As Brendan has pointed out I was in South Bend this weekend for the pummeling…errr…football game between Notre Dame and the UW. Other than the game it was a pretty good trip. The band stayed at the Essex Hotel in downtown Chicago which gave us the opportunity to check out some of the sites.

Unfortunately for me the one place I really wanted to see, the Chicago Field Museum closed at 5 every day and because of our scheduling I didn’t get a chance to go. The Field Museum is home to a variety of exhibits including the famous Lions of Tsavo, which many of you may remember from the movie The Ghost and the Darkness.

I did, however, get to take in a few of the sites including Wrigley Field and the Sears Tower. The best part of the trip was the comedy show we caught at Second City. The Second City has produced a plethora of comedies greats including John Candy, Jim Belushi, Dan Castellaneta, and Mike Myers. The current show was absolutely hilarious, best two hours of comedy I have ever seen. Poking fun at the current elections they at one point give various reasons of why they are voting for one candidate or the other. My favorite was when one of the females walked out and says “I’m voting for Ralph Nader because I’m an a**hole.

Oh and everything you have ever heard about Chicago pizza is true. If you are ever in the area I suggest Gino’s East ,Giordano’s, or Pizzeria Uno.

All in all Chicago was a great place to visit, although I don’t know if I’d want to live in such a large city. It was much better than L.A. in terms of greenery though, and it does actually get weather, although a little more than I would probably like.

Next time, my thoughts on Notre Dame.

BTW
Hey Brendan, I have an L pass with a few bucks on it which is going to do me no good. Send me your address and I’ll mail it to you.

Time’s Peter Beinart is wondering whether Dean would be doing better than Kerry is. It’s something I’ve pondered frequently in the last few months. Of course, I’ve also pondered whether a trained monkey would be doing better than Kerry, but that’s beside the point. :) Read the whole thing.

Oh, and here’s some additional evidence on why Kerry won’t win.

Kerry supporter Mickey Kaus, sensible and fair as usual:

Ted Kennedy is going to be attacked for saying that the war in Iraq has “made the mushroom cloud more likely, not less likely.” But why shouldn’t he say it? That’s what the campaign is mainly about–namely, whose policies will minimize the risk of a “nuclear 9/11″. … Dick Cheney was similarly within his rights to argue that if Kerry’s elected “the danger is we’ll get hit again.” That’s his argument. …The point is that neither argument can be ruled out of bounds as excessive fear-mongering–after 9/11, fear of catastrophic terrorism in the U.S. clearly isn’t excessive at all. The arguments need to be judged on their merits.

Kaus thinks that, on the merits, Kennedy’s argument is the better one, and he makes a decent case for that proposition. Myself, I’m not comfortable backing Kennedy’s assertion about the war in Iraq specifically, but I do believe — or perhaps I should say I feel, since this sort of predictive argument is inevitably at least partially gut-based — that four more years of Bush would make the mushroom cloud more likely than four years of Kerry would.

At any rate, I think Kaus is right that a debate on the merits is necessary, and that Cheney’s comment therefore wasn’t out-of-bounds. On the other hand, if one feels that Cheney’s statement (or at least the now apocryphal Dowdified version thereof) was out-of-bounds, then so must Kennedy’s be, clearly.

However, I think it is beyond the pale to repeatedly and systematically imply that terrorists support Kerry (and/or vice versa).

Jen and Sören H., Becky’s sister and brother-in-law (and thus my future sister-in-law and… brother-in-law-in-law??), sent me a funny postcard from Hamburg, Germany, which I got in the mail today. I hope they don’t mind my reprinting it here… I just feel its hilarity should be shared with the world. :)

Hey Brendan!
Greetings from our crappy hotel beautiful Germany! We’ve been having a great time harassing the locals visiting museums and drinking loads of beer fine German white wines. I can never eat a sausage again. The fine sausage here leaves us hankering for vegetables more! I imagine this postcard will find you buried in work enjoying law school! Take care and best wishes.
Love,
Jen + Sören

Heh. :)

Despite expectations that he would, Alan Keyes did not comment last night on the revelation that his daughter is gay.

There was a 6.0 earthquake in Central California this afternoon. Map of quake and aftershocks here.

The look on Wonkette’s face in this picture with Zell Miller is priceless. Her headline is also pretty funny. And then there are the suggested Zell Miller pick-up lines:

• “I’m interested in some unilateral action.”
• “I challenge you to a duel. . . in my hotel room.”
• “I think there’s a traitor in my pants, want to help me hunt him down?”

Heh.

Prof. Gunn, discussing the fact that several people have sued referees for making bad calls: “That’s what happens when every third person in America goes to law school. But it’s okay with me. I live on your tuition. If I was a referee, I’d be worried.”

Image courtesy of the National Park Service.

This is turning into a busier-than-usual day for me with my guest-blogging. But I couldn’t pass this article up. After all, what better way is there to get to know Bush and Kerry than to let their wives talk about them?

I got to Towson this morning, and what should I find as the sole piece of mail in my mailbox? A little postcard-sized sheet of green paper imploring me to support (and vote for) the Green Party candidates in Maryland. On the front side, there are pictures of all the candidates with their names and what they are running for, and on the back, it gives a few reasons why to support the Green Party (”If you oppose the Iraq war and support peace . . . If you want candidates who represent people, not corporate interests . . . If you think we deserve a healthy environment, national health care, a living wage, and real campaign finance reform–VOTE GREEN”). Now, I have nothing against direct targeted political stuff (I am going for my PhD in political science, after all). And then it struck me: college professors are probably the only demographic that the Greens have a prayer of carrying this fall. Now, given how much Kerry has screwed up his campaign already, many Democrats may actually jump ship. But it seems to me that the Greens have actually had a good idea by targeting the liberal pinko-commie bastard professors.

And then I realized that the Greens aren’t even running a candidate in my district–arguably the second-most liberal district in the State of Maryland (the 8th . . . some would argue that the 4th, right next door, is the most liberal).

And I stopped caring.

Not that any of you particularly care, I just found it interesting that the Greens actually decided to target a group of people they actually had a chance of winning.

Here at BrendanLoy.com, we’re all about the lesbian action, provided of course that it’s family-friendly. And, well, what could possibly be more family-friendly than Alan Keyes’s daughter wearing an anti-Bush pin and kissing her rainbow-clad girlfriend in a picture that the young Ms. Keyes posted on her very own blog?

The picture’s worth a thousand words… but here are some words, anyway:

my parents and I were seriously not getting along and so we needed some time off from each other; the idea was that after a year of being a wonderful good helping-the-poor type person they would once again like me and therefore be willing to pay for my college. I’m not so sure that part of it will work; despite the fact that I’m all about working for global justice THEY don’t care about that, THEY only care that I am an evil dyke. And even if I am a charitable dyke I am still a dyke who KISSES GIRLS and especially with the gay marriage thing going on now that’s at the front of their minds.

You may recall that, not long ago, the esteemed U.S. Senate candidate from Maryland Illinois bashed Mary Cheney, the vice president’s daughter, for being a lesbian and, thus, a “selfish hedonist.” In consideration of which, you gotta feel for poor Maya Keyes. It must be rough having Alan as her dad.

Of course, it’s possible, I suppose, that this is all some sort of elaborate hoax — albeit a hoax far more convincing than the one that snookered Dan Rather. But I don’t think so. Here’s photo evidence the lesbian photographed above is indeed Alan Keyes’s daughter:

Sure looks like the same girl. And it seems like there would have to be an awful lot of conspirators involved, if this were a conspiracy.

I found out about this from Fark, which found out about it from Chillinois, which found out about it from Modern Vertebrate. Now it’s all over Daily Kos, Politics1 and Wonkette (who would “totally do her”), and it seems destined to continue percolating through the blogosphere and the wider web world in the coming hours and days.

Both of the above photos of Maya and her girlfriend reportedly came originally from Maya’s blog, as did the “dyke” commentary above, although they have since been yanked offline. The blog is still there, but somewhat more sanitized, I guess.

A Daily Kos contributor addresses the thorny issue of whether it’s kosher to “out” a 19-year-old who happens to be the daughter of an asshole:

Lost in all this talk of Maya Keyes and her privacy is a simple fact. Assuming that this story is legitimate, then Maya Keyes posted onto a publicly accessible part of the net a photo of herself kissing another girl. Assuming that this story is legimiate, Maya Keyes made multiple blog posts referencing her own homosexuality. The posts were in an obscure but still publically accessible corner of the net; the notion that anybody’s privacy is being violated here is off base.

Sorta like how, if my dad were running for political office on a platform of criminalizing mental illness, and someone said “But your son is A.D.D.,” I wouldn’t be able to claim that my privacy rights had been violated, since I chose to write about that issue on my publicly accessible website.

Anyway, it will be interesting to see how this develops. Hopefully without too much psychological trauma for Maya.

For the record, Maya, if you’re reading this, we here at BrendanLoy.com think it’s cool to be who you are, and to declare it loudly and proudly, even if it pisses your father off. (Okay, okay, especially because it pisses your father off. :)

UPDATE: From the official Keyes website, via bloggers Selfish Hedonist and ArchPundit:

I suppose it’s possible that she just really likes rainbows. But, well, applying Occam’s Razor… :)

UPDATE UPDATE: Here is, allegedly, Maya’s profile on Gay.com.

This almost makes me believe the story less, because it seems just too cute. But there’s no denying the rainbows in the photo above…

Anyway, the Gay.com profile says her politics are “Way left,” explains under the category “Tattoos” that she has “only a few now, but working on getting my entire back/chest done,” and answers the question “How ‘Out’ are you?” with a definitive “Totally.” Last but not least, the profile reveals that she’s a cunning linguist!

Languages spoken
German, Spanish
I also speak Latin and American Sign Language and can understand French, Dutch and Italian. I am also learning Hebrew and Arabic.

Sorry, but that was just too easy to pass up… :)

P.S. According to the Gay.com profile, she’s 21, not 19.

CORRECTION: According to commenter John, himself a blogger, the Gay.com profile described above is for the girlfriend, Bria, not for Maya. “Maya had a profile, too, but it’s since been taken down,” John says. I have no idea what John’s connection is, if any, to this story, nor whether he knows what he’s talking about. But if true, his statement would explain the age discrepancy.

Thought the iPod mini was already a status symbol? Simple Solutions Tech reckons that there are people out there willing to shell out a few bucks ($700 for the basic model) for a version adorned with Swarovski crystals.