Past-Fourth good news..

..is that foreign Coney Island hot dog champion -- Takeru Kobyashi -- was NOT the champ this year because of a contract dispute. You cannot know what delight this brings to me and Mrs War Planner, of Japanese descent, who weary every year of seeing this tube-steak-sucking idiot strut his stuff in front of Nathan's.

Japanese eating champion Takeru Kobayashi (tah-KEH'-roo koh-bah-YAH'-shee) has been freed after a night in a New York jail over a hot dog scuffle.

Kobayashi wore a black T-shirt bearing the message "Free Kobi" as he pleaded not guilty in Brooklyn on Monday to charges of obstruction of governmental administration, resisting arrest, trespassing and disorderly conduct.

He had jumped onstage after Sunday's annual Fourth of July hot dog eating contest at Coney Island that he sat out because of a contract dispute.

Contract dispute? You need a contract now to eat wieners competitively? I guess that makes it consensual and all that.

Well, if he gets things squared away and enters again, then maybe we'll have the pleasure of seeing him explode after he consumes the 58th dog.