Current mood:	contemplative
Current music:	Guster- Amsterdam

Changing all my strings...
A few random musings today-

The NCAA has apparently banned the usage of nicknames or mascots that are offensive from NCAA tournament events, including the name “Fighting Illini” from any uniform worn in the NCAA basketball tournament. That, to me, is disappointing.

A woman was taken off of life support the other day, allowing the cancer that had consumed her for years to end her life a day after a cesarean (sic) section operation was performed to give birth to the daughter that she and her husband had conceived shortly prior to her death. It’s really a touching yet tragic story, and if you haven’t read about it lately you should take a look at it. The daughter is named after her mother, and while it’s a very sad story it’s also a happy day for the family. Think “A Farewell to Arms” without the bitterness.

Rafael Palmeiro, who adamantly denied EVER taking steroids in his baseball career, was suspended for 10 games recently just days after becoming the 9th player in baseball history to reach 3,000 hits and 500 home runs in his career. That’s pretty impressive, if you do it juice free. Now Palmeiro says that he didn’t do it intentionally. *cough* bullshit *cough*. Raffy, let’s look at the facts. Jose Canseco says he introduced the juice to you when you two played together in Texas. Your power numbers rose drastically once you started playing with Jose. You’re 40 years old but you do Viagra ads, knowing full well that steroids can often cause erectile dysfunction and infertility. But the thing that amazes me is that this guy was caught with the same steroid that Ben Johnson was suspended from the 1988 olympics for taking. 1988. That’s 17 years ago. Don’t you think if you were going to cheat that you’d do something a little more discreet, like HGH or one of the other less-detectable steroids. Seriously, I know nobody accused baseball players of being intelligent, but you gotta be smarter than this, right?

John Roberts has been nominated by the president for the Supreme Court. Plenty of people are actually interested in this because of a number of things, but most are concerned with abortion rights and gay rights, saying that adding the conservative Roberts to the court could threaten long-standing decisions such as Roe v. Wade and other fundamental rights that have been recently gained by gay rights groups. However, it recently came out that he worked pro bono work on behalf of the plaintiffs opposing a referendum in Colorado that would have allowed discrimination based on sexual orientation. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/08/05/national/w135401D98.DTL

It’s kinda funny because that article makes it seem like at least on the gay rights front, nobody is very happy that Roberts helped out, either on the conservative or liberal side of it. I kinda think that when it comes to picking a Supreme Court justice that that’s how it’s supposed to be. Piss everyone off, don’t try to make anyone happy. I’m not saying Roberts is a perfect choice or by any means a non-controversial choice, but I’m glad to see at least some people are accepting the fact that he’s done more than just try to kill rights for people throughout his career.

I'd like to say that I could give up on the Chicago Cubs, but they always keep me thinking that there might be something beyond the .500 record. I'm wrong, I know, but for some reason I often place more faith in people/things than I should. That's a character flaw that I'm going to have to work on.

Gary Sheffield, Terrell Owens, and Lattrell Sprewell are the three biggest idiots in professional sports.

Damn do I miss Chicago.

Take care.

"True Love is when one's spirit finds its counterpart living in another."- Wedding Crashers