FDA approves brain implants—that's bad news for Congress 

Imagine a future when old folks don't forget names, idiots aren't idiots and conservatives like Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan can tell the truth from lies.

No Wilson, we are not making this up. The FDA approved Neuralink's request to begin clinical trials where devices are implanted into human brains that link to computers. The company, owned by Elon Musk, is developing electronic implants that could restore debilitating functions, like paralysis, and could even teach monkeys how to play computer games.

For Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, it could be a real game-changer. She would know that the “Gazpacho Police” are judges of soup, not Nazi cops, and that Monkeypox is not a sexually transmitted disease.

A computer chip would be sewn into the surface of the brain to the RAM equivalent of Einstein. This would allow 88-year-old Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, to know what day it is. But Utah Sen. Mike Lee wouldn't sign up for one because he's smarter than any computer. He even knows when it's time to duck out of a coup before heads roll.

On the other hand, it would be great for Utah Rep. Burgess Owens. He could discover that he can vote however he wants despite instructions from House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Maybe not—that's a lot to ask of a computer.

No Hoax—Witches Exonerated
A dozen convicted New England witches have been vindicated 370 years after their executions. Dozens were dispatched for witchcraft in colonial America—and that was way before the scourge of social media. In different times, folks now affiliated with QAnon could face the dunking wheel. Don't go getting any ideas, Wilson.

Last year, Massachusetts formally exonerated Elizabeth Johnson, the last person convicted in the Salem Witch Trials. She was spared the noose and lived to be 77. Some historians say she suffered from mental instability that was mistaken for special powers. Colorado Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem might have been strapped to the dunking wheel for their “special powers.”

During the witch trials, if the accused didn't confess to witchcraft they'd drown. But if they did admit it, they were hung. You're right, Wilson, it is kinda like when a Republican is asked whether or not they support Trump.

The comedy about witches, Bell, Book and Candle, it is not. Someone has cast a spell over congressional Republicans and undoing it will be tricky, said Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren. It would require Trump's little toe, a pot of heated chicken's blood, a shock of Mike Pence's hair, the guts of a toad, Epsom salts, a Waring blender and a squirt gun. Nobody said it would be easy.

Evade the Woke Mind Virus Before it’s Too Late
If you want to be safe from forced Marxist indoctrination, escape to Florida. There, Gov. Ron “Churchill” DeSantis is riding in on a self-righteous stallion to save us: “We fight the woke in the Legislature. We fight the woke in the schools. We fight the woke in the corporations. We will never, ever surrender to the woke mob.”

He champions the “Stop Woke Act” that would keep schools and businesses from making white people “feel guilty or get distressed” by banning the teaching of the hideous poisons of slavery, Jim Crow, the civil rights movement and Critical Race Theory. Now, DeSantis is running for president to save the whole country from the scourge of Black history, diversity, trans rights, homosexuality and women's reproductive health.

But wait, there's trouble on the horizon. U.S. District Judge Mark Walker ruled large parts of the Florida law are unconstitutional. What the hell? Paraphrasing George Orwell's novel 1984, he said, “The clocks were striking 13 and the powers in charge of Florida’s public university system declared ultimate authority to muzzle professors in the name of 'freedom.'”

He issued a temporary injunction stopping enforcement, saying the law is “positively dystopian.” Freedom from Marxist indoctrination will have to wait. Sure.

Postscript—That's a wrap for another wonderful week here in the promised land where we keep track of drag shows in St. George so you don't have to. The city council there is being sued for putting a drag on drag shows. Freedom of speech has to stop somewhere and in Utah's Dixie, it's when men with beards and hairy arms don bustiers and dance around in spike heels. It's just not right and the mere thought of it drives city leaders up a wall.

The Southern Utah Drag Stars filed legal action in federal court alleging St. George discriminated against them by denying a permit to shake their booty in a public park. In related news, St. George Mayor Michelle Randall will again allow public comment at city council meetings. They were suspended earlier when a group brandishing signs proclaiming “Save Our Children” raised a ruckus, called the mayor and council communists and accused them of trying to make “St. George the drag queen hub of the West.”

Caught between drag queens and angry vigilantes, the mayor said public comments could resume if they were “respectful” and not “obscene or profane.” The “Save Our Children” folks won their demand for First Amendment rights while denying Southern Utah Drag Stars theirs. Let freedom ring.

Well Wilson, when you think about it, witches don't get a lot of respect. Donald Trump takes their name in vain and they're always getting blamed for ... just about everything. So wind up the guys in the band and ring out a little something for those New England maids who had it even worse than drag queens:

Susanna Martin was a witch who dwelt in Amesbury
With brilliant eye and saucy tongue she worked her sorcery
And when into the judges court the sheriffs brought her hither
The lilacs drooped as she passed by
And then were seen to wither

A witch she was, though trim and neat with comely head held high
It did not seem that one as she with Satan so would vie
And when in court when the afflicted ones proclaimed her evil ways
She laughed aloud and boldly then
Met Cotton Mathers gaze

"Who hath bewitched these maids," he asked, and strong was her reply
"If they be dealing in black arts, ye know as well as I"
And then the stricken ones made moan as she approached near
They saw her shaped upon the beam
So none could doubt 'twas there

The spectral evidence was weighed, then stern the parson spoke
"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live, tis written in the Book"
Susanna Martin so accused, spoke with flaming eyes
"I scorn these things for they are naught
But filthy gossips lies"

Now those bewitched, they cried her out, and loud their voice did ring
they saw a bird above her head, an evil yellow thing
And so, beneath a summer sky, Susanna Martin died
And still in scorn she faced the rope
Her comely head held high
“Susannah Martin”—lyrics unknown