Razor Sharp Picks: Okay, you can all head to Vegas after reading my picks for the NFL season -- just be sure to play poker or blackjack or something; for heaven's sake, don't bet on any NFL games based on my predictions!

AFC East: New England. You can't put a fork in them yet, although this is the season that will sorely test the "genius" label of Belly. Both top assistants gone, along with some of his veteran defensive muscle.

AFC North: Baltimore. I think Pittsburgh is going to be off to a rough start with both starting RBs hurt, and having to rely on Rothlisburger to carry the day. Baltimore has that incredible defense, and has enough weapons on offense to score more than 13 pts, which is all the defense will allow. The QB is shaky, but just hand it off then...

AFC South: Some are picking Jacksonville. I don't know why. The Colts will win the division; but can they beat New England this year? Probably the last year the team will feature Peyton, Edgerrin and Marvin all together.

AFC West: For some reason I want to pick Oakland and then I look at that team's defense. Still looking...nope, can't find it. Let's say San Diego, with KC having a good shot if the stars align and its defense can find its stride. Otherwise, Brees, Tomlinson, Gates plus a solid D, should carry a weak division.

AFC Wild Card: Pittsburgh and KC (I just don't buy what the Jets are selling).

NFC East: Iggles. Some turmoil, but T.O. will play. McNabb in his prime, good cadre of running backs, Westbrook being one of the most dangerous of all time. Defense may be better than last year, with best secondary in the game. Great kicker. Coaching staff has been together for 6 years, which is forever. Must-win year b/c T.O. is gone afterwards, barring some sort of miracle.

NFC North: It's gotta be Minnesota. Too strong offensively and have worked on the defense in the off-season. Green Bay will be game, but perhaps is getting a bit gamey overall.

NFC South: Carolina. Everyone's Cinderella pick, and I'm not one to argue. Too much talent; very good coach; decent schedule. Tampa Bay still two years away -- needs an offense. New Orleans -- they have bigger issues right now.

NFC West: St. Louis. Weak, weak division. Eno likes AZ to improve, and hey, it can't get much worse, but I dunno -- Kurt Warner's mojo is more lost than Andy Roddick's (and how pissed off must AmEx be right now making Roddick the focal point of its ad campaign, in an "ironic" spin, only to have it be a self-fulfilling prophesy -- some things you simply can't make up).

Wildcards: Dallas, Atlanta.

Superbowl: Iggles vs. San Diego (I know, I know), with the Birds winning in a blow-out.

First coach to get fired: Mariucci. Lions fall to say, 2-7, Mooch gets the boot. Matt Millen steps down from front office to show how bad he can really muck things up.

T.O. Suspension: I agree...he plays all season, barring injury.

First QB Benched: Harrington. The Lions will have to be content with hosting SuperBowl.

Biggest Improvement: Washington. I think the NFC East will return to its glory days of having at least three competitive teams - once Gibbs gets his QB issues straightened out, there is no reason why it won't be a decent team.

Flyer, your turn...

Beads for everyone: Some friends of mine are arranging a Katrina fundraiser with some local bars here in Charlotte. Mardi Gras on Montford (St.) they're calling it. This is a crowd that doesn't need an excuse to drink heavily, but they like looking for one anyway. And raising money for charity isn't a bad excuse, if I may say so. (I'm opposed to the name for a number of reasons, mostly that the event is on a Saturday, not on a "Mardi." I was shouted down for being a dork.)

They wanted to give away strings of beads to everyone who pays their cover charge and were going to buy or get them donated from a store. Well, I just emptied my bag of beads that I have trucked around with me for five years, through numerous residences, for no apparent reason. I never looked at them or did anything with them. It's not like I run around the house in Mardi Gras beads shouting "Throw me something, Mister" to the dogs. The most useless souvenirs imaginable.

Glad I saved them. Glad they'll be put to good use. Glad they'll finally be gone from my attic. And in case you're curious I counted out almost 300 strings of beads, but I remember throwing out twice as many few years ago, the "shit beads" as we called them. The crappy ones that are left on Bourbon St. after the last parade. All mine are high quality, though still pretty ordinary colored beads. I had about 15 strings of really cool, unique, large and decorative beads, with medallions and other ornaments. I won't give those away, but maybe I'll auction them off for donations.

Destiny? Well, it's a long way to go to the final, but James Blake beat Rafael Nadal and then some. He won that match with authority. Each tournament usually features a player who, finalist or not, announces his presence in a way that can't be ignored. At the Open this year, Blake is announcing his arrival as a contender.

Great match, great win.

Rebuilding: Like I said before, New Orleans doesn't face the challenge of having been physically erased, like parts of Mississipi. Some infrastructure remains. Still, anyone who has ever had even a few feet of water in their house knows that the word "repair" doesn't cover it.

Another thing: if ever a city was in need of a major effort, it was NOLA. It was, essentially, still a segregated city. It had some of the worst projects and slums I'd ever seen (and, as Flyer noted, I haven't seen the worst the city had). The schools were unanimously recognized as horrendous, the police force inept, the political structure an onion of corrupt layer after layer. I don't mean to suggest that New Orleans either deserved this or should "look on the bright side." But a realist needs to look at the opportunities that have been presented. Bring New Orleans into the 21st century in any rebuilding effort, or leave it as what it naturally would be: a small, well-flooded bayou.

Open Surprises: Federer won in straight sets last night, but it was uglier in person than on paper. Fabrice Santoro threw everything he had at Roger, and at times really seemed to shake him with some amazing cross-court shots and fearless net play. He came to the net on his second serve numerous times.

Yes, Federer came up with the shots he needed, as if by magic, when he needed them most. But he'd better hope that magic continues. Both Nadal and Blake seem young and hungry this week, and either one will eat Federer's lunch if he's not on his A-game.

More: Both Srichiphan and Grosjean, my two perennial dark horses at any slam event, look like they can sneak into the fourth round. Srichiphan beat the 6-seed Davydenko in straight sets, and before that beat El Aynaoui, who has been a quarterfinalist in Flushing twice, with ease. Grosjean beat 14-seed Thomas Johansson, and only needs to get past Tommy Robredo (who admittedly is having a good year on hard courts for a clay-courter) to reach the fourth.

Both their trips will likely end there, since Grosjean would face the winner of Nadal/Blake, and Srichiphan would see competition like Nalbandian and Hewitt. But both guys have the talent to go further, and both always seem to put up great matches, no matter who they play.

In case you missed it: Give James Taranto's Friday Best of the Web a read. Lots of good tidbits, including some commentary on our topic of the rebuilding of New Orleans.

To all those screaming: Do you not understand the meaning of "worst case scenario?" On Monday we all thought that NOLA had been spared destruction, as Katrina moved slightly east. But the fact is that on Tuesday the levees failed. If the hurricane had hit directly the same thing would have happened. The city would not have filled with water twice or even twice as fast. We got the worst possible event.

I'm sorry I keep saying the same thing, but I'm watching Lou Dobbs right now and I'm trying not to throw my chair at the TV. He's trying to bait Mel Watt into making charges of racism. Fortunately, Watt didn't bite.

Here's a statement from an official involved in disaster planning with FEMA last year:

After the drill, FEMA concluded that progress had been made, and that hurricane planning would continue.

But one of the drill participants, Col. Michael L. Brown, then-deputy director of the Louisiana emergency preparedness department, told the Baton Rouge Advocate newspaper that, in a worst-case scenario, there would be only so much government agencies could do.

"Residents need to know they'll be on their own for several days in a situation like this," Brown, who is not related to the FEMA director, told the paper.

That's pretty much what's happened. It's not easy to watch suffering, and the overwhelming media coverage makes it hard to avoid. I'm not surprised people are angry and I'm aware that the Natl. Guard probably wasn't moved in fast enough or in large enough numbers to maintain security. But short of that I don't know what could have been different. Everyone is screaming "not enough is being done" and some are saying they're ahsamed of our government. I'm watching people work tirelessly to try to deal with an impossible situation. I may find reason to criticize in the future, but I'm not the least bit ashamed.

David Vitter freaks out: From WWL-TV's Katrina Blog:

3:07 P.M. - BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) -- U.S. Sen. David Vitter said FEMA's efforts to deal with the hurricane have been completely ineffective, and he called the federal government's response a failure.

"I think FEMA has been completely dysfunctional and is completely overwhelmed, and I don't know why. This situation was utterly predictable," said Vitter, R-Metairie. "It seems like there was no coherent plan, which I don't understand because this precise scenario has been predicted for 20 years," he said.

I'm sorry, but recognizing the worst case scenario is a long way from coiming up with a plan to deal with it. I just watched a live helicopter rescue. The camera followed a chopper hovering over a house, a rescuer lowered down past various roofs and windows until he stopped at a particular window and began to help an individual out. How did he know where the person was? If they were responding to a call, how did they find the right building with all that water? This is a total logistical impossibility that no amount of planning could have dealt with. David Vitter's career entails many years of service to the State of Louisiana. You think he might have done something about a "coherent plan" in that time.

Frying pan to fire: Just heard from my friend Steven, a Louisiana Natl. Guard captain who's been in Iraq for the past year. He's just been informed that upon his return from rotation next week he'll be activated for 6 months of duty in New Orleans. Lovely.

As Stephen would say, "Required Reading": Will Collier, over at Vodka, says the rest of what I've been thinking, but haven't written, but with much better support and detail, as opposed to my usual hems, haws and mindless speculation.

Death of New Orleans: Micheal Ledeen on NRO.

New Orleans is one of a handful of cities that are defined in large part by the recognition that it can all come to an end most any day. Joel Lockhart Dyer wrote that "New Orleans is North America's Venice; both cities are living on borrowed time." New Orleans and Venice are both subject to the vagaries of the water gods, and both have acted sporadically to fend off their seemingly inevitable fate. But their basic response to the looming disaster has been defiance, a ritual assertion of life in the face of the inevitable, and an embrace of human frailty that echoes the frailty of the city itself.

Put otherwise, let's have a hurricane party.

The worst case scenario: is a looter of somebody getting shot and killed by a guardsman. You think there's criticism of the federal response now, just wait for that to happen.

"Bush late to respond, shoots to kill."

One More Thing: How about Agassi, who is nearly eligible for Social Security, hanging on against Ivo Karlovic in three tiebreaker sets? Ivo is a powerhouse server. Plus he's nearly a foot taller than Andre. Sure, he's not exactly a player's player, but he has the kind of pace that can wear down a has-been pretty quickly.

If ever there was a test for those creaky old bones, the Croatian Sensation was it. Kudos to Andre.

Bush in NOLA: While I said in comments earlier that I don't think it's fair to blame the administration for the chaos that's ensued in New Orleans, I will say that I think Bush has showed a pretty tin ear this week, the same one that he has for just about everything else. While I voted for him, and like him in some respects, he's just not good at showing that he's engaged in a situation. Every piece of information he gets must come in briefing papers.

Bush's greatest moment came after 9/11, when he went to ground zero and took the megaphone in his hand and showed his support for the people hurt there. It was powerful stuff, because it didn't come across as scripted or phony. Why he didn't make a similar show on, say, Wednesday, I don't know. I guess he's going to do that today, but it's too late. It'll come off all wrong, now.

It didn't take a genius to figure out that whatever Hurricane Plan was in place on Monday wasn't going to work on Tuesday. The flood petty much ruined any chance of commencing normal evacuation and cleanup activities. I don't find much fault with FEMA or others for not being able to execute as swiftly as desired. Nobody could have, not with any plan. You just can't plan for 8 feet of water.

But losing control of the security situation wasn't inevitable. Plenty of blame goes to Mayor Nagin, who I think has shown himself to be way over his head, and other local officials. The federal agencies deserve plenty of blame, as well, though. I think they all realize they dropped the ball, but they've picked it back up and are doing the best they can. More suffering ensued because of mistakes all around, but that's what happens with natural disasters.

Now, the Important Stuff: The Blake/Nadal match on Saturday could end up being the best of the fortnight. If you saw James Blake manhandle Igor Andreev last night, you can tell that his footwork, always a strength, has improved. He almost never looked off balance, he patrolled the baseline confidently, he came to the net with a lot of poise, and he just looked comfortable. Plus, his shot placement was phenomenal. He saw more white lines last night than Aerosmith in the late 70s. I'll grant that Andreev is a specialty player, but he's an experienced pro, and Blake handled him in a way that Nadal could not handle Scoville Jenkins (essentially a junior player on a wildcard) on Wednesday. Nadal and Jenkins are roughly the same age, but Jenkins played like an amateur. He didn't play badly so much as inconsistently -- and when he was on target, he gave Nadal some serious headaches. (With some strong coaching, Jenkins could be a contender.)

Anyhoo, Blake sure looks good. Perhaps not Maestro good, but like a bit of a cinderella. Does he have that whiff of destiny, Razor?

NFL Time: Presented with minimal cribbing from chowderheads: For division winners I'll take New England, Pittsburgh, Indy, and Denver in the AFC. For the NFC, I think Parcells really does know what he's doing, so Dallas, Minnesota, Carolina, Seattle. It's silly to go deep in picking all the wildcards, so I'll pick the ones that will emerge: Bengals in the AFC, Cardinals in the NFC. Arizona will ride the wildcard into the superbowl, only to lose to Indy.

Bonus round: Joe Gibbs will be fired first, Owens will not be suspended in the regular season, Cleveland's Trent Dilfer will get benched (although Chicago will wish they could bench Jeff Blake, but they have nobody else) and Arizona, obviously, will have the biggest improvement from '04.

So there. All predictions guaranteed to be similar to coin toss in predictive power.

Great NOLA Blog: I just started reading this, so I am not entirely sure what to make of it, but this appears to be maintained by some employees of a company called Intercosmos Media Group. One or more of the employees has military training and is putting it to good use in manning his outpost at his company, and communicating with various agencies regarding the plight down there. Moreover, he takes a ton of pictures. Very good reporting.

Future of N'awlins: I will, of course, defer to our resident expert on NOLA, but in reading this other expert, my impression of the city's future is quite grim.

His take: the city, as we knew it, is gone. Most tellingly, NOLA is a city with minor industrial/commercial base, but a very large gambling/tourism/hospitality base. Meaning, the city is typically populated by a work force and the tourists said work force serves. Does a full-time population of 500,000 warrant a full-scale re-building? Moreover, given that it will be between 2-4 months before the city is even dried out, the absolute minimum for being able to host any significant degree of out-of-towners again would have be at least a year. First, you have to clean up. Then you have to make it safe. Then you have to re-do all the infrastructure and utilities. Then you have to re-build homes, apartments and hotels. Then, all the social services have to be re-implemented.

All this while the area is sucking state and federal money like there's no tomorrow. Said otherwise, there is no revenue being generated, from within, and without that revenue, besides general contractors, who will want to go back?

Restaurants, casinos, bars - none of them will be adequately supported by local population plus re-construction workforce. Certainly nothing like the pre-flood levels that business owners were used to.

This is not to pile on or somehow "blame" the city of New Orleans for its predicament, just that half of the allure of NOLA was its historical architecture and unique history. With all the demolition that will have to occur, one of two things happens: (1) the city is re-imagined from the ground up or (2) "Welcome to Disney NOLA!!"

Lest we forget: It's NFL time, and TMQ has been at work for a few weeks now. Here is the latest post from yesterday, but he's got about three weeks stored up already. Gregg, it's good to have you back.

Next week I draft my line-up for the fantasy league I'll be participating in. I won't bore you with the outcome unless you beg me to, however, I do think we need to get a little FauxPolitik prediction going, to coincide with every other website doing same.

I suggest we do the following areas: Division Winners, Wildcards, Super Bowl Participants, Super Bowl winner. Then for added glory: (1) first coach to get fired; (2)week for T.O. to be suspended in reg. season; (3) first QB to get benched; and (4) team with biggest improvement in record from 2004 to 2005. If either of you have more creative ideas to add or replace with, please let me know. All picks by next Tuesday.

Re: predictions: I said the other day that I feared claims from the environmental left that Hurricane Katrina was caused by global warming. I was right, and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. gets the prize for being the first to politicize a natural disaster. What's more, he manages to blame Mississippi governor Haley Barbour for stopping passage of the Kyoto protocol, thereby failing to prevent the global warming that caused Katrina. So I guess Mississipi got what it deserved.

First Big Upset: Watched the first two sets of Roddick's stinging loss to Gilles Muller last night. The commentary was surprisingly bad. Usually I like McEnroe's points, but it took a long time for Mac (or his play-by-play buddy) to realize that Muller had done his homework on Roddick. Muller is obviously not the power player Roddick is, and his game is not as complete, but he dissected Roddick's weaknesses like Ivan Lendl last night, hitting to his backhand, serving to the lines, and playing the volley. Muller's net game is mediocre, to be sure, but he kept Roddick from playing his typical bash-from-the-baseline game.

In the end, it appeared that Roddick had thought this match would be a near-walkover. Consequently, he didn't look too familiar with Muller's game, and looked very uncomfortable against a lefty. It was a good match and a great upset.

On the ladies' side, I saw the end of Davenport's win over Li Na. True, Lindsay won in straight sets, but she was really slow to close the door, dropping several match points on the way. She won't get past Dementieva or Patty Schnyder playing that way, and that's just the competition in her bracket.

Storm report: Just reported on WWL-TV, Jefferson Parish residents will be allowed to return in one week to collect necessary items. They will then be required to leave again for a period of one month. Photo id will be required to prove residence in Jefferson Parish before being allowed to enter.

Jefferson is the area just to the west of New Oreleans, and includes Metairie, Kenner, and much of the West Bank area. Now we're starting to get some idea of the scope of the problem.

Best interview during the hurricane: Given all the hysteria and news anchors in their rain slicks, it was a given that there would be tremendous competition for the fresh angle as the storm unfolded hour by hour. Shepard Smith, of Fox News, however, wins hands-down, in asking the insightful questions, and getting the telling answers.

Web TV: WWL-TV, the CBS affiliate in NO, is Webcasting live.

Let's Talk about Sports, Baby: Allow me to return Eno's Open serve with a cross-court knee-buckling slasher just over the net.

Nadal seems (repeat, seems) to have started his ascent from the huge European and South American pool of clay courters, and given the paucity of legit contenders, should (repeat, should) challenge Federer. While Agassi is indeed 87 years old, let's not forget Connors ousting Krickstein when he (Jimbo) was 39 years old, and the yet-to-be-creaky Kricker was still bouncing about on good knees. Will Andre win it? Probably not. But he hasn't missed the US Open in 19 years - which given everything is pretty astounding.

Roddick, as usual, will be fine until he faces The Maestro, and then he will succumb either in straight sets, or to some phantom injury (noteworthy: Roddick won the "Open Series" which entitles him to double-up on the $1.1MM prize money that goes to the winner of the Open - so, take that for what it is worth). Unfortunately Marat Safin is out with an injury (hardly surprising, but disappointing to be sure), as it would have been good to see the only guy to beat Federer on a hard surface in a major take him on.

Great article on James Blake in the NYT Magazine this past Sunday. Funny, I wondered what happened to him, and it's to my discredit that I didn't know the guy had broken his neck ... and that's just for starters. But, he's to play in the US Open, and did pretty well in the aforementioned Open Series. I thought the guy was a bit of a marketing ploy (African American, Harvard-educated, played in Harlem growing up), but the more I read, the more I like him. I'm pulling for him, even though his chances are not good, but the fact that he's playing at all is pretty amazing.

Like Eno said, who knows with Hewitt -- he's just too combustible, and more in the self-immolating way, to be dependable. Guys like Hrbaty and Acic (try pronouncing either one correctly) are also good hard-courters who had some success in the Series - every tournament has a couple surprises; these guys might be sleepers.

For the women, well, last year's champ is out -- a first for the record books. It's not surprising as she's had a horrible year, and was a five seed coming in - pretty hard to do as the returning winner. By all accounts, Venus is looking good, and Serena...well....heavy. Funny how the two of them can't occupy elite status at the same time for very long. Doesn't make any sense, unless you get all psychological on me and say that they don't like to compete against one another.

Justine will do very well, I imagine - her game is a bit soft on power, but she's got it in spades in the toughness and mental departments. Clijsters won the Series for the women, and has the above-reference financial windfall to capitalize on, and let's face it, when healthy, the girl's got game (snap, snap).

The big story (pun intended) of course is Maria. Everyone wants her to win. Everyone wants a player with Anna's looks, Martina's game (don't forget, Martina used to be considered a power player, back when most women looked like Tracy Austin), and say Chris Evert's approachability. If she wins this one, fuggedaboudit. She will be all over the joint.

Davenport will, as always, play solid, occasionally inspired tennis, only to lose to someone who wants it more or due to one of her myriad nagging injuries. Hey, she usually surprises me, but I can never find it within myself to predict a win from her. Finally, no J-Cap still. She hasn't played in about 10 months, and no word on when she'll return. Perhaps we've seen the last bit of tennis from the former wunderkind who is now pushing 30.

Dodging the bullet: It's still too early to tell how bad the damage will be. I went to sleep last night relieved to see people drinking on Bourbon St., the first familiar sight I'd found all day. I don't know what time the levee broke last night, but it's allowing a ton of water to flood from the lake into the city.

Here's a link to the interview with Mayor Nagin that pretty much describes the awfulness. It's grim and very long, but it's the best account I've found of the damage. The good news is that the bridge he describes as being "gone, totally gone," the Twin Span between NO and Slidell, might have just been under so much water that the FEMA people in helicopters couldn't see it. It may be just badly damaged, but not washed away as feared.

Uptown, where I lived and my sister and her family lived until last fal (glad they moved out of the state) was probably the least affected with "only" a few feet of water, lots of trees knocked down, and probably no power for the next month. Most of the grand houses on St. Charles Ave. will survive, compared to the 9th ward projects and ghettos. I'm sure someone will have something to say about the unfairness of that, the poor are always hardest hit etc.. Tell it to the guy who just built a new mansion on the lake or just put down 50 large to join Southern Yacht Club (it somehow managed to sink and burn at the same time). Nobody got off easy here.

The bullet was certainly dodged, in the sense that the storm weakened slightly before hitting the city and it veered east enough to keep it from being a direct hit. Believe it or not, it could have been much worse. When the bullet is this big, though, dodging it doesn't mean a whole lot. If it lands next to you, you still get blowed up.

Worth Mentioning: Razor questions my comment, below, that New Orleans "cheated fate" again. Cheated fate? Yep, I'll stand by the phrase. No mass death, relatively orderly evacuation, minor looting, much of the French Quarter spared serious flooding.

Let's be honest here: With no changes to the levee/drainage system, a Cat 5 storm aimed the right way is going to absolutely wipe the city off the map one day. Rebuilding will be an effort on the scale of London, post-blitz. Only a matter of time.

But not this time. For a few moments it looked like this was the one, and it was curtains for the old city. But a lucky break spared them the full brunt of the storm. Sure, there's lots of damage, and I don't mean to minimize the actual suffering, but the city ducked "the big one" once again. I call that cheating fate.

Open Time Again: Opening day at the U.S. Open got little of my attention today, at least not until New Orleans had cheated fate one more time. Looking at the draws for the Open is tricky this year. It's obviously wall-to-wall with talent, but Federer has raised the . . . er, net again this year, leaving once-promising players huffing. Roddick's phenomenal numbers from the last couple years have gained him bupkus since his lone slam. Lleyton Hewitt played surprisingly little tennis this year for a guy who needs to put up some wins or settle into early-has-been land. And Agassi is . . . what, 43 years old now?

The young Spaniard Nadal is clearly the favorite to challenge Federer. He's a fireball, as opposed to Federer's studied cool, and will play well with the NYC crowd. But will he be able to hang on if Roger brings his A-game? Not likely. He made his bones this year on clay -- no small feat -- but his hard court play has been erratic, from winning the Rogers in Toronto to piking out in the first round in Cincy to perennial Czech also-ran Tomas Berdych. Clearly, the kid has talent and the drive to go after number one. But so did Hewitt in 2001. Let's take a breath.

Predictions: Radley made this prediction yesterday.

An American treasure -- and one of my favorite places, anywhere -- could well be no more as of Tuesday. There's no finer convergence of food, drink, and music than the French Quarter.

Let's hope things go differently. If not, I put the over/under at three days before a Christian Right type comes forth with the idea that God destroyed New Orleans because it's a den of sin.

Well, thank ...uh...God it looks like utter destruction won't come to pass. But there will still be those who wish to place blame for these storms, and I expect the more likely group to point the finger will be the enviro-left global warming crowd.

Hearing rumors: I've been told that famed Mother's Restaurant has been wiped out by Katrina. Totally unconfirmed, though. I'll update if I hear any more details that you can' get from regular news sites. WDSU seems to have the best coverage going.

Light rain: Here's the satellite image of Katrina, courtesy of WDSU TV, with the eye pretty much directly over New Orleans. The weather update on the right side bar says "New Orleans Ariport 80 degrees Light Rain." Perfect.

Should I cool it or should I blow: I spent the weekend at Topsail Island, just north of Wilmington, oblivious to the brewing storm in the Gulf. Last I'd heard Katrina was clubbing in Miami, a category 1 nosebleed, but nothing else.

Got back last night, around 7:00, to find my former hometown pulling up roots and heading for high ground. Freaky.

Eno asks if I would have tried to hang in there for "The Big One." It's a tough question. I have at least one friend who's there for it, keeping an eye on the company warehouse and planning to be miserable for the next few weeks. I'm pretty sure if I were still there I could have found a place to ride it out. Chance of survival very good, and lots of excitement for 36 hours or so. Pretty cool.

But the problem comes afterward. A category 3, which I partied through in 1998, leaves some power outages, a little flooding, and you're inconvenienced for a couple days. Certainly a lot of people lose property from flooding and lots of windows get broken, but if you make it through the storm, you'll be fine. This storm is going to make life miserable for anywhere from a couple weeks to a couple months, with the first week being pretty much hell, literally. This is a city that buries its dead above ground, and this much water is going to open the tombs of many of them. I don't think I'd want to be in the city till the worst of that's cleaned up, assuming there's anything to come back to.

In all likelihood I would have headed to the Covington/Mandeville area, north of Lake Pontchartrain. Still close enough to action to be scared shitless, but with a place to stay for a few days out of the toxic cleanup site.

It looks right now like the storm has weakened, barely, and is making a slight turn to the east. That's good news for the Crescent City, though it will still be very bad, especially for the folks in Biloxi and the Gulf Coast. Here's wishing them safe passage through this storm, and as swift and thorough a recovery as possible. It will be very hard, but you will make it through.

If It Keeps on Rainin', The Levee's Gonna Break: The Crescent City appears to be looking down the barrel of "the big one" that everyone has talked about. The levee system, which keeps the city dry (some of the time), will likely not withstand Katrina.

"We are facing a storm that most of us have long feared," Mayor Ray Nagin said in ordering the mandatory evacuation for his city of 485,000 people, surrounded by suburbs of a million more. "The storm surge will most likely topple our levee system."

Meanwhile, some tourists are stuck with nowhere to evacuate to.

Tina and Bryan Steven, a couple from Forest Lake, Minn., who came to attend a conference of emergency medical services, sat glumly on the sidewalk outside their hotel in the French Quarter . . . [Tina], wearing a Bourbon Street T-shirt with a lewd message, interjected: "I just don't want to die in this shirt."

A true Yat would rather die than be seen in the shirt in the first place, naturally. Which leads me to Flyer, who knows what its like to ride out a New Orleans hurricane. It comes down to a simple choice: Beat feet or stock beer.

So here's the question, Flyer. You're in your apartment, you've laid in a few cases of Abita and a carton of smokes, and Mayor Nagin has just announced, "Last one out take the flag, please." Stay or go? It seems to me that with some serious preparation, you could stay and observe this in relative safety. But would you want to hang around to see your home taken away?

The tastefully named Brendan Loy is all over this storm.

The Lance Mystery: I doubt we'll ever know for sure about Lance Armstrong's 1999 piss test for performance enhancers. The thing they were testing for wasn't even illegal back then, after all. But the French sure seem to have a throbbing boner for the guy, as the latest flap makes clear.

Seems to me that no non-Frog could win the Tour seven times and not have his motives, integrity, and medical record questioned. It's a matter of national pride. I mean, what else do they have, other than this silly two-wheeled race through an inconsequential country? At least the Italians, for example, realized that it's better to blow through les pays at high-speed, in a motorized conveyance -- preferably the twelve-cylinder kind. I've said it before, and it bears repeating: The Tour de France is the dumbest sporting event ever conceived. Imagine riding your bike across the French countryside, an idiot trustifarian sort of accomplishment at best, without stopping to swill some vin ordinaire, eat some cheese that smells like your biking shoes, and take a twirl with the comely lasses of the villes (suggested courting gifts: perfume, economy size, and a twin-blade Bic).

Still, the stupid American pulled it off 7 times. Was he doping? Who the hell knows, but the question is ridiculous in nearly any professional sport. Surely others were doping. Why couldn't they beat Lance? Ah, hell with it.

More here.

Mohr to the point: Jay Mohr, the sometimes funny comic from SNL and Jerry Maguire fame, comes to my rescue. Jay...I owe you beers.

Have it your way: More hysteria from the media and government about fast food and its cause-and-effect relationship with childhood obesity. This is one of Radley Balko's bete-noirs, along with his fight to defend doctors who prescribe legal medicine, yet are targeted by the DEA, et al. because that medicine just so happens to be big league pain opiates. Radley's libertarian bona fides are certainly beyond reproach and I find his postings very informative and amusing.

The article in question, decrying how close fast food restaurants are to schools in the cities (and are therefore inherently dangerous), misses the point, which Radley also notes, stating how it's not that Fast Food doesn't offer healthy alternatives to bacon-wrapped, deep-fried meat sticks with mayo dipping sauce (yummy!), but that no one, well, at least not kids, chooses them.

I'd like to join in Radley's chorus, but also keep going. First of all, one must determine whether fast food is being consumed on a daily basis as opposed to occasionally, before one can even get to the issue of whether fast food is a problem with which we must even address.

I eat at hamburger joints on occasion. Probably less than once a week - not because of any higher virtue, but b/c I work in a major city that has a lot more options, even for the workaday $5-8 lunch alternative; and fast food is something I can get anywhere. However, when I go to eat fast food, I'm going not for the friggin' salads, I can assure you that. Meaning, I target fast food as an option when I want some greasy hamburgs, overly-large fries, and a soda to wash it all down. Stated another way, to me, fast food is an escape - an escape from the daily grind of trying to choose healthy or at least, non-deadly, alternatives for daily consumption.

It's the difference between having a glass of wine or two with dinner, and going to the bar for six pints and then rounds of Jagermeister with your new best friends with whom you've just decided to pool your money together to finally make that reunion movie with the cast from "The Facts of Life" (Do you think they're available??). The point is, you know going into the place that you're about to make some unhealthy decisions. The difference between some occasional and mostly harmless fun, and an appearance on The Smoking Gun is of frequency and degree.

If the "Gubbinment" takes away all my unhealthy choices - that can only possibly affect my life (I'll make the distinction on smoking only this once because one can argue that smoking can affect people second-hand [not that it's true, but that you can argue it]), just because others can't seem to control themselves, then there is no stopping the merry-go-round of government intervention into my life.

Fast food is one of this country's most successful exports - it may not say much about our culture, but it says a hell of a lot about our ability to tap into a universal human desire - much like our exportation of sports and entertainment. Complain all you want, but people are getting that which they desire. The only way to change the outcome is to change the desire, not the supply. One look at the "War on Drugs" should tell you all you need to know about "supply-side" prohibition.

Unfortunately (or not, depending on your viewpoint), changing preferences is much harder than simply outlawing that which we desire. My guess is that if we wanted to stop or at least greatly reduce fast food consumption by those who are most at risk, a good starting point would be diminishing the poverty gap, strengthening families, and increasing knowledge about diet and activity.

On second thought, just put a 50% tax on Big Macs and hold a press conference announcing: "Mission Accomplished."

Thoughts on movies: John Cole had this post yesterday at his Balloon Juice blog about falling prices on home video technology. I mention it only because I went to a rare movie in the theater this weekend, and was disappointed as usual. Saw the new "thriller" from Wes Craven, Red Eye, an outstandingly craptacular flick with Rachel McAdams and Cillian Murphy. I would be glad to never see this movie, but it's perfectly suited to a rental. $4 and some popcorn, not a great waste if the movie blows. $20 plus for two to go to the theater ain't worth it anyomore unless I know I'm going to be entertained.

This year I've seen Star Wars, Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, and the above mentioned Red Eye in the theater and only Star Wars was worth it. And that probably had less to do with the movie than with the release of 6 years of pent up anticipation. The girlfriend asked a good question after the movie Friday: How do these theaters stay in business? How? The place was packed? Why? Can't answer that one.

Or as The Onion put it: My little self-righteous diatribe against "Intelligent Design" was of course, spot on and everything, but a bit dry - I mean, it's hard to be so insightful and witty at the same time. Well, hard for me anyway. The Onion did all that and more just in its headline. God, those guys are good.

For "Inveterate Imperialists" Only: Some people have too much time on their hands that they can devote a goodly amount of effort to creating websites that have no real purpose (bloggers aside of course!), but at the same time, are wildly entertaining.

NK News is just such a site. Its creator has managed to cull every article posted on the official propa...I mean news site of the North Korean government since December, 1996. Certainly, the creative jargon used by the government news agency is always good for a laugh, but I'm particularly enamored by the "Random Insult Generator," to wit:

You politically illiterate renegade, we will annihilate you with a fresh revolutionary upswing!

Or:

You imperialist renegade, we will transform your country into a sea of fire!

Okay, that one was more of a threat than an insult, but you get my drift.

More amusing the co-opting of the Kim Jong lookalike marionette from "Team America: World Police," which if you haven't seen, you are missing out.

Toto, we're not in an intelligently designed political state anymore: Okay, Kansas moves one step closer to teaching intelligent design to its public school students. Is it a little surprising? Yeah, it is. But, certainly the writing was on the wall.

What confuses me more however is the impetus:

"We think this is a great development ... for the academic freedom of students," said John West, senior fellow of the Discovery Institute, which supports intelligent design theory.

Hmmm, okay, it's about "academic freedom." I suppose that isn't a bad thing. So, one presumes that Kansas will soon be teaching about crop circles being evidence of alien visitations, how tinfoil hats keep the government waves from controlling our actions, and how L Ron Hubbard may be on to something after all.

See, the push for ID in schools is not about "academic freedom." Those behind ID are about pushing an agenda, specifically designed to advance a belief-based curriculum. Whatever you may think about evolution; it is God-neutral - it neither advances, nor curbs, the proposition that everything on earth (and all around us for that matter) was created by some higher, sentient being. It just says that once the spark of life got here, however that was, the way we are now came about due to things like natural selection.

The important part of course, is that Darwin's theories are scientifically supportable. It doesn't mean that we might not find ways to scientifically alter them, or even disprove them one day. But, to teach kids that life as we know it was/is intentionally designed, by one mother-fucker of an engineer, is not only not provable, it's not even demonstrable. It's like saying "Yellow is the most beautiful color around, because I can't imagine a more beautiful one, therefore it must have been created by a divine artist." The whole theory is self-centered - in our perception of what is possible - as opposed to what is objectively demonstrated by observance and testing.

Evolution should not be viewed as the end-all, be-all, nor a threat to religious belief in general. It should just be viewed, rightly, as the best scientific explanation going. ID has no real foundation in science, it is merely an alternative - one that is not entirely crack-pot, but one that is nonetheless as provable or demonstrable as my deeply-held belief that the divine drunken otter in the sky made us by accident. Weep for Kansas...weep.

So nice I read it twice: A penetrating review of The Dukes of Hazard movie over at Libertas. Just think about it:

However, if constructivism holds, we have to choose between dialectic narrative and a ‘great ass. '

I may go back and read it a third time, just to make sure I caught all the nuance.

Apologies: Here is the link. Enjoy!

Crackdown: If they'd had this law in Dayton when I went to college I would have been screwed.

A new ordinance is being considered in Anderson to keep certain types of furniture off porches.The Anderson City Council is working on a new ordinance that would ban traditional indoor furniture from being kept outside on a porch.

We once moved a friend's entire living room out into the driveway, including tv, lamps, coffee tables etc. An extra full size fridge, not the mini fridge, was requisitioned and hooked up and we spent a solid 12 -15 hours pretending nothing unusual was going on. And once I had a recliner stolen from my porch while a friend was passed out in the couch next to it. Never forgave him for not waking up.

Of course, the behavior of drunken college kids shouldn't be the standard of behavior for polite society.

Via Radley

What's in a name: More from The Corner. I agree with John Podhoretz's thoughts here about renaming streets. He's opposed to a movement to rename 16th St. in D.C. after Reagan.

Renaming something so very familiar is an act of government high-handedness, as the New York City example of renaming 6th Avenue "Avenue of the Americas" demonstrates. It's been 60 years, and nobody calls it Avenue of the Americas, and nobody ever will (except for real estate reasons). I'm all for honoring Ronald Reagan, but not this way -- not in a way that would embarrass Reagan himself.

It's seems a little arbitrary, although maybe 16th St. has some Reaganesque symbolism I don't know about. I could still get behind Eno's idea to create a dollar coin with the Gipper's likeness. That would be more fitting.

Razor's nightmare continues: Flip flops aren't just tacky, they're a killer. Serves the tasteless bastards right, though, eh Raz.

Via The Corner.

Excuses: As Flyer noted, I'm taking two weeks off (starting Monday) to relax, after which I'll return home, do my encore performance of Julius Caesar in early September, and then be back to blogging fairly regularly. Doesn't look like the nomination of Judge Roberts will give us much to fight about, but maybe Bolton will stir up that rogues gallery on Turtle Bay and give us a good sideshow. Something's gotta happen, right?

President Rodham: I've puzzled over this a couple of times, Flyer, and I could never figure out why, aside from the Ferraro disaster in 1984, the Democrats -- the party of women and minorities, we're told -- is positively allergic to running them nationally. It's been widely noted, in addition, that Bush Jr.'s cabinet looks more like America than Clinton's cabinet that he promised would "look like America." Besides which, Clinton's big minority nod was to put Kimba Wood, er, Zoe Baird, uh, Janet Reno, or some broad (though he claimed to be looking for "the best-qualified individual") in the AG spot, but only as a beard for Webb Hubbell.

At any rate, it highlights how deep in thrall traditional "minorities" are to the Dems. They don't have to let them play, after all. What are they going to do, join the GOP?

That said, Hillary does have the personality problem, so the Kos-ian protestations may be partly honest (though I really suspect a lot of older, male, honky Dems are afraid minorities will take the party from them). Last month's Atlantic surveyed influential Democrats about the '08 election, and they generally agreed that long-term exposure to Hillary is going to turn off even some who "like" her. She might surge at first, like Howard Dean did in the '04 primaries, but then she'll start to grate on folks. Look for '08 to be another white male vs. white male contest.

The perils of a Hillary nomination: Kos comes out against a Hillary '08 campaign, because she's dull as dishwater boring and the Dmocratic base needs someone cool they can rally around. And someone that still has positions well left of the DLC moderates. I don't know if he's really afraid she'd be so boring that turnout would be down. After all, the first female presidential candidate ought to be enough reason for your base to come out in support. Maybe the real problem is fear that she's for real with some of her moderate/right positions (hawkish on Iraq, not too doctrinaire on abortion) and not just playing to the masses. Although I'm inclined to believe that he only reason she ever does anything is to gain political advantage, and I doubt Kos believes any differently, I'm skeptical about that scenario as well.

What I really found odd in his post, though, was this line.

Given a choice between personality and policy, voters have been picking personality for the LAST SEVEN ELECTIONS. But Dems are still acting as if the voters have the same attention span they had during the Lincoln-Douglas debates, or even the Kennedy-Nixon debates.

What? Americans have short attention spans? Just conservatives, Kos, or do you think any bong smoke theorists on the left, with their short term memory obliterated, have trouble staying awake through a John Kerry ten point plan to come up with a ten point plan to improve the economy? Maybe you're right, though. If we were all as informed about the issues and detailed plans as they average voter was in 1858, I'm sure everything would be great. Information widely disseminated at the speed of horse and average education levels pretty low, even by modern DOE standards. That's the ideal situation for voter awareness.

And the Kennedy-Nixon debate was pretty much the beginning of modern "popularity contest" politics. Kennedy got elected because he and his wife were pretty and his daddy was rich, the ultimate triumph of style over substance. You can claim that modern voters make some decisions for pretty stupid reasons (like what they heard in a Green Day song) but don't pretend there was some halcyon day of intellectual debate when the masses trotted out to stadiums to cheer the noble competitors thrust and parry with their daggerlike tongues (and your guy, naturally, won the day).

All he's really saying is that we keep losing even though we're so much smarter than our opponent, so it must be style. Let's find some of that '92 sax-playing mojo!

Maybe you keep losing because when the style isn't there and people actually hear you talk, they stay away in droves.

Flashback on Bolton: Mark Steyn's (long) take on John Bolton's nomination/appointment. From March, but very funny and very on point. Demorat hand wringing over Bolton isn't about his personality, temper, or impatience with subordinates. It's that when he says the UN needs reform, he's not talking about

change(ing) three-letter acronyms (INS) to four-letter acronyms (BCIS) just to show how serious we are, and a year or four down the line we may well get real tough and require five-letter acronyms.

Intelligent design: I don't think Bush is trying to push Christianity on anyone, while promoting the idea that we can expose children to more than one idea and worldview, including intelligent design. He means well

Unfortunately that's no excuse. This is just a bad idea for a federal Department of Education and it's a pretty dumb move politically. Christian conservatives can accept (I hope) that once the government starts teaching one religious idea, it pretty much has to give equal time to every other viewpoint. Unless you're in a parochial school stick to that which can be proven by scientific method and tell the little whelps to meditate if they want any answers beyond that.

Hat tip John Hawkins.

I'm too sexy for this ad: I'm not sure I can even respond to this.

From the London Times:

Drinks companies have been ordered to hire paunchy, balding men for advertisements to meet new rules forbidding any link between women’s drinking and sex. Watchdogs have issued a list of undesirable male characteristics that advertisers must abide by in order to comply with tougher rules designed to separate alcohol from sexual success.

Read and be amazed.

Get ready, Eno: Not much blogging lately, and I suspect I know one reason why. Eno is beginning to binge drink in preparation for the annual trip to Catawba two weeks hence. It's really crucial that you begin to abuse the body as much as possible now, so as to be used to the pain inflicted by drinking large quantities of cheap beer and margaritas. No excuses, Eno. If you don't prepare now, you'll end up like this guy.

MoveOn in the house: Was downtown for most of the day today, a couple of meetings dragging me out of the air conditioned goodness, and representatives from MoveOn.org were canvassing the city trying to get people to sign their petition to oppose the nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court. Here's their beef:

In nominating John Roberts, the president has chosen a right wing corporate lawyer and ideologue for the nation's highest court instead of a judge who would protect the rights of the American people. Working for mining companies, Roberts opposed clean air rules and worked to help coal companies strip-mine mountaintops. He worked with Ken Starr (yes, that Ken Starr), and tried to keep Congress from defending the Voting Rights Act. He wrote that Roe v. Wade should be "overruled," and as a lawyer argued (and won) the case that stopped some doctors from even discussing abortion.

The elderly lady that cornered me was going on about Roberts' allowing the federal government to meet secretly with corporations. I'm not sure if this was a case he ruled on as a judge or a brief he wrote, but she assured me that he was defending an illegal practice. I'm not sure what the law is on this, but I guess her problem was with Cheney meeting with energy companies (the horror!) when formulating energy policy reccomendations. 'Cause energy companies wouldn't have anything useful to contribute to that discussion.

I asked her if it was okay that Hillary and company had met secretly with healthcare companies when formulating her HillaryCare plan in Bill's first term. To the best of my knowledge, the situations were similar, at least legally.

I'll have to dig a little to refresh my memory on the details, but she seemed to buy my argument and looked rather crestfallen about the whole thing. Like whe'd been given a new toy and it broke an hour out of the box.

First time I've seen MoveOn in Charlotte, but it's no surprise. They're trying to turn it into New York south.

Dead on: A couple days old, but very funny take on Bush nominating a new justice. On Huffington's Toast:

No, seriously, my nominee is someone beloved not just by my own party, but also by members of the opposition pres…party. Ladies and Gentlemen and Keith Olbermann, I give you my nominee…Ms. Anonymous Sources. Or “Nonnie”, as I like to call her.

Read the whole thing. It's short and quite funny.

Baby, Baby, Where Did Our Love Go? Bush's question to Bobby Byrd, no doubt. (Oh, and that's former klansman Bobby Byrd, by the way.) What does our resident legal expert (har har) think of Bush's pick to replace Her Majesty the Fifth Vote in the Supremes? I have a feeling that he's going to fly this one in under the radar. Sandy Dee was, at least nominally, a Republican. It's more of a gimme. The same candidate, nominated to take J.P. Stevens's spot, would be crucified on a cross of . . . er, paper, I suppose. Who the hell knows, but my guess is that this one will be quieter than expected.

Disney: It was 95 degrees and 90 percent humidity the other day. Felt like I was back in DC. To beat the heat, I took the boy (that's L'il Enobarbus) to see a piece of CGI dreck called Madagascar. Boy, did it ever suck. I'm a fool for kids movies. Love Fantasia, love Nemo, even Toy Story has small charms, and Incredibles rocked. We took the DVD of Dumbo with us on vacation in March; I bet the two of us watched it six times. Anyhoo, this plotless, wafer-thin fiasco of a movie consists mostly of zoo animals shouting dumb catchphrases at one another for an hour plus. Gratuitous example: A zebra tells his lion pal (wait for it), "You da cat!"

Worth mentioning: Every Disney flick, even the suckola ones, are redeemed by minor characters. It's like Walt's first commandment: Though shalt find a place for quality comic relief. Think of the dwarves' dance party in Snow White, the hep-cat crows jiving in Dumbo (now, I presume, officially considered minstrelsy), and Potato Head and Ham insulting each other in Toy Story. Even the execrable Lion King was redeemed (partially) by Timon and Pumbaa. Madagascar is no exception. Ali G turns in a great performance as a fairly witless King of the Lemurs. Cedric the Entertainer plays (wonderfully) his rather unimpressed assistant.

Rent the DVD for the kids, Razor, and you can watch the good parts.

What is Porter Goss going to do about it??!?: Our intelligence and security forces are in a shambles, yet not even Karl Rove could have come up with such threat to our nation's well-being. No, this goes beyond loose lips. Our very own White House, with the President in residence, was recently infiltrated by a cluster of the most insidious and dangerous devices known to man this side of ICBMs.

Was it sarin laced micro-needle projectiles fired from the tip of an otherwise innocuous fountain pen?

No.

A briefcase-sized nuclear weapon?

No.

Ummm, a ceramic pistol with fragmentary ballistics?

Wrongo, amigo.

No, it was much, much worse. It was...it was...flip flops! Not only did these foul items breach the perimeter of the White House, they "thwack-thwacked" their way right up the Commander in Chief, as Secret Service agent after Secret Service agent stood idly by, talking into his wrist. W, seemingly oblivious to his own personal safety, as well as the affront to his office, greeted the agent provocateurs who wore the cursed thongs (you know, not the good kind), with smiles and platitudes, while being literally a couple of scarcely covered feet away the whole time from the fanatics bent on footwear fatwah.

I nearly moved to Alaska (the only state known to be flip flop free [plus they got the doobage - Eno]) such was my revulsion and panic. Yet, I cannot give up hope just yet. I have faith in my leaders to act. Install martial law, put the meter at Red, suspend habeus corpus...for god's sake do something, but do it before the unthinkable happens: Barbara Bush mounting the steps to Air Force One in day glo plastic and rubber flip flops, snapping gum and remarking on what a good meal for the money that Olive Garden is. Oh the humanity...

Baited and hooked: Not all golfers are in great physical condition. Neither are all baseball players (former Phillies first baseman John Kruk said so, famously, when confronted at a bar and criticized for his alcohol and nicotine consumption). Neither are all football players. I'm sorry, the Fridge was a load, that's all.

Of course baseball and football are sports, and so is golf. And it's a very serious sport, as is evident from this all important statistic. It may require a different set of physical skills, but it's still as physically demanding, in it's own way, as many other sports.

And if physical condition and heart rate levels equated to good sporting entertainment, we'd all be watching soccer. Thank goodness that's not the case.

Stop the Presses!: Tiger is in the lead at the British Open, and a 65 year-old man isn't going to win it. What a world, what a world!

Imagine if OJ...okay bad example, Earl Campbell somehow made it back onto the Houston Oile....er Tennessee Titans (or is it Houston Texans??)...anyway, imagine some real old ex running back suited up again to play in the NFL. Would anyone be writing anything but "The man is obviously crazy or desperate for money?" Now, granted, golf is not a sport. Look at the leader board again. Colin Montgomerie is in 2nd. John Daly at T14. The two of them look like they should be sponsored by Arbys, not a golf club manufacturer (well, Daly may in fact be sponsored by Arbys, but you get my idea).

Anyway...again...my point (and I have one) is all this fuss over a man whose last meaningful round of golf was probably, what...15 years ago, is all so much blather. The friggin guy is old and decrepit. Yes, he's one of the true greats, yes he could beat me at golf using one hand and a length of copper tubing, but he doesn't belong on the Old Course at St. Andrews in the British Open. It's nice that he gets some lifetime exemption or something, but please, why not just give Michelle Wie a slot too and complete the mockery? Something about golf that it just does away with reason, and submits to sentimentality...or is it just a ruse by the Golf Channel to get ratings for Days 1 and 2 before ABC or whomever picks it up for the weekend?

And what's more...if Colin Montgomerie wins or comes in second, I will eat my tamoshanter.

Time to get broadband Eno: Or maybe you already have it. In any case, you'll want to click here for what will surely be your most enjoyable internet, streaming media/download experience. I daren't give it away...

Green on Sullivan on torture: I read Andrew Sullivan's thoughts yesterday on the Gitmo report and had exactly the same thoughts on it as the Vodkapundit. Except without all the smart "Jacksonian" references. I just said Andrew's full of shit and went back to whipping the naked Iraqi civilian I keep tied up in my office. It's fun, but they sure scream a lot.

Fisking Ralph Nader: Came across a new Web site this morning, The League of Fans, a “sports reform project founded by Ralph Nader to increase awareness between sports and society.” I didn’t realize there was a deficiency of awareness that there are sports that some people play and some others watch and oftentimes money is exchanged when this occurs. But Ralph’s not the most hip and with-it cat on the block, so it’s nice to see he’s catching up. It’s also good to know that the League of Fans isn’t, in fact, a crime fighting team of painted-face, wig wearing, beer guzzlers with enormous foam fingers with which they battle evil. Or a Special Olympics baseball organization.

So what’s on the minds of these highly concerned sports fans, eh? I don’t have 9 hours to go through their “Core Principles,” so we’ll just cherry pick a little, meaning this is only a partial fisking (not fair I guess, but brevity isn’t Ralph’s strong suit, so I’m forced to do some skimming):

Sports are no longer outside the realm of everyday citizen concern. Many people, fans or not, are upset with what has become of our sports and would like to make a difference by encouraging the cooperative capacities that make the "sports powers-that-be" capable of helping, not just dominating, our society and culture.

Athletes are very popular, to be sure, but they don’t dominate our culture any more than movie stars or other celebrities. We have, in large part, become a nation of star-fu****s, but lobbying the NBA isn’t going to change that. The best we can hope for is for people to show a little good judgment

. Public money should not be used to further the profits of sports corporations. There is no justification for cities and states to subsidize professional sports franchises with taxpayer (or otherwise public) dollars to build new stadiums or arenas, nor to provide them with other forms of corporate welfare. It is not a public purpose. Major pro sports teams are private, profit-seeking companies with very wealthy owners working within monopoly leagues and should have no trouble surviving the tests of a free market.

Actually, I agree with the sentiment here. Publicly funded stadium deals are a scam and raise the prices of everything in sports, not to mention everyone’s taxes. I suppose if a local community votes via referendum to appropriate money for it there’s a case to be made for it, but, a public good it ain’t. Given recent trends in private property issues (Kelo, in particular) maybe it’s time we allow the free market it’s day on this one. Point for Nader.

Commercial advertising in sports has gone too far and is getting more intrusive, and should be scaled back. The ongoing commercialization of sports is shifting the primary focus of games away from showcasing skill and competition, and toward simply creating another forum to sell more things. This corporate branding destroys the character and virtues of sport with a commercialized vision where everything is for sale, and every waking moment an occasion for an advertisement.

Uh, Ralph, that free market thing you mentioned before? Guess what? That involves private businesses who wish to use their money to associate themselves with the leagues, teams, and athletes in question. So they can make money. The free market isn’t charitable contributions to the NFL. You don’t like advertisements, be prepared to have most sports become almost invisible or ridiculously expensive.

Fans of major professional sports should learn about the business practices of their favorite sports teams and leagues. The outdated and unrealistic romance fans still attach to major professional sports allows greedy team owners to work against the interests of fans, and to extort corporate welfare from cities. As much as fans love major professional sports, it is a pathological profit-seeking industry that cares little for fans and communities.

Leaving aside that I have no idea what “pathologically profit-seeking” means, this sounds about as fun for the average fan as doing their taxes. I can’t even figure out the infield fly rule, now I’m supposed to study salary cap rules and contract law.

It is better in the long-term for a sports franchise to work to maximize the number of fans in attendance with lower ticket, concessions and parking prices rather than maximizing profits with higher prices. Fans should be able to purchase reasonably priced tickets and concessions and be treated with courtesy and respect. Everyone should be able to attend, not just the elite. Collective bargaining should take sports fans and host cities into account. Fans should have the right to have their interests in the resolution of disputes effectively expressed, and cities that have subsidized the league in question should be compensated for damages due to any work stoppages.

This sounds like something else that should be left to the newly discovered free market Ralph mentioned earlier. Little thing called supply and demand, my friend. By the way, all that advertising Nader hates is what allows the average fan to watch games on TV for free instead of schlepping into downtown Boston and watch the Sawx play. As for fans rights in collective bargaining sessions, that’s laughable. Think the UAW guys at Ford want me in the negotiations voicing my interests next time their contract comes up? Fans have the right to consume or not consume. Watch or not watch. Cheer or Bronx cheer. That’s it.

I can’t go on with this. There’s like 15 more principles and I’ve wasted too much time already on this nonsense. Ralph Nader is a complete idiot, though, and no fan of sports, or the fans who watch them.

Double Super Secret Background: Because the Rove story is complicated, full of legal, journalistic and ethical questions, there is really only one source to turn to. Yes...The Daily Show.

The blogger paradox: I agree with Eno's take on journalists - standing up for a principle usually involves at least the risk of some consequences. Miller should have to pay a price, but I don't think a very high one. Six months at Gitmo or something oughta do it.

About the question of treating bloggers as journalists, I'm not sure what bloggers really want. If they want to be treated as "legitimate" members of the media, and be granted certain privelages common to journalists, they might also be subject to the restrictions of the media, i.e falling under the purview of McCain-Feingold. The blogoshpere, I think, should be exempt from campaign finance legislation because it's really just a discussion board writ large. Some people are smarter or more informed than others, but it's still a roundtable of equals. As opposed to the MSM, which basically spoonfeeds the news they want you to know and gives you no way to respond as an equal. I'm not in favor of strict regulation of newspapers either, but there's a case to be made for some legislation I suppose. But the blogosphere? C'mon. You can't treat the mighty Fauxpolitik the same as some piddly rag like the WaPo.

But for bloggers to get that kind of protection, I think they'll have to recognize they are not journalists in the same sense as a reporter from the AP.

I'd hear arguments for certain exceptions - Drudge, Glenn Reynolds, Mickey Kaus. Maybe more. But the vast majority of the Pajamas Media ought to be thankful they're not professional journalists and protect bloggin as private speech.

Da Hammer of Justice: By the way, in all the courtrooms I've ever been in (usually as a lawyer, mind you), I've never heard or seen a gavel used. This is purely a device for t.v.

Miller does not have a right to withhold her source from the Grand Jury. Grand Juries, for those of you unfamiliar, are the most scary judicial bodies in existence. They serve with an all-powerful ability to compel testimony and evidence. You, as a witness, have almost no right to refuse to testify, no right to counsel, your 5th Amend rights aren't explained or really even acknowledged. If indicted, the prosecutor pretty much can hide the evidence that would otherwise tend to call your guilt into question.

The key distinction to be made is that you're not being found guilty of anything; only that there is a prima facie case being put on that suggests the indictment should stand pending trial.

The ABA tried a while ago to re-introduce some civility into the process, and return the grand jury to what it was supposed to be, or a "bulwark" between the government and you. If you've followed any of the federal cases of late, this Miller one only being the most noteworthy example, you'll see how little credence the USDOJ tends to give the ABA.

Miller, while not being indicted, has refused to testify; not on the grounds that she might incriminate herself, but that she doesn't want to give up her sources. The argument is that the press will be chilled if it cannot interview people because they are afraid of themselves being indicted based on what they say to the press. This would be poignant in typical "whistle blower" cases, where indeed, you want people to speak out against corruption, etc.

However, the Government's case is equally compelling: just because someone, who did something illegal (or potentially so) tells a reporter details of that crime, doesn't mean that the reporter can withhold the details from a grand jury, which is empowered with broad investigatory tools. Disobeying a subpoena from a grand jury is tantamount to contempt, hence Miller's dilemma.

You can say it's noble, and it probably is, but harboring a criminal who gave you an interview isn't the best defense I've ever heard. Especially when you're making money off of that information, tooting your own horn in the process. It is not analogous to a priest taking confession, or something of that nature.

Of don't cry for Miller too much. She's got a nice book deal in the works out of this one. Count on it.

Two Cents: Viking Pundit noticed this story from Editor and Publisher:

Bob Woodward has offered to serve some of jailed reporter Judith Miller's time behind bars, and urged others to share her incarceration as well.

(Click here for the Viking's witty and true take on it.) I'll force this into a springboard for another point, though. I don't much know the law, so Razor will have to help out. But it seems to me Miller should go to jail (though whether Woodward or anyone else can "serve her time for her" is another matter). Is the journalistic shield a legal matter, or an ethical one? Ethical, I think. A reporter protects her source, right? But the courts shouldn't necessarily recognize that the way they recognize, say, attorney-client privilege. After all, a client has to talk to his attorney, to some extent, if he wants good representation. Thus the protection. But a source isn't obligated to speak to a reporter, so why should there be protection?

Look, if Miller goes to jail for pretecting her source, amen to her. That takes guts. But I have always thought that the protection of a source was something reporters did at their own risk anyway. That's the point, isn't it? It doesn't take much guts to protect a source if you have immunity from subpoena, after all.

This has become a major stir in the blogging community too. Should bloggers have any kind of protection? Sure, and anybody with a crappy webpage can defy a court order. I like the idea of credentialing a few bloggers for political conventions and suchlike, but I've never been a big enough fan of journalists to want to live in a world where everyone is one.

Put Miller in the clink.

9/11 Meomorial: Latest update from the "Take Back The Memorial" group, interested in preserving ground zero as a tribute to those who died on 9/11 rather than turn it into a cultural center. And by "cultural" center, I mean a stage for the left to blame America for every problem in the world. Here's a quote from LMDC chair Tom Bernstein:

"Its cultural and educational programs will make the Center a place of lively and important dialogue – a new and permanent “Public Square” on hallowed ground -- where matters of public concern will be placed in new light. Cultural and educational programming will include university-sponsored seminars and lecture series, civic conferences and workshops, films and film series, symposia relating to historical and contemporary freedom issues, and a wide range of Lower Manhattan local community events."

Lovely idea that, local community events on what is essentially a giant graveyard. And NYC could use another Tribeca Film Festival, maybe a 24/7/365 screening of Farenheit 9/11 and Motorcycle Diaries.

What other hallowed sites in America could become such "Public Squares?" Gettysburg? Perfect for "lively and important dialogue" about slavery reparations. Pearl Harbor? Let's stir up a little international understanding discussion inside the memorial to the USS Arizona. We could go on and on, at home and around the world. The Berlin Wall. Aushwitz.

I guess politics must intrude on everything today.

Possible history in the making: 15 year old Michelle Wie is currently 1 shot inside the cut line at the PGA Tour's John Deere Classic. If she can do it, she'll be the first woman (I think) 60 years or so to finish in the money at a men's event (though she's an amateur so she can't collect).

Cast your votes now: Greatest philospher of all time.

Big deal. Like anybody ever made a buck on it. Ever met someone who inherited a big "logical positivist" fortune? I didn't think so.

London reaction: Some concern at Hog on Ice and Moxie that there's too little outrage in blogdom at the London Terrorist attacks. Possibly. I had little to say about it yeterday and little today. It's horrible, it's shocking but not surprising, I hope Britian reacts like America after it was attacked, not Spain after it was attacked. Others are saying them loudly and I have little new or original to add. At times like this, best to leave it to better writers than I.

Here's Hitchens, one of the best.

There's gold in them thar desktops: So, here's a little money-making idea for you: Buy some computers, log onto the internet and create a few accounts with some MMORPG. Then, using either your own know-how, or some that you purchased, hire off-shore workers at less than a dollar/hour to run small macro programs to accumulate virtual gold and other items. Then turn around and sell that virtual gold or equipment in the real world to geeks with real money who would rather pay for that stuff (or even accounts with characters that have high levels). It's sort of like being an 18 year-old drop out who can buy the life of a 24 year-old rock star - instantly.

Think that would never work? Think again: this industry rakes in an estimated $500MM annually and it's only growing.

I am continually amazed at how money is made in our world.

How American are you:

You Are 85% American

You're as American as red meat and shooting ranges. Tough and independent, you think big. You love everything about the US, wrong or right. And anyone who criticizes your home better not do it in front of you!

How American Are You?

I'm pretty damn American, I guess.

"For God's sake, please just stop": Will Collier noticed a pair of interesting reactions in an interview in Der Spiegel: A Kenyan economist's reaction to how much the West "cares" about Africa (in light of the G8 and all the Live 8 noise about it), and his interviewer's reaction to that opinion. Read up.

30 Days In The Hole: I spent a good portion of Saturday night arguing with a friend who, though a charming and lovely gal when not showing her fangs, is a thoroughgoing socialist who appears to buy into any and all hype that might cast a pall on Bush, Republicans, capitalism and America. Our argument ranged all over, spending way too much time on the Patriot Act. Typical weekend fun for a lone conservative in a sea of liberalism.

I bring this up only so I can mention how enthralled my friend was with the new tv show 30 Days, created by Morgan Spurlock, of Supersize Me fame. His movie, made to shame McDonalds for selling too much food for too little money (how shocked would our forebears be at that horror) was so intellectually dishonest it should have been screened at Live8 to enhance the multimedia aspect of the anti-capitalist mind meld. His new show's premise is to take people out of their normal life and force them to live in a different environment for a month. The example given was putting a bible thumping Christian male (who, naturally, thinks all Muslims are al Quaeda operatives, because don't all white men think that) and put him in the home of an American Muslim family and force him to adapt to their life, religion, etc. This was meant to promote cross-cultural understanding, naturally. Antoher episode apparently makes a millionaire live on minimum wage for a month. The horrors of basic cable and, oh yeah, supersized fries.

I'd have no problem with Spurlocks premise, 'cause you know I'm all about understanding, if I detected at least a little intellectual balance. For instance, what are the chances that he'll do a show where a radical Wahabi potential shoe-bomber gets to spend some time with a typical American family, so full of cultural tolerance and moral equivalence that he might see the error of his ways. Wouldn't that kind of understanding do more good. Or how about an episode where a minimum wage family gets a month in the Hamptons. Encouragement to work hard and be successful, maybe, a nice vacation at least.

But the point, no matter what Spurlock says, isn't understanding, it's shame. Upper class, white Christians should be ashamed at their material excess. And for having a religion that doesn't demean women, or not enough anyway. Or, I guess, the point is really Spurlock making a buck by participating in the same capitalist system he denigrates and selling out to the same big businesses he loathes.

How delighted I am, then, to see the new Morgan Spurlock Watch, a blog by none other Fauxpolitik favorite Radley Balko. I'm looking forward to this with great anticipation. Let the debunking begin.

No wonder NYC lost: First of all, the only people who end up truly happy about hosting the Olympics are a) the corrupt government and local IOC officals who can sop up the largesse and dole out favors like Vito Corleone on meth; and b) the contractors who will get major work contracts, that are like guaranteed to be paid in full, and with no expense spared to get the job done quickly, if not necessarily correctly.

People who live in these cities appear to be excited at first, because, they feel like it's appropriate, but when reality sets in that their daily lives will be in turmoil for several years as the streets are torn up, they start to question what good all this does for them. Have fun Londoners.

Still, there's an amount of prestige and bravado that goes along with the winning bid, and it seems to me that NYC fell short of its best efforts. First of all, the best Bloomberg can do for the last minute rally is Hillary and Ali? Why not just bring out Dinkins and Bernard Goetz?? "Come to NYC, the City that is stiff, awkward and likely to stab you with a screwdriver!"

Second, if your "local" NFL team can't even figure out where to put a stadium, then what makes you think you can get like three or four major venues built in an island that is ummm, rather full-up? The only way this would have worked was to get The Donald involved, but he was too busy with the non re-design of the Twin Towers -- another joke for those who thought the City could be event-ready.

Last, in our post-911 days, the security in NYC would have been tighter than [insert laughable analogy involving virginity, stinginess or plastic surgery receipient]. And you know all about that. Ha!

Cheerio, tip-tip, and good f*cking luck.

Live8: So much idiocy, so little time. Fortunately Mark Steyn has it wrapped up and ready to order.

Africa is a hard place to help. I had a letter from a reader the other day who works with a small Canadian charity in West Africa. They bought a 14-year-old SUV for 1,500 Canadian dollars to ferry food and supplies to the school they run in a rural village. Customs officials are demanding a payment of $8,000 before they'll release it.

There are thousands of incidents like that all over Africa every day of the week. Yet, throughout the weekend's events, Dave Gilmour and Co were too busy Rocking Against Bush to spare a few moments to Boogie Against Bureaucracy or Caterwaul Against Corruption or Ululate Against Usurpation. Instead, Madonna urged the people to "start a revolution". Like Africa hasn't had enough of those these past 40 years?

O'Connor and the court: What promises to be a long, excruciting fight for the court has begun. Perhaps Rhenquist will retire next week, perhaps next year. But it's coming sooner or later and certainly within Bush's current term. John Paul Stevens, the most elderly justice at 85, I believe, has got to kicking around the idea of early retirement, buying that Harley and heading for a warmer climate. And now Radley tosses out this "wildcard" on Souter.

Here's a wildcard for you: I have it on reasonably good authority that an unlikely retirement might be on the way, too. A Supreme Court insider told me several weeks ago that Souter may well retire. He apparently told friends and family that he has always planned to step down upon turning 65, and that he'd rather return to New Hampshire year-round than continue to spend time in D.C. He's 65 now.

If that happens, remember where you read it first. If it doesn't happen, just pretend I never wrote it.

Grain of salt, of course. But is it possible Bush could wind up appointing not just 1 or 2, but as many as 4 justices to "The Bench?" I'll remain optimistic for the time being, in hopes that his nominations will run towards proponents of a federal govenrment with limited powers, but given the administration's stance in several of the recent SCOTUS decisions, I don't know what to think. What will totally sicken me, though, is having to listen to endless talk about abortion in the next few months/years. Nothing makes me want to throw up my hands to both sides and give up rational discourse like a good abortion debate.

Can you say "nuclear option"?: Don't look now, but a Supreme Court Justice is retiring. And it's not Rhenquist.

It's Not Just Me: Eno and I love to go back and forth on what we think people should be wearing, given that we are ourselves, pinnacles of sartorial splendor. My particular rant is the flip-flop as office wear; Eno tends to mock me, but I know it's just his way of agreeing with me.

Well, I was pleased to read on Slate today, a woman's impassioned, yet well-reasoned, plea to all of us to avoid the pitfall of summer sloth, and at least pretend to try. To wit:

If you have left your home in the past few weeks, you have no doubt witnessed some of the season's more common missteps: exposed bra straps; bare, bulging midriffs; bad sandals. And you may have asked yourself why the first warm days of the year are like a Halloween costume party—a chance for people to wear whatever (or however little) they desire.

As you might anticipate, most of her ire (really, it's more like frustration) is directed at the fairer sex, yet she does not spare us either:

Any discussion of shorts must eventually lead to the subject of men, the style's most enthusiastic proponents. I was once categorically against the phenomenon of men in shorts, but after listening to the impassioned pleas of several male friends, who point out that shorts are the masculine equivalent of the sundress and that jeans will lead to heat stroke, I have come around—sort of. Shorts are acceptable if they hit somewhere mid-thigh; among the most frightening of summer sights are men who have taken the notion of shorts far too literally. Shorts should also be neat and free of holes. This means don't truncate your college jeans in an attempt to emulate Tom Cruise in Endless Love. Summer is not, as many men think, an opportunity to get some use out of one's grungiest, most tattered clothing.

She also spend some words decrying the "mandal," discussed in these pages some time ago.

But, as any such column must, she saves the best for last with the flip-flop (the step-cousin to the mandal):

As for flip-flops, the sandal's plastic cousin, these are office-appropriate only if your co-workers don't mind that you sound like a metronome as you walk. Finally, with barely an inch between the wearer's feet and filthy city or suburban streets, flip-flops can be a health hazard. A friend gave them up after an audacious rat scuttled over her exposed foot. And when, one summer night on the subway platform in New York City, a street musician took one look at my dusty toes and began to improvise a song with the refrain "Lovely Girl With Dirty Feet," I vowed to save the flip-flops for the beach.

I could not have said it any better.