The weather here in Phoenix is nearly as hot as it gets here, with heat advisories up for the rest of the week. Our pool temerature has rocketed up to a toasty 94 degrees! Thank heavens Goodboys week in Massachusetts, with its adjacent salt water and more reasonable temps, is next week. Far as I’m concerned, it can’t come soon enough.

A few equally-hot (at least I hope!) thoughts and observations while trying to cool off…

*While we have a bonafide heat wave going here, we also have one heck of a crime wave underway as well. Since May there have been at least 13 shootings committed by one or more suspects and a series of murders and rapes committed by someone they call the “Baseline rapist” (Baseline Road is a heavily-traveled road running east-west across the Valley). Supposedly, the majority of the victims have been walking or riding their bicycles alone early in the morning or late at night.

Out here in Gilbert (30 miles SE of Phoenix proper), there doesn’t seem to be any sign of concern, but then again, the weather’s been so damned hot so early in the day (the only time one can be comfortable being out and about during summer) – this morning at 8 AM when we left for work it was already 91 – not too many people in their right mind would be outside recreating anyways. The area where I work, however, seems a whole different matter altogether. While not near downtown, we are located in an urban area with various hotels and supporting businesses. Here, I’ve definitely noticed more active security guards, and hotel visitors have been warned not to venture outside alone at any time.

*Islamofacist terrorists have brought their special brand of death and brutality to India.

Thoughts and prayers go out to the innocent victims of Mumbai, whose only crime appears to have been wanting to take public transportation to or from the city. Austin Bay has some thoughts about the latest attacks, including some interesting observations about the numerology of various terror attacks linked to Islamic radicals going back to 9/11. Charles Johnson has a new name for the so-called “Religion of Peace”. He may be right about that.

*Death came to an innocent motorist traveling through one of Boston’s so-called “Big Dig” tunnels on Monday. This is more than just a tragedy and shame, it is criminal negligence on the part of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, the government entity responsible for the (mis)management of the entire Big Dig project, and here’s hoping someone does jail time for it.

Anyone who lived in Massachusetts during the years of the Big Dig are all too aware of the blatant waste, corruption, and mismagement that surrounded the project from Day 1. You had the labor unions in the pockets of the politicians, and the contractors in the pockets of the labor unions, and all was rotten from the start. Heck, all you had to do was pick up a Boston Herald to know what was going on. Unfortunately no one in authority listened, and no one paid attention. So now the necessary state and federal investigations will take place, but the cold hard facts are that umpteen billions of dollars have been wasted, and a woman’s life has been taken away. The former is simply a shame. The latter is a tragedy that should never have happened.

*On a lighter note, here we go again. 16-year old golf prodigy Michelle Wie attempting to make her first cut at another PGA Tour event, this time at the John Deere Classic.

Sigh. Look, I don’t blame the tournament’s sponsors doing all they can to attract as an exciting field as possible to fill the coffers supporting the event’s charities, but this “all Michelle all the time” business is starting to wear on my nerves. Sure, she’s drop-dead cute and extremely talented for her age, but sooner or later, if she doesn’t either make a men’s event cut or win a ladies’ tour event, the media will simply stop paying attention or worse, go into attack dog mode. Here’s hoping she makes the cut and shuts up critics like me and Steve Duemig (of The Golf Channel’s Grey Goose 19th Hole) once and for all.