This just in: The Pope called for peace on this Easter Sunday. Oh, so that's where he stands on the war vs peace controversy, eh? I'm glad he cleared that up. OK, everybody -- the war's off -- the Pope said so. He "called Sunday for world leaders to resolve conflicts in Iraq, the Middle East and Africa." Brilliant. Yeah, everbody, lets's do that, why don't we? It's sounds simple when the Pope says so, doesn't it? Guess nobody thought of that before.

I'd like to call for a few things myself that might set the world right. Pope Brian speaks:

Peace is good. War is bad. Making money is not a sin, unless you do it dishonestly. Having wealth should not be despised by those who are not wealthy -- one day, if you're lucky, you might have wealth, too, and you don't want the rest of the world hating you, do you? The USA should stop being the policeman and the "donor country" to the rest of the world. They are hated when they act, and hated when they do not act, so the USA ought to just take the cheaper alternative and stay out of everyone else's business. If a dictator becomes a real threat to the USA (um, not with some phoney trumped-up evidence) then it should come as no surprise that the USA takes action to protect its own interest -- that's just what every other country would do, if it could. In the future, though, those countries ought not to automatically expect that the USA spend billions more to "rebuild" what they just bombed the crap out of. The USA should take out the offending government and then back off and let the people figure it out for themselves. If they put in another threatening dictator, repeat as necessary. Yes, I realize things are not ever so simple, but the expensive plans the USA makes don't work and are not appreciated by the folks they are supposed to help.

The rest of the world could learn a thing or two about tolerance by emulating the USA. Despite the Americans regularly beating themselves up over supposed racial and religious insensitivity, nearly all races and religions regularly get along just fine every day in the USA without warring, persecution or ethnic cleansing. Even the silliest of religions are not only tolerated, but get a tax break. If the USA is so evil, why do you so many of you want to move there?

Lighten up, everybody. And don't eat your jelly beans all at once. Happy Easter. And a happy whatever-you'd-like-it-to-be to non-christians as well.