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I should be doing various things with these fleeting moments of “discretionary time” here at the end of the day. Making another white russian, perhaps, e.g. But I’ve read a few things which I feel compelled to make note of, here. (Clearly my sense of self-importance is getting out of hand; please stage an intervention if I start holding fund-raisers.)

First, the latest from Ohio: this item in today’s Plain Dealer suggests that maybe the Ohio Democratic Party is short on cash and struggling to get enough signatures to place Republicans’ gerrymandered congressional district map on the ballot as a referendum. Frankly, this is what I was afraid of, i.e. that the costly victory over SB5 would exhaust Democrat reserves, rather than energize them. We’ll see. There are also hints that maybe a deal on congressional districts is within reach, but in the meantime I’d better find a petition and sign it, no matter how busy I am.

Second, a professor at dear auld ISU stirred up a minor controversy when he wrote to the Iowa State Daily (god, remember…?) responding critically to “a feel-good feature about College Republicans from across the state who hoped to spark some cheer in those spending the holidays thousands of miles away from home,” i.e. “the troops.” Frankly, Thomas Walker’s points are so obviously sound it’s practically appalling that they even need to be made. This isn’t the Civil War. “The troops” are practically showered with largesse (at least while in service, and aside from occasional minor details like body armor) just from the federal budget, and ongoing “hey let’s do something nice for the troops” efforts are so numerous that the idea of claiming this as some special, novel idea is ridiculous. Meanwhile, there are plenty of more-deserving causes here at home, including unemployed veterans, and we could really help all parties most by recalling the troops from ill-defined, utterly futile missions and redirecting some of those funds to projects which actually benefit people other than Halliburton execs. But god forbid you point this out, especially with “a partisan flair,” given that American society obviously places such great value on well-mannered mildness and decorum.

Finally, there’s another one of those interminable climate change conferences going on. At this point, I’m pretty convinced that if we’re not doomed, the avoidance of doom isn’t going to be the result of diplomacy and negotiated legislation. Still, there’s something interesting in the large number of nations finally getting together to call out the foot-dragging usual suspects, i.e. us, China, India, et al. In fact, maybe there’s a deal to be made here. If I can offer a suggestion, how about the U.S. agrees to back the EU and its pals on a serious, binding emissions reduction treaty if the EU agrees to get its financial shit together instead of dragging our economy over a cliff again? Honestly, that sounds like it would be awfully attractive from our perspective, so much so that I can almost imagine it even being ratified by the Senate.

Not really, of course.* But it might be a good idea because, I know we aren’t supposed to draw specific connections like this but, Scotland is being hit with 165mph winds. Uh. Maybe we really should stop tampering with the climate, here…

* Update: After all, why would Senate Republicans want to support any kind of deal in order to prevent another recession, now, less than a year before a Democratic president is up for re-election? Honestly, what was I thinking. I must have been tired last night.

I didn’t pay much attention to the ISU-OSU game, last night. I looked at the score once, around 10:30 EST, and saw ISU trailing 7-17. Which was relatively pleasing, given that my aspirations for the team consisted solely of losing by fewer than 30 points.

After that, having gotten up at 6:30 all week as part of this end-of-year deathmarch I’m working on, I called it a night. Then I got up and saw this:

Oh, baby

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Tough call: which late-90s poorly-conceived attempt at welding together a collection of plainly-divergent interests was dumber?

The Euro or the Big 12?

Hey-ohhhhhhh.

It’s football season, at last, and I would probably be downright excited, if I weren’t so detached and unresponsive toward life, generally, of late. Still, football remains of some interest, and thank goodness for that, really. A few thoughts.

Things do not look good for my beloved Cyclones this season. I had some hopes for this Steele Jantz guy, some wary optimism based on that of others for him. But as the offseason dragged on with no announcement of a starter, those hopes were already dimming quite a bit; it doesn’t seem like anyone really good should be in a drawn-out quarterback competition with Jerome Tiller.

And now, well, Jantz’s last-minute heroics helped his team squeak past UNI, but 1) that’s going to be a much more difficult trick in conference games, and 2) throwing three picks sure won’t help the cause; meanwhile 3) this was UNI. The best consolation I can offer for myself right now, meanwhile, is that hey, UNI’s football team can bite you in the ass. They can challenge the Hawks even in seasons when our loathed rivals are ranked. So a close call vs the Panthers doesn’t guarantee futility, by itself.

But you sure don’t want to lose that game. I was very relieved by the comeback. I’ve been drawing this parallel between the near loss to UNI and the possible defeat of the president, for whatever that’s worth: (more…)