Happy Friday Everyone!

And once again, it's time for the Friday Follies!

(cueing up cheesy organ music)

1) Chalk Up One For Telling The Truth: In a rare moment of lucidity and intelligence, the Federal Government has assumed responsibility for the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda CA, and in doing so, has removed the whitewash regarding the whole Watergate Scandal of the early 1970's (that eventually resulted in Nixon's resignation in disgrace from the presidency). The full story will now be chronicled at this library, the good bad and the ugly.

2) Just Wondering #25: Do we REALLY need a Surgeon General at all?

3) Better Early Than Never: I COULDN'T have made this up, a teacher flew thousands of miles across the Atlantic to Wales for a friend's wedding, A YEAR TOO EARLY!! The full story HERE

4) While Bush Fiddles--Some war on terror, eh? While George Dubbaya is hell-bent on having his ego vindicated by continuing to wage a POINTLESS war in Iraq, Al-Queda has essentially rebuilt itself to pre-9/11 capability. If this doesn't prove the innate stupidity of GWB and his whole administration, I don't know what does. Here's a commentary by Bob Casca on this sorry development. And of Bush's whole mentality on the "War On Terror", a person who wrote into the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's VENT section brilliantly summed it up like this a couple weeks or so ago, something on the order of getting attacked by a bully (9/11) and then taking revenge on a cousin of the bully 6 months later two towns away, and the bully couldn't care less about this particular cousin anyway. And another thing, was not the Iraq war started WITHOUT a Congressional declaration of war, IN DIRECT VIOLATION OF THE WAR POWERS ACT?

5) Great News, Dancing Scientifically Proven To Ward Off Alzheimer's: Yes, it's true, dancing and most forms of physical exercise and mental stimulation play a huge role in warding off dementia/Alzheimer's and other nasty things like that. Although not athletically inclined myself, I DO love to hit a dance floor any chance I get, And let me tell y'all, it is FUN being able to lead a beautiful lady in an elegant Foxtrot or a playful Cha-Cha and a lot prettier than going to the gym!

A cool article is HERE

And my story of how I went from two-left-feet to dancing fool is HERE

AND FINALLY

6) Prince Strikes A Blow Against The Big Labels: I gotta give the Purple One big kudos here for going out of his way for his long-loyal audience and giving the big labels a well-deserved punch in the nose. In Britain, his newest CD, "Planet Earth" will be enclosed with the Sunday July 14 special edition of The London Daily Mail for the special price of $2.80. While British fans are ecstatic, many Brit music industry types have their knickers in a twist (aawwwwww Booooo Freakin Hoooooo!). Their gripe is that Prince will devalue recorded music (apocalyptic doom music here). Uhh, yeah, right.

The international release date is July 16 and the US release date is July 24.

In the recent past, Prince having amassed more than enough financial resources has taken control of his music in a way that most major label artists could only fantasize about. And as far as his gratefulness for his audience, you can't get much better than this; on a previous tour, a copy of a then brand-new CD was included in the ticket price. Fans were indeed quite happy here.

I may not be a huge Prince fan but there's no denying the man's talent and creativity (and he plays some pretty smoking post-Hendrix guitar!) and not to mention taking great pains not to bite the hand that feeds him, namely his audience.

And here's an article

Happy Friday from The Owl's Nest