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A real grab bag today:

►George Will doesn’t buy that the polar bears are threatened, and he offers some more thought on the global warming fad.

►Lorne Gunter challenges the idea that the fad is a “settled science”.

►I haven’t been able to decide if Gene Wojciechowski of ESPN is a good columnist. I’m pretty sure he isn’t, but the verdict is still out. Anyway, here he apparently wishes there were more global warming as he bitches and moans about the recent decision to play the 2012 Super Bowl in “cold” Indianapolis. I have zero sympathy for sports writers who complain about the location of Super Bowls. His argument is that locations like Indianapolis, Detroit, and Minneapolis are no fun because they’re cold, and no one likes the cold, and the NFL is punishing not only the players but the fans (Oh, sports writers! Always thinking of the fans! How valiant.) by choosing these awful locations. “Playing in a Super Bowl is supposed to be a reward, not a reason to visit your local North Face outlet. And attending a Super Bowl as a fan is supposed to be the experience of a lifetime, a chance to break out multiple bottles of SPF 30.” First of all, isn’t going to the Super Bowl enough? It’s the freaking Super Bowl! As a player, that should be your ultimate goal, no matter where it is! Does Gene really think that players can’t afford to take their own vacations to exotic locales in the offseason? Not to mention, the NFL does offer this reward for good players, known as the Pro Bowl; which, incidentally, many players turn down invitations to! I guess tropical destinations aren't as important to players as Gene thinks they are. As a fan, seeing my team win the Super Bowl would be enough of a reward. Plus, if the point of the trip was to go to the beach, I’d go to the beach. On top of it all, whiny sports writers like Gene need to remember that they’re being paid to go to the Super Bowl and write crappy, unoriginal columns, so shut it.

►Speaking of football, I thought TMQ was gone until the fall, but he made a special appearance and wrote about why Bill Belichick should be suspended over Spygate. As usual, I have trouble disagreeing.

►Tom Friedman is terrific once again. He mentions Fareed Zakaria’s new book, which I think is great because in my senior seminar class at Mason, which was about globalization, one of the possibilities for a project was to come up with a TV show that would encourage dialogue between the West and the Islamic countries, and my choices for dream team hosts of this show were Friedman and Zakaria. Look for Zakaria’s book, “The Post-American World”.

►Finally, Ed Koch thinks that in the end (whenever that is), George W. will be seen in a similar light as Harry Truman: a President who leaves office with superbly low ratings, only to be reviewed later as justified in their fear (or realization) of a foreign aggression (the Soviets for Truman, extremist Islam for Bush). Koch also thinks that W’s Hitler comments were reasonable, and offers up the best explanation I have hear yet.

►In the mean time, the Yankees continue to free fall, although they pounded the Orioles yesterday. The Yankees have begun to stretch out Joba’s appearances in preparation to move him to the rotation. I am excited.

►Jon Lester’s no hitter was a great story and I am happy for him and his family. My challenge has been to try my hardest to not quickly hate the story, as SportsCenter had Lance Armstrong on the phone congratulating Lester and telling him what a fan he is, and various news outlets that Ted Kennedy watched Lester pitch and how significant that was. Guess what, people: it’s not significant. I take that back. It’s significant, but none more so than any other person in the world who has cancer watching Lester pitch. And the Armstrong call was just another example of how contrived and exploited everything becomes. If Armstrong had really wanted to call so badly, he would have done it in private. Do you really think that Lance Armstrong can’t get Jon Lester’s phone number, that he needed ESPN to hook them up?

►Exploiting loved ones is bad; exploiting loved ones who have asked specifically not to be exploited is worse; exploited loved ones who have asked specifically not to be exploited who are risking their lives in Iraq is even worse. I heard the story last week or whenever it was about the soldier whose phone accidentally called his parents’ house while he was in the middle of a fire fight and getting shot at. The parents weren’t home so a minutes-long message was left on their machine, so they had the displeasure of listening to their son call for backup, that he was out of ammo, that he was in trouble, and that an RPG was on its way right when the message cut off. They immediately called his post and got in touch with him some hours after the initial call; thank heavens that he and everyone he was with was reportedly fine. In that conversation, he asked his parents to “don’t tell Gramma”, he didn’t want anyone to be upset. And then the parents ran to the news station. Okay, to be fair I don’t know that they ran to the news station. But I do know that they are so dumb as to not see the irony in telling a news reporter that their son asked to not let his grandmother know what happened. Oh I get it. Maybe they knew Gramma was going to be at bingo when the news was going to be on so she’s miss it. That must have been it.

Pope News...

Benedict's first public appearance here could not have gone any better.

The "robust" God Bless America at the end of his talk simply gave me chills. Click here for the nearly 9-minute video.

News Items

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is certifiable, in my opinion. The idea is not what bothers me; despite the endless supply of pictures, videos, and personal accounts of September 11, there is always the possibility of misrepresentation of events. Granted, I think the possibility is microscopic and as an American familiar with our government and press I don’t believe that an event like September 11 could be as grossly misrepresented (for lack of a better word) as old Mahmoud is suggesting, but I can see how an outsider who is not as familiar but has seen other nations duped by their state-controlled press (China, USSR, Cuba, North Korea) might think that it’s a possibility here. So that’s fine. But for his main sticking point to be that the names if the victims have never been published when in fact, as the article points out, they are read out loud on September 11 seemingly every year, is what makes the whole idea preposterous. This guy just unabashedly denies things that are plain for all to see, which is a bit why dissent is growing in Iran, especially among the young folk, which is kind of exciting.

Calling the Chinese “goons” on TV was a stupid thing to do (in our politically correct world; I think you should be able to call anyone you want a goon, which is to the best of my knowledge a term that can be attributed to anyone exhibiting goon-like characteristics, and is not a derogatory term for Chinese people. However, it most definitely is not an “evil attack” on the Chinese. Give me a break.

I like stories like this. I like people occasionally (and I can’t stress “occasionally” enough; it should not be frequent, although God knows that attention-deprived idiots will be all over opportunities like this) asking these sorts of silly questions. I like politicians laughing at things that are genuinely funny and not contrived on TV shows. The human element is fun to see out of candidates. I do not count the crying earlier in the year by a certain potential nominee in this category, because that was not fun (well, it probably was to some). Scripted jokes in stump speeches are not fun; getting McCain to crack up is fun. Similarly, I greatly enjoyed the video of Dubya dancing in his visit to Africa. Unsurprisingly and disappointingly, haters used that video as some sort of evidence that the president is dumb or country or a hick or whatever. I thought it was great to see him letting loose and slightly making a fool of himself. Imagine what the Africans in attendance thought! I’m sure they didn’t think “Look at that fool” but rather “Look at that guy, President of the United States, unafraid to enjoy our culture.” That’s how you cultivate close and healthy relationships with other nations. I’m not suggesting he go dance with Ahmadinejad, but you get the idea. Humor and the human element: two keys to successful international relations. And I am by no means an idealist.

Finally, this piece. I took a Theory and Politics of Terrorism class a couple years ago (clearly making me a be-all and end-all expert in the subject), and one of the many things I took from that class was the fact that the press does a lot of harm, in its eagerness to sell stories, when it publishes these alarmist pieces about the impending destruction of the country by terrorists. I’m not arguing that the threat doesn’t exist; it does. I am also not suggesting that the threat be suppressed or that people should not be made aware. However, there is no need for the media to do an investigation into how effective a nuclear detonation in DC would be. They don’t need to spend a week or a month or a year to look into the security measures of Amtrak or the metro or hospitals or schools or museums or malls so they can then run an expose on them to show how vulnerable they are to this or that method of terrorism. You are doing the terrorists’ research for them. Terrorists and would-be terrorists read newspapers and watch TV. If the media’s true motivation was prevention of tragedy, they would do the research but not publish it, they would just tell the people who need to make the changes and then maybe threaten to expose them. Even then it would be clear that their motivation is ratings and sales. I realize that I’m not offering up a new concept by any means, but it’s really counterproductive, even destructive. Freedom of the press is great, I just wish they would have some common sense.