The fun of college football is the pomp, the pageantry, the fans. If you're from South Florida, you get off on being in "a" bowl, regardless of whether its the Salon.com Bowl (and regardless of the school not even being in South Florida).

The Fiesta Bowl was fun because it was obvious both teams cared about winning, and no one gave up until the last whistle blew. If you want to call that an "exhibition", fine, but any well-played athletic contest should be its own reward.

I generally agree with what Orbitboy said, except that the 2005 Rose Bowl was better than the 2006 game. Same Vince Young, different opponent and no national championship on the line, but a better-played and more entertaining football game.

My grandmother came to this country and didn't bother to take the citizenship test for many years. In the early 1960's, I think because she loved John Kennedy and wanted to vote for him for reelection (oops!), she decided to take the test. She was in her early 60's (born 1898), spoke poor English and read even more poorly. I remember as a small child accompanying her to the federal building where the examiner pretty much led her through the rote answers she barely understood. She passed (and we then went to lunch at the restaurant owned by Ivan Boesky's family, but that's another story).

A couple of years ago, the wife of a good friend of mine took the test. She is extremely well-educated and extremely bright, speaks perfect English and could readily expound on a number of constitutional and political issues, in particular by contrasting how things work in the United States and the repressive government under which she grew up. She passed as well.

My point is that the test is one that is administered to a very broad range of people, all of whom deserve to become citizens. Some will need almost to be guided through the process and others are likely to be able to answer the questions better than the examiners. If a test is administered so that only rote answers are allowed, some of the best candidates for citizenship may be marked down. If the government is providing only a single interpretation of the Constitution and demanding that citizenship candidates adhere to it, we are on another step toward tyranny and enforced orthodoxy. Of the same ilk as the idiots who demanded that the new Muslim member of Congress swear on "the bible of the United States" despite the express and entirely applicable provision of the Constitution outlawing any religious test for office.

Not only were players told the tests would be confidential but the consequences of a failed test were spelled out (and presumably complied with). The media think that there is one set of rules for other people and another for Barry Bonds. I'm bored.

It's been almost six months since the stupid 3-1-1 rules on liquids on airplanes went into effect (though, as Patrick points out, not for that ketchup packet you want). And as far as I know, no one is customizing "travel sizes" of toiletries to meet the three ounce standard. I went into Walgreen's this week, and their "travel bottles" for cosmetics or mouthwash were still four ounces. I actually hunted down some clear plastic bottles that were three ounces (I measured), but since they're not labeled with size my guess is that some officious TSA-bot will confiscate them on the ground that "we don't measure", just like they confiscated clearly half-empty four ounce bottles (you don't have to do much to measure a half-empty four ounce bottle, just lay it on an angle and see that the top isn't covered at all and the bottom is; elementary school science).

So one question I have is whether the industry that makes travel-sized bottles is banking on (or has heard unofficial word from the government) the short life of these regs?

Bobby Knight has always taken the position that in the last seconds of a close game, he will not call timeout because his team will be the one that is better-prepared than the other team. A timeout gives the other team a chance to catch up.

That the TSA found the false bottomed water bottle is a good thing and that is what should be getting the publicity.

"TSA actually finds something sort of related to how folks might theoretically do terrorist stuff" is a good headline. That they did it with someone prominent gives it play, but the idea they actually sort of found the bottle (which might have been smuggling something I wouldn't actually want on the plane, as opposed to marijuana-related stuff, which I couldn't care less about) is the news to me.

According to Gil Brandt on nfl.com, "The winning players' share in Super Bowl I was $15,000. That's not bad, but it's peanuts compared to the $73,000 each player will get for winning Super Bowl XLI. The runners-up won't do badly either ($38,000)." I'll accept his numbers, but I don't accept his characterization. The winning players' share has gone up just under 400% in 40 years. The price of many, many things has increased more than that. In fact, general inflation from January 1967 to December 2006 is just over 500%.

Let's compare it to one source of revenue, from the same source: "The advertising rates for the first Super Bowl was $42,000 for a 30-second spot. Two years ago it was $2.4 million. This year it is $2.7 million." That's "not peanuts", it's 6328%. Thus, Super Bowl ads have increased at 16 times the rate of the payout to players, at 12.6 times the rate of inflation.

The difference is going into the NFL's pockets and the pockets of the current players (through salaries, not Super Bowl checks). Why not skim some portion of that into a fund for the welfare of ex-NFLers in need? It would seem more than rough justice, since the league built its foundation on the wear and tear on these individuals' joints.