Vin Suprynowicz

To grasp why the Bill of Rights leads off by barring Congress from “establishing” any religion, “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” you must understand that in 18th century England there was no “separation of church and state.” The English monarch to this day includes in her title “Fidele Defensor” — Defender of the Faith. Which helps explains why even our right to a jury trial stems directly from this era.

In 1670, it was declared illegal to hold a religious gathering or preach a sermon in England which was not a “Church of England” sermon. Dissident churches, including the Quaker meeting houses, were closed.

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Journalist Sherry Jones, 46, had worked for a decade at the Montana Missoulian when she went back to school to earn her 2006 bachelor’s in English and creative writing from the University of Montana.

She began reading about women in the Middle East while preparing her honors thesis.

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Nancy Ford, administrator of Nevada’s Division of Welfare and Supportive Services, split the baby On Aug. 19, adopting one policy change designed to meet federal requirements that aid recipients be required to look for work, but rejecting another.

Ms. Ford rejected a proposal that would have taken food stamps away from entire households when the head of household failed to meet requirements such as attending employment workshops.

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I’m a coin collector, in a small way. British issues of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, mostly: Pistrucci, the Wyons — apogee of the engraver’s art.

To determine the market value of such coins, advanced collectors keep up to date on current auctions, stuff like that. But as a starting point, the standard pricing guide is the hefty softcover catalog still generally known as the “Krause,” after original author Chester L. Krause.

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Cops in Prince George’s County, Maryland, have a proud tradition to maintain. In May, a former county officer was sentenced to 45 years in prison for shooting two furniture delivery men at his home last year, one of them fatally. (He claims they attacked him.)

In June, a suspect jailed in the death of a local police officer was found strangled in his cell. Authorities have no idea how that could have happened.

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It was on their fourth album, “I Think We’re Also Bozos on This Bus,” that the Firesign Theatre formulated Fudd’s First Law of Opposition: “If you push something hard enough, it will fall over.”

(Trivia fans will also recall Testicle’s Deviant to Fudd’s First Law: “What goes in, must come out.”)

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The leftist Punditocracy, convinced that when Ronald Reagan died he left Bonzo in charge, seem overjoyed to cackle that George W. Bush is now a lame duck, a political irrelevance who retains no power to do any more than hand over the keys to the White House wine cellar. (Or is it now a tap room?)

Presumably these are the same kind of folk who assume it’s safe to poke a rattlesnake in the head because it’s “almost dead.”

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Back on July 25, I wrote:

“… To understand and explain American exceptionalism, like it or not, it may be necessary to at least understand why aeroplanes were not used in the Civil War, why the British couldn’t use the train to get back and forth between New York and Philadelphia in 1788, why no one seemed concerned that opium and marijuana and machine guns were perfectly legal in 1905 (an era so safe that Americans didn’t even lock their doors), and why the Jackson Democrats kept making such a fuss about the National Bank. …

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Proponents were full of assurances as they took their dog-and-wheelchair show around the country back in the late 1980s: The proposed Americans with Disabilities Act wouldn’t impose undue costs or hardships on businesses. It would simply require a few “reasonable accommodations.”

Widen a doorway here, provide a wheelchair ramp there — there weren’t even likely to be many lawsuits.

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During the Revolutionary War, a Continental Congress bereft of hard money was reduced to buying supplies for Washington’s army by issuing fiat paper money, notes that became known as “Continentals.”

Because these pieces of paper could not be redeemed for gold or silver, their value eroded quickly. By war’s end hardly anyone would accept them, and the phrase “not worth a Continental” was widespread in the land. It was widely reported Washington’s men found the only use of the paper money (other than, um … sanitary purposes) was to line well-worn boots to keep out the rain and snow: for decades thereafter a worthless piece of fiat paper money not redeemable in silver or gold was called a “shin plaster.”

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