Long Time, No Blog

Since I haven't blogged in a while, there's a couple of short things I'd like to say, just so you know I haven't vanished off the face of the earth...

First: Russ Feingold. Whatever you think about his attempt to censure the President, you have to admit that the man has large brass balls. The fact that the Democrats can't get behind this motion means that it's doomed to blow up in his face, but you can't fault the man for trying.

There's a lyric from a Garth Brooks song I like (shocking, I know) that was written right after the first terrorist attack on U.S. soil back in 1995. The line is: "what I do is so this world will know that it will not change me." Feingold is one of the few who realizes that the terrorists must be told in no uncertain terms that they are not going to change us. The terrorists should not be allowed to turn us away from our democracy or our system of government complete with separation of powers, transparency, and all that other cool stuff. Perhaps surveillance programs are necessary to prevent terrorist attacks, but there are legal avenues we can pursue to put effective security programs in place. By circumventing the legal avenues for approval of such programs, and by asserting executive authority where there previously was none, President Bush has fundamentally changed us, and as a result, has made our government less American. For that, he deserves a censure.

Feingold's stand is representative of a different point of view - we won't let the terrorists change the way we do things. We'll keep our homeland secure and still respect our Constitution. In that sense, he's the strong leader Bush aspires to be.

Now if only the rest of his party would

Second: Dubai. So apparently most Americans didn't care that our port security would have still been run by the Coast Guard and U.S. Customs. Or that the same longshoremen would still be unloading the containers. Or that the real problem with port security was the fact that some 5% of containers are inspected before they are unloaded. Nope, all most Americans cared about was the fact that a company owned by Arabs would be making money off of our ports. As a result, we've tarnished an alliance with one of the few stable states over there and made ourselves look even worse in the Middle East than we did before. Good job, folks.

And furthermore, could you stop saying that two of the 9/11 hijackers were from Dubai as if that's something important? Timothy McVeigh was from New York State. Guess that makes all New Yorkers threats to bomb federal buildings.

Third: NCAAs/NIT. Vandy plays Notre Dame tonight. Go 'Dores!

As for the tournaments themselves, read Andy's blog about them. The NIT promises to be a good tournament this year, with Maryland, Cincinnati (sp?), Michigan, Oklahoma State, Louisville and RPI top-20 Missouri State all playing. We have the sheer breadth of this year's NCAA bubble - and the utter mediocrity of any team not named Duke, Connecticut, or Villanova - for this. I honestly wouldn't be too surprised to see Oral Fixation... er, I mean Oral Roberts make it to the Sweet 16.