I've spent much of the past two weeks riding a bicycle around western Ireland, marveling at the peace and prosperity that has settled over the long-cursed land. The biggest puzzle for me, however, were the fields of sheep spray-painted in day-glo colors. The sheep, that is, not the fields. They came in many colors: orange, red, green, yellow. I'd be whizzing along in third gear, and grazing nonchalantly by the roadside would be clusters of sheep as gaily spray-painted as New York subway cars in the pre-Giuliani days. Was this some strange EU regulation? A color code to which the sheep had to conform? My favorite was an entire herd spray-painted blue like Mel Gibson's face in "Braveheart."

WACO, TX (AP)—Prisoners of Camp Crawford complain of small cells, poor meals, constant surveillance, and disrespectful—even disdainful—treatment from Presidential staff. “Thirty-three days in this hell-hole feels like thirty-three years,” said a bitter long-time White House correspondent. "We’re all billeted into these crappy Waco motels—you know, the kind they hose down with antiseptic every day and you’ve got one lousy blanket which is made of recycled Coke bottles or something." A Fox News camera man agreed. “Basically you sit around in baking heat, bored out of your mind. How many times can you visit the ‘Texas Sports Hall of Fame’ or beat Nora O’Donnell at Scrabble? Nothing happens, except maybe when one of the staff summons you to watch the President pulling brush. After a few minutes, they pile you back into the buses, and that’s it. It’s torture.”

IRAQ: HOW TO FIX THE MESS -- posted by Donald Trump: Iraq. The situation: You’ve got a bunch of vicious ethnic groups battling it out for pieces of land. It's like Queens or New Jersey. We’re not dealing with classy people here...

TO: EricaJong@huffingtonpost.com FROM: StPeter@heaven.org RE: Recent blog