Various Items

Around the horn on the goings on in various parts...

Young Athletes
I agree with Thew: what happen for pay for performance? Further, tell me what is appealing about Michele Wie? If you want pretty golfers there is Paula Creamer, Natalie Gulbis or Anna Rawson. Looking for better golfers there is...nearly everyone else. More power to her for snagging dollars for nothing, but it won't last if she does not win.

Harriet Miers
There is nothing "wrong" with Miers as a Justice. Quite frankly, the idea of an "outsider" (read not a professor or professional judge) on the court is appealing. People who have worked with her are very supportive, the rest of us just don't know...yet. The problem for the President is that conservatives are fed up with his approach to pretty much everything except the GWOT. In particular, the President has allowed Congress to spend like a drunken sailor. What happened to the party of small government? A huge drug entitlement, more bureaucracy, and $250 billion for Katrina (or $400K for every affected family!).

I don't disagree with Miers' profile, but I have no faith in the President's ability to do the right thing for conservative principles. Conservatives talk about Miers being a "stealth nominee," but George Bush is fast becoming (in retrospect) the the "stealth nominee" - talking a good game on the campaign trail, but acting very differently in office.

2008
All of the above bodes badly for a Guiliani or Powell or McCain or other moderate conservative candidate for the GOP in 2008. The Base has been betrayed and they are not likely to forget.

Interestingly, the person most likely to suffer is Jeb. Given the "conservative" track record of 41 & 43, why would the GOP nominate another Bush??

Baseball
I was hoping for a Yankees-Red Sox Championship. Not happening and that is Too Bad. The Sox look just beat up. And the White Sox seem to have awoken from their late year stupor.

As for the Yankees, the pitching continued its late season performance, but A-Rod Sheffield and Matsui really fell apart in the clutch. Ortiz for MVP.

And Giambi is definitely back on the juice.

Unlike last year, I am a St. Louis believer. Now true, it is only San Diego, but Edmonds, Pujols and Sanders are hitting well. With last year under its belt, the Red Birds should show up a different team.

And hats off to the Astros and Braves for what could have been the best playoff game ever.

College Terror
A fizzy soda can in Penn Station is front page news, but a Islamic convert who blew himself up after trying to enter the OU-KState football game last week is buried. Hinrichs tried to buy alot of ammonium nitrate a week earlier and blew himself up with TAPT, the same stuff that the Richard Reid, the Shoe Bomber used. Thankfully, it is highly volatile and he go *poof*.

And it seems Georgia Tech is the latest campus to have a possible terror threat or cell.

Of course, this makes perfect sense. Campuses are hotbeds of far left radicalism that embraces "any means necessary" to make their point. It is also fill with impressionable youth who have little or no understanding of the consequence of their actions. One can't help but imagine Ward Churchill is pleased with these developments (as ;ong as he isn't hurt, that is).

UPDATE (Sort of): UCLA also? Uh-oh. I really believe the next terrorist attack will be a small (15 - 25 dead) attack on a soft target. A college campus makes perfect "sense."

South Asia Earthquake
Obviously, George Bushes fault.

Seriously, it does put Katrina in perspective. While the overall numbers certainly do not matter to those who lost a loved one, the South Asia Earthquake certainly puts the Katrina rants in a different light. 30,000 vs. 3,000. 3 million homeless. These poor ARE really poor. (Not "poor" in the US version, but in the "real world" version. That is, dirt freakin' poor.)

Oh, well. Gotta jet.