Dumping Grounds

Let’s make a couple of things abundantly clear.

1) I was against invading Iraq from the very beginning. I didn’t have much faith in our ability to handle the post-war phase, so called â??nation building.â?

2) If we are to engage in armed conflict with another nation, I subscribe wholeheartedly to the â??Powell doctrineâ? - attack with overwhelming force, to end the conflict as soon as possible, attack with a clear goal, and with an exit strategy in mind.

That said, why are we in Iraq? If we are there to eliminate the threat of weapons of mass destruction, I think we have failed. Even if there were no weapons programs in Iraq (which I doubt, even to this day) there would have been before long. We have eliminated Iraq, at least in the short term, as a threat to the United States. But we have still failed. Because while we were taking away Saddam’s toys, other countries have become emboldened, knowing that the US had neither the manpower, nor the stomach, for a second simultaneous conflict. Iran is racing toward nuclear weapons. North Korea may have them already (They say that they have them, but I’m sorry, I just have trouble believing anything that comes out of North Korea). Syria may be considering the possibility of starting a program. Pakistan, which already had nuclear weapons, may be even less stable than they were two years ago.

You see, when you are a democracy, you have to pick your battles carefully. Democratic public opinion rapidly turns against war (didn’t anyone in our government ever play Sid Meier’s Civilization?) and it is difficult for a democracy (especially one with a relatively successful economy) to recruit enough soldiers to the military to maintain a force capable of sustaining two major, simultaneous conflicts.

My point is that Iraq was not a war. Iraq was a battle. And while we have won that battle, we continue to lose the war. Islamic countries resentful of our power in the world become fertile breeding grounds for future generations of Jihadists. I don’t have any facts to back this up, only intuition, but I would guess that the best way to assure that a young Arab boy will become a man who hates the Untied States enough to give his own life to the the cause is to have an American soldier kill his father.

Iraq itself, which was proposed by our leaders to be an example, a jewel of democracy in the Middle East, an example that other countries would want to emulate… is in disarray. Bordering on civil war, with a proposed constitution that mandates a state religion, lesser rights for women, and far too much weight given to harsh Islamic law… this is not what the American people imagined in 2002 when our leaders asked for our support for this action.

Which actually leads into my next question… what did we expect? It seems to me that many who supported the action in the first place, and are now against it, were incredibly naive in what they expected this battle to be like. Let’s review American armed conflict over the past 50 years or so…

• Afghanistan - The jury is still out. You see, we abandoned this job partially completed so we could go pick a fight with Saddam. Bin Laden is still free, and the Afghan constitution, like the proposed Iraqi one, mandates Islam as the state religion, and maintains the sovereignty of Islamic law, even over the constitution itself.

• the First Gulf war - Largely successful. The goal was to end the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait. You will note that this is the ONLY conflict on this list that strictly followed the Powell doctrine of armed conflict: Attack with overwhelming force, with a clear stated goal of what you are trying to accomplish, and with the end in mind (have an exit strategy before you start).

• Bosnia - Seriously here… does anyone know what we were doing in Bosnia? Which side we were on? Who were the bad guys? Of course not, we were too busy worrying about who was giving the President a blowjob. Do we know if Bosnia is stable now? Do we care?

• Sporadic bombings through the Middle East and Northern Africa in the 1980’s - A prime example of â??you hit us, and we’ll hit you back, only a little harder.â? Result? After three decades, Quadaffi is still in power, and proved that you can blow up American soldiers and get away with it, as long as you do not blow up too many, too often.

• Panama - We did it quickly, with few casualties, and set up a stable government. Almost perfect… except for the fact that we were merely undoing our own mistake, as we had set up Noriega in the first place.

• Vietnam - 200 years from now, Vietnam will still be the textbook example of how not to conduct a war. Too little power spread over too long a time. We never really lost a single battle in Vietnam, and yet we lost the war. Handily. Result? Communist government in Vietnam; 58,000 American soldiers dead, and scars we still have not healed from.

• Cuba - A wonderful example of our ability at â??nation-building.â? Everyone remembers that we helped Castro assume power in the first place, right?

Given this track record, why did anyone thing that rebuilding a nation as large and technologically advanced as Iraq was going to be easy? And obviously, everyone did. The American people thought it would be easy, because they expected the job to be accomplished in 24 months. With no casualties. Our leaders thought it would be easy, because they did nothing to convince the public that they were wrong. Then they sent too few people. And too little equipment. Unless they thought it was going to be easy, these actions are completely inexplicable.

My personal opinion is that the current administration saw September 11 as an opportunity to go and finish the job that, in their minds, went unfinished in the first Gulf War. In my mind, in the first Gulf War we simply had a clear idea of what we were there to accomplish, and once we accomplished it, we stopped. This same administration was so in love with our smart bombs, unmanned spy robots, tomahawk missiles and stealth technology that they forgot how to actually win a war. Wars are not won with guns, and they never have been. Truly effective end strategy is about winning hearts and minds of the people, and I am not sure we are doing an effective job of that in Iraq. If you try to win a war with guns, you end up with a decades long insurgency. Just ask Britain, or Russia, they know all about it. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and whoever else planned this little escapade forgot that.

Sun Tzu said, over 2,000 years ago… that the first step to defeating your enemy was to make yourself undefeatable. I think that the money and the time we have spent in Iraq would have been better spent on defensive technologies to protect ourselves from this new, multi-threat world. The Cold War model of detente won’t work anymore. You cannot dissuade an enemy from attacking you with assured destruction if that enemy is not afraid to die, or if they are crazy, or if they do not provide any centralized target or infrastructure to strike at.

The insurgency in Iraq is not afraid to die.

The leadership in North Korea is crazy.

Al’Queda provides no centralized target or infrastructure to strike at.

Welcome to war in the the twenty first century.

My friend Liz brought this to my attention, although I am pretty sure that my take on it was different than hers. (OK, I just spoke to Liz, and I don’t think we’re that out of sync at all.)

Go watch it, then come back and read the rest of this.

http://oak.psych.gatech.edu/~epic/ols-master.html

In her entry, Liz called this video â??scary.â? And I agree. Any future where news delivery is controlled by one or two major corporations, each with their own agenda and ample opportunity to tilt delivery to suit that agenda, is scary. But how is that appreciably different than what we have today? Only in the number of corporations.

Everyone knows that CNN has a liberal bias. NPR, even more so. Fox has a strong conservative tilt. People choose to view one newscast over another (in most cases) to be in line with their own views. It’s easier that way. It’s stress free. (Of course, some choose to view the newscast most opposite their view, just to see what the other side is up to. For instance, I would guess that Liz watches Fox occasionally, and I have Aljazeera Online bookmarked. No one does this exclusively, however.)

The focus of the video is that the mainstream media (which, in the presentation, is represented by The New York Times) all but disappears by 2014. It has become a bit player in a news world dominated by Google and Microsoft.

As a side note: Does anyone believe that a plodding beast like Microsoft is capable of this? They are a victim of their own success: slow, uncreative, a monstrosity formed of attempting to be all things to all people.

Really. Does anyone use MSN as their main search engine?

There are still paid reporters and columnists, but they are paid based on popularity, not quality. Sensationalism is rewarded far more than depth in reporting. Oh wait… how is 2014 different than 2005?

Only in the delivery mechanism. Reporters have not disappeared… editors have. High profile irresponsible reporting via blog is a big player today. But that makes blogs different than the major media outlets how?

Finally, the supposedly bleak picture of the future bemoans the fact that a few intellectually gifted and organized individuals are given a summary of world events without compare in human history.

However, most, who have somewhat lower capabilities and tastes, are given a daily picture that consists of â??trivia.â? They have no bigger picture, they have no scope.

Pardon my cynicism, but yet again, how is 2014 any different that 2005? Most are not interested in what goes on any further away than the end of their block, and a Presidential election that gets half of us to even bother to vote at all is viewed as â??huge turnout.â?

A second side note: To those of you who are thinking â??Apathy and ignorance are precisely the qualities of American society that got us a President like George Bush…â?

Bullshit.

Apathy and ignorance are the qualities that got us CANDIDATES like George Bush and John Kerry. We didn’t care, so we got mediocre candidates. I don’t blame the country for voting for George Bush, because the only available alternative was John Kerry. And those candidates were chosen (depending on your level of cynicism) by a) the political parties themselves, accountable to no one. b) a minority of voters hugely smaller than the ones who actually participated in the actual election (during the primaries) or c) the centralized media we have today. Because they have the Presidential look (tall, vital, and handsome) and that’s what’s important right?

Back to the point at hand.

What I took from the above presentation that the media has a responsibility to inform and educate the lowest common denominator of society, and in 2014, they cannot do that any longer.

Wah. Cry me a river. I have news for you. The truly apathetic and ignorant are not reading The New York Times today. They won’t when it’s electronic, either. They won’t even listen when it is read to them on the way to work by a computer in their car, either. They are far too busy listening to the quality offerings of Maroon 5, Nickelback, and Lindsay Lohan.

All the while, taking their political commentary from Bono, Fred Durst, Toby Keith, and the Dixie Chicks.

If the news was a pill, they would only take it if it made them feel good, too. Or allowed them to have better sex.

I don’t really believe that the mainstream media outlets play any sort of an irreplaceable role in today’s society. They haven’t for at least ten years. The feeling that the media has a â??dutyâ? to inform the public is gone. There is no â??dutyâ? because there is no â??informingâ? going on. When are we supposed to get real news after 10 minutes of commercials, and 17 minutes of Michael Jackson trial coverage? Anyone care to compare the coverage received by Jacko vs. the amount of time spent on the EU constitution floundering? What about the amount of time spent on today’s attacks in Iraq vs. Destiny’s Child breaking up?

Walter Cronkite was irreplaceable. Because there was no alternate method. Now there is, and I am not sure that the alternate method is all that bad, either. If the media of the future allows me to get a bigger, better view of what is going on and leaves some people in the dust, then bring it on.

This past Sunday, John Kerry appeared on Meet the Press to talk about Iraq, the election, and his plans going forward.

For the first 20 minutes of the interview, the change in the man was striking. He was giving straight answers to questions. He was not long winded, he was clear, and he had a point. He was not afraid to disagree with his patron saint, Ted Kennedy. He had tough, straight to the point comments for the President concerning Iraq. He made a lot of sense when speaking about Social Security. He spoke quite candidly about why he thought he had a lot to be proud of, in the way he ran his campaign.

In other words, he was downright presidential.

And then, Russert started to ask tough questions about specific items which had haunted Kerry in the campaign. Specifically, about being in Cambodia on Christmas Eve, 1968 (a memory that has been recounted many times as having been â??searedâ? into Mr. Kerry’s memory) and about the fact that a member of his platoon says that they weren’t in Cambodia.

Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde could not have performed a more complete transformation. Mr. Kerry was almost immediately defensive, claimed that â??Well, maybe we were on the borderâ?, and just generally started to make very little sense.

Within the next 5 minutes, he claimed that his servicemate didn’t know where they were, as it was â??not his jobâ?, Osama bin Laden cost him the presidential election, and at times just simply did not answer the question he was asked by Russert.

Where just 10 minutes before I had been thinking, â??Wow, maybe America should have voted for this guy…â? I was suddenly reminded (in amongst the whining, indecisiveness, and general waffling) why I am sincerely glad we didn’t.

I’m going to write this little article intentionally without Googling all my facts. For a variety of reasons… one, I can’t think of search terms that won’t give me a lot of crap, and two, I had the initial discussion without Googling, and it’s all about perception.

So I was having a discussion the other day, about the fact that the casualties in Falluja have surpassed those that were incurred taking over Baghdad. I expressed some surprise that should be the case. I expressed some dismay that the casualties had continued to accumulate (and even accelerate) since the operations in Iraq had been declared â??over.â?

â??The President never said it was over.â? Came the response.

â??He didn’t? He didn’t say that ‘the era of major operations in Iraq is over’? I could have sworn that was an exact quote.â?

(To be fair, I am recapping the discussion from memory, and I am almost certainly misrepresenting the other side of the conversation, my apologies)

â??No, that quote has been misrepresented in the press, and the hundreds of times where he expresses that more casualties are coming have gone unreported.â?

â??Well, that is certainly true, I have never heard the White House say that the American public should expect more casualties.â?

The conversation continued along many fronts… has Bush gotten a fair shake from the media? Did he ever say it was over? Was my expectation that casualties would decrease (not disappear) following that declaration unrealistic? Was that statement reported out of context? Would a statement such as the following have been reported more accurately by the media (and would it have set expectations among the public to a more realistic level?

â??The era of major operations in Iraq is done. This does not mean there is not a long road in front of us. This does not mean that servicemen will be coming home in 6 months. Nor does it mean that American lives are no longer at risk. This task will still take American effort, and American blood. The end result, I believe is worth it, as we will make the world a safer place, not only for Americans, but all human beings.â?

EDIT: I wrote the above, with the intention of being much more explicit, much more media spin-proof, and much less likely to inspire unrealistic expectations among the public. (end edit)

The reaction I got to that statement was â??That WAS what he said.â? I don’t recall ever being told that the lives that have been lost were worth it.

So my question to you is… was that what he said? Was that what you heard? Has the government done what it could to manage expectations appropriately?

If you post a comment, great. If you answer in your own blog, post a link. Or if you just want to drop me a line, feel free.

In the category of candidate who wasted a lot of money on negative, misleading ads, only to concede VERY early in the evening…

<opens the envelope>
And the winner is… Martin Frost! What do you have to say, Mr. Frost?
â??Well, Pete Sessions is the Devil, and he wants to raise your sales taxes 7000%â?
Uh…. thanks, Martin.

In the category of truly dismal local news coverage, based around clueless anchor-people…

<opens the envelope>
And the winner is… Channel 5! Always a strong player with the clueless ramblings of Mike Snyder, they added an unusually ditsy performance by Jane McGarry. Among the highlights were Ms. McGarry putting California back in play almost an hour after it had been called for Kerry, while not subtracting the electoral votes from the Kerry column. Apparently, due to a unforeseen instant population explosion, California is now worth 110 electoral votes.

In the category of â??best frog voiceâ?…

<opens the envelope>
The winner is Tom Brokaw! (Trust me, if you saw it, you know what I’m talking about :-0 )

More to come if I see anything funny.

Just finished watching the debate, and it was most likely a draw. I felt that Vice President Cheney was on the offensive most of the time, while Edwards was counter-punching. Personally, I thought that Cheney won, but I admit my bias. He’s a hawk, but he’s a damned good debater.

To be fair, however, he counter-punched well.

That said… I don’t think there was one person in America who had their potential vote decided (or changed) tonight. Quite simply few people care about the Vice President’s office. We have not had a VP ascend to the oval office since Gerald Ford following Richard Nixon’s resignation. It is largely an invisible office, and their biggest moment in four years is pretty much what happened tonight… the VP debate leading up to the November elections.

The bleeding from the Bush defeat last week has been staunched. It is up to the President not to re-open the wound. Personally, I think the â??Town Hallâ? format of this week’s debate will lend itself a bit more to President’s style. ABC is already reporting (in the time that I have been writing this) that Cheney was considered the victor by a about a 10% margin over Sen. Edwards.

Early fact-check report is that the Kerry-Edwards insistence that the war in Iraq has cost $200 billion is simply not true. The Cheney number of $120 billion is accurate. Edwards insists that Cheney has in the past claimed a connection between Iraq and Al Queda, Cheney claimed a connection between Saddam and Mohammad Atta (one of the terrorists aboard plane on Sept 11). Oh well. Even with a little â??playing with the factsâ? on the Kerry-Edwards side, I still think that the results of the first two debates have been fairly clear. Kerry-Edwards - 1, Bush-Cheney - 1.

Looking forward to the next one.

I was talking to Alan the other day about a series of media stories that had come out (or at least to my attention) on the same day.

The first was the supposed documents that “proved” that President Bush did not complete his military commitment to the National Guard during the early 1970’s.

The problem was that this document had an appearance that would have been difficult, if not impossible to produce with 1970’s technology. It was in an inappropriate font (which was, at the time, in an unapproved font for government memorandum) and had typesetting features that were damned near impossible to produce on a typewriter.

In other words, it was a forgery. A fairly sloppy forgery, which anyone who looked at this mysterious document through eyes that did not want to see something to help get John Kerry elected, would have very likely noticed right away.

This was not a mistake. This was intentional. The researchers knew it. CBS knows it. And Dan Rather knows it, too. Anyone surprised at how quickly this story has disappeared? When it reflected badly on a conservative President, it was trumpeted on every news cast. When it reflects poorly on a liberal news outlet, and a doddering old fool who stood by the story, it goes away in a day or two.

The second was a story carried by the Associated Press about a rally where the President was speaking, and while addressing the crowd, he wished former President Clinton a speedy recovery from his bypass surgery. At this point, the story reported, the crowd began to boo, and the President did nothing to stop them.

There was only one problem. There was video of the event. The video showed that there was no booing. No catcalls. No harassment or ill wishes expressed for the former President at all. I guess when the issues are not enough, when exaggerations and half-truths are not turning the public to think as you do, the press does what any red-blooded American would do. They just flat out lie. Just make it up. After all, even if you get caught, none of your friends in the media will cover the revised story, will they? Even the Associated Press never retracted the story. They simply deleted it. Again, the story disappeared almost immediately.

The story this election season is not the lies that the candidates are telling about one another. While the election has been nasty, and I expect it to get even more nasty as the differential in the polls gets even larger, the true story is that this was the year the media lost all perspective in reporting the news. This was the year that CBS and the Associates Press decided to enter the fiction market. After all, that’s where the money is, right?

In a column originally for the Rhinoceros Times, picked up by the Wall Street Journal, Orson Scott Card demonstrates this bias through samples he found in the paper one morning. The column is a bit too long for my tastes, in my opinion Card had proven his point long before he stops presenting examples. Keep in mind this article is written by a man who is a lifelong democrat, and yet believes that the party has left him (much like Zell Miller, only without that annoying bit of insanity).

OK, so the liberal Democrats have Michael Moore, who is a certifiable lunatic with a personal vendetta against the Bush family. (I have to give him credit though, he got people to pay $7 each to watch his 90 minute long section 527 political ad disguised as a movie… The Swift Boat Vets had to buy air time for their hatchet job.)

Not to be outdone, the conservatives have their own freaking nutjob, in the person of one Michelle Malkin. Her most recent book, In Defense of Internment: The Case for Racial Profiling in World War II and the War on Terror, is a defense of the Japanese internment in California during World War II, and possible applications of a similar technique that could be used today against Muslims. NOTE: I have not read the book, and maybe it’s not as Stalinist as it sounds, but I have heard it characterized as an argument for the internment of (at least some) American citizens of the Islamic faith, without charges, given the current war on terrorism. If I’m wrong, Michelle can contact me, and I’ll edit this paragraph.

While on Hardball with Chris Matthews on MSNBC (where she was supposed to be discussing her book), she said the following in reference to John Kerry during a discussion about the Swift Boat ads:

“Well yeah. Why don’t people ask him more specific questions about the shrapnel in his leg? There are legitimate questions about whether or not it was a self-inflicted wound.”

Ahem. OK, Let’s get our facts straight. 1) Chris Matthews is an asshole. On this point we agree. The way he handled her outlandish statement was deplorable. Ms. Malkin was busy hanging herself without Matthews gleefully throwing more rope around her neck. 2) She was misquoted by Keith Olbermann on his blog recounting the incident (and congratulating his friend and co-worker at MSNBC) [the offending blog entry has mysteriously disappeared from the MSNBC site] 3) Olbermann claims, among other things that Ms. Malkin is lobbed softballs by FOX, and is not used to real journalists questioning her, uh, unusual views. (To be fair, Ms. Malkin was coddled on Dennis Miller Live [on CNBC, MSNBC's sister channel] less that two weeks ago when presenting views defending her somewhat questionable book)

Now, all that aside, she’s a nut. Her blog entry on the subject cites numerous quotes about Kerry’s wounds (from Unfit for Command) and claims that the accusation of self inflicted wounds occurs on pg. 36 (which strangely, among a large number of other book quotes in the very same paragraph… goes completely unquoted). I don’t see ANY quote, even on her own website that seems to indicate that ANYONE said the wounds were self-inflicted. Even if the wound was caused by the incorrect deployment of a grenade launcher… how is it relevant? Who cares? All it proves is that President Bush is (likely) better with firearms than John Kerry. Not exactly one of my prime concerns when selecting a President.

Her comments were exceptionally poorly placed, and reflected poorly on her, and conservatives in general.

I think that any service of your country in wartime (or otherwise, as a matter of fact) is honorable, and worthy of respect. A Purple Heart as recognition that you were wounded while serving is a nice gesture, but it is not the type of medal that makes you qualified to be President.

(Please folks, I am not trying to disparage ANY veteran… but a Purple Heart does not indicate any particular competence or valor, it proves you can stop a bullet.)

Ms. Malkin is just as bad as Mr. Moore, she’s just not as well known, or as good of a self-promoter. Neither of them documents their sources, because that would really cramp their style of making the most outlandish statements possible. Both candidates have plenty of flaws that can be exploited by the other camp. Personally, if I don’t hear the word “Vietnam” for the next 20 years, it will still be too damn soon.

“John Kerry has been busy in the weeks leading up to the Republican Convention. I mean, he’s adopted as many positions as Courtney Love.” – Mike Murphy, Dennis Miller Live, CNBC

I think every single person who reads this site is from the Dallas area, but I ask the question anyway… are all cities as screwed up as Dallas, or does, say, San Jose, California have their shit together?

I present my evidence: 1) Dallas manages to screw up the opportunity to move the home of the Dallas Cowboys to one of the most financially impoverished areas of the city, thereby revitalizing the area, presenting a financial boon to the African-American community, and allowing the Cowboys to actually (for the first time in over 30 years) play in the city that they sport their name. To be fair, much of the problem was centered on Dallas county government, and it’s inability to work with the Dallas City council in any constructive or creative manner.

2) Last night’s Dallas City Council meeting deteriorated into a screaming match, with Council member Maxine Thornton-Reese wagging her finger at Mayor Laura Miller while accusing her of racism. Ms. Thornton-Reese is black, Ms. Miller is white. At the root of the conflict was a measure before the Council that would have subsidized the Universities of Oklahoma and Texas to keep their annual football game in Dallas for the next five years. The total of the subsidies? $1.25 million. Also included was $450,000 in economic development for Fair Park (which, of course, would have been taken care of already if they had just managed to lure the Cowboys into the area) Does the Texas-OU game benefit the city of Dallas more than $250,000 per year? Undoubtedly. Would this be a good investment? Unquestionably. Besides pumping some money into Fair Park, it would guarantee that the game stays here for another 5 years (sooner [no pun intended] or later, these schools are going to figure out, tradition be damned, that there is more money to be made for the cities of Austin and Norman, and the schools themselves, with a home and home arrangement). On this point, I actually believe there was little disagreement within the Council (inasmuch as they ever agree on ANYTHING. I’m not sure you could get a 15-0 vote on whether the sky was blue). the problems arose when the Council member whose district includes Fair Park, Leo Chaney (who as far as I can tell, was simply doing his job, trying to get more money for his district) asked if it might be possible to also subsidize the Prairie View A&M vs. Grambling (both traditionally black colleges) football game. This game also brings money into the city, and without a subsidy, there was some danger of losing it to Houston. The sum TOTAL asked for? $50,000 over 5 years. I, and most people reading this site, pay more than that individually to the IRS each year. Finding $50K in the budget for a city the size of Dallas should be a non-issue.

To this point, there is still not a problem. However, city lawyers advised that the motion should not be voted on in the same week in which it was proposed. So the vote for the Prairie View-Grambling subsidy was tabled until next week. This was when Ms. Thornton-Reese got up on her high horse, and insisted that the vote on Texas-OU should be tabled until next week as well. To do otherwise would smack of racism, she insisted. The Mayor did not want to delay the Texas-OU vote, as to her, the subsidies for the two games were completely separate issues. Well, at this point, the screaming match was on, and Ms. Thornton-Reese’s aforementioned finger waggling and accusations toward the Mayor began.

How childish. Let’s recap how every single party in this escapade acted poorly.

Council Member Thornton-Reese - her actions speak for themselves. She is a racist, and a reactionary nut who woke up yesterday morning looking for a fight with the Mayor.

Council Member Leo Chaney - should have known the rules about voting the same week a motion was introduced. Asked for a delay to a non-related issue (seemingly) to allow Ms. Thornton-Reese to go on her tirade. This reeks of having been planned beforehand.

Mayor Laura Miller - Good grief, on the other hand, why did she get so uptight about a 7 day delay? She was outvoted 12-2 on that count, and the measure was delayed anyway… but when you are dealing with a hostile city council that sees EVERY issue as a matter of race, then why do you open yourself up to such abuse?

Now, do both subsidies make sense? Yes. Are the relative sizes of the subsidies correct? Probably. Texas-OU is tremendously larger both in national interest and in financial impact that Prairie View-Grambling. Should the two subsidies in any way be linked? No. Should the City Council meeting have fallen to the level of a third grade temper tantrum? No.

It should be noted that I not only do not live in Dallas, I also do not live in Dallas County. I didn’t vote for any of these idiots. But the fact that people did, and the fact that their “representatives” are a bunch of petulant children, is why we’re now rooting for the Arlington Rangers, and come 2009, we’ll be rooting for the Arlington Cowboys. If they’re not careful, we’ll be driving interstate 35 (north and south) to see Texas-OU and Prairie View-Grambling. If that happens, I hope someone remembers to knock the cobwebs off the Cotton Bowl, it looks creepy when you just let them sit there.