Happy Independence Day, blog readers! And to Emil Franzi: Happy Birthday, you Yankee Doodle Dandy, you!

A few events to consider checking out today:

• The Loft Cinema is presenting the Team America: World Police Sing-a-Long tonight at 6 p.m. Plus, cold beer and hot dogs on the patio before the show! A mere $5.

• The Tucson Sidewinders are back in town! The Triple-A champs wrap up the first half of the season with a five-game homestand against the Las Vegas 51s beginning tonight. After the game, the ’Winders will present a star-spangled fireworks show. What could be more American than that?

Tomorrow is buck-beer night out at Tucson Electric Park, while Friday will feature a bonus fireworks show if you don't get your fill tonight. On Saturday, they'll be giving away beach towels and on Sunday, hot dogs are a mere dollar.

Go see the Sidewinders--while you can!

Slate has been tracking the presidential candidates' fortunes in various online trading markets. Since the end of May, shares in Arizona Sen. John McCain have slid from around $17 to $4. If you really believe in McCain, it's a great time to buy; each $4 share will be worth $100 if he wins the GOP nomination.

The tiny town of Roswell, New Mexico, is celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Roswell Incident, in which a crashed flying saucer was allegedly recovered by the military back in 1947.

The original story had some legs because Lt. Walter Haut, the public relations officer for the Roswell AAF Base, sent out the following press release:

The many rumors regarding the flying disc became a reality yesterday when the intelligence office of the 509th Bomb Group of the Eighth Air Force, Roswell Army Air Field, was fortunate enough to gain possession of a disc through the co-operation of one of the local ranchers and the Sheriff's office of Chaves County.

The flying object landed on a ranch near Roswell sometime last week. Not having phone action, the rancher stored the disc until such time as he was able to contact the Sheriff's office, who in turn notified Major Jesse A. Marcel, of the 509th Bomb Group Intelligence office.

Action was immediately taken and the disc was picked up at the rancher's home. It was inspected at the Roswell Army Air Field and subsequently loaned by Major Marcel to higher headquarters."

A few days later, the military changed its story, saying it had recovered an errant weather balloon.

About 12 years ago, the military 'fessed up that there had been a cover-up: The wreckage was from an atomic spying balloon which was part of Project Mogul.

That hardly dissuaded the folks who knew the truth was out there. They said it was just another Big Lie.

Now we learn that Haut died last year and left behind an affidavit that he handled parts of the wreckage way back when.

I met Haut some 12 years ago, at the first Roswell Encounter in 1994. He was a heck of a nice guy, and one of the founders of the Roswell International UFO Museum and Research Center.

Back then, Roswell was just beginning to embrace its reputation as hallowed ground in the UFO community. The city fathers had transformed their normal Fourth of July activities into the Roswell Encounter; instead of a soapbox derby, kids built UFOs. In the place of a fun run, they had an alien chase. Rather than dressing up as our nation's forefathers, the kids put on alien makeup. It was a great weekend.

At the time, Haut told me he had never seen a UFO, though he did believe they existed. I can't say I buy his deathbed confession, which strikes me as an effort to boost the Roswell legend. Or maybe Walter convinced himself that he really did handle saucer wreckage.

That said, if you're in the neighborhood, you should pop into Roswell. There's still time to drive out for this year's Roswalien Experience 2007, which starts on Thursday, July 5. It's a heck of a fun time and the last time I was in the museum, it was filled with evidence--if, by evidence, you mean drawings and Hollywood props.

The confluence of an online dating site and a blog rating tool is not entirely transparent, but Mingle² has a little widget that will rate a website based on the words being used.

Not surprisingly, this blog gets an R rating, based on recent use of the words "gay" and "sex." If the widget looked a little deeper into the archives, the blog would probably earn an NC-17.

The site offers other little gimmicks (including a quiz on blogging addiction), which is probably the point, i.e., driving traffic to increase the size of the dating pool. After all, it doesn't matter if it's "100% free" if there's nobody using the service.

If you're feeling sorry for yourself because you couldn't escape the unbearable heat this week, and no one invited you to celebrate the Fourth of July, consider going to 58 Degrees and Holding Co. (which has got to be nicely air-conditioned) for some red wine (and perhaps some white and blue wine).

Anyway, it's a cool gimmick and only costs $10 This particular tasting is at the 58 Degrees at 5340 E. Broadway Blvd. The tasting is from 5 to 7 p.m., no reservation required.

Simpsons fans, rejoice!

Nearly a dozen 7-Eleven stores across the continent are transforming into Kwik-E-Marts for the much-anticipated July 27 opening of The Simpsons Movie.

Not only are they changing their storefronts to match the one in the cartoon, but they are seriously hawking Krusty-Os, Squishees and Buzz Cola.

There's still time to make a road trip pilgrimage to a Kwik-E-Mart!

The stores will be open throughout the month—the closest one is in L.A.

I call shotgun.

Some folks have noticed lately that a sign on a building undergoing construction at the corner of Alameda Street and Stone Avenue has re-emerged.

The sign was just a big, gray blotch on the side of the building and is visible from second floor of the Alameda parking garage.

It's a leftover from the Vietnam protests and reads:

"Help end the war by Dec. 31, 1971 Join Common Cause"

"It's kind of a classic," Judy Nicholson, who works downtown, said. "I hope they don't paint over it. It's part of our heritage, and I enjoy seeing it."

The sign is visible from Nicholson's eighth-floor office in the Transamerica building. She and her officemates have been watching the construction and the sign over the last few weeks. They were afraid the sign might be destroyed in the midst of the construction.

But there's good news: The sign, which had faded since 1971, has actually been preserved to remain visible for the years to come.

Paul Mickelberg, an architect at the firm that is in charge of the construction on the building, said the sign was never intended to be removed.

"It does look like it reads alot better now," Mickelberg said. "It's a neat little piece of history."

If you're not familiar with "The Cool Church," (aka Tucson Community Church) you're missing out on the freshest approach to spirituality in town, a "this-ain't-your-father's-ministry"-type experience unparalleled in this elevated valley of ours.

Pastor Dave McAllister (that is one cool dude!) is all about rocking for God, using movie clips and props to drive home his Christian message, all while wearing sneakers, an earring, and sporting spiky blond hair! Plus he and his band of grownup Bart Simpsons have put out four cd's of Christian rock! If that's not cool, I don't know what is!

Oh, wait -- this isn't cool -- the Arizona Daily Star reports today that McAllister has some nasty things about homosexuals on The Cool Church's website! Doesn't he know that queers are way cooler than breeders? Sheesh, it's like the second or third rule of cool, right up there with black people being cooler than white people, because, like, duh.

Anyway, for a "cool" guy, McAllister is deeply fucking uncool. Among the misdeeds of the gay community that he "documents":

• Homosexual sex activists continually try and deceive the general population by telling them that the Bible doesn't condemn homosexuality
• Contrary to what homosexual sex activists have tried to convince us, there is no medical or scientific evidence that people are born homosexual; it is a choice of sexual behavior
• In light of the total farce of what they call “gay marriage,” studies show that less than 2% of practicing homosexuals could be referred to as being in a monogamous relationship.

...and the list goes on from there. Dude is obsessed with the big faggy boogeyman and his activist homosexual agenda.

Over at Wingspan, they have yet to post the recent newsletter wherein they object to all The Cool Church's nonsense, but the Star interviewed Wingspan president Laura Olguin and program director Cathy Busha for the piece. Olguin's succinct summary of TCC's abuse of "cool": "Scratch the surface of their clever rhetoric about being hip, welcoming and intellectually curious, and a stream of anti-gay rhetoric spews forth."

Indeed. Such attitudes are distressingly prevalent for a so-called modern society, and it's good that there are organizations like Wingspan to call them out when they are found.

We finally get the Big Reveal from Gov. Janet Napolitano: She signed the employer sanctions bill creating new penalties for companies that hire knowingly hire illegal immigrants.

State Rep. Russell Pearce is thrilled. In a bulletin to the press, Pearce said: "Arizona businesses now must play by the same rules or face the consequences. Arizona will have one fair system for employers and no longer are they going to be able to rely on cheap, illegal labor."

Well, it will certainly give Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas more opportunities to raise his profile while he angles for the governor's office in 2010.

In other news from the Capitol today: Napolitano vetoed the bill that would have created new hoops for Union Pacific to jump through before it could relocate a switching yard to Picacho Peak.

Rep. Jonathan Paton, the Tucson Republican who sponsored the bill, said: "I think she cared more about the big railroads and the unions than she did about the little guy and the environment.”

More to come in this week's Range!

We just got an e-mail from someone who claims to be a Tucsonan that starts out like this:

Does Tuscon Weekly do book reviews? My book just came out ...

Two things:

1. If you claim to be from be from Tucson, yet can't spell Tucson, I don't think we need to subject one of our poor book reviewers to anything you've written.

2. If you are unwilling to research whether we do reviews or not—by, say, going to our Web site and noticing in the navigation bar the word BOOKS—you're a douchebag.

Thank you for heeding this advice.