If Bristol is anything like her mother, she won't give the child a solid Republican name like George, Laura, Ronald, Nancy or Mitt.

Sarah Palin is apparently conservative in every aspect of her life except when it comes to naming her babies. In that department, she's as carefree as a rock star. Sarah Palin and her husband, Todd, have five chidren. Here are their names: Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper and Trig.

Todd Palin recently explained to People.com how the couple came up with the names: "Sarah's parents were coaches and the whole family was involved in track and I was an athlete in high school, so with our first-born, I was, like, 'Track!' Bristol is named after Bristol Bay. That's where I grew up, that's where we commercial fish. Willow is a community there in Alaska. And then Piper, you know, there's just not too many Pipers out there and it's a cool name. And Trig is a Norse name for "strength."

Fortunately for the Republican ticket this is an area that the Democratic opponents won't touch. How can a guy named Barack with children named Malia and Sasha say anything?

With that kind of freedom, Bristol Palin and her boyfriend, Levi, (Was he named for somebody's favorite pants?) could choose to name the child for a favorite part of the state. How does Aleutian, Kodiak or Hoonah-Angoon sound?

Maybe Bristol and Levi will pick a sport that's popular in Alaska: "We're proud to announce the birth of our baby, Ice Fishing."

Maybe they'll boast, "Our baby, Snow Mobiling, was a robust 9 pounds at birth."

Or maybe they'll decide those names aren't cool enough and they'll decide to follow the lead of celebrities who've found inspiration from vegetables and fruits.

Zucchini would be a great name for a kid. How about Basil?

Some countries restrict the names parents can give their children. In New Zealand recently, a judge let a 9-year-old girl named "Talula Does the Hula from Hawaii" change her name, saying the name "makes a fool of the child and sets her up with a social disability."

Sweden recently relaxed some naming restrictions, clearing the way for parents to name their children "Budweiser" or "Metallica," if they want, according to reports.

If voters elect John McCain and Sarah Palin this November, new parents can take comfort -- although grandparents might despair -- in knowing that the administration should prove liberal in at least that aspect of its policies.

After hearing that actor David Duchovny has entered rehab for sex addiction, the rest of us men should take comfort in the realization that we're not rich, handsome actors.

Sex addition is apparently an affliction that affects only wealthy, good-looking celebrities like Charlie Sheen, Michael Douglas and Duchovny.

"You have no idea how good it feels to be so popular," the star of The X-Files once told an interviewer.

Duchovny now plays a sex addicted writer in the television show Californication. (That's another problem unique to these actors. Some of them are just so dedicated to their work that they take it home and maybe even out on the town with them.)

Most guys between the ages of 15 and the funeral home might live under the misguided notion that we'd like to be sex addicts, but whether we like it or not, we don't get exposed to the scourge because our thin bank accounts, thinning hair or bulging waistlines serve as perfect antibodies.

Thank goodness. Otherwise, we might have to take a few weeks off for treatment in Malibu with other sex addicts while our publicists issue statements asking the press to respect our privacy at such a difficult time.

"What happened to my house?," this guy must be saying. "I was only gone for five minutes."

Just kidding. This house in northern Germany was built upside down to allow visitors a different view of everyday items, according to the Associated Press. It's expected to open soon.

Living in an upside-down house would have advantages and disadvantages. You'd never have to sweep the floor. On the other hand, you'd keep falling out of bed.

Surprisingly, this isn't the first house purposely built upside down. There's one in Poland, where visitors don't have to worry about losing anything under the couch but complain of dizziness. Florida had one too.

Is this a trend? Will upside-down houses someday rival Tudors or Colonials in popularity?

Here's proof beyond the gray hair (or lack of hair of any color) that I was born too early.

In a Connecticut youth baseball league, organizers have banned 9-year-old Jericho Scott (left, AP photo) from pitching because they say he's too good. They say the other kids are afraid of his 40 mph. fastball.

Kids today get all the breaks.

I sure could have benefited from a rule like this back in my Little League playing days. If those adults had the foresight to bar, say, a half-dozen or so pitchers who were too good (for me anyway), I would have spent a lot less time marching back to the bench, bat in hand, head down.

Who knows what it would have done for my self-esteem? Maybe I'd have ended up as something more than a frustrated wannabe athlete who spends too much time on the couch watching other people play sports.

Hey, any chance Major League Baseball could ban the Yankees' Mariano Rivera? It sure would make life easier for my favorite team and its fans.

But you also might like to know that an Italian priest is organizing a worldwide beauty pageant for nuns.

Rev. Antonio Rungi tells the Associated Press that he's doing it to help fight the stereotype that nuns are all old and dour.

It's disappointing to know that this stereotype persists despite the perkiest efforts of Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music, Sally Field in The Flying Nun and Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act.

Even though Rungi doesn't "plan to parade nuns in bathing suits," he's come under some criticism and not because his critics think his idea is just a cheap ploy to get people back to Mass on Sunday mornings.

The Association of Catholic teachers says the idea "belittles the role of nuns who have dedicated themselves to God."

Rungi, who finds Brazilian nuns especially beautiful and expects 1,000 nuns to enter the contest, says the pageant is an opportunity to raise the profile of nuns and their work.

Besides, he says, "External beauty is a gift from God, and we mustn't hide it."

Rungi isn't the first person to come up with an unusual idea for a beauty pageant.
In Cameroon, there's a pageant reserved for women weighing at least 90 kilograms (198.4 pounds). At the Texas Mosquito Festival, men and women with mosquito-like legs compete for the title of Mr. or Ms. Mosquito, and in Battle Mountain, Nev., residents crown an Armpit Queen annually.

Still, Rungi's pageant makes you wonder what's next for the nuns. A calendar? A call from Hugh Hefner?

They're trying to boost ratings, right?

After all, the cameras follow them right into the showers and send images of these attractive athletes all over the world as they rinse off and await their scores.

I'm sure there are people in the audience who are at least as interested in Olympic showering (even if the athletes keep their suits on) as they are in Olympic diving.

But in explaining "The mystery of the showering divers," a Yahoo! sports blog informs us that the divers aren't trying to heat up ratings. They're trying to keep their muscles warm and loose, the blog reports.

Sure, and next they'll tell us that the beach volleyball players wear those skimpy bathing suits so they can stay cool.

We Patriots fans grew tired of seeing Eli Manning's smiling face after this winter's heart-breaking Super Bowl loss, and I'm guessing that some of Michael Phelps' competitors -- and their fans -- are also tiring of seeing Phelps swimming and smiling his way through a record-breaking gold medal run.

Phelps' mug has been difficult for anyone -- swimmer or not -- to avoid lately. Watching the Olympics the other night, my brother Brian, who is also an avid Patriots fan although he now lives on the West Coast, noted the similarity between Phelps and Manning.

I think he's right, but maybe we're both just haunted by images of images of Eli.

Reputations will be ruined when otherwise upstanding members of the community get nabbed with a box of chocolate doughnuts on the front seat.

"Is that powdered sugar on your shirt?," the nutrition police will ask. "Step out of the car and keep those sticky fingers where I can see them."

In a country where the nutritionally correct are displacing the politically correct (Or are they the same people?), two recent developments should alarm anyone who occasionally prefers dinner of more than celery sticks and carrot juice.

Here's the troubling news: Dunkin' Donuts is going healthy. And the City Council in Los Angeles is blocking fast-food restaurants from opening in a section of the city.

As the Associated Press says, "City officials are putting South Los Angeles on a diet."

It sounds to me like Dunkin' Donuts is trying to do the same to the rest of us by adding low-calorie, "healthier" selections such as flatbread sandwiches made with egg whites to its menu.

It's still hard to believe that McDonald's sells salads.

It's just a matter of time before the nutrition police are searching our refrigerators and confiscating our zeppoles.

Don't bother inviting me for dinner if you're serving buttermilk fried carp fillets, medieval sweet and sour carp or even carp in beer.

Carp tacos, with cheddar cheese, salsa and sour cream, may sound tempting, but you won't find me giving in to that temptation.

Might as well eat toenails, or even a toe, because now we know that carp enjoy nibbling on feet -- corns, calluses, bunions and all.

That's right. Carp pedicures are the hot new trend for the spa set. Those looking for the latest, best way to pamper themselves can dip their feet into a tank of water and let the carp nibble away, according to the Associated Press.

(Check out the AP video.)

John Ho, who runs the Yvonne Hair and Nails salon in Alexandria, Va., with his wife, Yvonne Le, tells the Associated Press, "This is a good treatment for everyone who likes to have nice feet."

The story reports that "5,000 people have taken the plunge so far."

(I wonder if Ho has considered using bluefish for customers who have real stubborn bunions or who are late in paying their bills.)

Customer Tracy Roberts, 33, of Rockville, Md., is quoted saying the carp treatment was "the best pedicure I ever had."

"I'd been an athlete all my life, so I've always had calluses on my feet. This was the first time somebody got rid of my calluses completely," she said.

No offense to Ms. Roberts, but knowing that carp eat calluses has turned me off from steamed carp in egg custard for life.

That's right, and he didn't hook him by accident. Bob Greene is credited with saving Michael Gibbs' life.

Greene was hoping to catch striped bass early yesterday morning when he saw what looked like a log bobbing down the river and heard a faint call for 'help,' according to the Morning Sentinel.

Green considered jumping into the 60-degree water then decided to cast his 7-foot spinning rod and Okuma reel with 25-pound line, the newspaper reported. His lure landed about two feet beyond Gibbs, an estimated 35 yards from shore and snagged Gibbs' shirt.

"It was a struggle to get him out of the current so I could reel him in," Greene said.

A police officer, alerted by Greene's 911 call, helped Greene pull Gibbs out of the water.

Gibbs was in critical condition yesterday at the Maine Medical Center in Portland, the Sentinel reported.

Sentinel readers praised Greene's heroic fishing effort, but one couldn't resist this observation: "fishing with live bait, huh. Thanks goodness it is after the 1st or you may have been ticketed!"

If Hollywood decides to make The Tom Brady Story, some of us at projo.com think they should cast Richard Gere.

Of course, we're talking about the other Tom Brady, the guy who works as superintendent of schools in Providence and has an even tougher job than the guy who dodges 300-pound linemen for the Patriots.

While we were at it, we agreed that Gere could also play the leading role if Hollywood decides to produce Mr. Whitehouse Goes to Washington. (Sure, there's a resemblance, but I suspect that some of my colleagues simply like going through file photos of Gere and plotting ways to bring him back to the Ocean State.)

And why not? Didn't Gere prove very popular during his last visit?

Wasn't the movie star mobbed by politicians who were smitten like schoolkids when he visited the State House this winter before filming for Hachiko: A Dog Story?

That's right, I feel like a kid, creaky knee and all.

That's because stress fractures and torn ligaments aren't just for over-the-hill wannabe athletes anymore.

And counting cholesteral is no longer a shuffle-board-like hobby reserved for those of us who've passed 40.

Two recent reports about the nation's health show that many kids are growing up even faster than they might like.

The Associated Press tells us that "injuries once seen mostly in adult athletes are becoming distressingly common in youth athletes - not just in high school, but in Little League and Pee Wee Football."

Those injuries include stress fractures, torn knee ligaments and serious shoulder and elbow problems. Doctors blame specializiation and overtraining.

Hey, little Johnny may not be able to hit, throw or catch like a big leaguer, but he can sure limp like one.

Meanwhile, for the first time, an influential doctors group is recommending that some children as young as 8 be given cholesterol-fighting drugs to ward off future heart problems.

Under certain circumstances, cholesteral screening is recommended sometime after age 2 but no later than age 10.

Hey, Daddy may not be able to ride a skateboard or play video games like Little Johnny, but he can sure take Lipitor like him.