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What really counts in life is sincerity - once you can fake that, you've got it made

Many of us have heard of musical comedian Tom Lehrer. I have spent dozens of hours in his presence - he was teaching statistics to social science students at the time. There was no piano in the room. He never burst into song. Perhaps twice during the semester he made a joke. So in passing on this joke I heard from him, I can say that I heard him repeat it word-for-word several times - because I was listening to an LP. And maybe I'm conflating it with a version in a book by George Gamow and/or Isaac Asimov. Decades later, I assert that it goes approximately like this:

Two business rivals meet in the Moscow train station. They engage in conversation.

[One asks, "How's business?" "Compared to what?" replies the other. FOR A SHORTER VERSION OMIT THIS EXCHANGE]

"Where are you going?"

"To Minsk."

"You say you are going to Minsk because you want me to think you're going to Pinsk. But I happen to know ALREADY that you ARE going to Minsk - you liar!"

I worked on a fishing boat for almost a year for an ex-marine named Smith. He lied to me EVERY payday. What's with these Smiths.

Come to think of it, aren't we in Iraq because of Ahmed Chalabi's unfortunate tendency to lie? Just like those Arabs, to get us tangled up in a war based on lies.

I mean, what other possible explanation is there?

(Insert Mickey Kaus blowing K-Lo joke here)

Closer to home, have you all noticed a mighty powerful tendency to lie among Episcopalians? In my experience with them over forty years, I'd guess about 7 in ten lied or tried to lie. What to make of it, I often wondered. Never could figure it out. Another one of the allmighty's little jokes on me, I suppose.