Thank God for Glenn Greenwald. Every post I read makes sense, because he backs it up with statistics and facts. Too few people in the mass media have ever heard of relying on something other than "conventional wisdom." As if conventional wisdom were even readily identifiable as wisdom in the first place. After all, conventional wisdom for 16-year-olds tells us that Mountain Dew prevents pregnancy, and c.w. for 20 and 30 and 40-year-olds doesn't do much better.

...the male friend who is a better match in these things is usually not rich and successful. On the contrary, the rich and successful guy is usually the villain who loses to the earnest hero of the romantic comedy.

Basketball in Iowa City, as in most places, is played in an arena. Although the chair of the Johnson County Democrats may wish to refer to Carver Hawkeye Arena as a "stadium", the term "stadium" generally refers to a venue where outdoor sports are played. Mr. Scherer should not have repeated Mr. Flaherty's error by continuing to refer to an "arena" as a "stadium". Carver Hawkeye Arena holds 15,500 people. So to say it holds "about 15,000 people" is about as accurate as saying it holds "about 16,000 people". I only bring it up as a former Iowa City resident and rabid Iowa Hawkeye fan.

At some point we want to focus on the needs of the children, and of course we want children to be raised in a healthy environment on a healthy diet. We may tend to, rightly or wrongly, see overweight parents in a negative light because we assume they lead an unhealthy lifestyle, which extends to how they raise their children. We assume they are McDonalds addicts who serve their children copious helpings of trans fat-laden fries and fatty burgers with milkshakes to wash it down. Instead, in our perfect world, children are raised by health food freaks who also force (encourage) them to exercise.

Nevertheless, we would find it abhorrent to take children away from their obese natural parents. And if that is the case, I don't see how we can hold adoptive parents to a much higher standard.

Perhaps we could instead focus on serving healthier meals in our school cafeterias and reintroducing physical education to our public schools.

On the first game I played, I guessed the computer's word "PARROT" on my second try. My first guess was "MARINE." I picked "INVENT", but the computer didn't have a chance. My score 99.3333/100.

How is it shocking that anyone would think that Mormons aren't Christians? While Christianity is tied to a person (Jesus Christ) who lived around AD 32 in Palestine, Mormonism seeks or sought to transplant the same Son of God to America through a series of texts set in an America that is easy to historically disprove. There is no evidence that any of the individuals mentioned in the Book of Mormon ever existed. Us Christians have a problem with Mormonism not because we can necessarily prove our claim that Jesus was the son of God, but because it is easy to historically disprove and discount every single claim made in the book of Mormon.

The last fight I paid for pay-per-view was the Lennox Lewis/Mike Tyson fight. While I've seen the occasional fight since then, boxing has lost its lure. Part of the downfall was the fact that unlike nearly every other major sport, boxing still has four major authorities. So unlike the Colts or the Heat or the Cardinals or whoever won the Stanley Cup last year (I honestly don't know), there are four heavyweight champions. Even MMA has only two major leagues.

I think boxing is clearly dead and we will look on the Mayweather/Dey La Hoya fight as the bellweather of the end.

Honestly, I don't care about steroids in baseball or any other sport. I want to see a level playing field and all, but if every player or most players are on a PED, then it creates a sort of level playing field. The players know that they can get away with certain shenanigans and it may only be lightly enforced.

From what I gather, the thing that bothers most people is that modern PED-enhanced players have an unfair advantage in the record books with the non-PED-enhanced-retired players. The old players also worked in a completely different environment. Babe Ruth was not required to compete against African-American baseball players, for instance. The bottom line, for me, is how does this effect the entertainment of the game that I am watching? Would it really make a difference if a player for my favorite team was on PEDs? Would I like my any team less?

I am so tired of my timid relatives passively accepting every inconvenience where there is no evidence of a reduction the risk of terrorism. Patrick Smith's columns of the last few weeks have been a god-send.

"A Little Less Conversation..." Elvis

"Every Breath You Take" Police

"Let the Eagles Soar" John Ashcroft

How 'bout them Cubs?

I don't think Bush ought to be given credit for anything. So he's not a conservative jerk on one issue, which just happens to be an issue that his corporate backers are all for. He doesn't deserve credit for it. You might as well say that the makers of Scary Movie 4 deserve some credit because one of the scenes was sorta funny.