For material created January 1, 2004 through December 31, 2004.

The Official 2005 Salamander Award

Best Political Cartoon of Mormonia

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Best New Humorous Web Site

South Park Mormons - Examination by Deconstructor
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Best New Serious Web Site

Mormon Mania
Investigating Mormonism
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Best Slamtoon of Mormonia

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Best Audio Clip of Mormonia

Hinckley, Wallace, Dorothy and the Wizard - "Little flicks of history" - 12/19/2004 - another production by Paul Maughan and Pat McKitrick

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Best Original Mormonia Song

Elder Packer

(Tune: "Mr. Sandman by the Chordettes" - 12/05/2004 by brainbutter

dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum, dum
dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum...

Elder Packer, bring me a dream (dum-dum-dum-dum)
Make it the wettest, that I've ever seen (dum-dum-dum-dum)
Please take from me this great temptation (dum-dum-dum-dum)
so I won't give in to mas-tur-bation.
Packer, I'm so horny (dum-dum-dum-dum)
Can't seem to stop my little fact'ry (dum-dum-dum-dum)
I made sure to pay tithing,
Elder Packer, bring me a dream.

dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum, dum
dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum...

Elder Packer, bring me a dream
I ate a whole pie of banana cream.
I beg of you in the name of Hinkley,
so that I will not have to squeeze my twinkie.
Packer, I tied my hands to the bed,
If there's a fire, I'll sure be dead.
I need to sleep, Book of Mormon I'll read,
Elder Packer, bring me a dream.

dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum, dum
dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum...

Elder Packer, please make me straight
This self abuse has turned me gay.
After a bath I won't look in the mirror
Only girl I think of is Bette Midler.
My balls, don't make me remove 'em
Give me a burning but not in my bosom
I'm so desp'rate, I've tried everything
Elder Packer, bring me, please, please bring me
Elder Packer, bring me a dream.

dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum

Best Original Mormonia Limerick or Chiasmus

The Mormons cause their critics to fret,
When converts fall in the gospel net.
They have a good intent,
But their minds are like cement,
All mixed up and permanenly set.

Best Original Humorous Post

1. And it came to pass that I, TANSTAAFL, having been born of exceedingly Mormon parents, therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father; which included the Book of Mormon, and having seen many afflictions and cognitive dissonance in the course of my days because of the fact that I was raised in the Mormon religion and having read the Book of Mormon nigh unto twenty times, nevertheless, yea, having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mischievousness of Loki, therefore I shall make an exceedingly good book review of the Book of Moron.

2. Yea, I make a record of my review in the language of English, and not Reformed Egyptian - the language of the Book of Mormon, because everyone knoweth that no one speaks Reformed Egyptian anyway. Behold, I make an abridgment of the review upon computer which I have made with mine own hands; (the review, not the computer) wherefore, after I have abridged the review then will I make an account of mine own review and if thou findest this sentence difficult for thine understandings to comprehend then thou wilt not enjoy reading the Book of Mormon, for I make the record of my review in the idiom of the book of Mormon author. Yea, verily, it came to pass that more exceedingly confusing than Yoda-speak it is.

3. And it came to pass that thus were written the first two paragraphs of my review. And I know that the review which I write true; and I make it with mine own computer; and I make it according to my knowledge. And thus passeth away even the third paragraph also.

4. And it came to pass that my exceedingly good review having been limited to 1000 words by the amazon.com web-site, I realized that my choice of writing style, that being the style inflicted upon the reader by Joseph Smith Jr., Author and Proprietor of the Book of Mormon, was not a good choice for one limited to a small number of words, or for that matter an odd choice for the inhabitants of the ancient Americas who supposedly had to inscribe the lengthy and frequently rambling and meaningless prose on gold plates where space was at a premium.

5. And it came to pass that this part of the exceedingly good review, yea even the middlest part, I shall shew unto you the parts of the review that review the book of which I revieweth. And it came to pass that I chose not to detail in this review the thousands of revisions which the Mormons made to the book after Joseph Smith wrote it, which was supposedly perfectly "translated" by a gift from god, or the many anachronisms which the author included, yea not even the horses that the ancient Americans supposedly had despite the fact that the horse arrived with Columbus nor the steel weapons. Nor even shall I comment upon 54 chapters dealing with wars that bear no resemblance to the actual wars that took place in the ancient Americas, yea and I especially shall not comment upon the accounts of wars with nonsensical accounts of million man armies fighting to the last man and their bones and steel weapons disappearing from the face of the earth. Yea, and it followeth that I also chose not to comment on the many plagiarisms and yea, even plagiarisms of mistranslations, which were included in the book. Yea, verily I chose not to comment on the writing or the story of the book, which Mark Twain called "chloroform in print," especially since I find that remark highly disparaging to chloroform. For it came to pass in the commencement of my preparation for the writing of the review, I realized that a review of the book which pointed out its flaws would be so long, yea, so long as to be longer than the book itself. Yea, and thus passeth away even the middlest part of my exceedingly good review, the longest paragraph, even though it merely toucheth upon the thousands of give-aways as to the fraudulent nature of the book. For yea, this review cannot contain even a millionth part of what was so poorly written in the Book of Mormon.

6. And it came to pass that I decided that my exceedingly good review of the book should mention, before concluding, a list of some of the main themes of the Book of Mormon, and yea I verily mention them thusly: (1) Killing is exceedingly good, if thou art a teenager and thou hearest voices in thine head telling thee to kill someone, preferably someone exceedingly drunk so they cannot fight back. 1 Nephi 4 (2) If thou disobeyest God, he will curse thee with an exceedingly dark skin, 3 Nephi 5:21, Jacob 3:5, Alma 3:6, but (3) If thou art a personage of dark skin, God will make thee white and delightsome, if thou wilt consent to join his church. 3 Nephi 3:15 4) After Jesus, yea even Christ Our Lord, was killed, he camest to the Americas and killed millions of Native Americans, 3 Nephi 8-9, and (5) Women art exceedingly insignificant except occasionally as breeding stock, passim.

7. And there are many things more which transpired in the Book of Mormon which, in the eyes of some, would be considered great and marvelous, but despite having read the book upwards of twenty times, I cannot remember even one. Yea, many have said of this book "it stinketh not," but I say to me it doth stink . . . exceedingly.

8. Thus, I make an end to my abridgement of mine exceedingly good review, yea, and now I bid unto all, adieu. I soon go to rest in the paradise of mine abode, until my spirit and body shall again recover from the taxing effort of writing in such an exceedingly nauseating style. Amen.

Unlike others who either love it (5 stars) or hate it (1 star), I kinda liked it. Even though it was mostly boring, it had some cool violent parts where people get heads chopped off, arms chopped off, and there were some good lessons. Just ignore the boring Jesus stuff and focus on the killing and other fun parts and you might kinda like it. Here are some of the important lessons I found in this book:

If you own brass plates, don't show them off. Keep it low key, especially around the local street preacher guy. If the local street preacher asks you about your brass plates, just lie. Say, "Brass Plates? What brass plates? I don't own brass plates."

If someone orders you to hand over your brass plates, especially the sons of the street preacher guy, and you don't want to give them to them, just say no. You own them. If they insist you give them your brass plates, call the cops.

If after calling the cops, the perpetrators get away, hire bodyguards to watch over you and your plates. Don't get drunk until they are captured.

If you are responsible for guarding your boss's brass plates, and someone shows up claiming to be your boss, wearing your boss's clothes, and asks you to give him the brass plates, check his ID first.

If you are responsible for guarding your boss's brass plates, and someone shows up covered in blood, wearing your boss's clothes, claiming to be your boss, but he doesn't look anything like your boss, and he asks you to hand over the brass plates you should say, "Sure boss, I'll be right back." Then pretend to go into the back room to get the plates, but instead call the cops.

If you are investigating the murder/robbery of a guy who was killed for his brass plates, the first suspects you should interview should be the sons of the street preacher who were last seen ordering the victim to give them his brass plates.

If you are investigating the murder/robbery of a guy who was killed for his brass plates, and the prime suspects are the sons of the street preacher, don't waste time looking for them in town. Most likely they packed up everything and headed for the sea.

If you are writing on gold plates, keep in mind it is really hard and Gold plates are rare. Therefore, to get the most bang for the buck from the limited gold plates you should use a secret language called `Reformed Egyptian' which is more compact than plain english, and avoid repetitive phrases like `And it came to pass' unless those phrases are absolutely necessary to get the point across.

If you wake up one morning and realize someone turned you into an Indian, it means you are one of the bad guys. You must now kill the white guys.

If you want to fix the problem of looking like an Indian, find someone who didn't get turned into an Indian, who is still white and start going to church with him. Meet with the missionaries of his church, take the discussions, and get baptized. If you follow the teachings of the white guy's church, you will turn white again.

It is bad to have multiple wives. (This seems like common sense, however this rule is changed in the Book of Mormon sequel called The Doctrine and Covenants.)

If you are an atheist who asks the local prophet guy to back up his claims with evidence, and the prophet curses you to be deaf and dumb, going from door to door begging for food, and you see a group of people marching down the street, do not walk out into the middle of them, unless you want to get trampled to death.

If Jesus comes to visit you, keep in mind that one of the things you can wish for is immortality. So don't waste your wish on anything less than immortality. You might be able to wish for more wishes, but I wouldn't test Jesus' patience. Stick with the immortality wish. We know that one works.

If someone is lying unconscious for 2 days and 2 nights and you aren't sure if he is dead or not, try smelling him. If he "stinketh not", he might still be alive.

One way to impress a guy is to chop off the arms of his enemies and bring the arms to him.

If you need to escape from a town because everyone's language got mixed up, the best way to escape is by the sea, with a barge.

If you need to build a barge to travel across the sea after escaping from a town where the languages got mixed up, the best way to build it is to put a hole on the top and a hole on the bottom. That way you can get air by opening the top hole and if it tips over, you can still get air by opening the bottom hole which is now on top. If you accidentally open the wrong hole and notice water rushing in, just stop up the hole real quick and open the other hole.

If you are building a barge to travel across the sea do not put windows in your barge. It is unrealistic to expect the windows to survive the crashing waves of the sea. If you want light, use magic, glow rocks instead.

If you are building a barge to travel across the ocean, be sure to bring lots and lots of food and fresh water because the trip will take 344 days. If you need to go to the bathroom, do it over the side of the barge because the holding tank isn't very big.

If you find yourself on the battlefield fighting your arch nemesis and he chops your head off, don't waste your time and energy lifting yourself up and gasping for air. Give it up. You're dead.

If you want to write scriptures, use "verily, verily" a lot and instead of saying someone worked hard, say they "waxed strong." Also, adding "eth" to the end of words helps, such as "he runneth very fast."

Best Original Mormonia Poem

The following is a poem in Anapestic Tetrameter. In other words, each line has a meter schema of " - - / - - / - - / - - / ", where " - " is an unstressed syllable and " / " is a stressed syllable:

'Twas the night before Christmas, and on Temple Square
hung a most hopeless feeling of awful despair.
while the Morg missionaries led tours of the grounds,
there was no trace of cheer to be anywhere found.

And inside of the temple the mood did persist,
as fifteen men assembled (my sources insist).
Now, the men were "apostles," or so it is said,
by the folks known as "Mormons" who might be misled.

Then they each took their seats, their heads heavy with gloom,
for their bi-weekly meeting in the "Upper Room."
When they all became seated, one man took the stand,
he was M. Russell Ballard--What speech had he planned?

"There's a new thing out there," he began with a frown,
"If it isn't stopped soon, it will tear the church down!
Now it's time that we faced an insidious threat,
it's the worst one in years: It's called 'the Internet!'

And the members--from old to the young, I've heard tell--
they can eas'ly get on it, Goddamn it to Hell!
They can read what they want just by typing key-words!
And the normal folks do this, not just geeks and nerds!

Now, I've heard many stories of members aghast
when they first read the true and unsanitized past!
Because now people see that the hist'ry's been changed,
and they know Brigham's sermons sound fully deranged!

They can read the true stories of Danites and such,
and then learn how the prophets were way out of touch.
They can read how much Joseph was really a nut,
then they'll know the false doctrines out there--so now what?"

And then Gordon B. Hinckley said, "Men, it is true,
I'm afraid that this time I don't know what to do.
Saying, 'That was a couplet!' did okay before;
but now I highly doubt it will work anymore.

'I don't know that we teach that' did good for a time,
but to use it once more wouldn't be worth a dime.
And so history we can no longer suppress,
'cause the 'net's put a quick stop to all that, I guess.

So now what is there left? what deception to ply?
Now we'd better think fast, or just kiss it goodbye!"
And then Dallin spoke up and said, "What will we do
when the members find out that the church isn't true?

And so now what comes next? Has our cover been blown?"
Then the men all looked down, their sad fate to bemoan.
As the fifteen thought hard, all their faces real grim,
they then knew at that time that their chances were slim.

So the men got to thinking but came up with naught
'cept a horrible scene of a tithing boycott.
And then just at that point, things did get really bright,
And then just as you'd guess, the apostles took fright.

Then the glow in the room coalesced to the shape
of a six-foot tall man who looked strong as an ape.
See, the sudden appearance took all by surprise,
so they trembled, then coughed, then they squinted their eyes.

So what was this strange specter they had to deal with?
Why, it's none other than the ghost of Joseph Smith!
"Holy cow!" Said the prophet. "This is a bombshell!
'Cause we all thought for sure you were burning in Hell!"

Then Joe said, "I should smack you, now show me respect
since I stared your church--it is what I expect.
Now, I've come here to help you out of this fine fix,
'cause you know that when living, I was full of tricks.

When the members find something exposing the Morg,
just you don't worry none 'bout dot-com or dot-org.
And so if they should find out the meat before milk,
just refer them to FARMS and to FAIR and their ilk.

You can say, 'That's not doctrine,' then watch their doubts fade.
Tell them 'he was misquoted,' then doubts are delayed!
'It was took out of context,' you can also say,
as you tell them to fast and you tell them to pray.

Those excuses work always; repeat them all when
any member returns to his doubting again."
"That's a real good idea!" Boyd Packer did shout,
"Yes, this spin-doct'ring surely will bail us all out!"

Joseph Smith cracked a smile, then he quick turned around,
'cause he knew he'd imparted a lesson profound.
And no more would the Brethren be worried at all,
'cause there wasn't a doubt that they couldn't forestall.

And then Joseph yelled out, "I have got to move on;
I have sev'ral young women to bang before dawn!
On Fanny! On Zina! And on Helen Mar!
On Lucy! On Patty!" (so many there are!)

The apostles were grateful, of that you could tell,
For this timely advice that went over so well.
And they heard Joe exclaim ere departing forthwith:
"MERRY SMITHMAS TO ALL, AND LONG LIVE JOSEPH'S MYTH!"

Best Acronym For FARMS or FAIR:

F*ck! Another Idea Rejected - FAIR - 07/11/2004 - from Joseph-the-smith@lds.org