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.

...Or Are You Just Happy To See Me?

Been hearing ads on the radio for some stage show called "Puppetry of the Penis." It's probably another one of those deals where women sit on a stage and proceed to bash, demean, and mock males (but when a mouse shows up in the kitchen, who do they run shrieking to?).

Then again, it may just involve hands-free sock puppets.

If One Doesn't Get You, The Other Will

A new study has found that people who eat a low fat "Mediterranean-style" diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains have a 25% less chance of dying of cancer or heart disease than the rest of us.

On the other hand, they face an 80% greater risk of dying from culinary boredom.

The Supremes

Don't Call Me, I'll Call You

Depending on who you talk to, our government may or may not be able to protect us from terrorism, SARS, Monkeypox, and Pamela Anderson's growing breasts, which are even now threatening to overwhelm the west coast. Whatever else its failures, the government can shield us from the scourge of telemarketers. Here is the link to the new national "Do Not Call Registry."

Now if they could just come up with a similar deal for spam, I'll be impressed.

Strom Thurmond: 1902-2003

Strom Thurmond has passed away. No word on whether Trent Lott will deliver the eulogy.

So Much For Privacy

Found a site that enables you to look up the drivers license of anyone in the United States. All you need to have to begin the search is a name and likely state of residence. It's an interesting database, but one has to also wonder if making this kind of information available to the general public isn't a serious violation of privacy laws.