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.

Remember Lisa Nowak, the astronaut who reportedly wore diapers and drove 960-miles to be charged with burglary, and the attempted kidnapping, battery and assault of her love rival?

Well, her lawyer says it's not true. He says she didn't wear diapers.

A nine-year-old Maryland boy who stuffed a lit sparkler in his pants pocket the other day has been hospitalised for extreme stupidity.

He'll live, to regret it.

Louisville, Kentucky, hosted the National Senior Olympic Games last week. The results: two cardiac arrests.

Guantanamo detainees are slowly receiving status hearings to determine whether they stay in jail or go free.

The hearings are held in secret, no defense lawyers are allowed, and the detainees can't see the evidence against them.

But even more bizarre, if the Pentagon brass does not like the verdict, they can have the hearing done over. Some detainees have had as many as three hearings before the tribunal finally got it right and declared them enemy combatants.

Try once and if you don't indict...

Cars are getting way too complicated.

The owner's manual for the Lexus LS 600h I is 684 pages. It comes with an additional 339 page manual for the navigation system and a 74 page quick start guide.

The Mercedes GL has a 584 page owner's manual, 240 page book for the electronic control system and a 44 page warranty book. Additional service and product guides, and a quick start manual, bring the page count to 983.

Even the lowly Kia Rio has 256 pages of instructions.

This is really scary when you consider that the flight manual for the Cessna 172 I used to fly had only 73 pages.

Islamic leaders in the Detroit area have signed a peace agreement to halt acts of violence between local Sunni and Shiite.

If Sunni and Shiite can make peace in Michigan, then why not in Baghdad?

Christopher Anderson, in his new book After Diana: William, Harry, Charles and the Royal House of Windsor, writes that Prince Harry may not really be the son of Prince Charles, but the product of an affair between Princess Diana and her lover James Hewitt.

Chris says he wrote this book about Diana to "defend her honor."

But Majesty magazine editor Ingrid Seward leaps to the prince's defense saying, "It's so obvious when you see Harry. He is the spitting image of (grandpa) Philip. His close-set eyes are a Windsor trait."

It seems to me that the royals could use fewer defenders.

Both Pepsi-Cola and Coca-Cola have announced an agreement to halt all animal testing of their products. Now beasts that want a soda-pop will have to buy it, just like the rest of us.

The Georgia State Board of Regents is requiring all incoming college freshman to take a writing and reading test to insure that all Georgia college students actually know how to read and write.

Rogers County, Oklahoma, commissioners wanted to make English the official language of the county.

But they tabled the proposal when local Cherokee Indians pointed out that their tribal language was spoken in this country long before English.

Now a member of the Cherokee Nation Tribal Council wants all county buildings to have signs in both English and Cherokee.

So there.

Saturday was Queen Elizabeth II of England's official birthday.

Her original birthday was April 21, but she moved it to June 16. She's the queen, she can do that.

Elizabeth celebrated with a parade featuring more than a thousand troops accompanied by a flyby of military aircraft. There were thousands of cheering tourists.

It's good to be queen.

Delcambre, Louisiana, has a dress code. The town council has banned saggy pants. If your droopy drawers reveal any underwear or buttocks, it's a $500 fine or six months in jail.

Now if only they'd just ban stretch-pants on fat ladies, tank tops on hairy men and eyebrow-rings on anybody.

Some citizens of Gaza, sick of civil war, held a peace march yesterday.

The toll is two dead, 14 wounded.

Los Alamos National Laboratory can't account for 38-drums of radioactive waste. So check your neighborhood, your yard, under the bed. It has to be somewhere.

Paris Hilton, busted for driving with a suspended license while on probation for driving with a suspended license, is in the slammer for 23 days for serial stupidity.

Paris says this has "completely changed" her life. "I have had a lot of time to think and to reflect on my life and realize what is most important."

And she said that BEFORE she went to jail.

The FBI says five terrorists who plotted to blow up JFK airport thought that the government informant who busted them was sent by God to help them.

Bad call.

Some stone markers that mark the border of South Dakota are missing. Parts of the South Dakota border have turned up in people's yards and small town museums. Officials are asking people to please return South Dakota's border. The South Dakota State Historical Society reminds you that possessing any part of the border is a federal crime.