"I read the news today, oh boy..."

From the wires of the Associated Press, and whatever is overheard at a coffee bar across the street from the White House:

• Recently, an item listed as the "Entire State of West Virginia" was actually being auctioned on eBay. By Tuesday, with five days left to go, "Item #2372779353" had 56 bids, at just under $100 million dollars, which was almost enough to cover a projected $120 million budget shortfall projected for FY 2005, before eBay called off the bidding. But the big question for yours truly, is whether this deal would have included access to the mineral rights, much of which were sold off by the ancestors of the current residents to out-of-state investors.

• And I thought this only happened on TV. A motorcycle cop in Arizona was offering to drop citations issued to female drivers, if they agreed to go out with him. Four women claim to have been propositioned. The officer is now on administrative leave.

• Get ready for your bank to change its name again. J P Morgan and Chase has announced plans to buy BankOne for about $58 billion. With a combined total of $1.1 trillion in assets, the merger would make them second only to Citigroup, which has assets of $1.19 trillion.

• James Carville, political consultant and die-hard Clinton apologist, is writing a children's book. "Lu and the Swamp" is based on a true story of Carville's mother, who grew up in rural Louisiana during the Depression. Maybe now he'll finally know what he's talking about. The book is to be published by Simon and Schuster, and should hit the streets this fall.