Random Shiite

I haven’t posted much here in awhile, so this will be more of a dump of various things I’ve read, thought or otherwise felt like posting about.

This quote from Bush about the civil war in Iraq…I mean, I know he’s not a outright idiot, but it’s hard to not wonder how much he really knows – or cares – about what’s going on in Iraq.

You know, I hear people say, Well, civil war this, civil war that. The Iraqi people decided against civil war when they went to the ballot box.

. There’s so much wrong about this it’s almost not worth dissecting. (Like, for instance, the fact that our own country was holding elections back when we had our own civil war. You remember, the one folks in Bush Country refer to as “The War of Northern Aggression”?) What it gets down to is this – Bush isn’t stupid, he just doesn’t care. Being President isn’t about changing the country or the world, it’s a personal vindication to him that he’s smart enough to do it, and a slap to his father and mother who probably always assumed Jeb was the only one who could really do it. If he understands that he’s been used by Cheney, Rumsfeld and others, he doesn’t care, because he’s the President. "The Decider." I’m sure there have been other Presidents who valued more the "winning" than the actual job, but this one is particularly incompetent and stubborn, and that’s a pretty lethal combination.

Guilty Pleasure Update: Big Brother All-Stars has gotten interesting, as James has decided to try and get Janelle out. It certainly makes for good TV but it is also so interesting to me how Big Brother has one consistent theme through every season – no matter who is in control, who is poised to dominate the house for weeks on end, someone screws it up by getting overly pissed off at something, or trying to make a power move early, etc. It makes the show better, but it’s odd that it happens so frequently. At this point, I’m openly rooting for Will to win. He’s the only person in the house, with the possible exception of Mike Boogie, who understands how silly the game is and how little one’s word means in this context. Others like James and Marcellas are so sanctimonious it’s awful, and people like Danielle are simply way too impressed with themselves.

For instance, Danielle’s celebration after winning the challenge – only because Erika, who could have stayed up there for hours, gave it to her – was just preposterous. And while we are at it, Danielle...please do something about that hair. Good lord, she looks like Buckwheat. The whole challenge was pretty silly, despite giving the viewers the immortal phrase, "Big Boy like spider sperm!"

So a study came out today saying that children that have iPods with raunchy, suggestive songs on them are more likely to have sex sooner than those children who do not. And maybe it’s just because I’ve been reading a lot of Freakonomics and Malcolm Gladwell, but my first reaction was, “Which comes first? Isn’t it possible that children who listen to that music are more sexually curious than those that don’t, and the same impulse drives them to both things?” Well, apparently all of us University of Chicago guys think similarly (note: that’s a joke, though I did go there), as this entry in the Freakonomics blog states. Man, I’m smart.

Just for fun – Maria Sharapova.

The more I think about the upcoming NFL season, the more I simply can’t wait. I do like baseball – and at times in my life I’ve flat out loved it. But that’s just not the case these days. I like it, and fantasy baseball makes it infinitely better. Football? While I’ve waned in my fanaticism over the years (I recently had to tell Abby that she was getting a much more sedate football fan than if we’d dated ten years ago), I still just flat out love the sport. And fantasy football? Knickerbocker, please. I cannot wait.

All that being said, I’m really worried that I’m going to talk myself into drafting Kevin Jones again.