Management Material
I'm Not A Complete Slacker . . .. . . I mean, it hasn't even been a month yet since I last updated! Give a guy a break!
There's lots of reasons why I've been delinquent in posting. Well, check that, there's lots of reasons, but only one good one: I've been promoted! I can now officially call myself "Assistant Manager."
Don't pop the cork on the champagne, though: it's only one day a week, sometimes two. And it's not like I'm getting a massive raise, either; in fact, on a busy day I easily make more doing my regular, more commission-based job. But until I can demonstrate the responsibility, I don't get to run the joint on the busy days, so it's a net win for me paycheck-wise. Plus I can put "Assistant Manager" on my résumé instead of the menial monkey job I do the other four or five days of the week.
It's nice to know a fellow can work for a company for two years and get the recognition he deserves by moving one-third of a rung up the corporate ladder.
What else? Well, I had to get my car fixed. One blown tire snowballed into this fix, and that fix, until I wound up with what feels like a completely different car and a much lighter wallet. I would check with the Better Business Bureau to see if I got ripped off, but when it comes to cars, I barely know my radiator from my radio. And I only know that the hard way after pouring antifreeze into the tape deck of my first car. (Just kidding. My first car didn't have a radio.)
I also took a day and went to Trump Casino in Gary, Indiana to play some real-live poker. I'll detail that in a future post (give me three weeks or so to get around to that), but suffice it to say that the only real winner was The Don and his screw-you hair.
Time for my semi-regular blogburst to catch up on what I missed, starting with:
HARRIET MIERS NOMINATED TO SUPREME COURT
Eh. I'm not thrilled with the pick, but I don't hate it, either. As I've explained before, I think the risks of playing nuclear chess with the Democrats were — and still are — potentially very grave. President Bush has decided for someone who can be confirmed more easily than someone who might perhaps be a better candidate.
Look at it this way: either the Democrats will decide to go to war or they won't. If they won't, she's confirmed, and despite some conservatives' fears, it's doubtful Miers will put on the robe and suddenly have a political paradigm shift. If they do, it will be far, far easier for the GOP to play back when their nominee looks more like a librarian rather than a fire-breathing right-wing movement conservative. Having Harry Reid endorse the nominee will prove fatal for any attempt at a Democratic filibuster, and that's something that no other nominee palatable to Bush had.
It's interesting, though, that Bush decided to select the person he entrusted with vetting his nominees, just as he did with Vice President Cheney. That being the case, I'd like for the President to choose me to select who should win tomorrow's $240 million Powerball jackpot.
DELAY INDICTED
My best friend, who's a Democrat through-and-through, hates Tom DeLay with a bitter passion, and was elated at the indictments because he was sure they'd be his political undoing.
Er, not so fast. I understand legalese about as much as I understand Japanese, but the way I'm reading it, Ronnie Earle needed to convene more than half a dozen grand juries to indict DeLay on two counts. The first is so vague that one could indict the Pope tomorrow. The second is for an offense that evidently took place a full year before the law was written making it illegal, and there's quite a bit of doubt as to whether or not what he did even falls under said statute.
So say sayonara to swinging The Hammer out of the House.
THE ATTEMPTED LYNCHING OF BILL BENNETT
Perhaps I should remove "lynching" before I get it, too. Explaining that the term "lynch" is denotatively race-neutral probably wouldn't help my cause.
The smear campaign against Bennett sickens me, but I really don't know why I expect more from the professional muckrakers and race-baiters. Note to conservatives: if you're going to talk about race, just watch what you say. I hate to admit defeat on this point, but it's become abundantly clear that those people who beg and plead for "an honest discussion about race" want anything but. Speaking of which . . .
HURRICANE KATRINA
I didn't intend on saying anything else about Hurricane Katrina. I simply wanted my effort in the Blog For Relief Weekend to stand by itself. But I can't let this event pass into the history books without chucking in these two cents to go with the money I've already donated:
STFU, Kanye West.
Seriously. You and all the other ridiculous morons who think like you, including the woman who wrote in to the Voice Of The People section of my local paper, The South Bend Tribune, who made a point that was simply soooo stupid that I was compelled to rebut it. She asserted that President Bush should be blamed because so many Katrina victims had to be assisted outside of the rest of Louisiana, evidently ignorant of the facts that 1. Hurricane Katrina devastated the rest of the state and 2. so did Hurricane Rita, so keeping thousands upon thousands of evacuees there was Not A Good Idea. Unfortunately, I doubt very much that my rebuttal will ever run, as the SBTrib has elected to print a parade of angry letters in response to their front-page picture of a dog being euthanized.
But back to Kanye, who can take his inappropriate remarks and cram them up his Kanyon. I think I'm going to take the cynical route and propose that his, er, outburst was designed to fuel the success of his new single, called "Gold Digger." Hmmmmmm. While it is a really catchy tune, I don't think I'll be buying the album, Late Registration, any time soon. Sorry, Kanye, it's not that I don't care about black people; I just don't care about you. I don't give a shizzle whether or not you get pizzaid for your albumizzle, you rich punk-ass bitch. There, I rhymed; give me a beat for it and I'll be a zillionaire like you.
ALAN MATHENEY EXECUTED
You might have heard of Alan Matheney. In 1989 he beat his ex-wife to death with the stock end of a shotgun on the street in front of her home. The truly sickening thing is that he was on an eight-hour furlough from state prison, put there for spousal and child abuse. The shocking murder drew national attention and forced Indiana to review its furlough program, though why they didn't revisit the idea after Willie Horton became a household name during the '88 presidential election is beyond me (but that was just a subtle anti-black platform! Isn't that right, race-baiters?).
I've changed my mind on a lot of political issues growing up, but one thing I've never wavered on, despite my being Catholic, is that murderers who commit grisly killings should die for their crimes. In fact, I consider it monumentally unjust that a psychopathic scumbag like Matheney was allowed to draw sixteen more years' worth of breaths before his due punishment was meted to him.
INDIANA: NOT AS DUMB AS WE USED TO BE
The Hoosier State was also laughed at a little bit recently when a bill was proposed in the state Senate which would have, according to some misleading headlines, "require[d] marriage as a legal condition of motherhood." (Atkins-friendly knowledge courtesy of protein wisdom.)
Uh, not quite. The provisions were only for couples who wished to artificially create life through in-vitro fertilization or similar means; it wouldn't have turned all the state's baby-mammas into criminals. Even then, it was still attacked as a backdoor prohibition against homosexual couples using such means to have children; that's probably closer to the truth. While it might be valuable to have such a law on the books before a case gets bogged down and dragged out in court, the brouhaha forced the bill's sponsor, Indianapolis Republican Patricia Miller, to withdraw the proposal.
This doesn't let us off the hook for trying to pass a law in 1897 which would have changed the value of p. It passed the House unanimously but stalled in the Senate, thank God.
ONE BUMP IN THE ROAD FOR THE WEIS GUYS
The Irish have continued to impress this season, climbing to (as of this writing) #9 in the AP poll. Their lone hiccup was Michigan State, against whom they made a 21-point second-half comeback before falling in overtime, 44-41.
This week twice-defending-champion USC comes to town. They've looked mortal at times against ranked opponents like Oregon and Arizona State, but managed to pull it together in the second half and emerge victorious.
Not this week, baby.
The high-powered NFL offense, led by Brady Quinn, puts points on the board early, and Charlie Weis' tenacious, "nasty" attitude keeps the cleats on the Trojans' necks.
38-14, Irish. You heard it here first.
For more:
South Bend Tribune
Blue & Gold Illustrated
Irish Sports Report
The Observer
UHND
Blue-Gray Sky
Kelly Green
posted by Marsh @ 3:56 AM
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