As Lionel Hutz put it, "There's the truth (scowling, shaking head, 'No!') and then there's the truth! (smiling, nodding head, up and down)" And so we have the military declaring it knows no details of a death, except the unembarassing ones.

Sgt. Melissa Valles, 26, of Eagle Pass, Texas, died Wednesday from non-combat injuries, according to the Defense Department. The accident in Balad, a city 55 miles north of Baghdad, was under investigation and details were not released.

Valles was with the headquarters detachment of 64th Forward Support Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, Fort Carson officials said Friday.

"We know it is a gunshot wound to the abdomen. We just don't know the circumstances," said Lt. Col. Tom Budzyna, base spokesman.

That is to say, knowing none of the circumstances (or so they say), the military is sure the death was both "non-combat" and accidental. And the Pentagon wonders why so many people are suspicious of anything it reports (except its budget demands).

From one fantasy to another, While we're on the subject of imaginary people who have made some real people really rich, here is an interesting piece about someone making hard cash out of the equally phantom world of online gaming.

Big Brother arrives in September. Perhaps this will touch off a mass dispersal of freedom-seeking individuals and families from urban centers to the rural areas of the nation, thus reversing the phenomenon seen at the onset of the Industrial Age.