Random Notes

Slept in very, very late this morning. I was surprised when I looked at my watch and saw it was ten o’clock and I was still a-bed. That doesn’t happen very often, even considering I didn’t get to sleep until around 2:00 a.m. Too much excitement, and by that I mean:

Texas 41, USC 38.

Won with 19 seconds left on the clock. Texas down by 12 with six minutes and change left to play. Vince Young pulls out the stops and scores two touchdowns AND runs for a two-point conversion; the Texas defense puts the full-stop on USC. Does it get any better than that? Well, does it?

I’m thinking the Heisman folks want a do-over on this year’s vote. As noted on ESPN:

Game Ball Goes To: Vince Young. May have been the greatest championship game performance ever. The Texas QB threw for 267 yards, ran for 200 more and scored three TDs -- including the game-winner with 0:19 left.

This game will be talked about for years to come; if you missed it, you missed The Best Bowl Game, Ever. And quite possibly the best college football game, ever.

Screedblog is back! The acerbic Lileks is the best Lileks, IMHO. Two entries in this year’s opener, one a riff on that must-read Mark Steyn op-ed in the WSJ, and the other with 2006 predictions. Samples:

I defy anyone to find anything in a modern newspaper as bracing or blunt – or as long, for that matter – as this much-discussed Mark Steyn piece on the decline of the West. I’ve felt the same things for the last few years, and it’s not out of some grim censorious distaste for eyebrow rings and wardrobe malfunctions. I do not worry about libertinism. I worry about libertines who think the greatest threat to the imminent Utopia is a Wal-Mart exec who refuses to stock a CD because the lyrics celebrate shooting cops in the head, or who think that uptight repressed Christers are six inches and five days away from replacing the Constitution with the plot of “A Handmaiden’s Tale.” The people who make a religion of environmentalism (I read “State of Fear” over the vacation break, and I can see why it horrified so many; it simply wasn’t helpful. While I don’t doubt that Crichton votes Dem – I just have a feeling – it was cruel & delightful fun to read a novel where George Soros Sees The Light, and Ted Danson is eaten by cannibals), the people who consider themselves enlightened but believe all sorts of pseudo-scientific nonsense (no pesticides for us! We only eat vegetables nutured by donkey offal), the people who regard the entire modern world as a giant horrid Cancer Machine designed by callous top-hatted industrialists. My father is 80 years old, healthy as an ox, Zorba-strong, and he’s been breathing petroleum fumes since 1952. They see threats and perils everywhere except where there are, you know, threats and perils.

And

The New York Times, fresh from reporting the self-destruct codes for the American spy satellites that had inadvertently listened into fifteen pay-per-view porn orders from cable subscribers in Omaha, revealed that US subs have been violating Chinese territorial waters to monitor military communications. The Times named the boat, the captain, his home address, and posted his credit report online. The boat was never heard from again, and was presumed sunk. Outrage was swift – but only when the Justice Department demanded the names of the people who’d leaked the secret information. “Not content with destroying the Fourth Amendment, this administration seems intent on demolishing the First,” said one legal expert who appeared on CNN but declined to give his name, fearing reprisals. (His name was later leaked to the Times, which printed it, but declined to name its sources.)

Chastened, The Administration begged the Times to put all its classified leaks in the “Times Select” online subscription-only service, guaranteeing no one will read them.

As it’s said: read it all!

A Good Man Goes Down. Another victim of Abu Ghraib:

General Sanchez has told senior Army officials that he plans to retire, probably this summer, rather than face a bruising Senate confirmation fight over any new assignment, said two senior officials who were granted anonymity because General Sanchez has not made his decision public. As recently as last summer, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was considering elevating General Sanchez to the four-star command overseeing the military's operations in Latin America. The general's promotion would have showcased the nation's highest-ranking Hispanic officer and his compelling personal story of growing up poor in southern Texas and using the military as a bootstrap out of poverty.

The USA loses one of its most talented generals at a time when we can least afford the loss. More’s the pity.

Hey! We’re Rich! An interesting blurb on American household wealth, which is greater now than at any other point in history. So much for all the angst about household DEBT, eh?