HEADS, I(RS) WIN(S), TAILS, YOU LOSE: taxes explained.

WEATHER REPORTING: all hysteria, all the time. I've given up on expecting anything useful from the weather reports. From Irene, we got a little bit of mulch (from the leaves and twigs that were ground up by the mulcher today) and 2-1/2 inches of badly needed rain.

IS OBAMA COMING TO HIS SENSES? One Down; 4,256 to Go. One thing the environmentalists always seem to miss is that the only way to get an atmosphere as pristine as it was 1,000 years ago is to live like our ancestors did 1,000 years ago. Maybe they like the thought, but I'm not keen on the idea.

THANK YOU, SARAH PALIN. Well, not Sarah Palin exactly, but somone who lives in her home town of Wasilla. During my recent vacation there, I used my card at a local bank's walk-up ATM to get cash and apparently left the card behind. When I discovered the loss a couple of hours later and called to report the card as lost, I was told that the card had already been found, reported as missing by the person who found it, and my replacement card would be mailed the next day. It was waiting when I arrived back home two days later.

If that had happened in Washington, DC, the card would have been found, sold, and used long before I discovered it missing.

Thanks, Alaska. I look forward to coming back.

TWO VIDEOS: watch this video -- if your stomach is strong enough (mine wasn't). Then watch this response.