Take That Oregon!

The always funny NDCHOOCHOO has a brilliant post about the controversy as to whether Notre Dame or Oregon should be chosen for the BCS. In the post, there is an e-mail from Charlie Weis to the College Football World. You'll especially love the e-mail if you're a fan of A Few Good Men.

ESPN Sucks

One of my favorite college football blogs, Every Day Should Be Saturday, has a brilliant post titled, 52 Reasons Why ESPN/ABC/Disney Sucks. For someone (like myself) who cannot stand Chris Berman or Stephen A. Smith or Stuart Scott or sports becoming more about entertainment and less about the game, this post is a must read. I agreed with 51 of the 52 reasons they listed. The one I did not agree with was this:

35. Lou Holtz. You have a speech defect, and should not make a living talking on television. Oh, and you're a cheater. Would be entertaining only if they made him speak from behind his own salad bar shield; we're guessing it would look like those shots of cobras striking at people behind plexiglass in zoos, with spit flying in gobs all over the surface.

No one disses my boy Lou. He is the voice of reason on the College Football Scoreboard show and he makes the unbearable Mark May look like a complete moron. So Lou didn't have a firm grip on the South Carolina program. It happens when you're almost 70 like Lou. I mean how can you hate this man:
He looks like everyone's favorite grandpa. Not to mention, he's the last coach to win a National Championship at Notre Dame. That alone should win you over.

Whew

Notre Dame overcame two turnovers, absolutely atrocious special teams play, the 2004 version of Brady Quinn in the first half (e.g., firing the ball deep down the field every play even if the receiver is well-covered instead of throwing it to the wide-open guy ten yards down the field), poor pass protection and some shaky secondary play to beat Stanford 38-31. I have to say that the kicking game from last night was giving me flashbacks to Jim Sanson's performance at USC back in 1996 that cost Notre Dame an appearance in a big bowl. Notre Dame was able to overcome all of their mistakes due to outstanding production from the offense. Brady Quinn threw for over 400 yards again. Darius Walker racked up a career high 194 yards rushing. Jeff Samardzija had over 200 yards receiving along with setting a new team record for receiving yards in a season and taking the lead for most touchdown receptions in the nation with 15. Maurice Stovall had another 100 yard receiving day and became only the fourth player in Notre Dame history to have a 1,000 yard receiving season. Maurice Stovall and Jeff Samardzija also became the first 1,000 yard receiving duo in team history. In all, Notre Dame tallied 663 yards of total offense. That kind of offensive output will cover up a lot of mistakes.

The win should secure a bid in the Fiesta Bowl against either Oregon or Ohio State. While there was much debate late last night and this morning whether Notre Dame "deserves" a BCS bid, I think the debate is moot. The BCS is only about making sure the top two teams play for the national championship. The rest of the BCS games are basically competitive exhibition games meant to make large amounts of cash for the bowl organizers/sponsors and the big conferences. If the BCS were about getting teams that "deserve" a BCS bid, then they would just take the top eight teams in the BCS standings. Since the non-national championship games are almost completely about making money, then its in the BCS bowls' interests to select teams/matchups that will make them the most amount of money. Notre Dame will finish in the top 12 of the BCS standings, which qualifies them to play in a BCS game. Therefore, Notre Dame deserves a BCS bid. Notre Dame should not have to apologize for its national appeal or having a fanbase that travels and is willing to spend lots of money. In addition, I would be completely shocked if Notre Dame got embarrassed in the Fiesta Bowl (this ain't your Boob Davie's Fighting Irish). In fact, I fully expect Notre Dame to win whether it be against Oregon or Ohio State.

Now lets hope I get lucky in the ticket lottery or my friends at Notre Dame can score me a ticket (fingers crossed).

RPN's Absence Explained

Many Notre Dame fans have been wondering what happened to starting fullback Rashon Powers-Neal, as he has not played since the Purdue game on October 1. Charlie Weis has been tight-lipped about the absence of Powers-Neal and there has been no comment from Powers-Neal until now:

On Oct. 8, Powers-Neal, 22, was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol while back home in the St. Paul, Minn., area during ND's first open weekend of the season. On Nov. 23, he pleaded guilty to fourth-degree DUI, a misdemeanor in Minnesota that resulted in Powers-Neal's driver's license being revoked for 30 days.

"I'd like to apologize to my family, teammates, coaches and to the University of Notre Dame for the problem that I caused with my poor decision-making on Oct. 8," he told The [South Bend] Tribune via telephone on Friday. "I realize I placed many others and myself in jeopardy, that I paid dearly for my choices on that day. I ask that you forgive me, and I assure you that this type of incident will never occur again."

Powers-Neal said his university-imposed suspension runs through Dec. 7, but that there were no assurances he might be reinstated to the team to practice for and play in a bowl game.

It's refreshing to see a school and a head coach actually take seriously the conduct of its football players off the field. Many schools like the USCs, the Florida States and the Miamis of the world just pay lip service to ensuring their football players don't act like their above the law (e.g., the Rey Maualuga situation at USC). While I think the suspension was a bit overly harsh (I think a 4 game suspension would have been sufficient), I would rather the suspension be overly harsh than not harsh enough. I'm sure Powers-Neal has learned his lesson, and I hope to see him in the backfield on January 2nd in Tempe, Arizona.

Grrrrrrr

This is why I hate most of the Christmas season.

Yippy

Well another Thanksgiving is in the books. I gave thanks for a White Sox World Series Championship, a respectable Bears team, Charlie Weis, pumpkin pie and oh yeah, supportive friends and family. Now it's time for rampant commercialism, aka the Christmas season. Personally, I'm more excited about going back to Chicago and having Christmas Eve and Christmas dinner with my family and hopefully going to the Notre Dame bowl game than what I may get under the tree on Christmas day.

Risky Move

Kenny Williams, never shy to make a bold deal, traded yesterday Aaron Rowand and two top pitching prospects, Daniel Haigwood, and their 2004 first round draft pick, Giovany Gonzalez to the Phillies for Jim Thome. I like the acquisition of Thome, as he has continually put up 30-40 homers and 100-120 RBIs over the past ten years except for his injured plagued season last year and he provides pop in the White Sox lineup from the left side of the plate. In addition, Thome provides insurance for the Sox at first base if they cannot resign Paul Konerko, and the Sox only have to pay about half of the 43.5 million dollars owed to him over the next three years. That being said, I thought the Sox gave up way too much for Thome. While Aaron Rowand is not going to win any batting titles anytime soon, he is a solid .28o hitter and is one of the top three defensive center fielders in baseball. This trade significantly weakens the Sox' outfield defense, which was one of the keys to the Sox' title run. Yes, the Sox have a lot of depth in the outfield in the minor league system with Brian Anderson, Jerry Owens and Chris Young, but when you acquire Jim Thome, who is 35 years old, you're playing for right now, and I am not convinced that any of those three guys can step in for Rowand. Both Owens and Young have not had an at-bat past AA, and Anderson had a tough time catching up with major league fastballs last season. In addition, not only do the Sox give up one of their best position players, they also gave up two top pitching prospects, one of which was their first round pick last year. That seems like a pretty steep price for a guy who has battled some serious injuries over the past year or so and could be heading into the downside of his career. This move will make more sense if Kenny Williams gets in on the Florida Marlins firesale and acquires Juan Pierre. Acquiring Pierre would give the Sox a solid replacement in centerfield and greatly upgrade the speed of the lineup. If the Sox made that trade and resigned Konerko, the Sox could have a pretty fearsome lineup.

I Believe

Before the season began, I thought the Bears could make the playoffs because they played a weak schedule, played in a weak division, had a great defense and had quarterback who was not going to kill you (unlike Jonathan Quinn and Craig Krenzel last year). However, I thought the Bears had no chance of even being competitive in the playoffs because they lacked playmakers on offense. I'm doing some rethinking of my preseason prognosis of the Bears after their 13-3 throttling of the Carolina Panthers, where they got 8 sacks from their defensive line. Yeah their offense isn't that great. Kyle Orton isn't going to throw for 300 yards anytime soon. But he won't have to. As long the defense continues to be as dominant as they have been and Orton limits his mistakes and they control the clock with Thomas Jones and Adrian Peterson running the football, the Bears could go deep into the playoffs. You heard me: DEEP INTO THE PLAYOFFS. You may be wondering what drugs I'm currently on, but think about this: There is no dominant team in the NFC right now. The usual dominant team, the Eagles, are a mess. The Cowboys haven't been exactly lighting it up with their offense and do you think their cement-shoed quarterback Drew Bledsoe would have much of chance against the front four of the Bears. The Giants are still a really good young team and can be prone to letdowns such as their stinker against the pathetic Minnesota Vikings. Tampa Bay has a suspect defense and has Chris Simms at quarterback. The Falcons are are a one-dimensional team on offense and they can't beat bad teams at home like the Green Bay Packers. The Bears have shown they can beat the Carolina Panthers. Finally, the Seahawks are always could for a good choke job even if they currently have the best record in the NFC. Now does this mean the Bears should make it to the Super Bowl or even the NFC Championship Game? Absolutely not. They still have a rookie quarterback, and it's very possible Orton could have a rookie quarterback-esque performance in the wild card round of the playoffs and cost the Bears a playoff win. But unlike their 2001 playoff run, the Bears have a shot to make some noise in the playoffs. Let's hope I haven't jinx them now.

What a Difference a Year Makes

Notre Dame's offense did not seem to click all day, as there were a number of dropped passes, poorly thrown passes, ill-timed penalties and two short field goals missed. Despite the mediocre play from the offense, the defense held the pathetic Syracuse offense in check and Notre Dame cruised to a 34-10 win. This game showed two things. One, Syracuse was as sucky as advertised, as they were completely out of this game at halftime even though Notre Dame was doing everything possible to keep them in this game. Two, Notre Dame's offense can have an off day and yet still compile some impressive stats. They finished with 420 yards of total offense. Brady Quinn threw for 270 yards and 2 touchdowns. Darius Walker ran for over 120 yards. The funny thing about this year's offense is that an off day for this year's offense was a great day for last year's offense. All that now separates the Irish from a Fiesta Bowl bid is an average Stanford team. I think it's safe to start booking those hotel rooms and airline tickets.

Notre Dame-Syracuse Prediction

This should be Notre Dame's easiest game of the season, as Syracuse is one of the worst teams in Division I-A. It sports the 114th best offense in the country, and the 97th best run defense in the country. It does have the 6th best pass defense in the country, however, here are some of the powerhouse passing attacks it has faced: West Virginia (113th in the nation in passing), Buffalo (101st in the nation in passing), Virginia (77th in the nation in passing), Connecticut (107th in the nation in passing), Rutgers (59th in the nation in passing), Pittsburgh (74th in the nation in passing), Cincinnati (87th in passing) and South Florida (112th in the nation in passing). The only good passing attack it has faced all year is Florida State (18th in the nation in passing), and they threw for 396 yards against Syracuse. Hence, the Syracuse secondary should not pose much of a test for Brady Quinn and company. That being said, I would be surprised if Notre Dame throws a lot of passes tomorrow because Syracuse's run defense is so bad that running the ball should net as many yards as passing the ball would. Unless all 22 Notre Dame starters break their leg tomorrow, Syracuse does not have a prayer tomorrow. In fact, I'll be worried if Brady Quinn plays into the 4th quarter. We should see plenty of Marty Mooney and other seniors who have been riding the pine all season tomorrow. It will be a nice way to wrap up another home football season.

Notre Dame 49 Syracuse 13

Quote of the Day

"The dynasty's coming back. Having a chance to be a part of bringing something back that's been dormant for a while, knowing that you're going to contribute to bringing back America's team is ... beautiful. It really is."

-Chris Stewart, one of the newest Notre Dame verbal commitments

When It Rains It Pours

It has been an outstanding past few days on the recruiting front for Charlie Weis and the Irish as 3 more prospects verbally committed to Notre Dame, bringing the total number of known verbal commitments to 22.

The first one to commit this week was linebacker Morrice Richardson, a 6'2", 220 lbs linebacker out of Georgia who runs a 4.54 40. Notre Dame beat out Virginia Tech, Alabama, Florida, Oklahoma among others for his services. Richardson is going to be force at outside linebacker once he puts on at least 15 lbs of muscle. This was also a particularly important signing for Notre Dame, as this is the first linebacker to commit to this year's class.

While Richardson needs to put on weight, the second Notre Dame verbal commitment this week, offensive lineman Chris Stewart, needs to lose some weight. While many at the ND Nation message board are raving about his size (6'5", 340 lbs+), I think he's a bit too big, especially when I saw this picture (#79 in the picture):

That being said, I have full faith that once he spends a few months in the gym with Ruben Mendoza, he's going to be at a size where he will be able to move around and be able to pancake helpless defensive tackles. One of the great things about the Stewart commitment is that he is planning on enrolling for the spring semester, which not only allows him to practice with the team in the spring, and get a head start on his academics, but it also opens up an additional scholarship for this year's class, as Stewart would count against last year's class. Stewart is not the only one enrolling early. Stud running back prospect James Aldridge has already received approval to enroll in the spring, and wide receiver prospect George West is also considering enrolling early. With both Stewart and Aldridge enrolling early (and apparently rooming together), do not be surprised if they are the first two freshman to see the field in 2006.

The other verbal commitment the Irish got this week was Richard Jackson, a 6'2" wide receiver out of Florida who runs a 4.4 40. The Irish beat out Miami for his services. Jackson provides some more depth for the Irish at wide receiver and with all these speed guys Weis has gotten in the past two years at wide receiver (D.J. Hord, George West and Barry Gallup to name a few), I don't think you're going to hear commentators say any time soon that Notre Dame does not have the speed to compete with the top teams in the country.

The recruiting news figures to get better as Weis wraps up his first real recruiting class. Stud offensive line prospect Matt Carufel is strong possibility to commit and the number one tight end in the country, Konrad Reuland, just cancelled his official visit to Iowa this weekend after his visit to Notre Dame last weekend. This recruiting class could shape up to be not only a top five class, but the top class in the country. Not bad for a guy who critics thought wouldn't know how to recruit.

No Wonder Syracuse is 1-8

This is what Syracuse coach Greg Robinson had to say about Brady Quinn:

He was in a good system of offense for the last two years. Tyrone's a good quarterback coach. Charlie has been able to take him to the next level. I don't think that this is just something that happened overnight. This was a great player coming out of high school. I just think that he's grown more and more comfortable. The things that Charlie does aren't that much different from the things that Tyrone was doing, in some ways.

Yes, that good system of offense last year that finished 81st in the country in total offense. But hey when you're the coach of a team that is currently 114th in the country in total offense, 81st looks pretty damn good. Not to mention, to simply say that Quinn has taken it to the "next level" is a bit of an understatement. Here's Quinn stats from last year (which by the way was his second year as a starter): 54.1% Completion Percentage, 2586 Passing Yards, 17 Touchdowns & 10 Interceptions. Here's Quinn's stats this year after just 9 games: 65.8% Completion Percentage, 2931 Passing Yards, 27 Touchdowns & 5 Interceptions. That's a whole lot more than taking it to the "next level", those stats tell the story of a completely different quarterback this year. Sure, Quinn has always had the talent, but no one has been able to harness it until this year. If Greg Robinson thinks that Quinn would be putting up similar numbers if Ty was still the coach, then he's a whole lot dumber than I thought.

Same Old Story

Another year, another win over Navy. The offense was brilliant yet again, as they topped the 40 point mark for the sixth time this season, tying a school record set in 1991. Brady Quinn had a typical day, throwing for 284 yards and 4 touchdowns. Maurice Stovall continues to make huge strides as a receiver, as he had another 100 yard receiving day and 3 touchdowns. Darius Walker had his first 100 yard rushing game since September. The only two negatives for the offense yesterday were Quinn's interception, snapping his streak of 131 passes without a pick (I blame NBC for jinxing him), and Jeff Samardzija's streak of 8 straight games with a touchdown being snapped. These are the kind of negatives that I can deal with.

As for the defense, it continued its bend but don't break style, as it allowed Navy to run for nearly 250 yards and control the ball for nearly 32 minutes, but it only gave up 21 points. While the bend but don't break defensive has worked most of the season, the lack of consistent penetration by the defensive line continues to be a concern, though it may not matter until the bowl game considering that the last two games are against Syracuse and Stanford. Barring some total letdown (highly, highly unlikely), Notre Dame will finish the season 9-2 and be in a BCS Bowl (likely the Fiesta Bowl).

By the way, Charlie Weis showed yet again why he is one of the classiest coaches in Division I-A yesterday when he and his players stood with Navy while Navy sung its alma mater. I doubt you would see something like that from Michigan or USC.

Umm What Did I Just Watch

A while back I wrote about a little movie called Miss Cast Away and the Island Girls starring Eric Roberts, Evan Marriott (aka Joe Millionaire) and Michael Jackson. Well the movie finally came in from Netflix this past week and let me tell you it's every bit as bad as advertised. How bad you ask? Well the ending of the movie (spoiler alert for any other moron who rents this movie) is that everyone is saved from the island (except for one of the main characters and his girlfriend, who decide to live happily ever after on the island) by a spaceship filled with animated birds. Sadly, I'm not making this up. This might be the first comedy I have ever seen where I did not not laugh at a single joke. Here's a sampling of some of the jokes in the movie:

"So nice to meet you Captain Sanders."
"You have to call him Colonel."

Or how about this knee-slapper:

"Your mission which we will call the Raiders of Noah's Ark."

This one is really funny too:

"Lower the periscope."
[A stethoscope is lowered.]
"I didn't say the stethoscope, the periscope please."
[A telescope is lowered.]
"Not the telescope, the periscope please."
[The screen goes to letterbox dimensions.]
"I didn't ask for cineoscope."

This is my personal favorite:

"What about my lions and tigers and bears..."
"Oh my."

You get the picture. I was literally cringing the entire movie because the jokes were so horrible. There were only two things in this movie that made me laugh, and I don't think the director of the movie intended these parts to be funny. One of the funny parts in the movie was whenever Joe Millionaire or Michael Jackson were on screen. They were both so bad that Vin Diesel's performance in The Fast and the Furious was an Academy Award winning performance compared to these two guys. The second funny part of the movie was the CGI effects which basically looked like director took some animations from my old Playstation One and plastered them on the screen. I think if they had hand drawn their special effects, it would have looked more convincing. Unless you inspire to star in the new Mystery Science 3000 or if you're just a sucker for horrible movies, don't ever watch this movie.

All Done!

I finally sent in my last law school application today. Now I get to play the very exciting waiting game for the next four months.

Fiscal Responsibility Is Way Overrated

The House Republicans missed out on a golden opportunity to restore some kind of fiscal sanity to the budget when it pulled a bill that would cut the budget by $54 billion on Thursday. The bill was pulled after it became clear that it did not have the support of the moderate Republicans. Unless I'm living in some bizarro alternate universe, I fail to see how spending billions on month in Iraq, spending billions to rebuild the Gulf Coast, paying for the new Medicare entitlements, spending $200 million to build a bridge in a remote part of Alaska, making the Bush tax cuts permanent and spending billions more in other government spending obligations can be sustained for the long-term, much less for the short-term. If I budgeted my money like the government does, I would have declared bankruptcy 5 times already. It's times like these that makes me wonder why I'm a registered Republican.

Navy Prediction

While there has been some close games between Notre Dame and Navy in the past few years including a three point win by Notre Dame in 2003, do not expect this game to be close. Navy may be very well coached by Paul Johnson, but Navy does not have the size or speed to compete with Notre Dame. With Notre Dame actually having a coach who knows what he's doing, expect Notre Dame to take full advantage of their great talent advantage and never give Navy a chance to keep this game close. Expect an even mix of run and pass, as Charlie Weis takes advantage of the dominant size advantage Notre Dame enjoys at each position. Darius Walker should have his first 100 yard game since the Washington game. Brady Quinn should have another 250 yards, 3 touchdowns and no picks game. Jeff Samardzija should find the endzone at least once. David Wolke should play the entire fourth quarter.

Notre Dame 42 Navy 13

Good to See

It looks like Congress shares my concern over the lack of oversight in the FBI's issuance of national security letters, as it appears they will give judges the authority to reject national security letters in its bill to address the expiring provisions of the Patriot Act.

I Went to the Wrong Bars on Saturday Night

I got pretty hammered on Saturday night, but I definitely did not go to the right bars as in Tampa, Florida, two Carolina Panthers cheerleaders, Angela Keathley and Renee Thomas were caught having sex in a bathroom stall. Female patrons upset at having to wait to use the bathroom, began pounding at the door. Thomas then got out of the stall, got in an argument with one of the women who was pounding on the door, and punched her in the face. Sadly, the Carolina Panthers have decided to not condone such awesome behavior (What the Panthers played Sunday? Really? Who Knew?) and have dismissed the girls from the squad.

Don't worry ladies about losing your cheerleading job. A lucrative career in porn awaits.

Something That Should Actually Concern You About the USA Patriot Act

While I think most of the controversy with the USA Patriot Act such as the FBI being able to get someone's library records is overblown, The Washington Post ran a story today about something in the USA Patriot Act that should legitimately concern people:

The Connecticut case affords a rare glimpse of an exponentially growing practice of domestic surveillance under the USA Patriot Act, which marked its fourth anniversary on Oct. 26. "National security letters," created in the 1970s for espionage and terrorism investigations, originated as narrow exceptions in consumer privacy law, enabling the FBI to review in secret the customer records of suspected foreign agents. The Patriot Act, and Bush administration guidelines for its use, transformed those letters by permitting clandestine scrutiny of U.S. residents and visitors who are not alleged to be terrorists or spies.

The FBI now issues more than 30,000 national security letters a year, according to government sources, a hundredfold increase over historic norms. The letters -- one of which can be used to sweep up the records of many people -- are extending the bureau's reach as never before into the telephone calls, correspondence and financial lives of ordinary Americans.

Now these national security letters and the wide use of them in it of itself is not that alarming to me. These letters can only get things like phone records, credit reports and cannot be used to do more intrusive things like wiretaps. However, here's my first concern about these expanded powers with the national security letters:

Two years ago, Ashcroft rescinded a 1995 guideline directing that information obtained through a national security letter about a U.S. citizen or resident "shall be destroyed by the FBI and not further disseminated" if it proves "not relevant to the purposes for which it was collected." Ashcroft's new order was that "the FBI shall retain" all records it collects and "may disseminate" them freely among federal agencies.

The same order directed the FBI to develop "data mining" technology to probe for hidden links among the people in its growing cache of electronic files. According to an FBI status report, the bureau's office of intelligence began operating in January 2004 a new Investigative Data Warehouse, based on the same Oracle technology used by the CIA. The CIA is generally forbidden to keep such files on Americans.

Data mining intensifies the impact of national security letters, because anyone's personal files can be scrutinized again and again without a fresh need to establish relevance.

So basically if you had one phone call with some guy who was planning a terrorist attack, you could be continually scrutinized by the FBI over and over again and they could pass that personal info around to any federal agency it desires. So not only could the FBI know I have a weakness for Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream, but the DoD could know as well. That's alarming, but not as alarming as this:

In the executive branch, no FBI or Justice Department official audits the use of national security letters to assess whether they are appropriately targeted, lawfully applied or contribute important facts to an investigation.

Justice Department officials noted frequently this year that Inspector General Glenn A. Fine reports twice a year on abuses of the Patriot Act and has yet to substantiate any complaint. (One investigation is pending.) Fine advertises his role, but there is a puzzle built into the mandate. Under what scenario could a person protest a search of his personal records if he is never notified?

"We do rely upon complaints coming in," Fine said in House testimony in May. He added: "To the extent that people do not know of anything happening to them, there is an issue about whether they can complain. So, I think that's a legitimate question."

Asked more recently whether Fine's office has conducted an independent examination of national security letters, Deputy Inspector General Paul K. Martin said in an interview: "We have not initiated a broad-based review that examines the use of specific provisions of the Patriot Act."

So not only can the FBI keep your credit report long after it has any relevance to a current terrorist investigation and pass it around to other federal agencies, there's no oversight. Brilliant. Congress would be wise to address this concern when they decide whether to extend some of provisions in the USA Patriot Act later this year.

Man or Robot?

I think Marco may be on to something by referring to Charlie Weis as a robot genius. Take a look at this photo:

Look at Weis's reaction. Completely unfazed by a bucket of ice water being dumped on him. The players better be more careful next time or they might damage some of Weis's circuits.

Even After His Presidency, Clinton Can't Keep His Hands Off a Young Lady at the White House

Pictured: Judge Alito's family

Hat tip: Newsmax

I'm at a Loss for Words

Britney Spears' boy toy Kevin Federline is recording a rap album. Unfortunately, I'm not making this up. Even worse is that part of his first song on the album has been leaked to the Internet. After listening to the song, it's more horrible than I could have even imagined. Click on this link for the song at your own risk!

Hat tip: Gorilla Mask

Yawn

Much has been made about Jason Whitlock's column that accuses Notre Dame of being racist for giving Charlie Weis a 10-year contract extension and not Tyrone Willingham. I happened to read Whitlock's column yesterday and I yawned. Sure his column is horribly argued, but it didn't get me worked up into a lather. Why you ask? Because Jason Whitlock much like the Jay Marrottis and the Dennis Dodds of the world write columns to get people's attention and not to write something that is thought-out and well-reasoned. We are in a sound-bite age and many columnists like Whitlock feel that if they're not controversial, then they're not good columnists. Whitlock wanted to piss off Notre Dame fans. That was the sole purpose of his article because he certainly didn't try too hard to prove his thesis. And based on the reaction I've seen on various Notre Dame websites, he was quite successful in his goal. The Whitlocks and the Marrottis of the world are nothing but a fart in the wind, and you should treat them as such.

Second Time is the Charm

Good to see that President Bush didn't screw up his Supreme Court nominee again. Unlike Harriet Miers, Samuel Alito is extremely well qualified for the Supreme Court post with his 15 years of experience on the bench in the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals. And if the best the Democrats can do to dirty up Alito is his dissent in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Alito should be confirmed rather easily.