The FBI has issued a bulletin warning that terrorists may decide to target ferries for attacks. Slow moving and often with low waterlines, they may make for easy targets.
Speaking of ferries, the Vatican has issued a statement telling Catholic political leaders that it is their sacred duty to press for laws condemning gay marriages. No immediate word from those same Vatican officials on whether they also plan to condemn priests who molest little boys. As George Bush himself said yesterday: "I am mindful we are all sinners, and caution those who may try to remove the speck out of the neighbor's eye when they've got a log in their own." It would seem that given some of the things we have learned over the last two years, the Catholic church has an entire forest in its eye.
In the same press conference yesterday, the President also said that the White House will seek to "codify" marriages as the sacred union between man and wife, "unless you're the Clintons."

----------Mike Thompson, Detroit Free Press

The Pentagon has thankfully dropped what is probably the most incredibly boneheaded idea it has come up with since deciding to launch a land war in Southeast Asia 40 years ago. This particular gem was to set up a "futures market" in which investors would bet on possible terrorist strikes.

In other news, kudos to Boston Red Sox third baseman Bill Mueller, who last night became the first MLB player in history to hit grand slams from both sides of the plate in a single game.
It is encouraging to see that the sports world is becoming more accepting of men who choose to play both sides of the plate.... Not that there's anything wrong with that.
And finally, in entertainment news, the Rolling Stones are performing in a "SARS benefit concert" tonight in Toronto. The Candian city was hard hit economically during the SARS scare a few months ago, and the show is intended to re-energize the beleagured city's tourism industry.
The Stones volunteered to perform since most of the band members are pretty much dead anyway and therefore immune to the virus.

Congratulations to Lance Armstrong, who has won his fifth straight Tour de France. In case you're not familiar with it, the grueling two week bicycle race roughly traces the route of the original Tour de France, held some 90 years ago. The only difference is that the original race consisted of German tanks instead of bikes.

Despite this amazing feat--all the more remarkable when you realize that Armstrong is a cancer survivor--Armstrong remains largely unknown in here in the States. Granted, he has a few endorsement contracts, but nothing like the name recognition that star NBA and NFL players enjoy.

Armstrong needs to dramatically increase his public profile in order to gain the level of respect he deserves. The best way to do this is to follow the examples set by other big name athletes who are now idolized by America's youth.

How to best accomplish this task? Simple: Armstrong needs to kill someone. Either with a quick gunshot, or a long, drawn-out, frenzied stabbing. The particulars don't really matter. Or, if he is squeamish about taking a human life in the name of publicity, perhaps he could rob a bank, rape someone, or get arrested for selling crack cocaine to schoolkids.

Such an accomplishment would immediately raise the American public's recognition of his many accomplishments and boost his marketability to new heights. Hell, Nike and Reebok would probably get into a bidding war trying to land his services.

Speaking of athletes turned homicidal maniacs, Carlton Dotson has certainly made a name for himself. He is the Baylor university basketball player who shot and killed teammate Patrick Dennehy. Then, to insure further notoriety, he decided to chop off the corpse's head. Now that's initiative!

One does, however, have to question Dotson's decision to knock off his victim in Texas, which has the highest execution rate of convicted murderers outside of Saudi Arabia. Couldn't he have lured Dennehy to California? Berkeley in particular would have been an excellent location to knock someone off. The citizens of that fine bastion of liberal angst would quickly have forgiven Dotson, calling him a victim of an evil, class structured society.

America has lost Hope.

An environmental crisis of such magnitude that mankind may be powerless to stop it has begun to unfold along the coast of New England. All along the once pristine coast from Maine to Massachusetts, thousands of rubber duckies have begun washing ashore. The once cute bathtub toys originally fell off a storm-tossed cargo ship in the north Pacific in 1992. Since that time, ocean currents have carried them through the Bering Strait, the arctic ocean, and into the north Atlantic. Now the little artificial aquatic waterfowl are coming home to roost.... So to speak.

It has now been three days since the deaths of Uday and Qusay. Rather than surrender, the brothers decided to go out in a blaze of glory against astronomically overwhelming odds, kind of like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
And we were all too happy to oblige them.

Yet doubts about their true fates persist among some Iraqi people. Perhaps this is because of years of ingrained fear, or because of questions about our commitment to that country.
This last point really shouldn't surprise anyone. The US has a long history of giving up when the going gets tough. Prime examples of that would be our hasty exits from Somalia in 1993, and Lebanon ten years prior to that. So with or without a Hussein at the top, various elements in Iraq will continue to try to wear us down until we throw in the towel.
But there are also questions about credibility and competence which are far more serious and go will beyond the borders of the middle east. For most of 2002 and early this year we were repeatedly told to trust our leaders. Even when the UN inspectors kept failing in their attempts to find the weapons of mass destruction, we were told to just be patient. They are there. We have the evidence, but--oh, so sorry--it's classified.
Then there was the manufactured story about Jessica Lynch's dramatic firefight with the enemy. Yes, it was inspiring. Yes, it did provide a morale boost to the country when it appeared we had gotten bogged down. But it was also a baldfaced lie.
And the postwar situation in Iraq remains murky, chaotic, and extremely dangerous. Even if we get Saddam "the Big Cahoona" Hussein tomorrow, there appears to be enough resentment towards our continued presence that it won't effect the security situation in the least. It is now painfully obvious that no one really had a plan on how to restore order in a dysfunctional country decimated by war and years of corruption.
Our leaders, however, continue to insist that virtually all opposition will end if and when that happens. But these are the same people that manufactured the Lynch story, as well as insisted that Iraq was knee-deep in chemical weapons while actively shopping for uranium at the Niger Costco.
This air of deception continues to cloud the future of the Bush Administration. CIA Director George Tenet and Stephen Hadley of the National Security Council have already fallen on their swords for their boss. If true, that should put to rest accusations that the President lied in his State of the Union address. But what does that say about the competence of the people leading us? That's the question that should have everyone worried. And doesn't the responsibility ultimately fall to the person who actually stood on that podium in January and delivered the speech?
President Harry S Truman used to say that the buck stopped with him. But that was then, and now the buck seems to be stopping everywhere except in the Oval Office itself.

Michael Jackson has come out against free music downloads, but says that jailtime for violators is too extreme. Instead, says the former singer turned human hermaphrodite, those caught pirating songs off the internet should be sent to his house for a good spanking.

General Motors recently conducted a program benefitting Habitat for Humanity which was intended to demonstrate how useful SUV's can be. The vehicles were used to haul construction materials around.
Well, that's all fine and dandy if you're building a house. But I'm willing to bet that most of the Ford Excursions and Chrevrolet Yukons clogging our highways are hauling lawyers, accountants, and soccer moms; NOT sheet rock and plumbing supplies.

From a forward someone sent me:

Imagine that you are a bush pilot in the remote reaches of Africa. You fly in some critical medical supplies and enjoy a quick lunch at the hospital. You are eager to get to your next appointment. It's a stifling 100+ degrees in the shade. You return to your plane to find that the only piece of shade around has become verrrrrry popular in your absence... You begin carefully calculating the distance to the plane door....
Whaddya say? Are you feeling lucky?

Have you ever believed in something with all your heart, only to discover that you've been made a fool of? My entire belief system has just imploded on itself with news that is just so horrible that I'm sitting here weeping tears of despair all over the keyboard. It is as if someone just walked up to me and ripped the heart right out of my chest, threw it to the ground, stomped on it, scraped the remains up with a shovel, and threw it to a pack of hungry wolves. That void in my chest has now turned into a profound sense of emptiness and all consuming pain.
You know that "Hunting for Bambi" story that's been kicking around the internet for the last week or so? Well, according to snopes.com, the whole thing was a fake.
Is nothing sacred?

An Australian study has concluded that the more men masturbate, the lower their chances of developing prostate cancer.
So I guess that means I've got no chance of getting it.

The British Open golf tournament has gotten underway in Sandwich, England. In a stunning development, Tiger Woods lost the ball in the rough on his very first swing and had to take a triple bogey.
In a taped message sent to Al-Jazeera Television, Osama bin Laden has claimed responsibility for the disaster.

A LOT OF BEEF
Pamplona, Spain, just had its annual "Running Of The Bulls," which some people consider exciting.
Whatever.
But if you want REAL excitement, you should go to Paris when they're having their annual "Running From The Germans."

TAKE MY POLL... GENTLY
In a effort to gauge the political mood of the nation, I have posted a new poll asking about potential Democratic nominees for President. We certainly have a variety to pick from!
The Constitutional scholars among you will no doubt want to point out that our nation's supreme document requires Presidents to be at least 35, and that the Dixie Chicks are younger than that.
Well, yes, that's true of them individually. But since they would actually serve as a triumvirate, we would have to go by their combined age. That figure would 95, which would actually make them the oldest President ever elected.
Needless to say, the Vice Presidential nominee would also have to be a triumvirate. I'm leaning towards Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and Jessica Simpson.

Whatever happened to the Raelians? Late last year they came out with those wild claims about having successfully cloned humans. Then, despite promises to do so, they failed to produce the actual babies that would have proven their claims. And since then, the group has been strangely silent. It's as if they simply disappeared!
But how can that be? If they've perfected human cloning, then in theory they should be able to produce limitless copies of themselves. So if anything, there should be even MORE Raelians running around! The rest of us "One of a Kinds" should be tripping all over them. One can only conclude that they were a bunch of phonies to begin with.
Now I feel kind of silly about the $25,000 I spent to join them.

The aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan was officially commisioned today. It then spent the next several hours wandering around the harbor.

One of the favorite pastimes in Washington, DC is something called the Blame Game, in which players scurry around while arguing about whose at fault in the most recent scandal. The object is to point your finger at someone else while you frantically struggle to cover your own butt, even as that other person is pointing right back at you.
Since 9/11/01, the game had been on something of a hiatus, but that's now changing. And who do we have to blame for this? Well, that's what the game is all about.
It started with a British report of questionable reliability saying that Saddam had tried to buy uranium from Niger. The CIA agreed it was questionable--or maybe they didn't. At first they said yes, it was; then they said it wasn't. In the meantime, George Bush cited the British report in his State of the Union address. The White House claims no one told them the report's accuracy was in question. But now the British were saying that it must be true because the Americans believed that it was. Then the CIA agreed the report was accurate because the British said so. And before long it turns out that yes, a piece of fluffy foam can, under the right circumstances, punch a hole in the wing of a space shuttle, but only if it's a fox attacking bald eagles in the National Zoo, and not a giant Gambian rat.
So now probes will be launched, committees will meet, experts will weigh in with opinions, pontificating Senators will pontificate, Democrats & Republicans will blame each other, and Saddam will have the last laugh. But in the end, after all the hand wringing is done, nothing will have been accomplished.
It's what Washington does best.

The National Zoo in DC had said that the July 4 death of a bald eagle was the work of a bobcat. After additional analyses of the evidence, however, they are saying that a red fox is now believed to be responsible.
That's crazy. He's been dead for years.

GETTING IT UP AGAIN
In an attempt to restore some of the luster to its badly battered image, NASA has successfully launched the second Rover spacecraft towards Mars. If all goes according to plan, the two probes will land on the Red Planet next year and attempt to determine, once and for all, whether or not that rock formation on the surface resembles Ted Kennedy's head.

FOR GOD'S SAKES, JUST PUT DOWN THE COOKIES
In an effort to combat the growing obesity epidemic plaguing America, Kraft has announced plans to change the recipes of many of its most popular products. Upon hearing the news, millions of panicked Americans desperately struggle to hoist themselves off their sofas long enough to rush down to the store and stock up on Oreos.

On the morning of July 4th, an American bald eagle was found dead in its enclosure at the National Zoo in DC. Evidence now suggests that a bobcat was able to dig its way under the mesh fencing that formed the wall of the cage and kill the bird. If true, this should raise some red flags for the many joggers that frequent Rock Creek Park, immediately adjacent to the zoo. Rock Creek Park was also where Chandra Levey's remains were eventually discovered.
In an unrelated matter, former Congressman and Viagra poster boy Gary Condit has issued a statement suggesting that "maybe Miss Levey was killed by a bobcat. Or perhaps an extremely large squirrel. Not me, though. I'm innocent. Really. Say, you're kinda cute. Wanna have dinner?"

This has not been a good couple of weeks for celebrities. Earlier today Buddy Ebsen went to the big mansion in the sky. Additionally, over the last two weeks or so, we've lost Gregory Peck, Katherine Hepburn, Buddy Hackett, Barry White, Herbie Mann, and N!xou.
If I were Bob Hope, I'd be more than a little nervous right now.

An unfortunate, but true, fact of life.

Tonight's Powerball lottery drawing will be worth in the neighborhood of $200 million. Though it was tempting, I decided not to buy a ticket. It wasn't raining. You see, I once read that your odds of winning the jackpot are about the same as being hit by lightning.
Consequently, I only buy lottery tickets during thunderstorms.

This year's Fourth of July celebrations will be a little more muted and poignant than in the past as the nation remembers Strom Thurmond, who passed away only last week. Thurmond had been the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence.

This story about the missing college basketball player certainly looks promising. Baylor University's Patrick Dennehy disappeared two weeks ago in Texas. His SUV, menawhile, turned up in a Virginia Beach parking lot minus the license plates. There are a number of rumors swirling around this case, and the available facts are murky at best. Still, it appears that he was killed by a jealous teammate whose own position on the team was threatened by Dennehy. As one talking head on Fox News put it, "It's like Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan taken to the Nth degree." Adding fuel to that line of thinking is that the suspect player, Carlton Dotson (technically still only a "person of interest"), was found at his family's home in Maryland, only 150 miles from where the SUV was found.
The case comes along at a good time. In this post 9-11 world of ours, plagued by a near constant stream of bad news out of Iraq, America is starved for a juicy celebrity murder trial.
We really haven't had one since the Chandra Levy case dominated headlines two summers ago. And if you think about it, that one really was the perfect crime: An attractive young woman, apparently knocked off by her Congressman lover who was old enough to be her grandfather. This combination of sex, power, and murder was irresistable to a voyeuristic society such as ours.
Some people foolishly pinned their hopes on Robert Blake last year, but that was a waste of time. Granted, that situation looked promising on the surface: Actor murders his weasel wife. But the unfortunate fact is that Blake is a washed up actor, and has been for the last 20 years. And the dead wife? About as attractive as a groundhog in heat. Consequently, the general public just couldn't get into it.
Admittedly, the Dennehy case is not entirely without some drawbacks. For one, it lacks the sexual draw (hopefully, anyway). Also, both the victim and the principle "suspected suspect" are black, so there are no racial overtones present as in the O.J. case. But it does involve professional jealousy taken to a horrible, tragically extreme level, and that's a good thing. And the fact that both names begin with the same letter (Dennehy and Dotson) helps as well. Alliteration is always a plus, helping the names roll off the tongue.
The absence of a body further adds to the aura of mystery. Would the Lacy Peterson murder have gotten as much attention if her body had washed up on shore the first day? No, of course not. The lack of a corpse gives the story legs, allows speculation to build, and the corresponding overexposure in the media gives it needed time to evolve into a saga.
So unless Michael Jackson decides to knock off Lisa Marie, we'll have to make do with Dennehy and Dotson.

Yesterday 24 people got stranded on a rollercoaster at a Six Flags amusement park in Maryland. The normally two minute thrill ride stretched into two hours of terror as they sat helplessly 130 ft. in the air. Park personnel were finally able to bring the ride back to ground level just as the fire department was preparing to mount a rescue effort.
Afterwards, Six Flags management charged the riders an additional $50 because "they got far more than their money's worth."

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines officially opens tomorrow, and it seems to be getting lackluster reviews so far.
Personally I'm looking forward to Terminator 4: Come to My Office, Please. It will be about the Human Resources director at a dot-com company.