A few things to plug here on a hot, hazy Friday afternoon:

1) One of my favorite charities, which I’ve mentioned repeatedly on this blog, is ThanksUSA. It raises funds for education scholarships for children and spouses of our troops through a national treasure hunt. It’s a great cause. The charity’s driving force Bob Okun recently wrote about it in the Washington Times. Check out the op-ed here.

2) Jon Eick, my gifted and multi-talented colleague at New Media Strategies, has launched a hilarious food blog called So Good. Check it out here. I particularly enjoyed his posting on Bacon Salt. Alas, the concept won’t work in Israel because of, ahem, Menachem Bacon.

3) If you hate Barry Bonds, or for that matter if you hate Extreme Mortman, you’ll get a kick out of this comment that was posted to my Politico piece on Barack Obama mishandling the Bonds homerun question:

Howard, I had written a more detailed comment, however, I scratched it. After giving it some thought - - of which this article displays that you have deficiencies. And that’s okay, everyone have deficiences, however, everyone is not allowed the opportunity of public display. I totally agree with RuthieM in regards to the article and Barack’s response to the question. There is one matter that is clear through the comments - - we all believe you need help. Hopefully, friends and family will manage some type of intervention for you. Sounds like a case of the deinstitualized mentally ill to me. Just to think that you would even try to comprehend and reason on the level of Barack Obama is obsurd based upon your rendition here. I pray that you are not given access to any weapons beyond a computer technology. The world would be in a lot of danger.

To which I can only point out, if you think I’m dangerous with a computer, you should start impounding transistor radios.