Sarah Palin has resigned as Alaska governor, leading to speculation that she plans to run for President in 2012. She didn't want to be a lame duck governor, she said so the Lt. Gov can finish her term for her.

Ever since the presidential election things up there have gotten very party politics and she hasn't been so popular, so I think she's bailing while she still has some self-respect and a political future. I think it's wimpy to just resign like this. Voters don't usually pay much attention to the Lt. Governor candidate, so if I was in Alaska, I'd be a little miffed. What if she is someday president of the US and doesn't re-elected, is she going to just bow out and leave Dick Cheney in charge for a few months?

Here's what really caught my eye in today's paper online once I got past a huge photo of Sarah Palin wearing an orchid corsage.

Jul. 03, 2009
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

DOUG ELFMAN: Hope nothing happens to him
Painful things happen to the lead singer of Linkin Park. He's become allergic to his own sweat. He needed plastic surgery for a tennis injury. And years ago, he ripped off one of his nipples accidentally.

Chester Bennington -- who sings Saturday at Planet Hollywood after pulling a stunt with illusionist Steve Wyrick -- says the nipple thing sucked.

"I was getting in the shower," he says, "and I gave myself just enough room to squeeze in. And as I walked through, the barbell just caught the edge of the sliding glass door and ripped it right out ... which made me feel like I got lit on fire.

"I heard this little tinkling on the floor, and I picked up the barbell, and my nipple was still on it," he says.

He took every piercing out of his body that day.

"I would have preferred a girl ripping it out in some crazy episode."

After that, he got bitten by a nasty spider on his belt line, "right above my ass," causing a welt that raised up half-an-inch with a black hole in the center, swelling the glands of his armpits and groin to half the size of golf balls.

"Finally, about day five, I had no depth perception, and I was dizzy, and I couldn't think. I couldn't put thoughts together," he says.

Antibiotics cured the bite.

Then, a few years ago, he hit himself in the face so hard with a tennis racket, while playing in Singapore, the racket "went right through my lip -- all the way through."

"I had to have a plastic surgeon sew my lip back together again. He did a great job. You can't even tell.

"And that was two weeks after I broke my wrist onstage.

"And at one point, I became allergic to my own sweat," he says. "My body was attacking my armpits. I had these huge swollen red hives that were very painful ... for like a month, and it went away."

Bennington's got a solution for his brushes with pain:

"I need to be in a bubble. Just put me in a bubble."