It rocks.

In fact, I like the interface and spam filter so much, I've forwarded all of my email from this site to my Gmail account. And I imagine people like this guy will just continue to make it better, and more useful.

The guy who registered RadleyBalko@gmail.com also wrote me back, and said he did it to prevent someone from G-squatting me. Well, okay. Not sure that was really much of a threat. Unfortunately, I've already registered under a different username.

Thomas Friedman said that Google and Wifi are about as close as humans can get to God. If Google keeps mastering one realm of web life after another, Google just might become God.

Or, a less rosy scenario: too much continued success, and Google gets designated a public utility. Or subject to an antitrust suit.

Were I on Google's board, I'd recommend an intentional, spectacular failure at some new venture. If only to put the EU bureaucrats, tech-inept congressmen and David Boieses of the world at ease.

But I digress. Have I mentioned that Gmail rocks?

So guess who was first in line at the Bill Clinton book signing?

Quasi-amateur man-on-the-street Greg Packer!

Greg Packer, 40, wearing a New York Yankees shirt, was the first on line for the signing, arriving at noon on Monday and spending the night curbside.

Mr. Packer said the former president marveled, "You're the first in line. What time did you get here?" When Mr. Packer told him, Mr. Clinton responded "God bless you."

"He knew I put in more than 24 hours here," grinned Mr. Packer.

The funny thing is, despite all the attention Packer generated last summer, the New York Times still quotes him without even a wink to his considerable talent. Wonder if they didn't know, or knew and didn't think it was necessary to acknowledge.

I like the guy. I like that even after he got exposed, he's still doing his thing.

Finally....

...a cookbook that's worth the kitchen counter space it takes up.

I bet we see more of this, as more people tire of restrictive diets and health hysteria overload. Sooner or later, you just want something that tastes good.

John Stossel on Morgan Spurlock:

We talked with two adults who have nothing to do with McDonald's Corp., but who think the documentary sends the wrong message.

"Making a film like this doesn't help anybody," said 49-year-old Soso Whaley. "It just allows people to say, 'It's McDonald's fault or it's fast food, or it's a hamburger. That's why I'm fat.' " Whaley did her own 30-day test. The result? The New Hampshire resident lost 10 pounds and her cholesterol dropped 40 points from 237 to 197 during a month of fast food meals. She said after the diet her liver was healthy and "in general, I felt pretty darn good."

How did Whaley lose so much weight? She didn't pig out the way Spurlock did.

"I might have a McGriddle sandwich with bacon, egg and cheese and some orange juice. For lunch I might have a salad … dinner, well maybe I'd be in the mood for a Big N' Tasty," said Whaley.

She ate fewer than 2,000 calories a day.

California resident Chazz Weaver ate as much as Spurlock did, up to 5,000 calories a day. After 30 days Weaver lost eight pounds, going from 222 to 214 and his HDL cholesterol level improved by 80 percent.

The difference between Spurlock and Weaver was exercise. Weaver works out an hour and 15 minutes a day. "Could somebody eat McDonald's every single day and lose weight? Yes," said Weaver...

told Spurlock about their weight loss. He pointed out that they ate less and exercised, which is something "no Americans do." I then told Spurlock I thought the film was rigged because he bought the fattiest foods.

What if you went to the finest French restaurant and took in 5,000 calories a day, wouldn't the same thing happen?

Spurlock replied: "I don't know. Maybe you should make that film."

This latest terrorist beheading has gotten me thinking.

Some time ago, Russian officials announced they were considering burying Muslim Chechen terrorists wrapped in pig skins. That I guess would prevent them from ever entering heaven, regardless of how they lived before they died. And as I understand it, it's not the kind of thing that an imam can override with some sort of edict.

So why don't we do the same thing? Why not announce that henceforth, the remains of any Muslim who dies in an act of terrorism will be soiled in every way forbidden by the Koran? (We might also announce that we'll treat the remains of any other terrorist acting out in the name of religion in an equally disprespectful manner.)

I can't really see a downside. Any Muslim advocacy groups raising a fuss would only need to be reminded that we're talking about Muslims who died while murdering innocents.

I guess the only whiff of unseemliness here comes from our reverence for death -- even the deaths of otherwise loathesome people. It's the same reverence that compells us to find nice things to say about awful people shortly after they die (one of the things I love about H.L. Mencken -- he had little use for such sentiment).

I say we get over it. Dip dead terrorists in bacon fat. Burn 'em. Then scatter their ashes over Las Vegas. And let it be known that that's exactly what we're going to do. It's bound to deter a few of them.

And it certainly can't hurt.

Colorado just passed a ban on fast food obesity suits. Gov. Bill Owens:

''When people make wrong decisions, including overindulging in French fries, it is only fair that they take responsibility for their actions."

What a weird turn of phrase.

Anyway, you sort of suspected this kind of thing was going on. That doesn't make it any less frightening.

Got an email from the owners of Pogo, the three-legged dalmation who frequents my local dog park.

Pogo's owner's mom has set up a nice site where owners of rescue dogs (okay, and cats, too) can share stories of how they got their pups.

Some of the stories are pretty harrowing. Pogo's story, with picture, is here.

Paul Musgrave delivers a much-needed smackdown to this terribly misleading Flash ad from the AARP on Social Security. The ad is being promoted on a number of prominent blogs.

I just got around to watching the season finale of Deadwood and the season premiere of Six Feet Under, thanks to Comcast's very cool "On Demand" feature. My cable went out a week ago Sunday when both aired for the first time.

Both were excellent, though the Deadwood episode was in a league of its own. Probably the best hour of television I've seen in a very long time. The scene with Swearengen and the Reverend, followed up by Swearengen and the Magistrate, followed by Swearengen and the doctor were brilliantly laid atop one another. We saw a kind of primitive humanitarian, then a ruthless Machiavellian, then a frontier philosopher. All in the course of an evening. Yet it felt entirely plausible.

If Ian McShane doesn't win an Emmy for his portrayal of (appropriately named) Al Swarengen, the Emmys in my mind will take on all the relevance of the Grammies -- which would be "none." No one else comes close this year in television. I doubt Peter Krause will, much as I like Six Feet Under. James Gandolfini didn't. Sure as hell not Martin Sheen.

The show ought to take away quite a few other categories, too, though I suspect a variety of factors will prevent that from happening, including the late time slot, that it's a new show, that it comes on after The Sopranos, that many voters will likely be turned off by the violence and coarse language, and that McShane's performance is so spectacular, it tends to overshadow everyone else.

The show bustles with themes of rugged individualism, and explores the troubles and travails of a small community emerging from Hobbesian anarchy into a loose-knit system of law and property. I love the scene from a couple of weeks ago where the town's newly-appointed fire inspector Charlie Utter -- who was appointed only to give the town some credence in the eyes of Congress -- gets into a squabble with saloon-owner Nutall over the proximity of his stove pipe to the wall.

The dialogue is wonderful. In addition to the colorful profanity (how many different variations on "cocksucker" are there, anyway?), I love the NYPD Blue approach to character interaction, conversations sprayed with rough but real-world transitions -- lots of "anyways," and "like I was sayins."

When the Doc Cochran is examining one of Swarengen's prostitutes he inquires about her menstruation cycle with, "So where are ya' in yer' moons?"

I think the season's best line came from Swarengen himself, though, when talking to Doc Cochran:

"Announcin' your plans is a good way to hear God laugh."

So good show, HBO. Again.

I just set up my Gmail account and found that "radleybalko@gmail.com" is already taken.

I sent the address an email asking for my name back, please.

The Supreme Court hands down an unfortuante ruling in the Hiibel case. You no longer have the right to withhold your name from police when they stop you for questioning.

This case could build momentum for a national ID card.

So I've been working out to the same soundtrack for about a year now -- seventy or so songs that I alternately download to my MP3 player and mix up for variety. There's some obvious stuff, some cheeseball stuff, some heavy stuff. The goal is to keep from getting bored. And to motivate myself to stay at the gym or on the road.

But I'm getting bored with those seventy or so songs. So I thought I'd tap the collected musicology of the kingdom of Agity.

What music do you run or work out to?

I love it when people come up with new ideas, new ways of doing things, new ways to make money. A few I've caught lately:

1) I got an iced coffee yesterday. The guy at the coffee shop pulled out a big bucket of frozen coffee cubes instead of regular ice cubes. That way, your iced coffee doesn't get watered down when the ice melts. Smart, that guy.

2) I'm getting a Chillow

3) Wheel-less urbanites might check out Zipcar.

4) PJ Doland's latest project is called Keyfiler. It's a way of managing all of those registration numbers, passwords, warantees, and such from the various software packages you buy. That way, you can just go to one website when you want to transfer a program or set of programs to a new computer, instead of rummaging through your files for those registration codes. You can try it out for free with up to ten pieces of software.

Clever commercial.

Not a work-safe click.

Two responses in the Washington Post yesterday to my piece on the smoking ban last week. The first:

Radley Balko is dead wrong when he suggests that Smokefree DC is a non-local effort ["Puffing for Property Rights," Close to Home, June 14]. Smokefree DC was started by myself and another District resident, Michael Tacelosky. Local chapters of public health organizations joined us last year. Decisions on how to spend our grant money were made by local folks running local organizations.

We have gained support from dozens of D.C. organizations, including advisory neighborhood commissions, civic associations and more. To date, 2,500 people have signed an online petition in support of smoke-free workplaces; more than 2,200 of them are D.C. area residents.

Meanwhile, the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington, which takes national tobacco industry money and is fighting to block District residents from voting on the smoke-free workplace measure, lists just 12 percent of District restaurants as members. And the Cato Institute, for which Balko works, takes national tobacco industry money. Who's local now?

--Angela Bradbury

As for Cato, the organization really had nothing to do with fighting the ban, other than that Joanne McNeil, a former Cato intern, founded the Ban the Ban group with Zoe Mitchell (who happens to be a an ex-Green Party official and leftist activist).

The second letter is yet odder:

Secondhand smoke kills. Nevertheless, Radley Balko asserts that proponents of a ban on smoking in the District should let bar and restaurant owners make their own decisions about whether to have smoke-free air. He argues that owners' property rights trump workers' and patrons' human rights to breathe safe air.

Perhaps they did in the 19th century, but this is the 21st.

-- James Repace

The writer is a visiting professor at Tufts University in Boston and a consultant on the effects of secondhand smoke.

That, again, is a debate I'll have any time he likes.

1) From New Mexico:

People across the state are upset with House Bill 126, which would require ignition interlock devices be installed on all new cars sold in New Mexico by Jan. 1, 2008, regardless of the purchaser's driving record...

...The interlock device uses a blow tube which activates sensors when one blows into the tube. If alcohol is detected, the sensors activate a mechanism which shuts down the vehicle's ignition system and the car cannot be started. In addition, a new test is given about every 10 minutes while the car is in use. Interlock devices authorized for use in New Mexico record the driving record and the record is downloaded by companies such as Adobe Interlock. The driving record is then turned over to judges to see how the driver is doing.

Don't think these people are happy with the .08 national standard.

2) From New York:

Radical legislation proposed by New York Assemblyman Felix Ortiz (D-Brooklyn) would require every driver in New York to pass an alcohol breath test every time they start their car-anyplace, anytime and regardless of whether they drink responsibly or at all. The costly measure to install such devices has been estimated to be up to $1,000 per automobile, and would require New Yorkers to re-perform the test every 20 to 40 minutes while driving.

3) From Washington state:

Two new laws go into effect today that make getting caught drinking and driving in Washington state a much more expensive and legally onerous experience.

The first law...mandates that anyone who wants to drive after a DUI arrest, a DUI conviction or after opting for deferred prosecution must have an ignition-interlock device installed in his or her vehicle. The devices, which require a breath test before a car's engine can be turned on, as well as subsequent tests while driving, were once reserved for chronic drunks, repeat DUI offenders and drivers who refused to give breath samples.

The second law, Substitute House Bill 3055, is aimed at curtailing the frequency with which breath-test results are tossed out of court. Juries — instead of judges — will now decide what weight to place upon a test result and are to view that evidence "in a light most favorable to the prosecution," the law says.

Unbefarkingleivable. Note that unlike New York and New Mexico, these laws are already on the books.

4) Finally, MADD wants to pry its public policy agenda into family law, too. The organization is on record supporting laws for mandatory provisions in divorce settlements stating that if one parent is found drinking or driving with a minor in the vehicle (note: drinking and driving, not drunken driving), said parent can lose visitation rights, primary custody, or face complete termination of parental rights.

I'm hard pressed to declare a winner, here.

Naperville, Illinois enters the "most asinine neoprohibitionist law on the books" contest:

In the last six months, Julie Beata, 19, said she has received two citations from Naperville police for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Both times, said the North Central College freshman, she was picking up underage friends who had had a few drinks at a party.

Beata was in violation of Naperville's presence restriction ordinance, said to be the first such law in the nation. The law allows non-drinkers under 21 to be ticketed if they are knowingly in the company of underage people drinking alcohol.

"I understand what they are trying to do, but I also think it's stopping people from [getting] safe rides home," Beata said. "I know a lot of people ended up driving home that shouldn't have."

... Local authorities view the presence restriction as essential to Naperville's quest to curb underage drinking, however.

"If you are at a party [where underage drinking is taking place] and you are under 21, you don't belong there, and you need to leave," said Naperville Police Sgt. Joel Truemper. "We're trying to protect people."

So now the only way Naperville underage drinkers can find a way home from parties where there's underage drinking....is to ride home with others underage drinkers.

If you can find it among the advertisements, search tags, and various other bells and whistles that make up the new site design, my new column is up at FoxNews.com.

It's on sports, ESPN, and race.

Two weird ways to pass the time, one red-state, one blue-state.

Which one's more disturbing?