Conspiracy theories are compelling to me, mainly because I believed I was a UFO for the first third of my life. Yes, it’s probably true that I landed in the house of ‘my parents’ after they had more than a few drinks. Unable to explain this strange looking creature and incapable of remembering much from the months preceding my arrival (’twas the drink, it was), they simply labeled me daughter. I don’t think they liked me much ’cause I zigged when I should have zagged. And when they found out I had smoked …

I don’t know. There are days when I read the newspaper in the morning and want to reach for some chocolate, a big fat gooey doughnut, a latte loaded with whipped cream or some potatoes fried in loads of butter. I want to clog up my arteries the way the news stories clog up my head. Counter-productive, I know. But what the hell. The stories just seem to get worse by the day.
For example, the G20 is going to meet here in Pittsburgh in September. Meanwhile our state budget in …

The CDC has announced that there is a new kind of swine flu in California and Texas. Seven people have been diagnosed with it so far and all seven have recovered. The CDC is calling this a strange mixture of swine flu, bird flu and human flu but is transmitted by human to human contact.
Nancy Cox of the CDC stated, “We haven’t seen this strain before, but we hadn’t been looking as intensively as we had before. It’s very possible that this is something new that hasn’t been happening before.” …