Deep thoughts...

...and not by Jack Handey.

• Police brutality or moron getting what he deserved? I still can't tell. I am, however, amused to hear the students yelling "Rodney King!" at the cops. As if 99% of students current enrolled at universities are old enough to remember the Rodney King riots. And as if there's any similarity whatsoever.
  
  
• Speaking of morons, it's so good to have you back, Officer Nordberg. On second thought, no, not really.
  
  
• Racism: it's easy to lose sight of the fact that it exists everywhere and not just the South, especially when some Southern states are just so damn blatant about it.
  
  
• Please pay heed to George F. Will, Mukasey. He knows what he's talking about. He's a baseball fan.
  
  
• On the subject of baseball, you heard it here first folks: the Cubs-Red Sox World Series I predicted in 2003 (and in each case was 5 outs away from) is finally going to come to pass this year. The Cubs will lose in true Cub fashion, but they will come back next year and win the World Series on the 100th anniversary of the last time they won the World Series.
  
  
• The Redskins are 2-0. The Vanderbilt Commodores are 2-1. Notre Lame is 0-3. All in all, this has the makings of a great football season.
  
  
• This may have been the most useless blog post ever. Oh well, I feel bad if I don't throw something up here every so often.
  
  

Song lyric of the day:
"It hit me today
Who gave who the right?
Who took mine away?
What a sight, what a sound
What a way to bring people down"
- Built to Spill, Out of Site

Warner seeking Warner's Senate seat

Great. This is gonna get almost as confusing as the 1996 gubernatorial campaign. And all of us Virginians remember how that one went:

"Who'd you vote for?"
"Warner. Who'd you vote for?"
"Warner."
"Damn conservative."
"No no, the other Warner."
"Oh, sorry about that."
"No worries. By the way, I'm Tom Warner."
"Bill Warner. Pleased to meet you."
"Say, Bill, is there anyone not named Warner in this state?"
"Apparently not, Tom. And don't forget, it's not a state, it's a commonwealth."

Song lyric of the day:
"And you didn't even notice
When the sky turned blue
And you couldn't tell the difference
Between me and you"
- Bloc Party, Blue Light

Six years ago...

Six years ago, life went on.

Shell-shocked though we all were, we kept going to class or work, kept moving forward with our lives. Some of us took some time out of our days to do something we thought could help in some minute way; I went to the blood clinic and waited for hours for my turn to give back.

But pretty much, for so many of us, day-to-day life hadn't changed much. As Jeff said in yesterday's excellent post, we had a much greater awareness of the possibility of a terrorist attack disrupting our lives, but really the odds of such a thing occurring had not altered.

No, on September 12, 2001, the citizens of our country did what we have always done best: we worked, we played, we loved, we laughed, we rocked. Because we're Americans, dammit. That's just how we roll.

None of which is to downplay the atrocities of September 11, 2001. But I prefer to remember how brightly we as a nation shined in the days that followed. If our lives had truly drastically altered due to the deplorable actions of a few douchebags, it would have been like handing them exactly what they wanted. As citizens in the strongest, most freedom-loving nation in the world, we said the hell with that.

And as long as we keep saying it, the terrorists can never win.

Song lyric of the day:
"The firefighters hose me down
I don't care, I'll burn out anyhow"
- Sonic Youth, Incinerate

Could the Democrats turn me Republican?

Granted, I haven't called myself a Democrat for, oh, 5 years or so, but I swear if they're actually serious about not campaigning in any state who opts to move up its primary elections, I'm gonna turn Republican on general principle.

Okay, no, not much chance of that, as long as the Christian Wrong has the Pubs in their back pocket. But the point remains.

Now that Michigan has decided to move up its primary, there's no telling where it all will end. Who knows, maybe the 2012 election primaries will be before the 2008 general election?

States moving up their primaries, as if New Hampshire and Iowa are really that important, is pretty myopic and self-serving. But spitting on states that choose to move their primaries is foolish and counterproductive.

Memo to Democrats: Amendment X to the U.S. Constitution, a document that has admittedly grown increasingly unreadable due to the current administration repeatedly wiping their collective ass with it, reads as follows: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

In other words, it's every state's right, granted by the Constitution, to be as moronic as they want. And if that means moving their primary to Christmas Day, so be it.

So please, forsake my state. As I'm not a registered member of either party, I can't vote in either primary anyway -- a stupid rule, I know, but the right to make stupid rules is, as noted above, guaranteed to states by the Constitution -- so it's not like it really makes a difference. But good luck getting my vote in the general election. I may just have to vote for a third-party candidate.

Kodos: "Go ahead! Throw your vote away!"

Damn you Kodos! Damn you!