Etc...

It was an accident - honest

Michael Trujillo doesn't hide the fact that he's a registered Democrat. But the director of public works for Taos County, N.M., insists that Republican Defense Secretary Rumsfeld "is an OK guy as far as I'm concerned" and that the destruction of property he owns along a road there was not politically motivated - even though some of his land has been the scene of frequent anti-administration and antiwar protests. It seems the hydraulic brakes on a drum roller used to pack down the surface of a paving project failed one day last week, and the 20-ton machine plunged down an embankment, wiping out trees, wooden posts, and about 15 feet of wire fencing before coming to a stop. The county will reimburse the cost of the damage.

With the Olympics back in Greece, birthplace of both the ancient and modern Games, a profusion of books, magazines, Internet sites, and radio-TV accounts has bombarded the public with Olympic history. Many regurgitate the same basic facts (with slight variations), including that 311 athletes representing 14 countries competed in the 1896 Athens Olympics, compared to more than 10,000 from 202 countries participating this year. Oddly, a full roster of the nations at those inaugural modern Games isn't easy to find - except in a new book, "The Olympics: Athens to Athens, 1896-2004," published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. The 14 nations that sent athletes in 1896 (in alphabetical order as they were known at the time):

Australia
Austria-Hungary
Bulgaria
Chile
Denmark
Egypt
France
Germany
Great Britain
Greece
Italy
Sweden
Switzerland
US