Hurricane Charley was pretty intense last night. Florida suffered a lot of damage and here's hoping the best for its residents. No doubt, any voting snafus on Election Day will be blamed on the hurricane.

The Summer Olympics in Athens are underway and I thought they did a very nice job with last night's opening ceremony. The show was classy with an impressive parade. It demonstrated the history of Greece with actors clad in garb that gave the impression they were moving statues. The Parade of Nations followed as the Greek crowd gave all 202 countries a very nice reception. Even the U.S. was greeted warmly. It was good to see women marching with the Iraqi and Afghan delegations. But it was not so good to see Iran - one of their athletes (a wrestler) withdrew from the competition because his 1st round opponent was scheduled to be an Israeli - and Iran refuses to acknowledge Israel's right to exist. The parade culminated in the lighting of the torch - a task that fell to a substitute Greek athlete. The original honoree refused to take a drug test and then got into a vehicular accident as he was fleeing. Go Olympic Spirit!!!