Mort!

Ah...another week, another Iraqi prisoner torture picture. Shocking! Appalling! And yet they're coming out with such regularity that, geez, you hafta wonder if the U.S. military was planning to put out some twisted Playgirl-style calendar or something. Mr. January: hooded Iraqi holding wires. Mr. February: hooded Iraqi cowering as attack dog menaces. Mr. March: hooded Iraqi being tugged by spiked leash. Buy yours today! All proceeds will help pay the rent on Donald Rumsfeld's ivory tower while he looks for a new job. I've got a slogan for the Bush re-election campaign: "We didn't know!" As in, "We didn't know about Sept. 11!" "We didn't know there weren't any WMDs!" "We didn't know about the abuse of prisoners!" Yeah, well we didn't know you were like this when we...um...elected Al Gore president!

Okay, sorry. I'm starting to hyperventilate. Hope everyone had a happy Mother's Day. Yep, whether you're rich or poor, black or white or purple, we've all got mothers (unless you were "born" in a futuristic, nutrient goo-filled tube like the Olsen twins). What did some of the rich and infamous get? Mort's snitches know! Courtney Love got a nice card signed by someone apparently named Child Protective Services...Whitney Houston got yet another sheaf of rehab pamphlets...Sharon Osbourne got a pair of very nice collect phone calls from the Betty Ford Clinic...and finally, Barbara Bush got...a Father's Day card. (Word is that both Georges were summarily grounded for the "mistake," and the former first lady immediately went back to doing benchpresses in her basement gym.)

In the meantime, I haven't done much celeb-spotting because I've been inside my house with the air conditioning humming like a Pahrump cheerleader. Yeah, is it me, or is summer starting earlier every year? Heck, even Celine Dion is defrosting! I have managed to spot a few Vegas personalities trying to keep cool. Yeah, you know it's hot when Shelley Berkley starts carrying her face around in an Igloo cooler...when Sandra Murphy is just too logy to drug and kill her latest rich boyfriend...when Britney Spears faints from heat exhaustion, not alcohol, in the middle of mumbling wedding vows...when even Jon Porter takes a stance on the heat. But you really know it's too hot when even the county's Growth Task Force breaks a sweat. I mean, it certainly can't be from actually doing anything, after all. Ciao!