Uh oh. A new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine discloses that the standard PSA blood test for prostate cancer may fail to detect the disease 80% of the time. This means that your doctor will be donning the rubber gloves for your next physical. But if the disease should strike, there may be hope. At Columbia University, lab tests show that prostate cancer cells are susceptible to Zyflamed, an herbal extract that includes ginger, oregano and green tea. The concoction acts as a COX-2 inhibitor (like Vioxx or Celebrex) and holds such promise that patient trials are slated to begin shortly. But what can we do in the meantime? In a discovery that rivals the harnessing of fire, Australian researchers concluded that frequent masturbation could significantly reduce the risks of getting prostate cancer. Semen, apparently, contains carcinogens, which need to be continuously flushed from the system. So now the same HMO that denies a liver transplant may cover Celestial Seasonings and Horny Housewives III.

The centerpiece of the President’s Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act is a reduction in the tax rate on dividends. Well, reconcile this: The rich are paying fewer taxes, the working stiffs are losing their jobs and the chasm is growing. Boeing just announced that although their stock pays a 68-cent dividend the company would eliminate 5,000 jobs. Eastman Kodak’s dividend is larger at a buck eighty, so they’ll need to trim payrolls by 6,000.

Not that it was the turning point of the economy, but 9/11 has changed many things. The only residue on daily life more irritating than going through airport security is that annoying news ticker constantly streaming across the bottom of my television screen. These moving blurbs and half stories stick in my memory like last night’s rib dinner wedged between two teeth; I get a hint of the flavor, though at 8 a.m. I’m not sure I want to. As “No US Casualties in Iraq for Second Day in a Row” jogged across my plasma, I wondered which is more remarkable, that our forces survived 48 hours without someone dying or that daily loss has come to be expected? In L.A. Story, TV weatherman Harris Telemacher pre–records his never-changing forecasts of sunshine and 75 degrees. One day it rains and he gets caught. Now that the President’s sunny forecasts have been exposed as fabrications, will he lose his job as well?

Mounting US casualties, no doubt, are affecting the White House. Despite asserting that Iraq will hold a legitimate election by next summer, Bush is getting more realistic. “I didn’t expect Thomas Jefferson to emerge in Iraq,” he said. It is precisely this admixture of hubris and stupidity that is driving Colin Powell out of the State Department. Over at the Pentagon, Rumsfield confided his relief, noting Jefferson has been dead for 177 years.

On October 7th voters will decide whether or not to recall California Governor Gray Davis. The event, which could alter the political landscape of the entire country, was funded and organized by Darrell Issa, a former car thief and high school dropout. It’s no surprise with such a stellar résumé, which includes an arrest for possession of an unregistered handgun, that Mr. Issa is today a Republican Congressman. Having set his sights higher than four-on-the-floor, he now aspires to steal the Governorship. Many call his tactics mean-spirited and dirty, but they cannot compare to the way New Yorkers get rid of their politicians.

It’s official: W has notched more US military deaths in Iraq than the 147 amassed by his father during the Gulf War. A family spokesman described the former President (or, 41 as he is called in Crawford) as extremely proud. Yet, at this moment, can anyone be more enamored with his progeny than Saddam Hussein? His sons got their pictures in all the papers – splayed out dead in a field hospital, mind you, but still it makes an old man puff out his chest and strut around the courtyard. In the end, however, the Hussein boys are just statistics, numbers. Each son carried a $15 million bounty, so it follows that by killing them both the Pentagon saved over 20% of last week’s operational budget.

July 18th saw Hollywood rocked by the news of David Kelly’s suicide. True, “Ally McBeal” went from Emmy contender into the toilet bowl faster than Calista Flockhart can throw up three McGriddle sandwiches, but that was years ago. Fox executives were relieved to learn the deceased was a different David Kelly altogether, not a big shot producer but merely a British scientist and advisor to the Ministry of Defense. A former UN weapons inspector, Kelly was recently exposed as the BBC’s source for a report that the Blair government had knowingly magnified Iraq’s chemical- and biological-weapons capabilities. Only a week later, Colin McMillan, tapped as Bush’s new Secretary of the Navy, also died of an apparent suicide. Was this merely a bizarre coincidence? Senator Pete Domenici, a longtime friend, mused, “this is one you would never believe…” An assistant secretary of defense under Bush’s father, McMillan was a prominent oil executive may have been privy to Dick Cheney’s secret industry policy meetings.

Imagine that the idea of toppling Saddam came not from the Pentagon or the State Department but was the bastard child of the now infamous petroleum confab. Picture cowboy hats filling a smoky Oval Office with J.R. Ewing seeking to recover his campaign contributions by wresting those huge Iraqi oilfield contracts away from TotalFina. Someone blurts out, “dead or alive!” Cheney feverishly scribbles in his notebook. My God, are we are all victim of some great Halliburton legerdemain? Someone had better call William Morris and see if Sam Irvin is available. Stay Tuned.

Not even the most gullible among us can believe that Mr. Bush is traipsing through Africa because he cares about Africans. What he cares about is winning the election next November and that means attracting minority voters. Why, you might ask, would this President reach beyond his white, bible-thumping, anti-cloning constituency? Well, with the unemployment rate at 6.4% and rising faster than the death doll in Iraq, one of these bumbling democrats may actually have a chance. And once Liberia exhausts the list of countries we can take down in a microwave war, where else can the administration turn for poll ratings?

Contract snafus could make Kobe Bryant a free agent. Lakers GM Mitch Kupchek announced that unlike that 19-year-old Colorado girl, the team has yet to receive Kobe’s extension. Meanwhile, the TNT cable network, purveyors of NBA basketball broadcasts, has been cleared to reformulate itself as “Spike TV.” Now the station that carries Stripperella and Ren and Stimpy can focus on producing such erudite and compelling programming instead of fighting legal challenges from film director Spike Lee. Lee, who’s given name is Shelton, sued the Viacom subsidiary over the use of “his” moniker. Lee feared confusion between the seriously funny cartoons and Dukes of Hazard reruns on Spike TV and those awful racist diatribes masquerading as arthouse films which he directs. The issue became hopelessly obfuscated by the realization that another film director, Spike Jonze (Adaptation, Being John Malkovich) also enjoys rights to the appellation. In the end, the legal combatants settled out of court under the proviso that Lee will produce more content for Viacom and Whitey will be blamed for the civil unrest in Africa.

64 Americans killed in Iraq since the President declared the end of hostilities. And He’s only 57, so congratulations are in order. You know like when some octogenarian shoots 79 on the local golf course and gets his picture in Sports Illustrated. I guess the right wing zealots who attacked war protesters as unpatriotic have gone mute. You can’t support the troops if you question their mission, they rabidly shouted like new-age McCarthyites. Where are the flag waivers now as we piss away $1 billion a week to watch our soldiers die? Here’s what is known today: Saddam is still alive having had no weapons of mass destruction (after the “91 campaign), Halliburton garnered $600 million in no-bid contracts and Blair Hornstine’s famous “no blood for oil” slogan was lifted from Jaques Chirac.

And W’s infamous speech where he claimed Iraq tried to acquire African uranium has formally been exposed as a lie. First the President tried to fob off the “inaccuracy” on the British Intelligence Service. When that failed he hoisted CIA director George Tenet as the fall guy. Congress is fast forming an angry mob and Tenet may well lose his job. Beltway observers laud the spymaster for admitting responsibility and sacrificing himself. But at what personal cost? Tenet will no doubt land on his feet as an overpaid lobbyist or cosseted University Provost. I may be old school but Bill Casey made a real sacrifice. When Iran-Contra threatened to take down the White House, Big Bill took himself out on the operating table during surgery for a “newly discovered” brain tumor. Now that, boys and girls, is taking one for the team.

42 military deaths in Iraq since Bush declared the war over, but, hey, who’s counting?

Not Vice President Dick Cheney who is busy repaying Halliburton shareholders for his Napoleonic stewardship of the oil services firm. The administration has ignored the Senate’s demand for competitive bidding on Iraqi contracts and has more than doubled the amount paid to Halliburton. But how far can $200 million go when pesky asbestos claims take $4 billion out of your hide and shareholders need $6 million more to stop complaining about deceptive accounting. By virtue of some Enron bookkeeping, the Veep claims no ongoing relation to the company even though he still owns a boatload of stock. These, mind you, are the same kind of no relations that Bill Clinton had with Monica Lewinsky.

No relations are more repugnant than those between the Catholic Church and the unfortunate children in its care. The latest scandal involves Phoenix Bishop Thomas O’Brien, who ran over a 43-year old man and left him to die. Despite a caved in windshield, the Bishop thought he had merely hit a dog or perhaps had been struck by a thrown rock. The deceased pedestrian weighed well over 200 pounds and so the question begs, how drunk was the cleric? Moreover, how did he keep the car on the road with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and an alter boy’s genitals in the other.

Ironically, the Prelate had just struck a deal with authorities to avoid prosecution by admitting he allowed priests accused of child molestation to work with minors. Why that kind of admission would get you a hall pass is beyond me. But no matter: In the end it’s goodbye to wine and crackers because Monsignor will now wind up behind bars where daily communion involves dirty bed sheets and hair gel. Amen to that.