Rep. Joe Barton (Texas) isn't about to have his prized legislation get tagged with a 666 -- the number of the beast.Some of you may recall that when Ronald Reagan left the presidency, a group of friends bought him and Nancy a house in Bel-Air, California, located at 666 St. Cloud Road. The Reagans accepted the gift, but had the address changed to 668 St. Cloud Road, to avoid intimations of the apocalypse. Yes, really.
Barton on Wednesday successfully changed the bill number for his legislation repealing a decades-old ban on crude oil exports from 666, a figure frequently tied to the antichrist and Satanism, to the more anodyne 702.
“It quickly became clear that the original bill number carried many different negative connotations,” Barton spokesman Sean Brown said in an email. “We decided it was best to change it so people will focus on the content of the legislation, not the bill number.” ...
(And I know -- a lot of people noted at the time that "Ronald Wilson Reagan" consisted of three six-letter names. But people say ridiculous things about the Obamas, and that doesn't mean the Obamas actually take that sort of nonsense seriously. Ron and Nancy apparently did.)
