As evidence of my lateness in entering the blog world, the first 6 or so URLs I tried were all taken. Now, that may not seem like much to you of the AOL persuasion, but I've never had that happen to me before in the online world. I could regale you with tales of my inherent coolness resulting from my early foray into the realm of all things computer, but I'll spare you. (Isn't it interesting how the internet/computers are super cool now, but 10-15 years ago were the sole domain of the nerds and socially challenged?)

On another note, what is the deal with other countries? So Portugal is asking for help because they can't deal with the wildfires going on in their country. That's fine, I have no problem with that, and I even feel sympathy for the people who have no homes now because of the fires. And this really doesn't even have anything to do with Portugal. But they're asking for help, like lots of countries ask for help when bad things happen. Have you ever considered, though, that the U.S. never asks for help? To which you respond, because we don't need help. And you're right - we don't need help from other countries. But we give help to other countries whenever they ask. And many private (and gasp! religious) organizations provide help to the people of other countries when the governments of those countries are to corrupt or evil to care about their people and don't ask for help. Yet, what do we get in return? Criticism at every turn. Not that criticism doesn't have its place - particularly in government. The government shouldn't be able to blink without scrutiny. I'm just saying that this country is generous and helpful (and if we weren't, we'd be criticized). Honestly, I'd rather be here and get criticized for things that are untrue than to be in a country that needed to ask for help when something goes wrong.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, concludes our sociopolitical commentary portion of the show. (For today, at least.)