Mexico has a Chihuahua shortage.

Mexicans love their Chihuahuas but they have to import them from from the U.S.

Mexico also imports poinsettias from the U.S., chili peppers from China and burros from Kentucky.

So what does Mexico export? People!

(And as a third-generation citizen, I say "Welcome to the U.S.A.")

I've taken my first bribe.

OK, I eagerly solicited it. Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine offered a free copy to people who would blog about it.

When I was a kid there were a lot of these little science fiction magazines at the newsstand and candy store on the corner. I'd check there each month for the latest by Isaac Asimov, Arthur Clarke, Robert Heinlein and other authors whose names I forget but whose stories I still remember.

I had no idea any of these magazines still existed. The August issue of F&SF contains no Asimov, Clarke or Heinlein. But there is the story "Envoy Extraordinary" by Albert E. Cowdrey that reminds me of Robert Sheckley. And "If We Can Save Just One Child" by Robert Reed reminds me of no one I've read before, but it's the best SF short I've read in a long time.

Now if I could just find a corner newsstand and candy store.

A report on an outpost of religion: South Korea.

Koreans are a religious people. Most of them follow Buddhism, Confucianism or Christianity. Many follow all three.

Give or take, there are 300,000 shamans in South Korea. They pray to 10,000 Gods. They pray to Jesus, the Virgin Mary and Park Chung-Hee.

Some have been known to worship General Douglas MacArthur, praying before his statue in the city of Inchon.

Shamans have channelled MacArthur, donning sunglasses and puffing on a pipe.

I know, you're thinking "Those nutty foreigners." So am I. But let's be fair. When the Old Testament God carved the ten commandments, He said "I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other Gods before me." So He didn't say he was the only God, just that He was the big one.

And if there can be one God, then why not 10,000? And why can't one of them be General MacArthur?

Let's look at the presidential race so far by the metric that most matters: money.

Barak Obama has raised the most money, followed by Hillary Clinton.

Mitt Romney has spent the most, followed John McCain.

Barak Obama has the most cash on hand, followed by Hillary Clinton.

Barak Obama has spent the most on pizza, followed by Fred Thompson.

John McCain has spent the most on coffee, followed by Barak Obama.

Barak Obama has spent the most on Starbucks coffee. McCain prefers Dunkin Donuts.

Hillary Clinton has spent the most on furniture. That is so like a woman.

(Rudolph Giuliani reports spending only about $100 on furniture. That is so like a man.)

(The New York Times, from the Federal Election Commission and the campaigns.)

Religion, or irony?

For centuries hundreds of thousands of Hindu pilgrims came to the Kashmiri mountain shrine to worship at the 12 foot tall stalagmite. It was made of ice and they believed it was an incarnation of the Lord Shiva, the Hindu God of regeneration and destruction.

But over the many years the body heat of so many faithful began to melt the stalagmite until recently, in the early years of the 21st century, it disappeared. It's gone.

It's a miracle.

For sale in Idaho, the "Survivalist Home"

The home was built in 1998 to survive a nuclear attack. It has a concrete-encased bedroom, water tank, and Department of Energy guide to Nuclear War Survival Skills.

It may be the last house you'll ever need.

(USA Today)

Here's an exercise in mathematics.

Iowa hired a consultant to save the state money.

The consultant found $2.9 million in savings.

The consultant cost $3.4 million.

That saved the state a negative half million.

Manchester, New Hampshire Republicans are holding a fundraiser next month at the shooting range.

Organizers say there will be M16s and Uzis for all.

Rabbi Sherwin Wine is my new hero.

He died last Saturday. I just found out about him. The rabbi was a Jewish atheist.

Wine taught that there was no reason to believe in God. But he did believe in upholding Jewish ethical traditions and values.

In 1965 he told The New York Times that the existence of God required "empirical criteria," and said in Time magazine, "I find no adequate reason to accept the existence of a supreme person."

He told The San Diego Jewish Journal, "The message of the Holocaust is that there isn't any magic power."

In 1969 he founded the Society for Humanistic Judaism. He established the Birmingham Temple near Detroit. Today it's in Farmington Hills. Today there are 30 affiliated congregations with 10,000 members in the U.S. and Canada. They hold regular services.

God knows who they pray to.

Or not.

(The New York Times)

Man bites dog!

The American Civil Liberties Union is defending the right of a Kentucky man to carry a concealed handgun.

Take that, NRA.

In Ohio, it's the flesh follies.

Citizens for Community Values is in favor of new restrictions on strip clubs.

Citizens for Community Standards is against the restrictions.

Citizens for Community Values is threatening to sue Citizens for Community Standards over the similar name.

But for now you've got your choice: standards or values.

Here are some yuks from the presidential candidates.

Hillary Clinton, at a forum on faith --
Q: What do you pray for?
A: "Oh Lord, why can't you help me lose weight."

Mike Huckabee, at a debate --
Q: How long did God take to create the world?
A: "I don't know. I wasn't there."

Barak Obama, on deciding to run --
"I did what I often do when I'm confronted with a difficult decision. I prayed on it. Amen. And then I asked my wife. Amen. And, after consulting these two higher powers..."

Mitt and Ann Romney, on the stump --
Mitt: "Ann, did you ever in your wildest dreams think I'd be here?"
Ann: "Mitt, you weren't IN my wildest dreams."

Mitt Romney, Mormon, at a St. Patrick's Day breakfast in 2005 --
"I believe marriage should be between a man and a woman ... and a woman ... and a woman."

Jay Leno, on the Tonight Show, asked John Edwards why he and Elizabeth ate at Wendy's on their wedding anniversary.
A: "You can't spend money on food when you're spending money on haircuts."

Homer Huckabee, at an MSNBC debate --

"We've had a Congress that's spent money like John Edwards at a beauty shop."

John McCain, on his campaign troubles --
"In the words of Chairman Mao, 'It's always darkest before it's totally black."

Rudy Guiliani at a CNN debate after lightning momentarily knocked out his microphone while he was answering a question about his differences with Catholic Bishops --
"For someone who went to parochial school his whole life, this is a very frightening thing."

John Edwards, at the You Tube debate, asked to name something he doesn't like about Hillary Clinton --
"I'm not sure about that coat."

Joe Biden, asked what he liked about Dennis Kucinich --
"Dennis, the thing I like best about you is your wife."

Bada-boom.

(USA Today)

Marc's True News is the only known media outlet in the free world that does not provide coverage of Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan.

I deeply and sincerely regret my earlier post on Paris Hilton. It won't happen again.

Kurdish gangs roam the streets, breaking into homes, killing, raping, beating people, even vandalising a mosque.

Not Iraq. Nashville.

Welcome to America.

The video-game wars are heating up.

From the U.S. there's the "Assault on Iran" game in which the player has to attack an Iranian nuclear facility and capture the Iranian scientists.

And now from Iran there's the "Rescue the Nuke Scientist" game in which the player has to invade secret American prisons in Iraq and Israel to retrieve the scientists.

I think I like these video game wars. No one gets killed, everyone can play again.

Don't take that bomb through security!

Just deposit it in one of the convenient bomb bins, like the ones at the Houston airports. Or hand it to the friendly TSA guy, and he'll deposit it for you.

The bins look a lot like regular trash cans, only they're blast-proof. Plus, they're on wheels!

Flying has never been easier!

In a strange twist of fate, Poland is having a Jewish revival. Suddenly, all things Jewish are hip and cool. The only thing missing is all the Jews.

During World War Two, even before Poland was invaded -- just on word that the Germans were coming -- Poles began gleefully killing their Jewish neighbors. The Nazi death camps found friendly territory in Poland. Post war, anti-Jewish pogroms continued the killing. And in 1968, an anti-Jewish purge drove most of the remaining Jews into exile.

Before the war there were 3.5 million Jews in Poland -- about 10% of the total population. Three million Polish Jews died in the holocaust. Others escaped. Today only about 10,000 Poles admit to being Jewish.

Before the war there were 70,000 Jews in Krakow. Today there are fewer than 300.

But today Jewish things are all the rage. Poles sing Jewish songs, dance Jewish dances and eat Jewish food. Klezmer bands play in the streets. Poles celebrate Passover, Hanukkah and Purim -- anytime they want. Krakow merchants have recreated the old Jewish ghetto, hanging Jewish signs on their shops. Tourists buy souvenir menorahs and carved wood figures of orthodox Jews.

Jewish festivals are held every year in Krakow, Warsaw, Wroclaw and Tarnow. The one in Krakow drew 20,000 people this year.

The only thing missing is -- the Jews.

High schoolers are having less sex these days than in times past.

Kids today are such slackers.

God knows that I had no sex when I was in high school, but at least I aspired to it.

The National Center for Health Statistics also reports that more mommies and daddies are reading to their young children.

And that's a good thing.

Now we've pissed off the Brazilians.

The Pan American Games are getting underway in Rio De Janeiro. And somebody wrote on the message board at the U.S. media center, "Welcome to the Congo."

A press aide says it was just a reference to the heat wave, but Brazilians aren't buying that. They're still getting over the Simpson's episode that showed a Rio full of wild animals, criminals and sexpots.

And who can forget when President Ronald Reagan visited Brasilia and offered a toast to "the people of Bolivia."

As one writer put it in a letter in the O Globo newspaper, "Go back home! You're not welcome here, or in the Congo either."

Anyone voting for sticky rice?

It seems in the last presidential election Boston poll workers may have been mismarking the ballots of Asian voters who didn't know English. So this time the U.S. Justice Department is ordering Boston to print Chinese ballots in some precincts.

The trouble is, Chinese language is not phonetic. Each character represents a word, not a sound. So names have to be transliterated. That's where you use Chinese characters representing words whose sounds are pronounced like the syllables of the name.

With me so far?

But when you translate what you transliterate, the result is pretty weird. Here's how some candidate names come out.

Barak Obama: Oh Intellectual Overcome Profound Oh Gemstone
Mitt Romney: Sticky Rice Clear Nun
Fred Thompson: Fortune Virtue Soup
Tommy Thompson: Beautiful Soup
Hillary Clinton: Upset Stomach

And it gets worse. China has more than one language, and those languages have dialects. So while in Mandarin Obama may be "Profound Oh Gemstone," in Cantonese it comes out "Oh Bus Horse." Or read differently, "Europe Pulling Horse."

It's all in the translation.

This just in: The most recent New York Times/CBS News poll shows Dick Cheney as the most unpopular U.S. vice president in recent history. Dan Quayle was number two.

But George W. Bush is not the most unpopular president. That was Harry S Truman.

Bush is number two. He'll have to try harder.

The running of the bulls continues in Pamplona, Spain. The toll: seven runners trampled and two gored.

So far, the bulls are winning.

In Auburn, Indiana, zoning regulations prohibit bars and liquor stores within 200 feet of a church.

Many towns have regulations like this, and many a bar has been denied a building permit because it would be too close to a church.

But in Auburn, we have a bit of man-bites-dog.

The Dayspring Community Church wanted to built within 200 feet of a strip mall where there are businesses that may sell alcohol.

So the city denied the church a permit.

As it should have.

When is the American revolution like the Iraqi civil war? When our president says it is.

On the 4th of July President George Bush addressed the 167th Airlift Wing of the Air National Guard in an aircraft hangar in Martinsburg, West Virginia. He said, "Our first Independence Day celebration took place in the midst of a war -- a bloody and difficult struggle that would not end for six more years before America finally secured her freedom."

He pointed out that our current war on terror has been going on for six years, if you count it from the American invasion of Afghanistan.

Actually, the comparison would be more apt if, when the French landed on this shore to win our Revolutionary War, we had responded by killing them with improvised explosive devices.

There is a movement on in this country to allow the insane to vote.

36 states bar voting by the mentally incompetent. Activists want to extend suffrage to the legally or criminally insane, or just demented. The American Bar Association agrees.

A federal court in Maine has ruled in favor of the mentally ill. There are lawsuits pending in Rhode Island and Missouri. New Jersey may hold a referendum to allow "idiots or insane persons" to vote. (However, idiots or insane persons would not be allowed to vote on the referendum itself.)

You don't have to be crazy to vote in America, but it doesn't hurt.

Firstborns have higher IQ scores than their siblings. That was the finding of a study that made headlines everywhere. But what the articles didn't mention was that the study surveyed Norwegians, and only Norwegian men at that.

So unless your big brother was born in Norway, you may still have an edge. And you could have it all over your older sister.