Good morning to stay in bed?

It's a bit disconcerting, situated several hundred miles inland, to look at the projected path of a hurricane packing 140 mph winds and see that by 2 a.m. Monday it (or what is left of it) will be directly overhead. But that's what we find with Rampaging Rita today.

If forecasters are right and the strong high pressure system currently giving us unseasonably hot, windy weather slides over the Deep South, it will block Rita from following in the path of Katrina. Instead, Rita will hit the Texas coast, disrupting drilling platforms and refinery operations at least for several days, then in tropical storm force march through Waco, Dallas and into central Oklahoma.

With no disrespect intended for any of those closer to the coast, strong hurricanes are nothing to ignore if you live in Oklahoma, as their impact on the weather can produce powerful thunderstorms and tornados. And so we will be at a higher level of alert this time.

The hurricane is not the only unsettling news today. Authorities in Jakarta warn that bird flu cases in Indianesia are increasing and the E-word, epidemic, is now being tossed into the discussion.

British scientists are advocating cutting air travel, rather than promoting it, because airliners produce vast amounts of carbon dioxide -- the main greenhouse gas -- at higher levels of the atmosphere.

The Teflon-don, John Gotti, is a free man again thanks to a mistrial on three charges and an acquital on a fourth.

And U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, while he is voting for John Roberts, is throwing wrenches again by asking the president to delay an appointment to fill the Sandra Day O'Connor seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. Arlen has been talking with Sandra, and apparently she might be willing to stick around a bit longer if it will keep a pro-abortion majority empowered, something near and dear to the prickly Pennsylvanian. More later, maybe.