Tea baggers, terrorists and Elton John

Continuing our practice of summarizing each month's news at the end of the month, here's a handy summary of February.

Sarah Palin addresses the Tea Baggers in Tennessee, mocking Obama for using a teleprompter while reading notes scrawled on her palm. The Internet's Urban Dictionary immediately coins the expression "redneck teleprompter."

Washington, D.C., gets buried in snow, then buried again, shutting down the city. This makes it impossible for Congress to do anything, not that Congress does anything anyway.

South Carolina, the nation's punchline, begins requiring all terrorists to register with its secretary of state and pay a $5 "filing fee." Either that, or face a $25,000 fine or 10 years in prison. Of course, terrorists line up at the door, fivers in hand.

Muslim scholars announce that it's against their religion to walk through full-body scanners at airports, because the Quran says people aren't supposed to see each other naked. This on the same day as the news that an Arab ambassador wants to annul his marriage after discovering, when he went to kiss his burqa-covered bride, that she was cross-eyed and bearded. Allah, it seems, has a sense of humor.

South Carolina, the 50th smartest state in the union, makes the news again when state Rep. Mike Pitts, R-Laurens, introduces legislation outlawing the use of federal greenbacks in his state. Under the law, South Carolinians would use - in lieu of dollars - gold, silver, butter, eggs, livestock and sacks of grits. Terrorists line up at the secretary of state's office with fistfuls of chickens.

L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican's official newspaper, publishes its list of the ten best rock albums of all time, which includes The Beatles' "Revolver" (numero uno), Pink Floyd's "The Dark Side of The Moon" and Paul Simon's "Graceland." The list's most glaring sin of omission? The Dead Kennedys' "Frankenchrist."

Speaking of rock 'n' roll 'n' religion, Elton John tells Parade magazine, "I think Jesus was a compassionate, super-intelligent gay man who understood human problems." In other words, Elton John.

And in the "you can't win" department: Dick Cheney tells the Conservative Political Action Conference that Obama isn't being tough enough on terrorists, while Viet Dinh, an author of the Patriot Act, tells the same conference that Obama is killing too many terrorists.

This is the opinion of Kenton Robinson.