Polish police are hunting the enterprising criminals who stole a bridge.

> Danuta Wolk-Karaczewska, a police spokeswoman in the coastal city of Gdansk, said the 1.8-million-zloty ($703,380) metal bridge had been packed up in pieces waiting to be taken to its site when it disappeared earlier this month.

I guess theft spans all continents.

I love slamming the Catholic church. They make it so easy.

This week’s installment involves 8 year old Haley Waldman of Brielle, New Jersey. The church has invalidated her First Communion ceremony because she used a wafer that was made of rice instead of wheat. That’s a no-no as far as the holy goofballs are concerned.

Is young Haley a rebel? Hardly. She suffers from a disorder called celiac sprue disease that prevents her from consuming anything that includes gluten. No big deal, one little communion wafer can’t hurt anyone, right? Check out these consequences:

>When consumed by celiac sufferers, gluten damages the lining of the small intestine, blocking nutrient absorption and leading to vitamin deficiencies, bone-thinning and sometimes gastrointestinal cancer.

Granted, the church allows local dioceses to decide whether substitutes are acceptable but shouldn’t the gasbags from Rome step in and bring a little common sense and compassion to this issue? Forget it, this is the same religion that brought you the Spanish Inquistions.

Arash Miresmaili, who carried his country’s flag in the Olympic Games opening ceremony, has pulled out of the tournament because he refused to fight an Israeli.

>”Although I have trained for months and was in good shape I refused to fight my Israeli opponent to sympathize with the suffering of the people of Palestine and I do not feel upset at all,” Miresmaili told the IRNA news agency.

Ok, I’ll buy that as soon as someone can prove to me that no one held a gun to his head. Athletes train for years to reach the Olympics and I find the idea that a competitor would squander all that to make a ridiculous political statement unbelievable.

Google may be the best search engine on the web but lately they’ve been shooting themselves in the foot.

All the hoopla about their IPO is big news even though they’ve made some blunders, including giving Playboy an interview that was published during the “quiet time” mandated by the SEC.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, their wildly successful Gmail service may need to undergo a name change. It appears that they forgot to trademark the name before announcing it. Four other companies have laid claim.

Google has plenty of money and they might just find it easier to buy off the claimants or they might have to rebrand. Perhaps I should look at registering GooMail?

Calvin Coolidge

>“No man ever listened himself out of a job.”