Pot, Meet Kettle

Michelle Malkin has a great scoop on Arianna Huffington, the woman who once claimed that SUV drivers enable terrorists, and her mode of transportation to and from the Sierra Club's national summit in San Francisco. No, she didn't take a bike. Or a hanglider. Or even a hybrid. No, she rode to the summit a great big Chevy Suburban. Malkin's follow-up with the Sierra Club is even funnier...

I interviewed Sierra Club national spokesman Eric Antebi by phone yesterday, who confirmed that the group sent the SUV. He blamed an "outside contractor," which he declined to name, for the rather dissonant choice of vehicle.

"It is ridiculous," Antebi admitted. "It's something we regret and we've learned our lesson."

Curious, I asked Antebi whether any of the staff at the Sierra Club headquarters owned and drove SUVs. He stumbled and said the group didn't keep track of who drove what. It's "a personal decision," he explained. "People drive different cars for different reasons."

Well, um, exactly. Now, wouldn't it be nice if these anti-SUV green busybodies took the same attitude towards the rest of us and left our car choices alone?!

I don't drive an SUV, but that's a choice I make (much to the chagrin of my wife, who's far more of an environmentalist than yours truly). I make this choice because driving around the parking garage at my office in an SUV would guarantee that the vehicle would quickly receive more than its share of dents and dings, and I like driving my Honda Accord coupe, since it gives a smooth ride and costs less to maintain and fuel. Besides, I'll probably be stuck driving an SUV at some point in my life (that or a minivan).

But that's my choice, and it's why Malkin's got it exactly right with her note above. I actually enjoy people trying to shame others with rhetoric about how driving SUVs helps terrorist-financing countries, but that's because it's generally silly crap that amuses me and fails to mean anything. For example, our dependance on foreign oil also stems from our failure to fully embrace and utilize nuclear power (by way of full disclosure, my dad worked in the industry as an engineer, so perhaps I'm slightly biased). I don't see the folks complaining about SUVs screaming about the failure to build nuclear power plants in this country, yet both contribute to our dependance on foreign oil. Sure, some may consider nuclear power unsafe, but I'm sure there are plenty of parents driving SUVs who would find it unsafe to try and cart four kids around, with one not wearing a seatbelt in the back of the station wagon.

As for the Sierra Club utilizing the national security argument, it's still idiotic. If someone discovered oil wells in the middle of Kansas that rivalled the oil fields in Saudi Arabia, the Sierra Club would oppose their development on environmental grounds, not national security grounds, and still think you're a horrible human being if you choose to buy an SUV.

Do we need to consider our reliance on foreign oil and how it impacts our national security? Yes. But hyperbole about SUVs isn't going to fix our energy policy. To be fair, neither will any of the energy policies passed by Congress.

The new 3 R's of Education: Reading, Writing and.. Raiding?

I know you've been missing news from New Jersey, so here you go.

There are so many odd things in this article, I don't know where to begin. It sounds as if agents from the Dept. of Education might be armed or at least have body armor on? What? But why were they raiding the school? It seems that the reported doesn't care about answering that question, as the article turns into a soap opera.

But keep reading -then you get to tidbits like this:

The woman identified by students as the school director stood with two other women, identified by some students as a teacher and possibly another student. None would answer questions and one made obscene hand gestures while photographers took her picture.

Who's taking pictures? Why? What's the story here? Everyone seems to know something weird happened at this school but no one wants to talk about it. Since it's NJ, I'm just waiting for the NJEA teacher's union to file a grievance because their contracts called for double-overtime pay in the event of a federal raid.

Able Danger -- Will Someone Pay Attention?

I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me why Able Danger isn't a big deal. There's far too much smoke developing around stories like this...

A Pentagon employee was ordered to destroy documents that identified Mohamed Atta as a terrorist two years before the 2001 attacks, a congressman said Thursday.

The employee is prepared to testify next week before the Senate Judiciary Committee and was expected to name the person who ordered him to destroy the large volume of documents, said Rep. Curt Weldon (news, bio, voting record), R-Pa.

Weldon declined to name the employee, citing confidentiality matters. Weldon described the documents as "2.5 terabytes" — as much as one-fourth of all the printed materials in the Library of Congress, he added.

A Senate Judiciary Committee aide said the witnesses for Wednesday's hearing had not been finalized and could not confirm Weldon's comments.

A message left Thursday with a Pentagon spokesman, Army Maj. Paul Swiergosz, was not immediately returned.

Weldon has said that Atta, the mastermind of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and three other hijackers were identified in 1999 by a classified military intelligence unit known as "Able Danger," which determined they could be members of an al-Qaida cell.

On Wednesday, former members of the Sept. 11 commission dismissed the "Able Danger" assertions. One commissioner, ex-Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., said, "Bluntly, it just didn't happen and that's the conclusion of all 10 of us."

Weldon responded angrily to Gorton's assertions.

"It's absolutely unbelievable that a commission would say this program just didn't exist," Weldon said Thursday.

Pentagon officials said this month they had found three more people who recall an intelligence chart identifying Atta as a terrorist prior to the Sept. 11 attacks.

I don't know if we should take any of this as credible, but the claims need to be aired and examined. Funny, I thought that's what the 9/11 Commission should have done. Maybe they should be re-named the "9/11 Omission."

Apu, I'll Have Another One

In honor of my people, I need to note the 40th anniversary of the Slurpee...

The Slurpee, like so many great innovations and perfectly nice human beings, was an accident. In the late '50s, a Kansas Dairy Queen owner named Omar Knedlik found his soda machine was on the fritz. He tossed some bottles of pop in the freezer and discovered people went into conniptions for the slushy texture that resulted when the soda partially froze. Wheels turned. He invented a machine to slushify water, CO2, and flavored syrup. In 1965, 7-Eleven bought the machines from Knedlik, hired an ad copywriter to coin an irresistible name, and the Slurpee was born. Back then it cost a dime. Four decades on there have been more than 200 flavors, ranging from the earnestly goofball of yesteryear (Blue Blunder Berry) to the quasi-classy of today (Mochaccino). Michael Jackson reportedly plunked down $75.62 to install a Slurpee machine at Neverland Ranch. Eleven million Slurpees are sold each month and hit the eager palate at a cryogenic 28 degrees. In total some 6 billion brains have been frozen since the dawn of the Slurpee. Here in the United States the drink is most beloved in Detroit, but, curiously, it's up in the Winnipeg tundra where the Slurpee is most popular—further evidence, at least to this patriotic-when-convenient mind, that Canadians really just want to be Americans.

But enough with the logistics. Explaining the appeal of the Slurpee is a bit like explaining the appeal of pure oxygen or terrific sex: Those who don't get it are simply not to be trusted. Slurpees are divine because of their unapologetic garishness, a giddy reminder that no amount of sugar is ever too much. That the expression "brainfreeze"—meaning the needling headache brought on by drinking something too cold too quickly—was trademarked in 1994 says it all: The point is masochistic, to find pleasure in pain, to embrace evil over good. (Sometimes this is taken too literally: Near my Maryland home, a teen was recently convicted of murdering another teen for trying to buy a girl a Slurpee.) My point here is to say that it's not (too) hyperbolic to equate drinking a Slurpee with surrendering to the greed and gluttony that is being a chronically shortsighted, diabolically unthinking American.

I think I'll be stopping at a 7-11 on the way home today... although truth be told, I'd prefer a Wawa.

Kill The Pork

This Instapundit poll deserves your vote. All of the above seems to be the best choice, and it's winning easily.

Brian Riedl at Heritage has some great ideas as well.

More Reasons to Hate Reality TV

Please, just kill reality TV as soon as possible...

Ever since 2002, when then-fading rock star Ozzy Osbourne invited MTV cameras into his family home and became a national obsession, many of the formerly famous have had an invitation for another 15 minutes - and then some.

Summer TV was full of them, and a current wave is going strong on VH1, including Tommy Lee Goes to College, with the Motley Crue drummer on campus (Friday, 10 p.m. ET/PT); Rock School (Friday, 10:30 p.m. ET/PT), with Kiss' Gene Simmons taking over a class of classical music students; My Fair Brady (Sundays 9:30 p.m. ET/PT), with Brady Bunch (and Surreal Life 4) vet Chris Knight; and Breaking Bonaduce (Sundays 10 p.m. ET/PT) with Partridge Family star Danny.

And on Tuesday, summer's most successful celeb reality show gets a 90-minute encore with Dancing with the Stars: Dance-off (ABC, 8:30 p.m. ET/PT) as John O'Hurley and Kelly Monaco square off again.

And after that? More.

In March, TV Land will launch Living in TV Land, a series based on a 2004 special that chronicled a day at the racetrack with Eight Is Enough pop Dick Van Patten. The roster of "day in the life of" stars includes The Brady Bunch's Barry Williams pitching at Dodger Stadium and Batman's Adam West fly-fishing in Idaho. Additional play dates are being planned for Sherman Helmsley (The Jeffersons), William Shatner (Star Trek), Davy Jones (The Monkeys), Fred Willard and classic TV moms for a special Mother's Day installment. Sal Maniaci, TV Land's vice president of development and production, also is developing Back to Work with ..., in which casts of ensemble shows find employment at real-life versions of the workplaces where their old shows were set. One scenario in the works: The Love Boat cast goes back to work on a real cruise ship. TV Land is also in discussions for a second season of Chasing Farrah, with Farrah Fawcett.

There also are star-centric shows being developed by the likes of Tom Arnold and the soon-to-be-incarcerated Lil' Kim. Jack Osbourne's people are shopping to U.S. markets his new British reality TV adventure show called Jack Osbourne: Adrenaline Junkie.

There's another round of Dancing with the Stars coming on ABC. VH1 picked up I'm a Celebrity But I Wanna Be a Pop Star after NBC dropped it. Fox is recruiting famous singing wannabes for a celebrity edition of American Idol. And such reality-show repeat offenders as Surreal Life's Dave Coulier (Full House), Celebrity Boxing's Todd Bridges (Diff'rent Strokes), I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here's Bruce Jenner and American Juniors judge Deborah Gibson will attempt triple Salchows on Fox's Skating with Celebrities.

All this on top of at least three more editions of Surreal Life, a third round of Celebrity Fit Club and a second helping of (Hulk) Hogan Knows Best on VH1.

With so many shows in the works and stars shopping their own shows, competition for former celebs has become fierce. Reality king Mark Burnett abandoned plans for a celebrity edition of his Survivor franchise when he was unable to assemble a respectably famous cast who were willing to be castaways. And Mr. T turned down an invitation to The Surreal Life house, preferring to develop his solo show.

"The pond is getting pretty well fished, and booking (someone fresh) is getting harder and harder," acknowledges Michael Hirschorn, vice president of programming and production at VH1. About the only kind of celebrity who wouldn't cut it these days, he says, is "somebody who is just depressing."

Then again, the idea of Ted Lange really serving drinks aboard a cruise ship might be worth it.

The Windbag City

I need to tell my wife to add Chicago to the list of cities where we won't move...

Chicago on Wednesday became the nation's largest city to urge the Bush administration to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq at once.

The resolution, approved 29-9, seeks an "immediate and orderly" withdrawal. The City Council has 50 aldermen.

Chicago joins other cities -- including San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Calif., 50 communities in Vermont and the Chicago suburb of Evanston -- in calling for the withdrawal of troops.

This is worse than my hometown City Council wasting time urging the Eagles to draft Ricky Williams. Of course, as Tigerhawk noted, they had other pressing issues they dealth with as well, such as a proposal to ban foie gras in Chicago restaurants. These guys make Congress look good.

A Very Interesting Idea

Wow. Just when I finish blasting Senators, Glenn Reynolds comes along with some food for thought. As he notes, there's been serious discussions about repealing the 17th Amendment. But he has an even more revolutionary idea...

My own proposal for reform would be a bit different: Make anyone who serves in the Senate ineligible to run for President. That wouldn't be much of a loss, really -- Senators do very badly in the Presidential election business anyway. But while legislatively selected Senators might have been smart guys, or at least politically wise men, Senators elected in statewide races are likely to be ambitious politicians who see the Senate as a stepping stone. My proposal would steer those people elsewhere, which might improve the Senate.

Can you imagine the people bailing out of the Senate? Of course such a change wouldn't impact sitting Senators, but it would make the Senate a better place over time. Then again, so would term limits. And those should apply to the House as well.

Can We Get Some New Senators?

I'm actually truly enjoying the Roberts confirmation hearings. Late at night, when I get home, I get to watch this stuff while working or working out, and it's great stuff. Okay, I'm a geek, but for legal and political geeks, this stuff is great.

On one side, you have a damn smart lawyer, answering questions (purportedly) about the law. It's pretty clear that Roberts is brilliant (which is what I'd expect from a fellow HLS alum), but his ability to discourse intelligently about Constitutional law makes me think he'd have been a great Con Law professor as well. Of course, the questions he would have received in his class might have been more intelligent than the bloviating and posturing we've seen from Senators thus far...

Democratic senators angrily accused John G. Roberts Jr. yesterday of hiding his views on end-of-life questions, privacy and other contentious issues, but the nominee to be the nation's 17th chief justice refused to be drawn out, and his Republican supporters said his confirmation is virtually assured.

Democrats' frustration boiled over several times during the eight hours of questioning, as Roberts repeatedly declined to discuss his personal or judicial views on matters that he said could come before the court someday. Senators implored him to speak from the heart, but Roberts told them time and again that he would be guided by "the rule of law."

"We are rolling the dice with you, Judge," Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) said. "It's kind of interesting, this Kabuki dance we have in these hearings here, as if the public doesn't have a right to know what you think about fundamental issues facing them."

Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) accused Roberts of treating the hearing room as a "cone of silence." "It seems strange, I think, to the American people that you can't talk about decided cases -- past cases, not future cases -- when you've been nominated to the most important job in the federal judiciary," the senator said.

Roberts asked for extra time to defend himself. "I think I have been more forthcoming than any of the other nominees," said Roberts, who had reviewed the confirmation hearing testimony of all the sitting Supreme Court justices in preparation for his hearing. "It is not a process under which senators get to say: 'I want you to rule this way, this way and this way. And if you tell me you'll rule this way, this way and this way, I'll vote for you.' Judges are not politicians. They cannot promise to do certain things in exchange for votes."

To be fair, this was better than Biden's idiotic posturing on day one. As Ed Morrissey noted at Captain's Quarters....

At least Leahy allowed Roberts to answer and appeared to listen to the responses. Ted Kennedy had his head buried in his notes while sonorously reading aloud, and simply moved on awkwardly to his next prepared question regardless of whatever Roberts answered. He seemed to understand that Roberts was getting the best of him by pointing out Kennedy's mischaracterizations of his positions, because he stopped pausing between the questions at about the midpoint of his scheduled time. Specter had to rebuke him several times to allow Roberts to answer, which seemed to surprise Kennedy, who at times looked rather confused. (At a break with reporters shortly afterwards, he looked very ill, flushed and panting as though he could not catch his breath.)

But Joe Biden, as usual, provided the nadir of the opposition. A legend in his own mind, Biden laid what he must have thought was a brilliant rhetorical trap for Roberts by pouncing on Ruth Ginsburg's answers on a specific case to argue that Roberts' refusal to comment on specific cases did not meet the so-called "Ginsburg rule". However, he rather stupidly glossed over the fact that Ginsburg had written extensively about that case and her personal opinion of it, and therefore had already blown her judicial distance on the issue. Roberts pointed out the difference and implied that her testimony didn't violate the Ginsburg test as a result, whereupon Biden started waving around papers and said he could come up with a half-hour of other examples, but chose to cite ... none.

It got worse after that.

Biden then asked a series of questions based on old staff memos, each time getting more and more animated and each time cutting off the answers. Specter not only repeatedly reminded Biden to allow Roberts to answer, but finally had to remind Biden that the entire purpose of the committee hearing was to get Roberts' answers, not Joe Biden's filibustering. Biden, unbelievably, then complained not once but several times that Roberts' answers ate up too much of Biden's time. When rebuked, Biden made childish asides that he confused with wit, such as "But his answers are misleading," when Biden could hardly have heard anything Roberts had tried to say.

I'm reminded of why John Kerry was such an awful Presidential candidate, and why Senators so often fail when they run for President. Maybe it's the air in the upper chamber or something, but the more time these guys spend on TV, the less I like them.

Incorrectomundo

According to Drudge and the left-wing dishrag, the Associated Press is trying to make inroads among 18-to-34 year olds by offering new services in multimedia. Stephen Green rips apart the AP's effort to be cool, in typically hilarious form...

Look. By the time someone has reached the age of 18, studies show they've been exposed to an average of 18 kazillion minutes of advertising. By the time they're 34, they have TiVo and don't see any ads at all. The 18-34 demographic is just as immune to "hip" ads as a Norwegian is to sickle-cell anemia.

I'll go on record right now and say that the AP's attempt at hipness will prove just as misguided and sadly humorous as that long ago summer I spent wearing my blue jeans pegged. 18-34 year-olds define what's hip, and their immunity to advertisements – in addition to their youth - explains why.

And yet the AP wants to be all cool, by giving their new service a no-caps-lock name like "asap" and giving those hep cats all the multimedia news they can handle.

Young people aren't told what's hip, they are what's hip. They don't read cool blogs – they write them. They don't download internet videos – they upload them. They don't download audio from "trusted" sources – they find it via P2P programs. They don't get wireless text from the AP – they send it to one another.

When the AP tries to be hip, it's like Richie Cunningham stealing the Fonz's leather jacket. And I know unhip when I see it – I'm a 36-year-old who thought it'd be cool to use a "Happy Days" reference.

I won't pretend that I'm any cooler -- I still think references to Happy Days are cool.

Remember Iraq?

Hey, look -- it's good news from Iraq. Whoops, here's more. President Bush held a news conference with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani today, and we barely hear about it.

No, things aren't over in Iraq. But they are getting better. And man, does the press avoid that story like the plague. As an Instapundit e-mailer notes, "'Iraq must be a smashing success - and it's obviously driving the press absolutely crazy - when Bush can hold a presser with Talabani and field only Louisiana disaster relief questions.'"

The Scariest Cop in the World

There's plenty of athletes we don't admire. Then there's good guys like Shaq...

Shaquille O'Neal provided an assist to police over the weekend, trailing a man who allegedly assaulted a gay couple before alerting an arresting officer.

The 7-foot-1 Miami Heat center, who is in the process of becoming a Miami Beach reserve officer, was driving on South Beach around 3 a.m. Sunday. He saw a passenger in a car yell anti-gay slurs at the couple, who were walking, said Bobby Hernandez, a spokesman for the Miami Beach Police Department.

The man then got out of the car and threw a bottle, hitting one of the pedestrians, who was not seriously hurt. The man got back in the car, which sped off. O'Neal followed, flagging down an officer who made an arrest, Hernandez said.

Michael Gonzalez, 18, was arrested on charges of aggravated assault and assault with a deadly weapon. The driver of the car was not charged.

No, but the driver was probably petrified. Can you imagine being chased by Shaq?

The Simple Truth

Mark Steyn gets it absolutely right...

'Flood That Released America's Demons", said the Sun on Saturday. Underneath the arresting headline was a column by Jeremy Clarkson, and, after the usual good-natured knockabout - "Most Americans barely have the brains to walk on their back legs" - he turned to the desperate scenes being played out in New Orleans: "On the streets you've got some poor, starving soul helping themselves to a packet of food from a ruined, deserted supermarket. And as a result, finding themselves being blown to pieces by a helicopter gunship. With the none-too-bright soldiers urged on by their illiterate political masters, the poor and needy never stood a chance. It's easier and much more fun to shoot someone than make them a cup of tea.

"Especially if they're black."

I have to agree with Jeremy there. It is easier to shoot someone than make them a cup of tea. Especially if you're the US Marine Corps and you're making tea for some Brit columnist: don't forget to warm the pot. Pour the milk before the water - or is it the other way round? Who the hell can stay on top of it all? Easier to pull out the .44 Magnum and say: "Go ahead, punk, make my Earl Grey."

So, instead of Special Forces rappelling down with steaming samovars of PG Tips strapped to their backs, the helicopter gunships blew the poor needy starving blacks to pieces.

Hmm. I must have dozed off during that bit on CNN.

I'll leave it to future generations of historians to settle the precise moment at which Hurricane Katrina finally completed its transformation into a Kansas-type twister, and swept up the massed ranks of the world's press to deposit them on the wilder shores of the Land of Oz. But for a couple of weeks now they've been there frolicking and gambolling as happy Media Munchkins, singing and dancing "Ding Dong, The Bush Is Dead".

Meanwhile, back in the real world, the storm is exhausted, meteorologically and politically. Power has been restored to the whole of Mississippi (much quicker than in Euro-style big-government Quebec during the 1998 ice storm, incidentally), the Big Easy is being pumped free of water far ahead of anybody's expectations, and, as the New York Times put it: "Death Toll In New Orleans May Be Lower Than First Feared".

No truth in the rumour that early editions read "Than First Hoped".

Still, the media could never quite disguise the impression that their principal enthusiasm for this story derived from its potential as "the Bush Administration's political nemesis," as The Sunday Telegraph's Niall Ferguson put it. Predicting a back-to-the-Seventies economic slump, Prof Ferguson noted that post-Katrina "gasoline prices in some parts of the United States soared to $5 a gallon".

I wonder where. In New Hampshire this weekend, gas was back below three bucks a gallon and heading south. Undeterred, the Guardian's Jonathan Freedland got out his crystal ball - for the 2004 election: "It's safe to say that if George Bush was in his first term, he would now be heading for defeat."

C'mon, man, how lame is that? At least Gavin Macdonald, a reader in Amsterdam writing to mock "Mark Steyn's dependly nutty take", is confident enough to declare that "the Republicans' chances of winning the next election are already pretty much over".

Let me dispel Messrs Freedland and Macdonald's illusions: there will be no political consequences from Hurricane Katrina.

Apart from anything else, it would seem unlikely that in the 2006 elections voters in states unafflicted by Katrina would eschew Republican incumbents and stampede to vote for the party that's given us the New Orleans Police Department, its clown mayor and Louisiana's sob-sister governor. But forget the question of jurisdictional responsibility and instead grant the critics their fraudulent argument that this is all the fault of the federal government - ie, Bush and the Republicans. Why then will it have no electoral fallout?

For the answer, let's go to Nancy Pelosi, leader of the Democratic Party in the House of Representatives. At a meeting in the White House last week, she had the guts to walk up to the flailing Bush and demand he immediately fire the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

"Why?" asked Bush.

"Well," said Mrs Pelosi, and then paused. "For everything." Another pause. "It was so slow."

"Thank you for your advice," said the President drily. I'm often dismissed as a Bush cheerleader, though I disagree with him on immigration, education and bombing Syria. But come on, a guy doesn't have to be great to be better than Nancy Pelosi, the armchair general of armchair generalities.

It's nice to have someone refute the idiotic slander on American troops -- Clarkson's claim is the sort of asinine charge that will now become dogma for the international left.

But Steyn also demonstrates why the GOP continues to do well -- before the Democrats can lead, they need to demonstrate why we should let them. The GOP can (and must) do a much better job than it has -- but the Democrats haven't convinced anyone that they would be an improvement. With leaders like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and John Kerry, why should we be convinced?

The Senatorial Sideshow

As loyal reader RB noted, former Senate aide Manuel Miranda has been doing terrific work at the Journal with his columns on the nomination hearings for Judge Roberts. We particularly loved this line in yesterday's column about Joe Biden...

Mr. Biden has a lot to gain or lose from his role. He will ask Mr. Roberts about the commerce clause of the Constitution and be downright angry that the Supreme Court has dared to strike down some laws he has sponsored. Mr. Biden graduated near the bottom of his law school class, and he will show it in two ways: He will spend more time posing his questions than listening to the answers, and he will mention terms like "constitution in exile" as if he were a scholar.

Hey, that's still better than Chuck Schumer's gratuitous references to himself...

Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) made 49 first-person references in a 10-minute statement that was, ostensibly, not about himself.

(hat tip: Best of the Web) Hey, he had a camera on him -- that's unusual for Chuckles.

The NFL Recap

We’re baaaaaaaack. And so is the NFL.

We’re not sure what is more eagerly awaited – the start of the NFL season, or the first recap, mocking all that is precious about the NFL… not to mention the Redskins.

For those who are new to the experience, this is my weekly rant on my favorite sport. Most of my close friends smile and nod when I ask if they’ve read the recap, with much the same look people give Tom Cruise when he asks them about psychiatry -- you know, the one that says, "Hey, can someone get the insane guy away from me?"

When last we left the NFL, the New England Patriots were busy celebrating a Super Bowl title. So of course, they opened the 2005 NFL season by systematically taking apart the Oakland Raiders 30-20. Tom Brady again descended from Mount Olympus long enough to guide the Pats home, while Randy Moss took enough time away from his “hobby” involving grass-like substances to catch a TD pass. The best news for Randy is that following his trade to Oakland , he now plays on real grass. Hey, it’s hard to smoke Astroturf.

Moss’ former team, Minnesota, spent the off-season spending money on defensive players and proclaiming themselves Super Bowl-bound. Maybe they were still confused and actually thought they could simply buy tickets to the Super Bowl – after all, their head coach, Mike Tice, was caught scalping his Super Bowl tickets in the offseason. The Vikings themselves got scalped by the Buccaneers, 24-13. This would have been the biggest upset of the day… except we forgot that the Rams were coached by Mike Martz. The Rams spent the NFC divisional playoff getting torched by special teams miscues… and returned to action yesterday and gave up another punt return TD. Great off-season work on special teams, guys. This allowed San Francisco, which hadn’t beaten a team from outside the state of Arizona since December 2003, to steal a 28-25 victory from Martz and the Rams.

In fact, perhaps we should introduce a new gambling rule, based on the lack of success by coaches named Mike. We already discussed the master of E-bay, Mike Tice. Yes, Niners coach Mike Nolan won, but he beat another Mike in Martz. Meanwhile, Seattle head coach Mike Holmgren coughed up a bad loss to Jacksonville 26-14. Holmgren's been living off the genius tag since his Packers team went to back-to-back Super Bowls, but that was back in the mid-1990's, before the scourge of reality TV appeared and subjected us to weekly helpings of Donald Trump. And Broncos coach Mike Shanahan, who hasn’t won a playoff game since we were in law school, somehow lost an opener to a Miami team quarterbacked by Gus Frerotte 34-10. Yes, that's former Redskins QB Gus Frerotte... hey , maybe he borrowed Danny Wuerffel's legendary glove. We’re not certain how Ricky Williams chose to celebrate the Dolphins win – perhaps he called Randy Moss for advice.

There was one coach named Mike who won yesterday without facing another Mike, and that was Buffalo coach Mike Mularkey… but we’re still investigating if that’s his real name. That name sounds like he’s in Witness Protection, and we all know no one lives in Buffalo voluntarily, even if they can coach the Bills to a 22-7 win over the Texans. Of course, it could be worse – you could be a Cardinals fan. Oh, wait… the Cardinals don’t have fans, which makes it easier when they somehow give up 42 points in a loss to the Giants.

We’d like to have people place bets (of course, gambling is wrong, and we’d never encourage such an activity) on whether the Bears might score 42 points all season. They somehow scored seven in their loss to the Redskins, which may be more of an indictment of the Redskins than their 6-10 mark last season. Of course, Dan Snyder and the Redskins will start selling Super Bowl tickets tomorrow morning -- it’s been so long since the Redskins made the playoffs, their fans will be forgiven for thinking that winning the first game of the season means a playoff berth. And the Redskins are tied for first place with the aforementioned Giants, as well as the Cowboys, who stole a win in San Diego 28-24 in the best game of the opening weekend. We’re not sure if Cowboys corner Aaron Glenn got away with pass interference on his game-clinching interception against the Chargers, but we all know the NFL fixes games in favor of the Cowboys.

Hey, it’s just a fact, people, just like the fact that the NFL fixed the Monday night opener to make sure the Eagles lost to the Falcons. Ejecting a key player before the game? Is this revenge for Sherman burning down Atlanta? We're relatively confident that the deficiencies of Michael Vick the passer will catch up with the Falcons, while the Eagles will right their ship and resume the T.O. soap opera this week. The real shocker of the weekend should have been the fact that the Bengals won… except that the Bengals are actually a decent team (words we never thought we'd type), and they were playing the Browns. Of course, why should we care, when most of the state of Ohio was still hung-over and upset over OSU’s loss to Texas on Saturday night? By contrast to that college thriller, this game was about as interesting as a soccer game. To be fair, it wasn’t as one-sided as the Chiefs’ 27-7 pasting of the suddenly woeful Jets, who looked like they spent the preseason practicing how to fumble the ball. Give the Jets credit -- they must have practicing fumbling a lot, as they were pretty good at it, and even added some other turnovers.

We’d talk about Pittsburgh’s 34-7 blowout over Tennessee, but we’re not sure if those were the Tennessee Titans or Middle Tennessee State or Nashville Regional High School. The Burger King commercials were more entertaining than the game, which featured some unknown guy named Willie Parker rushing for over 100 yards for the Steelers. We thought Willie Parker was a jazz musician. In any case, he made beautiful music, much like Peyton Manning, who led the Colts past the Ravens 24-7. It’s a good thing Ravens coach Brian Billick is an offensive genius, or they never would have scored seven points. Meanwhile, Green Bay lost 17-3 at Detroit. Most people acted surprised, but we aren’t – Green Bay’s head coach is named Mike.

We joke about a lot of games, but for once, no jokes. New Orleans beat Carolina 23-20. Sunday, the Saints were America’s Team. Way to go, guys.

My Thoughts On Katrina

I haven't yet spent much time blogging on Hurricane Katrina.

I think blogging about the tragedy is difficult, much like blogging about the tsunami. To me, there shouldn't be a political dimension to human tragedy. Of course, there always is -- but that's not an issue that bears discussing, at least in my mind. As the Kansas Redhead noted, the Dems are already trying to make use of the tragedy, but that's not surprising. People in both parties are willing political opportunists in any case, but this does strike one as macabre.

Was the federal government's response woefully inadequate? Hell yes -- and Michael Brown's departure was overdue. Were the state and local governments at best feckless and at worst criminally negligent? Well, the Governor's actions stand out as pathetic, and any mayor who spends his time on the air screaming and complaining doesn't strike me as particularly effective, and you have to question the decision to send personnel to Las Vegas as a reward (hat tip: The Lord of Truth), especially when you're soon thereafter commenting about the city's inability to meet payroll. Brendan Loy, who actually wrote about the likelihood of a catastrophe before anyone else did, put it perfectly when he noted that every level of government "f---ed up."

But let's face it -- as Bobby Jindal noted, one of the biggest problems was government red tape...

• A mayor in my district tried to get supplies for his constituents, who were hit directly by the hurricane. He called for help and was put on hold for 45 minutes. Eventually, a bureaucrat promised to write a memo to his supervisor.

• Evacuees on a boat from St. Bernard Parish could not find anyone to give them permission to dock along the Mississippi River. Security forces, they say, were prepared to turn them away at one port.

• A sheriff in my district office reported being told that he would not get the resources his office needed to do its job unless he emailed a request. The parish was flooded and without electricity!

• Unbelievably, first responders were hindered by a lack of interoperable communications. Do you recall how New York police and fire departments on 9/11 could not talk with each other? Four years later, despite billions spent on homeland security, state, federal, and local officials in Louisiana had the same problem.

My office became so frustrated with the bureaucracy that we often turned to private companies. They responded more quickly and flexibly.

After our staff visited communities to assess local needs, Budweiser delivered truckloads of water and ice. Ford provided vehicles for search and rescue. Every company we contacted provided goods and services without compensation.

I don't doubt that the federal government can do a better job than it did, but a failure of this type should indicate that maybe we need to rethink how we respond to such tragedies. Of course, instead of doing this, the blame game will take place this fall, with Congressional hearings focused on trying to point fingers rather than craft solutions.

So what will we accomplish with the finger-pointing? Well, it would be useful if it wasn't cloaked in partisan stupidity. The President deserves to get ripped. But so does Congress -- it wasn't just by Presidential fiat that FEMA ended up as part of Homeland Security. And while FEMA certainly looked terrible, one has to wonder why other states in other cases (I'm looking at you, Florida) have handled hurricane disasters with far less pain and suffering than New Orleans or Louisiana. Maybe the folks in New Orleans need to also look in the mirror a bit -- my impression of New Orleans government is that it's a cesspool of corruption and inefficiency, and people just accepted it. Hey, I'm from Philly, so I know the feeling, but if you don't demand better governance... something bad can happen.

Bottom line, plenty of people failed the people of New Orleans, but it's a group failure. The list of stupid things people have said will only grow. But the list of intelligent ideas to fix the problem may not get enough coverage. It's up to us to make sure the intelligent ideas do get implemented, in the midst of the usual rampant idiocy.

In the meantime, what can we do?

Well, we can give money to help the relief effort -- if you haven't already, it's worth your money.
We can ask questions as to where the federal dollars for the relief effort will go, because it's our money, and we need to be wise about how it gets spent.

Somewhere along the line, a serious discussion should be had about how they should rebuild the city and its protection from another similar disaster.

We can thank the good folks who are working to help the people in New Orleans and elsewhere in the Gulf region recover. I know my good friend the Minster of War is there, along with several other members of our nation's Armed Forces. Be thankful that men and women like this exist in our country, and be thankful for the other souls who have given their time to help.

Finally, we can pray. Take some time and do so -- it won't hurt anything, and it certainly might help.

Why Are They Always From Lagos?

Hey, it's another e-mail from Nigeria...

THE NIGERIAN ELECTRIC POWER AUTHORITY
FROM:THE DESK OF ENGR Fred Taima.
THE DIRECTOR,
59 lagos island
lagos Nigeria

Sir,

I am the Chairman Contract Review Committee of
national Electric Power Authority (NEPA). Although
this proposal might come to you as asurprise since
it is coming from someone you do not know or ever
seen before,but after due deliberations with my
colleagues, I decided to contact youbased
on Intuition. We are soliciting for your humble and
confidential assistance to take custody of
twenty million, Five Hundred Thousand United
States Dollars.{US$20,500,000.00}. This sum (US$20.5M) is
an over invoicecontract sum which is currently in an
offshore payment account of the CentralBank of
Nigeria as an unclaimed contract entitlement which
can easily be withdrawn
or drafted or pay to any recommended beneficiary by
my committee. On this note, you will be presented
as a contractor to NEPA whohas executed a contract
to a tune of the above sum and has not been paid.
Proposed Sharing Partern (%): 1. 70% for me and my
colleagues.
2. 20% for you as a partner/fronting for us.
3. 10% for expenses that may be incurred by both
parties duringthe cause of this transacton.
Our law prohibits a civil servant from operating a
foreign account, hence we are contacting you. If
this proposal satisfies you, do respond assoon as
possible with the following information:
1. The name you wish to use as the beneficiary of
the fund.
2. Your Confidential Phone and Fax Numbers.
3.Occupation:
4.Full cintact address:
5.Age:
6.Marital status:

Further discussion will be centered on how the fund
shall betransfer and full details on how to
accomplish this great opportunity of ours.
Thank you and God bless.
contact me via this email:taima40@yahoo.com
Best regards,
ENGR.Fred Taima

Does anyone really believe that this guy's name is Fred?

A Time to Remember

Of course, we remember this day.

The question is, will we still remember it four years from today? Or twenty years from today? Or forty years from today?

We all have our own personal memories of that day. I remember walking into a colleague's office and looking at a small tv screen, thinking from the pronouncement that a Cessna had somehow gotten lost on a cloudy day in New York... then realizing it was far different. I remember exchanging phone calls with the Lord of Truth wondering what would happen next, then learning in horror that the Pentagon had been struck. I remember the rumors floating around the office that bombs were going off all around town, that another plane was headed for the city, that the police were chasing mysterious vans all over the city. I remember being unable to reach my then-girlfriend (now wife), only to learn later that she'd witnessed the attack on the Pentagon as her car sat in traffic on the way to work. I remember watching the first tower fall, sick at heart already from the tragic scenes of people falling from the sky. I remember that my cellphone didn't work, and that I called my mom from the office to tell her I was leaving work on foot to get home, because the traffic in town was obscene and I didn't want to stay in town and wait. I remember spending that night and the rest of the week glued to the TV, feeling a combination of shock, anger, revulsion and grief.

I remember all of those things. But most of all, I remember the story of the folks on Flight 93.

There's a part of me that believes that the people on that flight saved my life by acting when they did. Yes, that plane was aimed at the U.S. Capitol, but there's no guarantee that they wouldn't have missed their target and crashed somewhere else in DC.

To me, it's that story that told me we would make it. We were fighting back, even when the other side had the element of surprise, even when it was common everyday Americans who had to lead the fight back.

I remember reading a story once about the evening of December 7, 1941 in Hawaii, when the first of the American carriers returned to port and see first-hand the results of that morning's attack. Admiral Bill Halsey, standing on the bridge, surveyed the damage before uttering the immortal line, "When this war is over, the Japanese language will only be spoken in hell."

Halsey was wrong. The Japanese language is still spoken today. But that's a good thing. But the militarists who led Japan in World War II largely ended their own lives in the final days of the war. So we can take solace in knowing that they're in hell.

A popular joke in the days after September 11th has a father and son walking through downtown Manhatten, and the son, seeing a memorial, asks his father what the Twin Towers were. The father explains the story of 9/11, and explains that Arab terrorists took planes and crashed them into the towers and also the Pentagon. The boy looks at his father and asks, "Dad, what are Arabs?"

The joke is wrong as well. There will be Arabs in 40 years. And if we do things right, most will live in prosperous democratic societies, and the terrorist elements that attacked us will rest in the same hell that those Japanese militarists and their Nazi allies found 60 years ago.

Our job is to remember that day, and remember to finish the job. We need to honor the memory of those who lost their lives that day and since in this war. We need to fight this war with all of the rage and passion and intelligence and spirit that we have brought to every successful endeavor our nation has undertaken in its history. And we cannot fail -- not simply because it would dishonor those memories, but because our very survival is at stake.

We will triumph, because our cause is right, and because we live in a world where good triumphs over evil. We will grieve our losses -- but we will march forward to victory.

And we will ALWAYS remember.