>I have to wonder if they put this forward entirely tongue in cheek, and some fool took it seriously.
Oh, right, that's a possibility as well. Reminds me of the Baron von Münchhausen, although the situation was slightly different. But his tall tales were never meant to be published!
By the way, you look quite a bit younger on that picture!
Difference in opinions hath cost many millions of lives: for instance, whether flesh be bread, or bread be flesh; whether whistling be a vice or a virtue; whether it be better to kiss a post, or throw it into the fire... (from Gulliver's Travels)
