In yet another example of a problem endemic to our society, a fat man sues four fast food restaurants, claiming that they made him fat, as if he bore no responsibility for having made the personal choice to eat their food, even though they have been publishing nutritional information for years.

From "The Government Can Take Anything and Mess It Up" department: The Transportation Security Commission is way behind in hiring employees. According to an article in USAToday, "At three New York airports, 61% of applicants [for the position of airport screener] failed a test of English proficiency and overall aptitude skills [emphasis added]." Incredibly, officials estimate that one-third of the applicants are no-shows for meetings with recruiters!

Further, the government wanted fifty percent of the screeners to be female. So far, they've only managed to entice enough women to reach twenty-five percent of the total. Duh! Do you suppose that the problem is that few women even want the job?

All this, and the real problem wasn't even the airport screeners at all. It was the Immigration and Naturalization Service that dropped the ball. But instead of reforming it, which might hurt the feelings of some foreigners who want to come here, the government federalized the airport screeners! Just what we need: more big government!

String of hamburger joints sold for $2.26 billion.

msnbc.com reports a story in The Wall Street Journal, which reveals that "[f]ederal prosecutors in New York plan to seek indictments against two former top financial officers of WorldCom Inc. [Bernie Ebbers and Scott Sullivan] as early as next week for their roles in the company?s accounting scandal."

The city commission of Chiefland, Florida put their police force's seven officers on indefinate leave, with pay, after someone discovered that the city's charter didn't give them the right to make arrests or issue tickets.

The Rev. Al Sharpton places the value of his reputation at $500 million.

Apparently, it is a vast right- and left-wing conspiracy that brought Traficant down.

Seven year old kidnapped Philadelphia girl chews through her bonds and escapes. The Nando Times has the story.

Intresting: A woman has a flat tire, catches a ride with a trucker, disappears. Turns out she just liked the trucker and was riding with him for two weeks. The Clarion-Ledger has the story.

"The Devil made me do it," says convicted killer.

Apparently, Def Leppard has finally found their audience. The band is scheduled to perform a free concert at the new Fayetteville, Arkansas Wal-Mart Supercenter at 6:00 p.m. on July 31.

It seems that WorldCom's financial misdeeds have been an open secret for over a year, since it has been that long ago that a class action lawsuit, brought by former WorldCom employees, sought to bring the wrongdoing to light.

A Wall Street Journal article, reported on msnbc.com, says that WorldCom filed for bancruptcy protection and that the actiion "will almost certainly wipe out common shareholders."

An ABCNEWS story reveals that WorldCom will file for bankruptcy protection.

In Maryland, the battle against a carnivorous Chinese fish continues. For the time being, at least, a twelve-member panel thinks that the most effective method of control would be to asphyxiate the fish with a non-toxic chemical that would dissipate within two to six days.

Prickly Pig is hosted by blogspot.com. It is free. Global Industries is hosted, for free, on Tripod. Another, good, free host is 0catch. They have one, non-intrusive banner ad at the top of each page. It is easy to sign up, and their serving up of web pages has been fast, for me.

I am using a new tool, w.bloggar v2.03, to make this post. w.bloggar is by Marcelo Cabral, of Brazil. It is an "interface between you and your blog." This is my first post using it. I haven't explored all of the features it offers, but one great feature is the ability to preview your post, even before uploading it to your blog host. It also offers many formatting options, e. g., bold, italic, underline, et cetera. I have used a few blog interface tools before and have inevitably discarded them, for one reason or another. Maybe this will be the one that I continue to use!

In the United States, at least, the first day of the "work" week for most of us is Monday, yet most, if not all, of our calendars start the week on Sunday. Why is that? A quick search on Google turned up "Calendars Through the Ages," which gives the following explanation:

"The Bible clearly makes the Sabbath the last day of the week, but does not share how that corresponds to our 7 day week. Yet through extra-biblical sources it is possible to determine that the Sabbath at the time of Christ corresponds to our current 'Saturday.' Therefore it is common Jewish and Christian practice to regard Sunday as the first day of the week (as is also evident from the Portuguese names for the week days). However, the fact that, for example, Russian uses the name "second" for Tuesday, indicates that some nations regard Monday as the first day.

In international standard ISO-8601 the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has decreed that Monday shall be the first day of the week."

Governor says he won't stop cop killer's execution.

I am learning CityDesk by Fog Creek Software. It is Content Management Software (CMS) for web sites. It has gotten some really good reviews, and the sites which I have seen that use it look good.

Twenty-seven year old woman goes hiking in Alaska. Sees black bear. Tries to shoo bear away. Instead of leaving, bear attacks. Woman whips bear's ass.

Another unusual twist in the WorldCom scandal is reported by Financial Times.

I've added Bottin, an address book, to my page of outstanding freeware.

My home town records thirty-first murder of the year. A thirty-six year old wife and Mother of three, who worked at a check cashing company, was shot once, execution-style, in the back of the head.

Latest WorldCom accounting scandal "news:" at Congressional committee meeting, former CEO Bernie Ebbers announces that he is innocent, then repeatedly asserts his fifth amendment right not to answer questions, so as not to incriminate himself. Congress is miffed. Threatens charge of contempt.

Something happened to my computer at work. I installed PGPfreeware. I decided that it was too complicated for my purposes, so I uninstalled it. Then I couldn't get on the Internet, nor could I use my email. Our ISP sent a technician, who worked on the problem for two hours, with no success. So, I reinstalled the OS, and everything was fine.

bellsouth.net is my Internet Service Provider, and they give their users free web space. Guess what? I just created a web site there. w00t! Click on it! Go there!

I had a dream, the other night. A co-worker and I were making a sales call on a federal government agency. We had to show a photo ID, but, for some inexplicable reason, there was a photograph of a house on my driver license, not a picture of me. I tried to telephone someone who could help me by either vouching for me or by furnishing a photo ID of me; however, the battery in my cellular telephone was dead. Then, I tried my co-worker's cellular telephone, but its battery was dead, too. By this time, the people who we were supposed to make the sales presentation to were very suspicious of me. I don't know how the dream turned out. What do you think it means?

Check out my other web site for top-of-the-line freeware.

In other crime news, a local man threatened to set off a pipe bomb. He didn't, and, now, he's in jail.

There has been another murder in the city that I live in. It is the second of the Fourth of July weekend and the thirtieth this year. An argument between a woman's boyfriend and ex-husband resulted in one of them being shot once in the back with a large caliber weapon. Police are not yet sure which man was the victim and which the shooter.

Four men allegedly gang-raped an eighteen-year-old Pakistani girl to punish her family. Why? Because her younger brother had an affair with a woman, considered to be higher caste, from another tribe. Local police stood by and did nothing. cnn.com has the story.

Commenting system is functioning, again, courtesy of enetation.

In Mexico, a student tries to use a subway pass he found on the floor of the terminal, because he doesn't have twenty cents for the fare. He spends two months in jail, before paying an exorbitant fine to get out. In other news, in Mexico, a man steals forty-five million dollars. He doesn't go to jail. Can you spell C - O - R - R - U - P - T - I - O - N ? Story at msnbc.com.