capitan has been making unsubstantiated and wholly gratuitous allegations of confederate sympathy against Merrick for weeks. I caught him doing this on another thread. He googled Merrick's name in search of dirt and found nothing, so instead he repeated what he found under a mini-bio without providing a link and embellished it with the claim of confederate sympathies. I later found the site that he copied the mini-bio from because it had a unique typo in the spelling of Merrick's middle name, which capitan repeated. Sure enough, it said absolutely nothing even remotely hinting at any confederate sympathies. As usual, capitan simply pulled that one out of his backside.
Which is now brightly glowing. One ear to you, sir.