(Check out my blog at: http://jpdave.blogspot.com/ and feel free to leave a comment (even a few comments will encourage me to blog more)! Go on; take a look! Go! Now – this’ll still be here.

Unpaid Advertisement: also, if you are in the US or Canada, check out my new business site! Go to www.fullerdirect.com and sign in with #0841110 and look around. Everyone can use something!)   

 Greetings, and thanks for joining me for another week. Starting us off are a few news stories you may have missed. First, the miracle of science. From London’s Daily Telegraph, blessed events (and I do mean events!). Martha P. gave birth to quadruplets in Riverside, Calif., last month, but she only did half the work. The other two babies were born to her partner, Karen W, using Martha's eggs and the same sperm donor, and whose two came along 22 hours later. The women carried two fertilized eggs each only because they had failed five times before with in-vitro fertilization and just wanted to improve the odds of having at least one child between them. I guess they succeeded.    

Next, the Wall Street Journal carried a Bit reminiscent of Seinfeld’s Soup Nazi. It's the "holy grail" of beers, observed a Boston pub manager, but, still, only 60,000 cases a year of Westvleteren are brewed because the Belgian Trappist monks with the centuries-old recipe refuse to expand their business. Westvleteren is sold only at the monastery gate, by appointment, with a two-case-a-month limit, at a price that's reasonable for retail beer, but anyone who gets it from a re-seller will pay 10 times that much. “Producing more,” said Brother Joris, "would interfere with our job of being a monk." Furthermore, said Brother Joris, referencing the Bible, "(I)f you can't have it, possibly you do not really need it."     

Finally, from Ananova, following the Letter of the Law. A motorist was given a £50 ticket for bad parking when her car was smacked into a tree by another driver. Joanne Billington was fined by an overzealous traffic warden after her Ford Ka, which she'd left parked, was hit by another driver. "I was absolutely devastated," the 27-year-old said. "I just couldn't believe what had happened. It was obvious the car had been crashed into but I still got a fine. It's unbelievable that the attendant had the gall to issue one." Amazingly, despite the front end of the car being in the bushes, the traffic warden claimed he thought it had been parked that way. "Nobody parks their car like that,'" added Ms Billington. An Oldham Council spokesman said the penalty had since been written off. "At the time of the incident the attendant did not know that the vehicle had been forced out of the bay," he said. It’s good someone has some sense.    

Although I am no longer an avid watcher of the Olympics (perhaps it was Munich that tipped the scales), there were a few things I did see that were worthy of inclusion here (in a good way). Olympic Thoughts: Michael Phelps, as a child in Baltimore, had a screaming fit at his first swimming lesson because he did not want to get his face wet. Today, he has won more medals than anyone else in the Olympics' 112-year history. Wow!    

Constantina Tomescu relaxed and waved as she entered the Bird's Nest stadium to claim a surprise win in the women's marathon. "At the world (half marathon) championships in Canada, everybody said I couldn't run, but I showed today what I can do," she said. Sometimes, I love upsets!    

Called the fastest man on Earth, Usain Bolt showed pure speed - untied lace and all - to win the 100-meter Olympic gold medal and break his own world record Saturday night. It was there for all to see, too, with a gap of several feet between the Jamaican and the rest of the field at the finish. And, of course, in those bright, yellow numbers on the red-and-black trackside clock blaring the official time: 9.69 seconds. Pure joy.    

A drunk fan of Olympic competitors from Belgium has been identified as the country's own sports minister. A loud Belgian fan had been shouting out during a doubles match between Argentinian and Belgian players. Eventually Argentine tennis ace David Nalbandian lost his temper and told him to be quiet. But other Belgian supporters recognized the "very drunk" man as sports minister Michel Daerden, media in the country have reported. Daerden was also spotted drunk when cheering on the Belgian hockey team from the stands, say reports. One Belgian fan, Marc Demeyer, said: "He was drunk as a skunk. It's an embarrassment for the nation."    

From The Smoking Gun, Jennifer R, a Texas woman, used her 12-year-old daughter as a designated driver so that she could be chauffeured to a Longview bar to celebrate her 35th birthday. Rosenberg was recently arrested after her child was pulled over by cops for a traffic violation (the girl told officers she had just dropped her mother off at a bar about two miles from their home). Longview Police Department officers responded to Leon's Bar and Grill, where they arrested Rosenberg on a child endangerment charge, according to a probable cause affidavit. She was booked into the Gregg County jail. It is unclear whether Rosenberg planned on having her daughter ferry her back home after the evening's merrymaking.    

Maybe I will start going to church. An Oklahoma church recently canceled a controversial gun giveaway for teenagers at a weekend youth conference. Windsor Hills Baptist had planned to give away a semiautomatic assault rifle until one of the event's organizers was unable to attend. The church's youth pastor, Bob Ross, said it's a way of trying to encourage young people to attend the event. The church expected hundreds of teenagers from as far away as Canada (gee, I wonder why)."We have 21 hours of preaching and teaching throughout the week," "I don't want people thinking 'My goodness, we're putting a weapon in the hand of somebody that doesn't respect it who are then going to go out and kill,” said Ross. "That's not at all what we're trying to do."Ross said the conference isn't all about guns, but rather about teens finding faith." (www.koco.com news) (Maybe they could give away cases of Westvleteren to increase attendance.)    

Finally, across Atlanta were the orange signs with black letters that read "Men At Work" or "Men Working Ahead." Sometimes, the signs stood next to women working alongside the men. Cynthia Good demanded Atlanta officials remove the signs and last week, Atlanta Public Works Commissioner Joe Basista agreed. Score one for gender equality, Good said. "They get it.” Public Works officials are replacing 50 "Men Working" with signs that say "Workers Ahead." It will cost $22 to cover over some of the old signs and $144 to buy new signs, said Public Works spokeswoman Valerie Bell-Smith said. Good, founding editor of Atlanta-based PINK Magazine, a publication that focuses on professional women, said she's not stopping with Atlanta. "We're calling on the rest of the nation to follow suit and make a statement that we will not accept these subtle forms of discrimination," said Good, 48. Good pressed the issue after Atlanta police came to her office last month on a complaint that she spray painted "wo" onto a "Men At Work" sign. State transportation officials said they will ask contractors to remove signs specifying just men are working at a construction site. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution) (Of course, I have suggested this before, but will I have to change my name to Dave Beroffspring to remove sexism? I would have suggested Dave Berperson, but the word ‘son’ appears there suggesting a male, so….)    

Later.