Love is ever on the alert to do good even to him who is unwilling to receive it.

-Dionysius of Alexandria

Unfortunately, I'd say that pain is equally as indiscriminate. As such, you cannot go through life with a neutral heart, but rather with the inclination towards love. An inclination, you form, not from asking from others but from giving of yourself.

With a stagnating economy, college students leaving the state in droves, and a general feeling of discontent, Republicans are poised to unseat Democrats from their 16 years of terror, I mean rule of the Governor's mansion. The two biggest candidates running for the Republican nomination are Mitch Daniels and David Macintosh.

At this point, I'll go ahead and predict that Daniels will get the nod, and I don't think this was a very tough prediction. Daniels' name is quite prominent now, due to his former position as White House Budget Director, he has strong community connections (from his Eli Lilly days), and he has the implicit support of the Indiana Republican Party, and The Indianapolis Star (even though neither will directly admit it).

Macintosh also has much going for him. He has good name recognition in the state and already has an element of the populace loyal to him from his days as a Representative in Congress. He also has a couple of things going against him. First, his last bid for the Governorship ended in a messy loss. And second, he has been stressing property taxes as his primary issue, and now reports show that Indiana's average property taxes are lower than in surrounding states. With his primary issue off the table, he'll have to find another wedge.

I'm an Indiana native, and proud of it. I received a list of 37 items that prove you're a Hoosier. Here's the ones that apply to me: "You know you're an Indiana native when..."

-You can say "French Lick" without laughing out loud.

-There's actually a college near you named "Ball State."

-You know several people who have hit a deer.

-Down south to you means Kentucky.

-You have no problem spelling or pronouncing Terre Haute.

-Your school classes were canceled because of cold.

-You know what the phrase "knee-high by the Fourth of July" means. (it refers to the proper height of corn, btw)

-You've heard of Euchre, you know how to play Euchre, and you are the master of Euchre.

-You've seen a running car, with nobody in it, in the parking lot of the grocery store, no matter what time of year it is.

-Detassling was your first job. Bailing hay, your second. Or you could stack hay, swim in the pond to clean off and then have the strength to play a couple of games of hoops, all in the same barn lot on the same day. (ok, this doesn't apply to me, but it does to some of my friends)

-You say things like catty-wampus and katty corner.

-You carry jumper cables in your car regularly.

-You drink pop. (the soda vs. pop thing is a regular debate at Notre Dame)

-Kids and dogs ride in the passenger seats of cars and the backs of pickups.

-You think nothing of it in spring and fall to be stuck behind a farm implement driving on the roads. You just hope it's not a hog truck or a manure spreader.

-The local paper covers national and international headlines on one page but requires six for local sports.

-You can see at least two basketball hoops from your yard.

-You can name every one of Bobby Knight's exploits

-Every one knows what you mean when you say "The Race"

-You know several different definitions as to what a Hoosier really is.

-You've been to the Covered Bridge Festival. You took back roads to get there. Why sit in traffic?

-To you, tenderloin is not an expensive cut of beef, but a big, salty, breaded piece of pork served on a bun with pickle. (its both)


Note: thanks to Sarah Pulliam for this list.

As anticipated, Dan Pulliam has responded to my post that called him out on his argument against the firing of Pacers head coach Isiah Thomas. He begins with:

Luke feels the need to be an idiot and say why I'm wrong in his blog. In this instance, me thinks he is trying to pick a fight.

He is right; I am trying to pick a fight-- a fight against argumentative mediocrity. And with Dan's response to my post, the reader must question who the idiot really is in this case. :-) He starts off with an attack on my grammar and spelling, of all things:

Not only does Luke forget an apostrophe in “thats" and how to spell Isaiah...

Yes, I did forget an apostrophe. A minor error if I may say so. However, I spelled Isiah correctly and continue to do so. Dan's correction is incorrect and he then uses that misspelling in his post. If you don't believe me, check out ESPN or The Indianapolis Star's coverage. Thats what he deserves for resorting to spelling criticism (note that I didn't use an apostrophe there either). Dan on Jermaine O'Neal:

O'Neal is paid to score and hit the boards, but he is also playing for us to win and he definitely has a say in what he thinks will be best for the team. Not the ultimate say, or even a big say, but he does have a say.

This is precisely my point. He does not and should not have a determinitive position in choosing coaching personnel. Therefore, he is being unreasonable in demanding a promise by Donnie Walsh to retain Isiah Thomas. Should Donnie Walsh have a made a promise he did not intend to keep? No. But that does not bind the Pacers as an organization for doing what is necessary for the team. And if Jermaine really wanted to be firm on this thing, then he should have put this "promise" in writing in his contract renewal. Business is not done orally in this country. Dan on the timing of the firing:

...but I am not happy with the way they did it. Considering that it was almost September..., the Pacers should have bit the bullet, waited for Isaiah to screw up and then whack him.

Again I ask, why wait? I agree with Dan that we should have done it sooner, merely for logistical reasons. But a professional sports organization cannot always wait until their head coach "screws up" again. Doing so wastes everybody's time and money: the players, the staff, the owner, and the citizens. So, in my humble opinion, I find no error with the means used to fire Isiah Thomas.

... can be discussed at the most unlikely of times.

With Hillary Clinton Dismissing Speculation of a 2004 Presidential bid, the question that Republicans have to be asking is who we put against her in 2008. Condi is one possibility, but I don't think she'll satisfy the GOP base. We'll have plenty of time to see.

Usually, Dan and I are on agreement on sports topics, and I said earlier that I would defer to others' judgement on the firing of Isiah Thomas; however, I'm definitely gonna have to disagree with him on this post.

He thinks the firing of Isiah Thomas was a bad move by the Pacers, which is fine, but the two reasons he lists are off-base. First:

The Pacers (Donnie Walsh) made a promise to Jermaine O'Neal that his coach would be back. Now that promise has been rescinded under new management.

I'll put this as bluntly as possible: thats bullcrap. No single player (especially one this young) has any right to demand that a head coach be retained. Any promise, therefore, is inherently null and void. Jermaine O'Neal is not paid to think about personnel, he's paid to score points and play defense. And now Dan's second point:

This was the wrong move because it put all the pressure on [general manager] Larry Bird and the new coach for the team to succeed this year. If they had kept Thomas for the last year of his contract..., he would have been forced to make the team perform...

My gawd, he's saying we actually will have to expect our new GM and coach to succeed! What a novel idea (note the sarcasm). The fact is, that is always the expectation for a new coach, and a reasonable expectation at that. At the professional level, success must be demanded. The Pacers feel that Isiah Thomas was not utilizing the talented players that they have. Why give him another chance and probably waste another year, in a league where talent and youth can be fleeting?

I couldn't help but notice the irony of last night: conquering enemy civilizations on Civilization III while reading about Just War theory for my War, Law, and Ethics class.

...with the firing of their head coach, Isiah Thomas.

Personally, I never thought he was a very good coach. I will defer further comment to my friends who have better grasp of basketball strategy than I (I'm a football guy).

...No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the priviliges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

- U.S. Constitution, Amendment XIV, Section 1. in part

When the 14th Amemendment was ratified on July 9, 1868, it not only amended the Constitution, it amended the very mode of Constitutional jurisprudence. In the 132 years following, the Supreme Court has been converted from a body charged with ascertaining objective facts, to a body with a mandate to explore the depths of society and discover new "fundamental" rights therein.

Do you still remember
December's foggy freeze
when the ice that
clings on to your beard is
screaming agony.
And you snatch your rattling last breaths
with deep-sea diver sounds,
and the flowers bloom like
madness in the spring.

-Jethro Tull, "Aqualung"... last stanza

- German III
- War, Law, and Ethics
- Building the European Union
- Catholicism in Contemporary America
- Religion and the Constitution senior writing seminar

With three of my courses dealing with religion, politics, and the law, my appetite on such material has a chance to be satiated.

Two of the biggest enemies of the networked computer world are spam and viruses-- and now it seems that the two are converging. According to this CNET News.com article, the recent Sobig.f virus targeted computers in order to make them carriers to send out new spam. If an infected computer is not cleaned well, it could unwittingly be sending out new batches of spam (anonymously) to other people on the internet.

Most ominous about this convergence, is that it provides excellent motive for the virus author: money. So, as the article points out, look for more viruses like the Sobig in the future. Again, if nobody ever purchased the crap being sold over spam, this would not be a problem right now.

6 of 6

Update: extension to 7 tomorrow?

... check out The Observer

First, Robert Novak reported that there would be a big announcement regarding WMD findings in September or October, and now World Tribune.com is reporting U.S. intelligence suspicions that Iraq shipped their WMD with the help of Syria to a region in Lebanon known as the Bekaa Valley.

The article lists no conclusive proof currently that we have that WMD are indeed at this location, but it also says that U.S. intel sources "identified a stream of tractor-trailer trucks moving from Iraq to Syria to Lebaon in January 2003." Obviously, this region deserves a closer look, and I'm sure that we are busy doing just that.

World Tribune also points out the difficulty that the U.S. would have to gain access to the Bekaa Valley, which is protected by Syrian, Iranian, and Hizbullah troops. But if we gain sufficient evidence that Iraq's WMD are indeed in this region, then we are obligated under the original rationale for the war in Iraq to go to this region and eliminate the WMD there. The WMD are no safer from terrorists in Lebanon or Syria than in Iraq.

eh

Founder-speak

because blogging might be light the next couple of days. I'll be getting situated back at ND and preparing for my last year of undergrad. But after this short break, I promise a new breakthrough in the blogosphere, something never seen before. Its called founder-speak, and its sure to impress. Hey, if its good enough to declare independence from a tyrannical European monarchy, its good enough for me!~

nope; not unless you count Chai Tea :)

As seen on a bumper sticker yesterday:

Christians are not perfect. They are just forgiven.

All natural, wholesome, delicious, Dickens Cider. Ask your grocer about the new Dickens Cider jugs, cans, or boxes. And don't forget to try the longneck Dickens Cider, and the Dickens Cider Wide Mouth. No matter how it comes, there is no bad way to enjoy a Dickens Cider.

-Bob & Tom, "Dickens Cider" parody commerical

8-6-7-5-(yeah, you know the rest of it)-3-0-9

After seeing the facts that Justice O'Connor cites about lawyers in her new book, I'm forced to question why I plan on going to law school (although the answer does lie in my heart). Here's how she describes the predicament facing the modern American lawyer:

An examination of the research on lawyers' overall well-being is deeply troubling. Attorneys are more than three times as likely as non-lawyers to suffer from depression, and they are significantly more apt to develop a drug dependency, to get divorced, or to contemplate suicide. Lawyers suffer from stress-related diseases, such as ulcers, coronary artery disease, and hypertension, at rates well above average. Unsurprisingly, a recent RAND Institute study of lawyers in California found that they were "profoundly pessimistic about the state of the legal profession and its future" and that only half would choose to become lawyers if they had it to do over.

-Sandra Day O'Connor, The Majesty of the Law, p.225

Respecting individual cultures and ethnicities is awesome and is a lot of what America is about, but to exclusively celebrate a culture and to distain others is not American. Let's all play by the same rules. You can't have it both ways. Rejecting extreme actions of members of groups, like the KKK, the Black Panthers and the MEChA is important and those extremes cannot be allowed to define the group (think Hamas and the Palestinians). The MEChA's name should be changed and its leaders should make efforts to reject all racist elements of its members. The spotlight has been turned on them and they should do what it takes to be a non-racist, yet culture/ethnicity celebrating organization.

President Bush encountered the same quandary when he spoke at Bob Jones University while running for president. Sen. McCain blasted Bush for speaking at University that had long forbidden interracial dating, a rule that cannot be accepted in our society, but there is so much else Bush supported at Bob Jones University that how could he disassociate himself with a University that teaches kids to live Godly moral lives while giving them what seems to be a fairly decent, Christian fundamentalist education. Oh, and besides, they really didn't enforce that rule. Or did they and by speaking at the University, isn't Bush subtly offering his support to the policy? Or does it just not matter.

To use the words of those supporting the MEChA, "(he) may want him to disassociate himself with a "racist" organization, however, many people who have participated in (Bob Jones University) do not regard it as such, and see it as a(n) (University that teaches college students to live Godly, moral lives).

-Dan Pulliam (via e-mail)

I was reading your blog and I was brought to comment regarding MEChA... I think your entry was more than its usual bias. Although I do not dispute the facts presented by Michelle Malkin in her article, I do not believe MEChA to be the Latino version of the KKK, as she asserts. There are thousands of MEChA clubs around the country, from high schools such as mine to university's such as Stanfords. There may be some who take the motto quite literally, but most do not. For many clubs, it is just a social club for Latinos and those who want to learn more about the culture. For the most part, I do not see it as any more different than Notre Dame's La Allianza or Asian American Association.

Most importantly, a person's association with MECha, usually ends after college or when a person no longer participates. It is not like a Fraternity with a head chapter. It is not like the KKK at all because, quite frankly, it's not organized. There is no head MEChA in the United States and each club is run by its members. There are the sporadic extreme actions that many attribute to MEChA, which is unfortunate, but I hardly attribute those to the motto of the club itself. If one year, because of its officers and members, the Asian American Association (AAA) at Notre Dame goes a little crazy and does questionably racist stuff at Asian Allure, a person of great common sense and rationale wouldn't up and declare AAA to be a racist organization.

I think what both you and Ms. Malkin do not point out is the "bind" that Cruz Bustamante is in. She may want him to dissassociate himself with a "racist" organization, however, many people who have participated in MEChA do not regard it as such, and see it as an organization/club which builds hispanic and latino culture and bonds. To denounce such an organization would not only be hurtful to the Latino community, but it would also alienate hispanics who may want to vote for him.

That is the extent on which I wish to comment on MEChA. It is unfortunate that such a group which, for the most part, is nothing more than a social and cultural club for young adults adopted in its past a "racist" motto. Perhaps this should be changed to project the image of what it now does. However, Cruz Bustamante has done nothing wrong in being proud of his roots and participating in such a club that helps him and others learn more about the Latino Culture.

-Kristine Lam (via e-mail)

If this motto, the logo, and the mission statement, do not represent the smaller MEChA groups around the country, then why do those groups continue to pay homage to the MEChA name and not call for change? Somewhere along the line, somebody needs to speak out for what is right. If Bustamante is questioned about his previous involvement in MEChA, the right thing would be to make the same distinction that Kristine did and to publicly condemn that racist motto.

Well, there's 2 of the 6.

Oh, and btw, when I got back, I had 65 virus-laden e-mails! Rediculous waste of time.

Dan repeats himself from a post he made yesterday on Daylight Savings Time, and fails to address the issues that I pointed out.

Update: He still doesn't get it. He calls Daylight Savings Time "obvious." But, I reiterate. Tell that to the farmer. To him, changing time is not at all obvious. Just because the majority may stand to benefit from a change, that does not make the issue 'black and white' nor does it make it "obvious." Furthermore, my point regarding the Star's poor journalism in this case, still stands unrefuted. Perhaps thats all that can be expected from a mouse in the mouth of the tiger (more like a house cat, really).

Thanks to DiscountBlogger for the pointer to this article by Michelle Malkin.

Apparently, Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante was a member of a group by the name of Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (MEChA) while in college. According to the article:

MEChA's symbol is an eagle clutching a dynamite stick and machete-like weapon in its claws; its motto is " Por La Raza todo. Fuera de La Raza nada (For the Race, everything. For those outside the Race, nothing)."

Malkin makes the convincing point that Bustamante's involvement in the racist MEChA group should carry no less weight and criticism than, say, David Duke's involvement in the KKK.

Yet, criticism of Bustamante on these grounds is scarce in the mainstream media. Glenn Reynolds wonders why-- why the double standard?

If California was a stand-alone nation, it would have the world's 6th largest economy. It is the U.S.'s most populous state-- by far. Within its borders lie the tecnology and the entertainment capitals of our country, and its agricultural production is critical in many fruits and vegetables as well. For these reasons, nobody should dismiss California's growing problems as belonging only to California.

Sadly, a state whose economic might is so important to our union, has seen its democratic process turned into a circus. For a while I laughed about it, but now I realize that this debacle is no laughing matter. I place the blame squarely on Rescue California, a right-wing group with the sole purpose of recalling Gov. Gray Davis. In their partisan zeal, they ignored the probable effects of initiating a recall based on a law hopelessly out-of-date and out-of-touch with reality. In their negligence, they allowed this freak show of dimwit candidates to be paraded before cowering California voters.

And to what gain? While Gray Davis certainly was not doing a good job, the two current leading candidates, Schwarzenegger and Bustamante, are equally as moronic. Arnold wants to bring business back to California so he can tax it for liberal social agendas and Bustamante's economic principles are a carbon-copy of Davis's. California's economic problems stem, in part, from their adherence to the flawed liberal view of taxes and economic health. This latest political wildfire shows no sign of abatement; lets just hope it doesn't spread to the rest of the country.

Update: Ok, its good to be able to laugh also (Thanks to The Onion)

The love you take is equal to the love you make.

-The Beatles

Personally, I prefer the Dickens Cider can. Its lightweight and convenience allows me to take the great taste of Dickens Cider everywhere I go-- at home, in the car. Heck, I even put a Dickens Cider can on my desk at work!

-Bob & Tom, "Dickens Cider" parody commercial

Wednesday night marked 1 of 6. Those of you with intuitive skills know to what I refer.

Oh, and btw, Sunday I move back in at Notre Dame and Monday is my birthday :) Its times like these I wish my birthday didn't have to coincide quite as directly with the beginning of school.

The worst virus ever to hit e-mail is now upon us. The SoBig.f virus has spread quicker than any virus of all time. I received 34 infected e-mails just within the last hour. Somehow, Notre Dame's e-mail server is plugging right along without any problems. Of course, I will not have any problems because I'm on Mac, and Macs are immune.

It seems that Bush's plea for a new Palestinian leadership may already be paying off. In this case, Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas is calling on his security forces to arrest the terrorists (or, if you prefer the NYTimes biased term, 'militants') responsible for the recent Jerusalem bus bombing.

The next step will be to ensure the success of this new PA leadership. If it is ill-equipped to carry out its anti-terrorist duties, then we have ultimately gotten nowhere in this peace process.

...this time from the Indianapolis Star, in a front page article headlined, "Daylight-time coalition retreats into darkness." In the article's lead, the reporter makes the first major mistake:

This alliance of business, trade and labor groups spent 18 months trying to convince a stubborn General Assembly that Indiana should join the rest of the country in observing daylight-saving time.

This statement is false-- false in a way to support the obvious bias of the reporter (and perhaps the newspaper itself). The phrase "the rest of the country" would be corrected if changed to "most of the rest of the country." As the article points out later, 2 other states also do not go on Daylight Savings Time. With such a blatant and easily corrected mistake on the front page, I am forced to ask 'where was the editor on this one?'

The rest of the article only serves to support the pro-DST side and trivialize the rationale behind the anti-DST side. In fact, the only quote the article garners for either side is by the head of a local bed-and-breakfast. Simply pathetic for the front page.

Update: Is it any coincidence that Dan Pulliam shares the same bias as The Star? I say no. His post on Daylight Time exemplifies the arrogance and willful ignorance of many on the pro-DST side. In this case, he oversimplifies the issue and resorts to drastic language: "It's simply an abomination that we do not have it." While I do think Indiana should ultimately switch to Daylight time, I recognize the arguments on the other side and also realize that any switch in Indiana's time system should also include measures to alleviate the negative effects of the switch on the farming community and other groups.

hypocrisy - 1.The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness.

empathy - 1. Identification with and understanding of another's situation, feelings, and motives.


My thought: hypocrisy often flourishes in the absence of empathy

A few of her quotes are too good not to post:

Sarah V: "One of my friends calls me a white Beyonce."

Sarah: "I could eat everything right now."

Sarah: "Eleanor Roosevelt was a lesbian you know."
Me: "That explains why she allowed Franklin to fool around so much."
Sarah: "I bet she liked to join in!"

Sarah: "I sure hope we're on the real [route] 6 and not the fake 6."

I'm back and I do have a few blogworthy anecdotes from my Cedar Point pilgrimage. First of all, I'm now in love with Putnam County, Ohio. From its small towns to its expansive countryside, it bellows in a proud tone the essence of Americana. Putnam's county-seat, Ottawa, is where we stayed overnight, at the home of Sarah Vennekotter.

Monday, which we spent the entirety of at Cedar Point, was awesome of course. We had the opportunity to introduce a couple of newbies to the roller coaster bliss that is Cedar Point. One was highly impressed, the other a bit overcome, I think.

On the way to the park, driving into Sandusky, we noticed a string of signs that form one of the funniest coincidences I've ever been witness to. The first one marked a company on the left side of the road. It read, "Industrial Nut Corp." At this point, in my immaturity, I was already laughing, although nobody else in the car was. Then came the next sign on the right side of the road, "Dick's Convenient Food." This really got me going, but the others really were not into it, until we saw the third sign. It marked a building on the left side of the road and read, "Hand to Man Ministries." Seeing all three of these signs in a span of about 1/4 mile, was simply too much for anyone to hold back.

Then, at about 8-9 P.M. we had left the park and were driving out of Sandusky, using a different route than the one we took to enter the city in the morning. We were all quite hungry and were dismayed at the lack of restaurants along the way. The minutes ticked by, and I think one of the group made a half-joking prayer to God regarding food. Within the minute, we had found our oasis. It was a Mexican restaurant called "Margaritaville," and it was the perfect end to the day.

Check out the links on the page's left side. They aren't Daily Contentions, but they'll do :)

And check out this blog as well: le taon- a contemporary weblog; by Nick

Today I leave for Ottawa, Ohio, the home of Sarah V.
On the way to Cedar Point, its the place to be

Tomorrow I leave for Cedar Point
A place the thrill god did anoint

Tuesday to Indy I return
Fuel and calories I did burn

So it seems this post was in verse,
too bad it had to be so terse!

TheProducer74 (me): sarah might be able to vouch that I'm not tooo scary in person :-)
noJello4u (Shannon quoting Sarah): "he's very smart, very respectable, very nice." "he's not like my brother."
noJello4u: those are her words verbatim :-)
TheProducer74 (6:09:42 PM): lol
TheProducer74 (6:09:49 PM): I thank her for the compliment

The time needed to do everything I need and want to do in the next week quickly appears to be exceeding the actual time available. To show you how well I've been managing my time I made fresh salsa today for the first time, and downloaded Beyonce's "Crazy in Love." Disconcerting, but certainly not boring.

In exactly one week and one day, I'll be driving the 3 hours north necessary to arrive back in Notre Dame for my senior year. I'll be trading the light pollution of Indianapolis's city lights for the light pollution reflected off the Golden Dome at night.

Its been an awesome summer, but I'm definitely ready to return to the land of the Irish Catholics-- where football and beer flow as freely as intellectual conversation and video gaming :)


Dillon Hall, my place of residence for the 3rd year in-a-row

With all of the immediate questions surrounding the latest blackout (when will the power be back, what caused this failure, etc.), some of the larger questions about technology are being ignored.

The clear fact is that the world is getting smaller. The twin modern miracles of instant communication and jet air travel allow people to move and for information to flow, in ways that our ancient ancestors could literally not have conceived. To them, our current feats would be just as inconceivable as the will of God. This may sound completely unoriginal, but we are living in a new world, with new paradigms that we have yet to fully understand. Perhaps this is the great challenge before every generation, to understand their place in the evolving world.

Two new paradigms we face are the unreliability of our electronic infrastructure and terrorism. The Digital Revolution (built upon the electric revolution) has stalled in terms of productivity, largely because of spam and viruses. Spam now accounts for 1/2 of all e-mail and an endless stream of viruses require companies across the world to spend millions to keep their systems clean and running. With this recent electrical blackout, we see that even our supposedly rock-stable underlying infrastructure has weaknesses.

Likewise, we live in a world with the paradigm of terrorism-- a paradigm made possible by terrorists' ability to easily travel to our shores and within our borders. Terrorism is a new mode of exacting violent coercive pressure against a world power. The age of state v. state warfare is fading-- transitioning to individual/small group v. state. Our normal means of dealing with violent coercion, police and military, both appear lacking in the fight against this new threat to peace. The terrorist, just as the computer hacker, has remarkable means to exert individual pressure.

We must be assured that our society will acclimate to these new paradigms. Technology has been shown to change in leaps and bounds, not a continual curve. Once our current pace of technological change slows, then it will mature and we will be better equipped to deal with our world-- until the next era of exponential change, that is. But perhaps I am merely blinded by my hope, and instead of maturing, we will continue to lose our grip over technology, and our control of our own destiny.

The Luddites are restless in their graves.

Sebastien Trudel and Marc-Antoine Audette, the duo who I believe pranked Fidel Castro a couple of months ago, have struck again. This time, they called up Formula One chief, Bernie Ecclestone, and pretended to be Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien. What ensued was pure hilarity. Check out the story.

Part of me thinks this is funny. But when I really think about it, the fact that 200 people got together to just beat a shoe on the ground, makes me think we are all slowly losing our minds.

Up here in Maine, Dorothy and I have been making a bottle of our Dickens Cider the same way for over 40 years. But Dorothy Dickens says it time for a change. Not to worry though- we're not changing the taste of a Dickens Cider; we're changing the way you get your Dickens Cider.

-Bob & Tom, "Dickens Cider" parody commercial

Tonight/this morning (at 2am), I with others, have hereby reached the height of AIM immaturity. That is all

Update:
away to save myself from vengeful, wrathful, hateful BLOGGERS!!
-Shannon's half-joking away message

In Maureen's Dowd's latest attempt at a column, she spews her thoughts on blogs. Although I disagree with her general tone in this column, I will cede a few points to her. Now don't get me wrong: I still think Dowd is a poor excuse for a columnist and reporter.

In typical fashion, she starts out with a few points that are completely irrelevant to the column's attempted conclusion:

Is the Internet over?

What?

There are troubling signs. AOL Time Warner, a company that started out scorning its Old Media side, is now looking to jettison the letters AOL.

Nope. AOL is still doing fine. A bad merger is not a sign that the internet revolution has somehow failed.

The most telling sign that the Internet is no longer the cool American frontier? Blogs, which sprang up to sass the establishment, have been overrun by the establishment.

Nope. The biggest blogs are not controlled by the Big Media. Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Reynolds, just to name two. And hundred of other blogs that exert influence within their own spheres, like this one, are also not "overrun by the establishment." After these missteps, Dowd then switches gears and begins a discussion on political candidates ("pols" to her) using blogs:

In a lame attempt to be hip, pols are posting soggy, foggy, bloggy musings on the Internet. Inspired by Howard Dean's success in fund-raising and mobilizing on the Web, candidates are crowding into the blogosphere — spewing out canned meanderings in a genre invented by unstructured exhibitionists.

Funny, there's a certain female NYTimes columnist who also spews out canned meanderings-- hmmm? Anyways, she is right to point out the lacking in these politician blogs. For the most part, they are not compelling reads, and are merely vehicles for bringing attention to boring campaign sites. However, these sites are not at all representative of the blogosphere's publishing revolution or the general revolution of the internet, as she refers to in her column's beginning.

Ironically, blogs' biggest impact currently is not on the general public, but on the media itself. People like Dawd pay far more attention to blogs, than the general public. Each time they write and try to downplay the influence of blogs they legitimize them once more.

Something deep in my gut