Contraception is For Wimps

Real men are fathers.

Happy Fathers' Day!

Spiderman Outs Himself to the Press

In the latest edition of the Marvel comic "Civil War" on sale, Spiderman does the unthinkable and removes his Spidey mask to publicly reveal his hidden identity.

Whew! When I saw "out" in the headline, I thought he was going the way of Batwoman.

Will You Still Need Me, Will You Still Feed Me?

Macca, who will actually be turning 64 a week from today, looks like he doesn't need someone to feed him -- he can cook! Sort of.

Worm-inspired robot crawls through intestines

A robot designed to crawl through the human gut by mimicking the wriggling motion of an undersea worm has been developed by European scientists. It could one day help doctors diagnose disease by carrying tiny cameras through patients' bodies.

Most people will cringe at this, but having had an endoscopy recently, I'd prefer the mechanical bug.

Supreme Court Ends PRS/Gibson Lawsuit

Paul Reed Smith Guitars has announced that the United States Supreme Court today denied Gibson Guitar's final appeal of a Court of Appeals decision upholding PRS' right to make a single cutaway-style guitar.

The Supremes rock.

Billy Preston, RIP

Another musical obituary.

Billy Preston, the singer-songwriter famous for his collaborations with Ray Charles, Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and the Beatles, among others, as well as for the Grammy-winning solo hits "Outta Space" and "Nothing From Nothing," died Tuesday from complications due to chronic kidney failure. He was 59.

Get Back,Billy.

Vince Welnick, RIP

Vince Welnick is the Dead's fourth keyboard player and fifth member to have died. This sounds like a bad parody of a parody. Spinal Tap had a hard time keeping the drum riser filled; the Grateful Dead the keyboard bench. Tom Constanten is probably glad that he quit the band in 1970 and Bruce Hornsby is probably glad that he never officially appeared on the roster.

The Dead's long time roadie Lawrence "Ramrod" Shurtliff died last month.

Before joining the Dead, Welnick was a member of the Tubes which had an underground hit with White Punks on Dope. My friends and I used to sing it as White Dopes on Punk - and we were.

Judge James Ryan: "No Hope" for Muhammad

Sniper John Allen Muhammad was sentenced to six consecutive life terms without parole yesterday.

Maryland prosecutors and the victims' families consider the sentence insurance in case his death sentence in Virginia is thrown out.

"You chose the wrong community, sir, to stain with your acts of violence," Circuit Judge James Ryan said.

"You, Mr. Muhammad, have no hope. You have no future. You will spend the rest of your life locked in a cage."

I'm glad, very glad that John Muhammad and John Malvo will likely live out the rest of their lives in prison.

Judge Ryan has the authority to sentence Muhammad to six life terms, but he does not have the authority to pronounce judgment on whether Muhammad or anyone else has hope. Everyone, Muhammad included, can have Hope. Even if he is sentenced to die by lethal injection he can Hope if he repents.

I've heard it said that the death penalty can be an act of charity committed by the state. When you think about it, the final goal -- attaining everlasting life in heaven -- is the objective of the greatest acts of charity. Very few of us know when our last day will be. Confronting death can be sobering and, hopefully, will lead to taking stock before the final accounting.

Genital mutilation 'torture'

In my book, mutilating someone against their will in any way is "torture" -- with or without quotation marks.