I'm in North Carolina on business. It's 11PM, and I turned on FOX to watch Seinfeld. Except in North Carolina, you don't get Seinfeld at 11PM, you get Jerry Falwell.

Now I'm not disparaging anyone's faith here, but I gotta tell you - this show is funnier than Seinfeld. The topic of tonight's show is "Disparaging the Da Vinci Code." I can't type fast enough to actually quote him, but here's a paraphrase of what he said:

Dan Brown has written a book called the Da Vince Code, which has sold 30 million copies, and Ron Howard has made a movie about it that will open on May 19th. The book claims that Jesus Christ was not God, that he didn't claim to be God, that he was human, that he married Mary Magdalene and had children with her, and that those children became the kings and queens of France. It claims that Jesus was human, and that Mary Magdalene was divine. This book is allegedly a novel, but we're wondering if it's really a mix of fact and fiction, presented in a way that makes one think all of it is true, when really, it's not true at all. That's why we're offering a DVD set for four easy installments of $29.99, that explains all of the things in The Da Vince Code that aren't true.

So to review: The book CLAIMS to be a novel. But this claim is deceiving, since what it really is is a book that merges facts and fiction in a way that sounds like fact, but really isn't true. In other words, it's A NOVEL. It's almost like they wish Dan Brown was claiming it were true so they could prove him wrong.

One problem: he's not claiming that. I've never read a single thing from Dan Brown or anyone connected to him claiming that the book is true. It was written as a novel and sold as a novel. The only claim that Brown makes is that the secret societies he mentions actually existed, as do all of the architecture, artwork, etc. that he references. None of this is inconsistent with the book being a fictional novel.

Meanwhile, in desperate attempts to counter these (admittedly) false claims, Falwell and friends keep plugging the book and the movie (all the while plugging their DVD set to debunk them).

Mark my words: this movie is going to be the next Titanic. It's going to make a billion dollars. And the irony is, a lot of its business is going to be driven by these paranoid religious folks who seem so desparate to prove to us what we already know - that it's just a story.

And what a story it is...