote the hard-packed soil at the crest of the hill, and goats rained out of the heavens, so that there came goats on man and beast; all the heavens became goats throughout all the land of Egypt. And the magicians did so with their enchantments to bring forth goats, but they could not: so there were goats upon man, and upon beast."

This was not, gentlemen, some weird liberal conspiracy-theory scenario such as you lot like to dream up over there in liberal la-la land. This was Divine Weather. This was the Holy Work of our God in Heaven, smiting the Egyptians for the evil they practiced against God's People. And He continues to do that Holy Work today, punishing sinners and rewarding the just and the righteous, in His Holy Name, amen.

Yours in Christ,

Mike Riddle

Professor of Creationist Meteorology

Oral Roberts University

I'm not sure what to say to this, except--wow! Everybody's out of the office. Dr. Kaul and Dr Robinson are AWOL, possibly dead, possibly sucked through heaven and transformed into zombies, nobody knows. Mulla Billdoug is down in the Caribbean riding out Hurricane Francis and Hurricane Ludwig. I'm just the janitor, Jerry Falwell (no relation to the famous Jerry Falwell). There's a note here that says "If anybody writes in, put it up on the blog. Don't let anybody get the idea that the office, or the phones, or the editorial staff are unmanned. Mullah Billdoug staff."

So, uh--whatever, dudes!