Dusty wrote Sun 18 Jul 2004 15:14:26 MDT re
the end of the world forecast for January of 2006:

I guess I can go ahead and max out those credit cards on a
dream vacation. Last chance to see the world!

and re the ostrich and giraffe swallowed by the sinkhole in Louisiana:

Perhaps they found a way back home from there . . . ?

The Louisville Bats (that's a baseball team: Get it?) arrived in
Ottawa for a game with the "Lynx" without their bats (their e-
quipment,  as usual,  exceeded their commuter flight's weight
limit, and U.S.Airways finally gave them "No" for an answer).
The game was postponed. (Kentucky, too, has sinkholes, by
the way.)
                                 [courtesy Louisville Courier-Journal]

An audit found that American officials did not know how much oil
Iraq was producing or how oil revenue was being spent. .  .  . Ar-
nold Schwarzenegger called Democrats "girlie men." . . . Canadian
patients complained about the quality of  government-grown  mari-
juana  ("Skunk,  man!") . . . . Health officials said 40% of Los An-
geles Countians get no more than 10 minutes of exercise per week.
. . . The Colorado Supreme Court decided that open records laws
and freedom of the press do not apply to the Kobe Bryant trial. . ..
Linda Ronstadt was fired in the middle of her show at the Alladin in
Las Vegas for saying nice things about Michael Moore, and Whoo-
pi Goldberg was fired by Slim-Fast  for saying bad things about the
President.
                                          [items 1-4 courtesy Harper's Weekly]

"Alyson Knapp" sent us an e-mail titled "There's no place like home yujrkmadt."

FGDean@aol.com wrote Tue 13 Jul 2004 @19:48:59 PDT
in re the latest installment of "Dumb News from Indiana":

Police looking for DNA evidence, and relying only on photo-
graphs of a funeral for a guide,  unearthed  the wrong corpse
at a cemetery in Frankfort.

Japan said it will issue its annual defense "white paper" as a "manga"
comic book.  . . .  A study concluded that children of fat people are
more likely to be fat. . . . A Kenyan mayor ordered 500 pigs slaugh-
tered because they were mating with  stray  dogs.  .  .  .  A man in a
wheelchair  was arrested in Shreveport,  Louisiana,  for  shooting  a
man on crutches who had hit the man in the wheelchair over the head
with a crutch. . . . A sinkhole in Louisiana swallowed a giraffe and an
ostrich.  .  .  .  Federal air marshals complained that a dress code im-
posed on them by the Department of Homeland Security makes it ea-
sy for terrorists to identify them.

"Mrs. SERENA SAMMAR" sent us an e-mail titled "PLEASE
 ENDEAVOUR TO USED IT FOR THE CHILDREN."

FGDean@aol.com wrote Sun 4 Jul 2004 @09:33:26 PDT:

I was amused by the story of the Oklahoma judge's penis pump.
The guy must be bored.

Although the Features section of  the  Louisville  Courier-Journal
(quoting the Star, as we reported last week) said Mary-Kate Ol-
sen was in rehabilitation  for  cocaine,  the newspaper's Health &
Fitness section has reported that she's in for anorexia (the Nation-
al Enquirer, by the way, agrees with Features and the Star).

John Kerry told the African Methodist Episcopal convention
in Indianapolis that government must help faith-based groups
with words and money. . . . A statue of the Virgin Mary on a
private wooded hilltop in Clark County was smashed by tres-
passing teen-age Christian campers. . . . A judge in Columbus
sentenced a black man to five years more than normal for kill-
ing a white woman because the crime "increased people's fear
of African-Americans" (the sentence was reversed on appeal).

Mia Hamm said of her soccer career  and her marriage to Boston
Red Sox shortstop Nomar Garciaparra that soccer "is not the cen-
ter of my life any more"  (maybe she can get  "Nomar"  to spell his
name frontward). . . .15-year-old Felicity Thorpe has been barred
from British soccer stadiums.
                                                        [courtesy Associated Press]

Three of the U.S. Senate's 13 women,  including  two Democrats,
voted to confirm a judge  who has said that the Bible requires wo-
men to be subservient  and  that  rape victims become pregnant as
often as it snows in Miami (three Republican women voted against
him, and a fourth did not vote). . .  The President, too, likes to use
the "F" word, according to U.S. News & World Report. . . . Sad-
dam Hussein said at his arraignment that he had heard on the radio
about the 1988 gassing of Kurds. . . . Colin Powell danced to and
sang "YMCA" at a foreign ministers conference. . . . A 132-pound
Japanese man ate 53 hot dogs in 12 minutes.  . . . The FDA OK'd
medical use of leeches.  .  .  . The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of
Oregon, Idaho, and Montana filed for bankruptcy in defense to sex
abuse claims. . . . China revoked Pfizer's Viagra patent.

                                          [items 3-6 courtesy Harper's Weekly]

On Thursday we received the following:

Sender Jeanette Elliott Lena Carson Curt K. Newman Erich Roman Lacey Stringer Bertha G. Thompson

Subject $65847 $85476 $98652 $36925 $73521 $12546

And "Saundra Pedroso" sent us an e-mail titled
"stop overpaying for via.gra."

A dress code imposed on a commercial area of downtown
Louisville  was revised,  after protest by black activists and
the American Civil Liberties Union, to allow sports jerseys,
sleeveless shirts, and caps worn backwards.  It still prohib-
its bare feet and "indecent" attire.

Monica Lewinsky's review of Bill Clinton's memoirs  was not favor-
able. . . . An Oklahoma judge was accused of pumping up his penis
in court. . . . Colorado's Supreme Court ruled that a school voucher
program violated the state's constitution.  . . . Virginia legislators un-
intentionally passed a law  allowing employees to refuse to work on
their chosen sabbath. .  .  . Rats who snorted a special virus did not
get high on cocaine. . . . A German zoologist declared that bees ac-
tually are quite lazy. . . . An Irani woman claimed to have given birth
to a frog.
                                     [items 1-2, 5-7 courtesy Harper's Weekly]

"Jenny " sent us an e-mail titled "oatmeal."