"I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man."

-Sen. Joe Biden

...

Will he be forced to leave any of his leadership posts?

The threat is real...

In terms of tragedy, this kid got more than any fair share. Not that any share is "fair" or not. Check out the ESPN article on the story...

Sally Jenkins opining in the Washington Post... Her column in complete, with my relevant interjections...ummm, well... interjected:

In diagnosing the public's unreasoning love for Barbaro, maybe it comes down to the fact that he never lied to us.

Barbaro was a horse right?

Human nature seems like a sorry, wastrel thing, compared to that horse. No doubt, we idealized him, but the fact is, we could have used a happy ending for Barbaro, given some of the Gilded Age characters who parade safely through public life into retirement. His survival seemed like one good thing, a balm for foreign wars, domestic deceit, and the bimbo cocktail party circuit, ruthless wealth-swappage, and cross-entouraging that we lately call American culture.

Okay, I checked. Barbaro IS a horse. Then what in the hell is this lady talking about?

Barbaro was an honest, blameless competitor. Our ridiculously soft feeling for him was based at least partly on that fact. Unlike so many people in the sports pages, he was neither felonious, nor neurotic. He let us place burdens on him, whether a saddle, a bet, or a leg brace, and he carried them willingly, even jauntily.

Horse. HORSE!

On the track, his trainer and jockey reported that there seemed no end to what he was willing to give. "Bottomless," was how they described his heart. He obviously raced for pleasure, and he ran with such dynamic abandon that he made circling a track seem an impetuous act. His effort was always sincere and supreme, and when he won the Kentucky Derby by 6 1/2 lengths, the largest margin in the race since 1946, it was less of a surprise than an affirmation to the people who had reared him. "Why shouldn't we have felt that way? Every time he had run before, he never let us down," trainer Michael Matz said to the Thoroughbred Times. "His will to win was obvious in whatever he did."

A horse is an animal.

Also, he was handsome. On display in his stall, he had the calm expression of an inveterate star, and a preening stance that suggested he'd heard the roar of the crowd and knew he'd won the big one. Even his doctor, Dean Richardson, who hardly saw him at his best, noticed this. When he was asked why Barbaro excited such affection from perfect strangers, a choked Richardson replied, "He was good looking."

...if you're into beastiality, sure.

We followed his medical reports like they were our own.

What is wrong with this woman??

Phrases like "laminitic area," and "deep subsolar abscess" became familiar, as did the anatomy of his horribly damaged hind leg, the shattered pastern and sesamoid, and the pinned cannon bone.

There have been continual attempts to analyze why Barbaro's fight to survive so captivated the public, but maybe it's fairly simple: He had both innocence and greatness and it's not often you find those ephemeral qualities alive in the same creature. What's more, anyone who watched Barbaro run in the Derby felt that they saw traces of a distinct character: He was winsome. This gave his suffering specificity. We felt we knew him.

Yeah, I knew him. I knew he was a horse that competed and had an accident. Apparently Ms. Jenkins wants to know Barbaro beyond the platonic sense.

Possibly, this is anthropomorphic, and some have rightly pointed out that we should care as much about human beings.

BINGO!

But it's not anthropomorphic to say that horses are irreproachably benevolent creatures, and this is surely one of the causes of our grief over Barbaro. It's a fact that of 4,000-odd animal species, only a very few are tame-able, none more so than horses. They are peaceful grazers by nature, and willing by disposition. Despite their considerable size advantage, they tolerate us and even bear burdens for us. While thoroughbreds can certainly be fearsome, their misbehavior is a flight response, not sadism, or outlawry. They have followed us, and favored us with their gifts to an extent that few other animals do, and partnered with us throughout history, from Persia to the Pony Express. "Gallant" is a word often applied to them, and it's apt.

Barbaro seems to have had all the virtues of his breed, and a few more besides. His character wasn't a matter of wishful projection, it existed, and was quite vivid to those who cared for him.

[sound of me snoring...]

He was indefatigable and had a high tolerance for pain.

Never ever use the word 'indefatigable' in relation to an animal.

. He was mettlesome without being spiteful -- and how often do you find that? He was expressive. In a lovely piece a few weeks ago by John Scheinman of The Washington Post, one of his night nurses described him as "mouthy."

Naturally. Horses typically have a big mouth and snout.

He befriended another patient at the University of Pennsylvania's New Bolton Center in Kennett Square, Pa.: a cow. When he slept, his night nurse would pet him.

The beastiality delusion has expanded. Hooray.

Despite pain and confinement, he wasn't mean. Among the things that caused his owners, Roy and Gretchen Jackson, to give up hope yesterday was that, in the grip of wounded exhaustion, he finally tried to bite the hand of his doctor, Richardson. It was a first in eight months of treatment.

Novelist Jane Smiley wrote a strange and wonderful book a couple of years ago called "A Year at the Races," in which she explained, with an articulacy missing here, that the human engagement with horses is nothing less than a love story. If you were wondering why the death of Barbaro hurts so, there is the answer:

"A love story, at least a convincing one, requires three elements: the lover, the beloved, and the adventures they have together," Smiley wrote. "If the lover isn't ardent, then the story isn't a love story. If the beloved isn't appealing, then the lover just seems idiosyncratic or even crazy; and if they have no adventures, then their love is too easy, and they have no way of learning anything important about themselves and one another."

Ahh, she owns up to it now!

Barbaro was appealing, and he was obviously beloved by the public, and by his owners. If the public learned anything from him, it was that with enjoyment of thoroughbreds comes responsibility for doing the right thing by them. One of the few consoling results from the Barbaro tragedy was an anonymous gift of $500,000 for the establishment of the Barbaro Fund, for animal care at the hospital where he died. Yesterday, it was Gretchen Jackson who best summed up the public outpouring for a horse. "Certainly, grief is the price we all pay for love," she said.

Barbaro, I should repeat, is a horse. Was a horse.

...just testing out the new Blogger system, which I just migrated my blogs over to. The blog should be identical, but it gives me new features for the future.

John Kerry has had foot-in-mouth syndrome for a long time, including a long history of belittling American troops. So I guess it should not come as a surprise that he traitorously has slandered the U.S. while on an overseas trip:



Yeah, you heard that right. He called the U.S. an "international pariah."

Regarding the latter, check out this blog which has a funny caption contest for the photo...

According to this article, the NFL has prohibited tailgating in the parking lot of Dolphin Stadium in Miami and within a mile radius of the stadium.

First of all: why!? The NFL is claiming security concerns, but does it make sense to try to keep fans from tailgating in such a large radius? Also, how exactly does tailgating present a security hazard? I seriously doubt that eating brats and drinking beers poses any distinct threat.

Second: how? The NFL is in charge of the SuperBowl, and under their agreement with the Dolphins, they can regulate activity on the private property of the Dolphins, such as the parking lot. But what about the 1-mile radius? This would have to be regulated by the city or state. Perhaps the NFL got the city to pass a special ordinance, but I doubt it. Legal challenge anyone? :-)

Apparently if you play Nintendo's new Wii game console just enough, you'll just happen to shed a few pounds in the process.

Check out this headline on Drudge today:



Of course, when you read the article Drudge linked to, you come away with a far different impression than the headline implies. It turns out that the school didn't prohibit cheers of "U.S.A." because of some anti-patriotic complex, but rather because many students were not using it in the patriotic sense at all. Rather, they had created and spread a dirty phrase formed from the acronym. I haven't been able to think of what that phrase could be yet...

John Danforth:

The indispensable requirement of a ministry of reconciliation is humility. It is the recognition that our attempts to be God's people in our politics are, at best, good faith efforts, subject to all the misjudgments and mixed motives that characterize human behavior. We are seekers of the truth, but we do not embody the truth. And in humility, we should recognize that the same can be said about our most ardent foes.

Well... some foes at least.

Whew, I deserve a clap on the back for that clever post title... The Wall Street Journal has an overview of past George W. Bush State of the Union pledges and how they have played out.

It can and will get a lot worse without decisive American and global foreign policy there.

We should not kid ourselves otherwise... Iran is in the process of developing nuclear weapons, Israel has said that it will act unilaterally with tactical nukes if necessary to destroy Iran's program, Saudi Arabia has indicated that it might send forces into Iraq's Anbar province, and Jordan has now said that it is interested in developing a nuclear program.

Some say this is World War III. It's not yet. But it will be if decisive action isn't taken. These are the stakes. Are President Bush and the Democratic Congress up to this grave task?

Unfortunately I do not think they are. Newt Gingrich in 2008 perhaps?

Ok, so I started a new book last night: Faith and Politics, written by former senator and current Episcopal minister John Danforth. Whereas my last reading project, The Question of God, dealt largely with faith and psychology, this book is sure to take a different angle.

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Four football fans go rock climbing one afternoon: a Patriots fan, a Giants fan, an Eagles fan, and a Colts fan. They had been arguing all the way up the mountain about who among them was the most "die-hard" fan.

Upon reaching the top of the mountain, the Giants fan proclaimed to the other three... "This is for the New York Giants!" and promptly threw himself off the mountain as a form of sacrifice.

Not to be outdone by a Giants fan, the Eagles fan jumped up and said... "This is for the Philadelphia Eagles!" and then threw himself off the mountain, again as a form of sacrifice.

Refusing to be outdone by the Giants and Eagles fans, the Colts fan rose to his feet and yelled at the top of his lungs, "This is for the Indianapolis Colts!" and without hesitation, pushed the New England Patriots fan off the mountain.

The Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Silvestre Reyes, has flip-flopped his position on a troop surge in Iraq. That's what I get for praising his position earlier.

In what Bristol General doctors are calling "a medical oddity", an ESPN.com columnist is making national news.

Yesterday, while drinking his morning coffee, writer Mark Schlabach's skull inexplicably split in two and his entire brain proceeded to fall onto his kitchen floor. But as his wife explained, that didn't end the day's weird events.

"Yea, the whole 'brain leaping out of his skull" thing was disturbing. But then, before I could dial 911, his body rose out of his chair, put on his pink bunny slippers, and skipped to his office to write a college football column!"

The article itself is available here.

Inside, Schlabach, like so many others, laments the current methods of determing the NCAA champion, and trys to suggest a new model based on having all six BCS conferences (instead of just the current three) hold championship games, and further suggesting that only conference champions be allowed to compete for the title.

While it is certainly a marvelous thing that a brain-less Schlabach could physically bring himself to type on his keyboard, his column contains some of the illogical incoherence that one might expect for an author in his state.

He claims that, short of an actual playoff, "turning conference play into a playoff is the next best thing." But this is of course not so. Holding a conference championship game is only a one-game playoff, if that, and allows for the possibility of sending a sub-par team to a BCS game. E.g., a four-loss Florida State making it to the Orange Bowl a few years ago.

Schlabach admits that such a system thus lessens the importance of the regular season, but proceeds to explain it away on the grounds that "college football's 14-week regular season is already the most important in all of sports." He compares it to the NFL, NHL, and NBA, which allow for teams that struggle early (like in FSU's case) to make it into the playoffs and redeem themselves. He forgets, of course, that these leagues have actual playoffs, and are not at the mercy of a glorified iPod Mini in deciding who reaches their championship games.

A further problem with Schlabach's contention is that it does nothing to help the Boise States of the college football world. If Congressional Democrats want to follow through with their promise of defending the people against the powerful, Pelosi and company will skip raising the minimum wage and focus on developing a system that gives non-BCS conference teams an actual chance at reaching the title game.

Schlabach's train of thought derails midway through his column, when whatever semblance of phantom brain activity ceased and his body gave itself over to a convulsion of anti-Notre Dame rhetoric. He bemoans the fact that ND refuses to join a conference (i.e., the Big Ten) and thus prevents his wet dreams of conference championships for all from coming to orgasm. Mark apparently thinks the Irish are the "obvious" choice to join the Big Ten, even though it is probably impossible to find a school that the conference has sought harder to screw over in the past century. But in Mr. Schlabach's opinion, ND should just let a few decades of malice slide, surrender it's television contract with NBC, and make the "Big Ten" an even more misleading conference name than it is now.

His Vacancy claims that ND won't join a conference because, as it now stands, "Notre Dame has the ability to schedule whichever opponents it sees fit, [and] the Irish are all but guaranteed seven or eight victories each season." Funny. I wish the team knew about this "seven-win" warranty in 1999, 2001, 2003, and 2004. Schlabach also ignores the fact that ND plays, in essence, a de facto conference schedule every year [USC, Michigan, Michigan State, Navy, Stanford, Purdue]. The Big Ten only mandates 8 conference games a year; does it make that much of a difference that ND is free to schedule 2 more non-conference games per year?

Perhaps what perturbs Schlabach most is that he feels "the Fighting Irish don't deserve preferential treatment and aren't any more important than any of the other schools from the six BCS conferences." Let's break down this statement.

Does ND really receive preferential treatment? For that statement to be true, it would have to be easier for ND to make it into the BCS than the other conference schools. Plainly, this is not the case. In 2002, the Irish had only two losses and were denied a BCS berth. They were eligible, but the bowls had discretion and chose not to select them. Conference champions, no matter how many losses, need not fear that fate. Depending on the year, any more than 1 loss exposes the Irish to being left out, and more than 2 losses almost certainly excludes them. Again, not the case with the BCS conference teams, who could lose as many as 4 games and still make a BCS bowl.

But let's not solely focus on ND. Remember, Schlabach said ND isn't any more important than any of the other BCS conference schools. Of course, this leaves out everyone outside of those conferences, which happens to be about 50% of Division I-A schools. Boise State and Co. are in the same boat as ND. You know what sounds like "preferential treatment" to me? Telling one team that, no matter how bad their conference is, if they win it, they're going to the (purely hypothetical here) Orange Bowl; and yet telling another team that, if you win your conference and go undefeated, hmm... maybe we can fit ya in. Maybe. Seems to me the only schools getting special treatment are the ones lucky enough to be born (or adopted) into the BCS conferences. Admittedly, some conferences are more, let us say, challenging, than others, but the flaw in the BCS system is that it assumes everything in college football remains static.

In the end, Mark [wipes warm drool off Schlabach's chin], the problems and inequities of the current system are not, in fact, the fault of Notre Dame and its refusal to join a conference. The real issue at stake is the out-and-out greed and selfishness of the BCS conferences, their member schools, and bowl officials. They are power-crazed megalomaniacs who use ND as a scapegoat to hide behind, in an attempt to distract the masses with the one school they think everyone loathes. They spurn a playoff system so sensible that every other organized sports, including Major League "Frolf", uses to determine their champion. And you know what? Shoving Cal Poly San Luis Obisbo into the Pac-10 is not going to solve anything. (It's just going to steal recruits from Ty Willingham.)

But enough of this. Time to get Schlabach's brain back into the garage, if only to have an old tarp thrown over it and then buried beneath some deflated pool rafts and crappy Christmas presents that will be re-gifted in 11 months.

These pics are of the 1950s cover of the game Battleship (kudos to Ted):

I still don't think SNL's funny anymore, but this is certainly an exception:

The NFL is going to hold a game in London near the beginning of the 2007-2008 season. The teams have yet to be selected for the game, but the Dolphins and Giants are considered frontrunners.

This is the NFL attempting to increase the popularity of American football in Europe. Can't hurt.

Today being Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. day, it seems a fine time to do a little bit of research on the man and the movement. Check out his well-written biographical article on Wikipedia. Three qualities stand out: he was exceedingly brave; he was a natural leader; and he was brilliant in his use of non-violence against forces of hate.

Also check out the fascinating history of Dr. Vernon Johns, who was pastor at the Dextor Baptist Church in Montgomery before King took over the position. Johns is often referred to as the father of the civil rights movement and he helped inspire King and other of the movement's leaders. James Earl Jones depicted Johns in a movie about his life.

So the NFL playoffs are down to 4 teams: the Colts play the Patriots in Indy at 6:30 on Sunday and the Bears play the Saints in Chicago at 3. Check out ESPN's analysis of the games here...

Speaking of the Colts. While our offense has been flat against Kansas City and Baltimore, it still has put together some nice drives. The defense is playing inexplicably well. Their tackling is much better than it was through most of the season and they just seem to have more fire.

I'm glad we're playing the Patriots and I'm grateful the game's at home. We're going to need all the help we can get. My prediction is that the Colts defense finally breaks down and New England puts up plenty of points. The Colts offense will respond and we'll have a shootout. With Adam Vinatieri and the home-field advantage, the edge goes to the Colts. The Pats step up in the playoffs but the Colts should have plenty of motivation, having been displaced by them twice in the last three years.

Rick Minter is out as Defensive Coordinator at Notre Dame. In his place is Corwin Brown who was the defensive backs coach at the New York Jets. The coaching of ND's defensive backfield has been our weakest link for a long time, so I'm excited to have someone with this background.

Hey Baltimore, we stole your team and now we're going to steal your pride :-)

Oh yeah, and get over it. You have a team now and they're called the Ravens not the Colts.

Sean's got some ND football updates over at Kelly Green. Apparently a handful of seniors are going to try to come back for a fifth year, amongst them Zibby and Travis Thomas. That's good.

Also, congrats to Quinn for winning the Cingular College Football Player of the Year, an award voted on purely by fans.

I wrote a few days ago about the rumors of what products Apple was to announce on Tuesday, but I have failed to follow up on that post until now. The main reason is that Apple's announcements were so big that the mainstream media has ran away with them. So all of you have heard of the new iPhone and most of you have already heard of the Apple TV. Let me fill you in on what didn't get announced:

- The Apple TV can sync with iTunes and iPhoto, but it does not have any super cool features like YouTube browsing. Then again, YouTube videos look terrible on a computer screen; I hate to think what they'd look like on an HDTV.

- The iPhone is sold with a carrier contract (through Cingular) and it was a smartphone. Its case, however, is not ceramic. And we have to wonder what's going to keep that touchscreen from looking like *%#& after a couple months.

- No new Macs were announced! I'm a bit surprised. The quad-core Mac Pro is an inevitability and the Mac Mini hasn't been refreshed in a while.

- No new software! iLife 07 and iWork 07 will both wait a month or 2 and be announced along with the new version of Mac OS X (which Microsoft is busy copying and will be reflected in Microsoft Horizon, its new operating system due out in 2009-2010)

- No new hard disk based iPods; this is a gap in Apple's product line. Movies take up a lot of space and the iPhone's limited memory will not make it a perfect movie watching device.

"Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike."

- Alexander Hamilton; born on this date in 1755 (or 1757)

...

This axiom sure holds true today. Indiana politics are a perfect example. Whichever party is the opposite of the party of the current governor nearly always opposes whatever the governor is pushing. The same issue could come up in 10 years and the same political party in the statehouse would switch from supporting it to opposing it merely based on the governor.

I just read an article in Businessweek about Home Depot’s ex-CEO, Robert Nardelli. His abrasive management style got him fired recently, but he was comforted by a $210 million dollar “golden parachute.” This got me thinking about one of the current congressional hot topics, excessive executive compensation.

Let it be known that I am 100% anti-regulation. The government poisons the free market, and should only intervene when it is absolutely necessary. Unfortunately, regulation of executive compensation has become inevitable. We (business) have only ourselves to blame.

Individuals with the skills to run complex organizations are extremely rare, and therefore, extremely valuable. An effective executive can create vast amounts of wealth for the company’s shareholders and secure jobs for countless employees. Under the law of supply and demand, they deserve to make a lot of money. If a football coach can get paid several million dollars for successfully coaching 85 student-athletes, a CEO should make significantly more for coaching thousands of subordinates. However, under Nardelli’s tenure, Home Depot’s stock was more or less stagnant. He did not deserve to make such an obscene amount, and he’s not alone. Many top executives are not being held accountable for their poor performance, and executive compensation packages have spiraled out of control.

When congress gets back from its six year (and running) vacation, they’re going to come down on business with a vengeance. Unrealistic restrictions will be placed on executive compensation, we’ll become less competitive in the global economy, and the market will surely suffer. I’d love to blame congress, but as I said before, we brought the might and incompetence of the federal government upon ourselves. Shareholders should have been more vocal about tying compensation to performance and boards should have exercised more careful oversight.

Attention executives: stop drawing attention to yourselves, lest the government comes in and does for the economy what it did for social security, the federal budget, and everything else it’s ever touched.

Take the quiz here...

Here's mine; I'm a libertarian-leaning conservative (no surprise there):



Granted, with the quiz's limited number of questions, we can't put a whole lot of stock in this, but it is interesting nonetheless.

This is a hard one... The final Sayre15 for the 2006-2007 season with the change in rank in parentheses:

1. Florida (+2)
2. LSU (+2)
3. USC (+4)
4. Boise St. (+7)
5. Ohio St. (-4)
6. Michigan (-4)
7. Louisville (-2)
8. Wisconsin (-2)
9. Auburn (+1)
10. West Virginia (+4)
11. Rutgers (+4)
12. Arkansas (+1)
13. Wake Forest (-1)
14. Oklahoma (-6)
15. California (+1)

Honorable Mention: Notre Dame, Texas, BYU

...

Rationale:

This was more stressful than it was worth really. Florida at number 1... obvious. That's when it stopped being easy. I placed LSU at number 2, thus ending any doubts I had about the SEC. LSU beat Tennessee, Arkansas, and ND in its final four weeks and it did it in good fashion. One of their two losses was to Florida.

At number 3, I placed USC even though they also have two losses. They whipped a very good Michigan program and one of their losses was to a respectable UCLA. At number 4 I ranked Boise St. They're undefeated and they have victories over a couple decent teams now including Oklahoma. Some will argue that Boise St. should be higher, perhaps even at number 1, but Oklahoma was not a tough enough team to earn them such respect. The Big 12 in general was lacking this year.

I dropped Ohio St. down to number 5 even though I felt like dropping them even further. They got creamed in the Nat. Champ. game and their victory over Michigan does not look as impressive as it did at the time. But I just could not think of who to put ahead of OSU, so there they go.

With Ohio St. in place, the other teams fall in line more easily. OSU barely beat Michigan, so Michigan drops in right under them. Louisville only had one loss, but it was to a bad team, but they beat a solid Wake Forest team so they enter at number 7. This was hard for me to do, as it was dropping them a spot from the previous poll, but they simply became of victim of Boise St. moving up. Same thing with Wisconsin at number 8. I could not put them above Michigan who killed them.

Auburn with only two losses falls in at number 9. Their ten-point victory over Florida looks really impressive now and their losses were to solid enough teams. West Virginia and Rutgers drop in next, both with bowl victories. Arkansas, Wake Forest, and Oklahoma, all of whom had narrow bowl defeats, enter in at 12, 13, and 14 respectively. Finally, I put California back in the Sayre15 after their very impressive bowl victory over Texas A&M. Two of Cal's losses are to USC and Tennessee. They have a decent argument over other three-loss teams.

ND drops out of the Sayre15 and deservedly so, as much as I hate to say it. Texas has an argument for the list but their play was simply too shaky towards the end.

China apparently has a fight against Islamist terrorism of its own, specifically Muslim separatists in the Xinjiang region. Chinese police mounted a raid on a terrorist training camp near the Afghan and Pakistani borders, killing 18 and capturing another 17.

The region is home to 8 million Muslims who are ethnic Turks.

Yeah I'm a Mac-geek. I won't deny it. But this is a good time to be a fan of anything and everything Apple. The company's most important tech conference and tradeshow of the year, the Macworld conference, began today, and the keynote address by Apple CEO Steve Jobs will be tomorrow. That's when all the cool product announcements will be.

Here's what the "buzz" is saying Apple might have up its sleeves:

Hardware:

- an "iTV" set-top box to easily display iTunes and other content from one's home computer over the network to a television display. This one's not a rumor. Apple already announced the device but no details yet. Possible surprising feature: look for the device to be net-savvy, possibly playing video from Google Video and/or YouTube, and maybe to be able to browse the iTunes store.

- a new cell phone-iPod hybrid device. The name "iPhone" has already been taken, so it will have to be called something else. It will be available with Cingular at least, though it may be sold without carrier contract subsidies. The device will probably resemble an iPod nano but will have cell features and really great Mac sync features. Less likely: an Apple smartphone with high-end e-mail and productivity features. Look for the phone to have some radical design elements though, such as a special ceramic case.

- a quad-core and a dual processor quad-core Mac Pro. Intel has released quad-core versions of its chips, so it would be natural for Apple to make this move.

- an updated iMac and/or Mac Mini... just modest spec improvements.

- a widescreen video-capable iPod, possibly with Wi-Fi features. If they do release this, the big question is whether it will include a smaller clickwheel or some new type of interface. I don't expect the touchscreen rumors to be true.

- less likely: an Apple widescreen HD TV. There is a lot of hype about this right now, but I don't see why Apple would enter this extremely tight market. LCD margins stink right now.

Software:

- a new version of the iWork productivity suite. Rumors say that Apple will add a spreadsheet app.

- a new version of iLife. It will be designed to better integrate with the "iTV" product (see above).

My extracurricular reading in law school has been less than what I did while at ND, but I'm trying to pick up the pace. I've listed what I'm currently reading there on the right sidebar. Just for curiosity's sake.

Before the midterm election in November, the American people were presented with two rhetorical options for Iraq: "stay the course" and "cut and run." Neither of these, of course, were actual strategies for what to do in Iraq, but rather characterizations developed for political effect.

Now, two months after the election, the possible strategies for Iraq are diverging and becoming more distinct. Thus despite the problems in Iraq, the situation is actually becoming clearer.

Here are the three serious and distinct strategies currently being pondered:

1. Maintain current troop levels but shift many of the troops to Baghdad and the Anbar province. In the other provinces, leave only enough troops to train and oversee Iraqi forces. This option is being supported by many in the military establishment.

2. Staged withdrawal. Remove some troops altogether and redeploy others to middle eastern bases outside of Baghdad. The theory is the Iraqi government will only strengthen once its forced to take primary responsibility for its security. This option is mainly supported by the Congressional Democratic leadership (Pelosi and Reid), but also by some Republicans who are critical of the government's relationship with Shia extremism.

3. Surge. Increase troop levels 20-50,000 in addition to shifting many resources and troops to Baghdad and the Anbar province. The theory is that a certain degree of order must be achieved in order for the Iraqi government to survive. With more troops, the U.S. could root out insurgents from more areas simultaneously.

One major question involved in options #1 and #3 (but made impossible in option 2) is whether or not to disband Moqtada Al Sadr's Mahdi militia. Unfortunately, this action is not included in either the Democrats' plan nor is it likely to be pushed by President Bush.

...

So where do I fall? I strongly support option #3 along with the removal of Al Sadr, whether or not the Iraqi government sanctions it. Many military officers lower than generals have stated the need for more troops. We cleanse one area of insurgents, then leave to cleanse another area, but do not have enough troops to hold the first. We cannot simply be chasing the problem around; rather, we need to strike a deathblow to both Sunni insurgents and Shia militia at the same time. If one is allowed to exist, it will simply breed the other in the near future. Only by attacking both can we create longterm stability.

The removal of Al Sadr and engagement of Shia militia will require more troops than we currently have there. The current level of troops are barely even sufficient to cover just the Sunni insurgents.

The Maliki government has an uneasy truce with Al Sadr and undoubtedly fears its own collapse if it defies him. This is yet another reason for more U.S. troops. Taking out Al Sadr will make the situation much worse in Iraq before it has the potential to make it better, if there are not enough boots on the ground to maintain order and prop up the Maliki government.

Charles Krauthammer elaborates on the problems involved with the hanging of Saddam Hussein. He then concludes with the same criticism I've been levying at the current Iraqi government:

The whole sorry affair illustrates not just incompetence but also the ingrained intolerance and sectarianism of the Maliki government. It stands for Shiite unity and Shiite dominance above all else.

We should not be surging American troops in defense of such a government. This governing coalition -- Maliki's Dawa, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim's Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and Sadr's Mahdi Army -- seems intent on crushing the Sunnis at all costs. Maliki should be made to know that if he insists on having this sectarian war, he can well have it without us.

Here is the Sayre15 as it stood at the end of the college football regular season, with each team's performance:

1. Ohio State (yet to play)
2. Michigan (lost to USC)
3. Florida (yet to play)
4. LSU (beat ND)
5. Louisville (beat Wake Forest)
6. Wisconsin (beat Arkansas)
7. USC (beat Michigan)
8. Oklahoma (lost to Boise St.)
9. Notre Dame (lost to LSU)
10. Auburn (beat Nebraska)
11. Boise State (beat Oklahoma)
12. Wake Forest (lost to Louisville)
13. Arkansas (lost to Wisconsin)
14. West Virginia (beat Georgia Tech)
15. Rutgers (beat Kansas St.)

I'll have the final Sayre15 up after Monday's national championship game, but this gives you an idea of how the list will change.

In the 1980s, America refused to condemn Saddam Hussein's gassing of the Kurds in northern Iraq. Our policy was to support Saddam's Sunni regime in Iraq in order to oppose the growing extremist Shia movement in Iran. Our error then was in letting our cold war balance of power attitude obscure our moral vision.

No matter one's stance on going to war in Iraq, one must admit the positive aspect of having a democratic Iraq beholden to no single religious party or sect. This was the Dream in Iraq. It was Bush's dream, at least so I thought.

But now the dream is astray. For some unfathomable reason, the Bush administration has chosen a side in the Iraq conflict; it has sided with the Shia.

Democracy does not really exist without law and order. Law and order do not exist when militia rule the streets with their own rules and violent discipline. This is precisely what is happening in Baghdad. Al Sadr's Shia militia control the streets in much of the city, with the government turning a blind eye, and in some cases I fear lending their support.

Take the execution of Saddam Hussein as the latest example. Al Sadr's followers are claiming that they rushed and performed the execution, and "Moktada" can be heard being chanted in the video of the execution. A civilized democracy does not allow a militia group to handle its justice and it does not allow taunts by officials at an execution.

What does President Bush do? He says he has not even viewed the execution and he refuses to criticize the taunting. Huh? He says he's focused on the way forward in Iraq. But can he not see that the way forward must include a clamping down on the Shia militias? Bush must think that the path to order in Iraq is to allow the Shia elements to dominate through whatever means they see fit. This error is as morally vacuous as America's policy in the 80's.

We need a real conservative.

I'm not making a prediction for ND's bowl game this year. Mainly this is because my ND football predictions don't carry the weight they did a year ago. But I also don't know very much about LSU. I do know this: LSU has only lost 2 games this year to quality opponents (Auburn and Florida); they are on a 6-game winning streak including victories over Tennessee and Arkansas; they're fast and they have a great defensive line.

A lot of people--in the media and even amongst the Irish fanbase--have counted ND out already. I'm not one of them. While there are reasons to be scared, there are also reasons to believe ND could win this one. First, how good is the SEC really? The conference is 0 and 3 in significant out-of-conference matchups: Arkansas got creamed by USC in the regular season, and the conference has lost both its matchups against the Big 10 in bowl games. Second, well, read this analysis to see my second reason for optimism.

My conclusion (it's not a prediction, it's a conclusion!) is that the Irish will have to establish at least a moderately successful running game in order to win. They have to keep LSU's front guys honest, thus giving Brady time to play pitch and catch.

I pose this question to DC's readers: if homosexuality could be eliminated by simple hormone therapy during the mother's pregnancy, is this a path that should be taken?

Should such hormone therapy be mandated? Prohibited? Left up to the choice of the mother and father?

This story is what prompted me to pose this question. I have a gut opinion on the matter, but I'm interested in what others think.

Here are the college football bowl results I find interesting thus far:

Fiesta Bowl - Boise St. pulled out an amazing OT victory against Oklahoma, including scoring a last minute in regulation TD on a hook-and-lateral and a 2-point conversion in OT on a statue-of-liberty to win the game. One of the best bowl games ever. So are people going to take Boise St. for real now? Eh, I'm more inclined to just trash the Big 12.

Rose Bowl - USC beat Michigan handily. I hate to say it, but Pete Carroll put on a coaching clinic in the second half.

Capitol One Bowl - Wisconsin squeezed out a victory against Arkansas. I was right to have Wisconsin as high as I did in the Sayre15.

Emerald Bowl - Florida State beat up on UCLA; FSU put up 44 points!

Champs Sports Bowl - Maryland whips Purdue; the ACC may have been better than we supposed; Purdue blows now.

Alamo Bowl - Texas barely beat Iowa; the Big 12 was as weak as we suspected.

O