evolution

in the 1960s, people in the far left carried around cambodian and north vietnamese flags, spat upon our soliders, and carried copies of the Little Red Book.

it is clear now that the war in vietnam was entirely avoidable and should have been stopped sooner than it was, or prevented altogether.

today, some people blame the u.s. and israel for terrorism against it. they think up derogatory names for our elected officials, threaten to move to canada, hinder israeli and u.s. efforts to find and eradicate terrorists, and support the efforts of those same terrorists to destroy us.

some people never learn. i’ve said it before, and i’ll continue to say it: i am a libertarian. i support a wide variety of things - both liberal and conservative - because i believe in them, and because i can. but i believe that when the generation of people started this radical left business in the 60s are all gone, this country will be a better place.

sometimes, the truth hurts.

the chiefs hammer the buffalo bills in front of an espn audience and 80,000 fans at arrowhead, by the count of 38-5. my players of the week:

• offensive: holmes - 15 carries, 83 yards; 3 catches, 26 yards; 3 rushing TD (the third of which involved QB trent green pancaking buffalo CB nate clements on the corner).
• defensive: CB eric warfield. much maligned in his first few seasons, he has developed into a solid cover corner who can deliver the bone-jarring hit. he had a monster game: 5 tackles, a sack and forced fumble (a colossal shot to buffalo QB drew bledsoe, the chiefs recovered), and two interceptions.
• special teams: RB derrick blaylock. his usual excellent job on return blocking and punt coverage. several punts were downed inside the buffalo 20.

the chiefs withstand a late comeback to beat the oakland raiders in another thriller on monday night 17-10 to go to 7-0, the longest any chiefs team has gone with a winning streak to start the season. players of the week:

• offensive: RB priest holmes - 123 yards rushing and 50 more receiving, plus one touchdown.
• defensive: MLB shawn barber - 2 sacks of raider QB rich gannon, and agitated in the backfield all night.
• special teams: WR marc boerigter - alertly abandoned his punt coverage lane to fall on a muffed punt at the raider 10 yard line in the fourth quarter, which set up holmes’ touchdown.

the buffalo bills on sunday night will be at arrowhead. the bills sport a vastly improved defense but can’t seem to protect QB drew bledsoe. chiefs win in another close one, 27-24.

this is a comprehensive list of what i ate yesterday.

• three eggo waffles, toasted, with butter and syrup
• two slices of cheese with eight crackers
• three-cheese tortellini with my brash re-interpretation [see break below] of my mother’s marinara sauce
• one golden delicious apple
• one slice of cheese
• one bowl of “fruit and fibre” cereal with dates, walnuts, and raisins, dry

BREAK: when i was an architecture major at k-state, we had an assignment in first-year studio where we had to use a famous painting of our choice as the theme for a large park area. i chose a salvador dali painting whose name i do not recall. it’s the one whose main feature looks like a melting head propped up by a stick (commenters - help me out with the name). i designed a park monument based on the head feature, and the park furniture was based on the other objects in the painting. i finished my work after two consecutive all-nighters of touching up to make it perfect. a couple of weeks later i received my grade. it was a C - with the following comment: “a brash re-interpretation of this work by dali. i liked it!!” my professor also liked to sneak away from studio while we were working and hit the bottle of cognac in his office several times during the class, and you can bet the attractive female members of the class received more personal counseling than us guys did.

[break: damn it. blogger ate my original post. here it is again, in its entirety.]
the more observant among you will notice that in the autobiographical blurb in the upper right corner, the age has changed. for those that are curious, my birthday was monday… tuesday… the 14th, damn it.

and now for my original post:
today i saw one of the most amazing things. the lobby elevator door opened up, and no less than two dozen people, most of them chinese with a smattering of euro-american types (i.e., white people) thrown in, piled on to an elevator roughly six feet square. that leaves each person to occupy 1.5 square feet. i thought that this was impossible until i saw it. i am over 250 pounds, and i’m sure i occupy well more than 1.5 square feet of floor space. isn’t there some theorem that this is in violation of?

[break: don't leave me angry comments about stereotyping chinese people or asians in general. if there had been two dozen slightly paunchy 27-year old white guys with buzzcuts, glasses, and no girlfriends, i would have titled this post "how many j.d. clones can you fit on an elevator?". so bug off.]

in other news, pam anderson is urging people to boycott kfc. unlike peta (People who Espouse Terrorism for Animals), pam’s objection can’t possibly be due to having meat (tommy lee) or chicken legs (sorry, tommy again) cross her lips. i think people who do this just like the face time. to wit: janeane garofalo flaps her lips a lot. has she done anything lately? sean penn - another noted lip-flapper. but then he gets into two movies being considered for oscars and not a peep. martin sheen: punking the president got him face time, but playing the president in “the west wing” sent him off the chart (he was awesome on that great show, by the way - i pick on martin sheen, but he is one of my favorite actors) and he shut up. coincidence anyone? it could be that hollywood stifles expression, or it could be grandstanding by people whose careers are going in the can (which is all the more surprising that martin sheen was involved in this - he has had quite a successful career, he certainly didn’t need the face time - could he be a true believer?).

the chiefs win again, going into green bay and beating the packers 40-34 in overtime. again, the defense didn’t distinguish itself except on the packers’ last offensive play, a fumble by ahman green. again the chiefs manage to scrape together enough plays to win. players of the week:

• offensive: QB trent green. 27-45, 400 yards, and three touchdowns, including a 51-yard pass to WR eddie kennison to win the game in overtime.
• defensive: FS jerome woods. 76-yard INT return for a TD in the fourth quarter to put the chiefs in striking distance. this is woods’ second touchdown this season.
• special teams: hall. 116 return yards. no touchdowns this week, but he set up at least one, and forced the packers into bad kicks and kickoff penalties.

the surest way to get ripped mercilessly in a presidential candidate debate is to lead in the polls.

clark and dean, the two front runners for the dems’ nomination (and the only two who even stand a remote chance of beating bush in an election), were taking it from all sides at the debate the other night. and you can bet they’re sweating even more now that they see the economy is starting to recover. the dow is nearly back to its pre-9/11 levels.

message to dick gephardt and joe lieberman: you will never, ever be president of the united states, for any reason. ever. how many consecutive nominations has gephardt lost (not counting the one he’s about to lose)? it seems like he always runs for president and never even gets nominated. his own party doesn’t even like him. where does he get all this money to run for president every four years? it strikes me as hilarious that the only dems remotely worth listening to have not been in the party on the national scene: dean is the governor of vermont, and clark of course was in the air force as nato’s military commander. [BREAK: i have a friend who actually ate lunch with clark at a mess hall when he was stationed in europe, in england, i think it was. my friend said that the general was a class act and seemed to enjoy meeting the enlisted men who served in his command.]

now that the fun in california is over, it’s time for the folks at the national level to get in on the act.

so, arnold got elected governor of california. good luck fixing that mess, man. most dems seemed to be magnanimous about the whole thing, as if they wanted to put the whole thing behind them and would rather spend their time working to solve the state’s problems. if that is your sole focus as a politician - working for your constituents - then you almost have to oppose the very idea of a recall. but i don’t - the people ought to have the right to unseat those who they feel are not doing right by them (is this a bad sentence?). it ought to be saved, though, for the most dire of situations - it was too easy to get the recall started in california, even though it did require a lot of effort. (i think that even if it were more difficult, davis would still have lost - he was that unpopular.)

another thing that irked me about the california story was the allegations of sexual misconduct levelled against arnold by the l.a. times. there was no talk of it throughout the campaign - everyone saw arnold coming - yet there was non-stop talk about it in the days leading up to yesterday. i’m not claiming he didn’t do it - if he did, then he has serious things to answer for - but only that it seems like dirty politics were involved. furthermore, some of the same people that criticized arnold defended bill clinton for exactly the same behavior - and clinton is known to have lied about it to our faces.

naturally, there were some dems that were crying revenge, and some even suggested immediately starting a recall drive to toss arnold out as soon as he’s inaugurated. this is something that has driven me farther and farther away from democrats - this attitude of “we don’t need policy, we just want the republicans’ heads” that now seems to be pervasive - from the state elections in california to the presidential elections. none of the democratic presidential candidates has named one policy that they support that they believe would make life better or safer for americans. they all scream, “let’s toss bush out of office.” that’s all they have. until someone does otherwise, this libertarian is going for bush. he at least makes the effort.

now if only we could recall john ashcroft.

the chiefs beat the broncos 24-23 in another thrilling finish. the offense did not distinguish itself, but then again it didn’t need to. the defense didn’t either, but then again, it didn’t need to either. players of the week:

• offensive: TE tony gonzalez; 3 catches, 43 yards, and a touchdown, and holmes: 17 carries for 97 yards.
• defensive: the chiefs’ back seven were busy all day - making tackles and forcing fumbles. with the yards that denver rolled up on offense, this game shouldn’t have been in doubt at the end, but the chiefs have been finding ways to win.
• special teams: hall. for the second straight week, hall has stolen a game for the chiefs that they otherwise might have lost. he stole this particular game by returning a punt 93 yards for a touchdown with just over five minutes to go and the chiefs down by six. the chiefs took the lead and won with the PAT. now, hall has to be your early season mvp candidate: the chiefs might be 3-2 without him, but they are 5-0 with him.