It's Cricket Season at Work Again...

...and you know what that means: lots of stepping on them as they jump around aimlessly. If crickets were smarter, we couldn't kill them. They'd probably take over the world, in fact.

Today is the first day in a week that I haven't felt sick. Thank Jesus for that. I hate being sick because it takes my already scattered and pathetic mind and causes it to run at half-speed. I also probably lost all the conditioning I had built up through running the past few weeks. God obviously has a plan for this though, no matter what you think.

Cleaning up something from last week that slipped through the cracks: D'Angelo Lee, Dallas County Planning Commissioner, resigned last week after an investigation uncovered some less-than-ethical dealings he made while on the commission. It was shown that Mr. Lee used three different birthdates for himself when filling out the nomination paperwork for the position (huh?), and had $1600 in unpaid parking violations. More importantly, Mr. Lee "used his appointed City Hall position to solicit a loan for a private development deal in which he had a hidden financial interest." I suppose that's the more serious thing. He went to a bank as a representative of the city, and got a loan for a development that he had a personal stake in. Using city money for personal gain -- what is this, Chicago? Milwaukee? Corruption is clearly everywhere, and there's nothing we can do to stop it except reducing the size and scope of government. Nowadays it seems like Rebubs and Democs only want to increase it, albeit in different ways. Support your local Libertarian, even though he/she probably has no idea how to deal with things like Hurricane Katrina cleanup.

I know it's basically "organized brutality with pretty colors" and against everything I really stand for in life, but man, it's great to have football back. Now, get rid of baseball and bring on basketball, and the world will be a perfect place. How do I even get through the summers these days, when sports consists exclusively of a bunch of things I've "grown past" (baseball, NASCAR, WNBA, golf, tennis)? Mexican food, and lots of it.

I know I've fallen asleep on this whole Sweet Sixteen thing. They're coming, I assure you. Get off my lawn.

Three (3) people are concurrently trying to send me faxes. This can't be a good sign. Yesterday I got a fax that could change my life! Dr. Wada Mazedu Bsc, (SAU) MSc, MNIM, Ph. D, who is a "Director, Project Implementations" in Pretoria, South Africa, sent me (actually, it was addressed to "President/CEO," but likely not really meant for him) a "Strictly Confidential & Urgent" fax about a very hush-hush and important business deal. Dr. Mazedu and his cohorts in the Project Implementation crew have 14.5 million dollars (gotten, he admits, through illegal overcharging of contractors) they want to transfer to the U.S., and they need somebody to help them do it. If I follow their instructions, they will give me 30%. Wowza! That could buy a lot of mexican food! All I need to do is call the number on the fax and give them a bank account they can transfer the funds to (and keep it hush-hush, of course), and my life will change. Of course, the number's in South Africa. I'm thinking of trying to fax it back to the number listed -- with the words, "Apartheid Now!" blasted across the thing. Do people actually fall for these scams? Yikes.

Scott Tobias Has Done His Research

In last week's "The Onion AV Club", Scott Tobias starts out his review of The Exorcism of Emily Rose with this mind-blowing gem of a statement:

At a time when the President is asking for evangelical concepts like "intelligent design" to share equal time with evolutionary science,

ID is an "evangelical concept" now? Clearly, Scott Tobias gets all his news from Air America, and doesn't allow himself to read or see or hear anything else, in fear that his Pure American Liberalism might be tainted. The sad thing is, he started the review like that to sound smart. All he did was recite the Party line. When you do that, the only people you sound smart to are the Party.

Scott, it's time for you to get out of the cave you've been living in and read some Behe. Then, when you've admitted there's a legitimate scientific debate going on, you can comment on ID. Until then, quit assuming that everything the President supports is stupid.

If ID is an evangelical concept, then what does that make "evolutionary science" -- an "atheist concept"?

Sick News for 09.07.05

It's 9/7/05, and the news is hoppin'.

You know, when it's been 102 degrees and humid for a month, 95 and dry seems just like heaven -- and not the one with Robert Smith and his clown makeup, either. Or the bad movie with what's-her-face that's coming out soon. Really, it does.

Obviously, Katrina and her aftermath is dominating the news these days, for good reason. Every day, there are compelling stories and things to be commented on coming out of there: Sean Penn doing his best to make a good deed seem toolish, Kanye West's candor, Bush's decisions, FEMA's bureaucracy, pumping of contaminated water out of the city, all the displaced people, the massive relief effort, the impact it has on the economy, etc. There really are 100 blog posts to write, and I refuse to turn this into KatrinaBlog. I will share a story from my own life, though: Man Bob Bill, famed Area Manager of Papa John's in North Dallas and in many ways my nemesis, is driving down to Mississippi with a bunch of Papa Bigwigs in the "Papa-Truck." They're going to feed people down there, which is great and nice and makes me rethink my whole position regarding the personal value of one Man Bob Bill. Of course, the happy side effect of this is I don't have to deal with him for a month. Man, I need a new job.
Oh, and it's great that Papa is helping in the relief effort. Man, if I'm a displaced American, or a relief worker, a Papa John's pizza would sound mighty good to me.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin is allowing the "forced evacuation" of the estimated 10,000 citizens still hunkered down in New Orleans. Count that as another sentence I never thought I'd ever be writing. These are truly crazy times. Here's another one: I saw gas for $2.90 today, and that makes me happy.

Did you guys know there's a war going on in Iraq? I wonder how the soldiers out there feel, hearing news of the chaos in the Gulf. Helpless, like we do? Probably. Last week, when the world was going to heck, 900+ Iraqis were killed when a procession became a stampede. Apparently, rumors circulated that there was a suicide bomber in their midst. This is another thing that is beyond sad.

While all this Katrina stuff is going on, California thought it would be a good time to sneak a Gay Marriage Approval Bill through. Well, that settles it. All the cool people are now getting Gay Married, so we're forced as a country to accept it. When you sign your marriage papers, you will now have a box to check to make the wedding "gay." This is the ultimate in personal marriage choice. Now, even straight people can have the rights of the gay married, namely: normal marriage plus unconditional acceptance and pity from the "hipsters" of society.

Admit it: You were afraid of where I was going with that. It's a good thing we are free to talk openly and candidly about homosexuality in this country. Yeah, right. Btw, Ahh-nold still could veto the bill, so don't buy that pink tuxedo just yet.

Here's a question: If you've been retired for 2 days, can coming out of retirement really be considered a comeback? Lance Armstrong is reportedly thinking about coming back just to stick it to the French, which I almost always support. Those snooty tartlets deserve to have Lance come back and win their pretentious race again. Plus, he probably needs a break from that Sheryl Crow, now that they're getting married.

NFL Shocker: The normally capitulary and totally girl-like NFL is refusing to pull Kanye West from it's opening night "Craptacular." In fact, there's a groundswell of support churning for Kanye on this one. It's probably due to the fact that sentiments were clearly heart-felt and expressed a deep frustration shared by many in the black community. This whole hurricane thing is going to re-open many debates regarding the welfare state, helping the poor in urban areas, and so on. And while I think it's crazy to say, "George Bush doesn't care about black people," I think there's a portion of his paying constituency that would rather "urban" people be locked up out of sight where they can't bother "society." They are society, people.

I am Ill, but not THAT Ill.

Let's get one thing straight right now: I hate being sick. I'm rarely feeling under the weather these days, but when I am, I don't do anything. That's why I haven't posted in the last couple of days. That, and my parent-in-laws are here. But don't worry, they're fine and we love them. Especially since Jill's family has a tendency to read this. Allie is especially fond of them, so she's not getting much sleep with all the anticipation going on in her head.

Hurricane Katrina Update: Stuck inside sick, I have seen my fair share of Katrina coverage. I finally saw something good yesterday as a news crew (I don't remember which one, or even what channel it was) set up on one of the highways leading out of New Orleans, looking for refugees who were on foot. They found one hick who said he was "alright" and didn't need any help. Then, like eight punked-out teenagers walked by, and the news crew actually did something useful -- they let one of the punk girls call her dad, a pastor in Ohio, on the news crew's cell phone. It was moving, because you could feel the love on the other end of the line as this father found out his daughter was ok. They made arrangements for dad to come get the punks in a church van. Finally, the news does something that helps people.

They also found three nurses traveling on foot, who told how bad the situation was in the flooded and blacked-out hospitals. Brutal stuff.

In happier, more useless news, I watched Wisconsin beat Bowling Green (whose name I was fascinated by as a child) 56-42. It was maybe the most entertaining college football game I've ever watched. As my wife said, "I might start liking football if they scored that much all the time." Is Wisconsin for real or for fake? Nobody knows. But I feel a lot better about things now that I've seen the running game is still up and running.

Does anyone else care about both hurricanes and Wisconsin football? Probably not. But just so I can be sure I'm alienating everybody, I will mention that my Fantasy Football draft happened this morning (it was automated), and I got pretty much everything I wanted out of it, save the fact that somebody took Peyton Manning first instead of LaDainlian Tomlinson like they should have, so I was stuck with the very fat but also stats-fat Daunte "The Butcher" Culpepper at no. 2. Everything else went well. You should see my receivers, dude. I also got the defenses I wanted, a kicker I like, and the special teams I hand-picked. So this year, when I fail, it will be all my fault.

Since nobody is still reading this after the last paragraph, I will finish this with the very controversial "The Pack is Back."