I was right: House Speaker Dennis Hastert made three mistakes while administering the oath of office to Vice President Cheney yesterday. Slick Dick corrected all three.

When Prof. Rick Garnett was in law school, he was in a band called Learned Hand.

Yesterday was the first Law School Bowling night of the year.

It was a practice round, so we at Five Drunks and a Ringer (so renamed because the sixth drunk bailed :) weren’t competing against the other teams yet — but that didn’t stop us from engaging in a little friendly intrateam competition. And, well, let’s just say that if bowling were like golf, with the lowest score winning, I’d be freakin’ Tiger Woods!

First game:
Chris 164
Nick 156
Brian 122
Becky 114
Joel 96
Brendan 83

Second game:
Brian 192
Chris 168
Nick 150
Joel 141
Becky 82
Brendan 46

If that was all she wrote, I’d head into next week without much confidence in my bowling abilities… but then we started a third game, and I was actually tied for second place through five frames (and on pace to break 100!) when the bowling-alley powers-that-be shut us down (because the second shift was due to arrive). Here were our scores through half a game:

Brian 60
Brendan 54
Nick 54
Chris 47
Becky 15
(Joel had 38-plus points after bowling four frames; he had a spare on his fourth frame, but never got to bowl his fifth.)

For me, that third game was sort of like the strike-shortened season in which the Montreal Expos were the best team in baseball. I’ll probably never beat Chris or bowl that (relatively) well again… :)

(More photos here.)

P.S. Yes, I realize that “on pace to break 100″ is not actually, you know, good. But everything is relative. :)

“Are you a scientist, Dmytro?” –Prof. Garnett

“No, just a nerd.” –Dmytro

Notwithstanding Bush’s modest goal of eliminating tyranny on earth, his pal Putin appears to be taking a giant step backwards. (Hat tip: Emily.)

“You’re probably pretty competent to practice law already. Let me rephrase that. You probably won’t be much more competent to practice law when you actually start.” –Prof. Kelley

Fort Wayne, Indiana: the dumbest city in America? (Hat tip: Becky.)

No, Dad, it wasn’t just you. Even Peggy Noonan — Reagan speechwriter, conservative pundit, and supporter of the war — thought Bush’s inaugural address was over the top, so much so that it “left this Bush supporter yearning for something she does not normally yearn for, and that is: nuance.” Money quote:

Ending tyranny in the world? Well that’s an ambition, and if you’re going to have an ambition it might as well be a big one. But this declaration, which is not wrong by any means, seemed to me to land somewhere between dreamy and disturbing. Tyranny is a very bad thing and quite wicked, but one doesn’t expect we’re going to eradicate it any time soon. Again, this is not heaven, it’s earth.

Fire up the Gnostic Watch! :)

UPDATE: On the other hand, William Safire, that old paleo-con, liked the speech:

The change in emphasis was addressed to accommodationists who make “peace” and “the peace process” the No. 1 priority of foreign policy. Others of us - formerly known as hardliners, now called Wilsonian idealists - put freedom first, recalling that the U.S. has often had to go to war to gain and preserve it. Bush makes clear that it is human liberty, not peace, that takes precedence, and that it is tyrants who enslave peoples, start wars and provoke revolution. Thus, the spread of freedom is the prerequisite to world peace.

It takes guts to take on that peace-freedom priority so starkly. Bush, by retaliatory and pre-emptive decisions in his first term - and by his choice of words and his tall stance in this speech, and despite his unmodulated delivery - now drives his critics batty by exuding a buoyant confidence reminiscent of F.D.R. and Truman.

He promised to use America’s influence “confidently in freedom’s cause.” He jabbed at today’s Thomases: “Some, I know, have questioned the global appeal of liberty, though this time in history, four decades defined by the swiftest advance of freedom ever seen, is an odd time for doubt.”

Bush has seen the enemy and it is not us. Nor is it only a group of nations (the “axis of evil”). Nor is the prime enemy the tactic of terrorism.

The president identified the enemy (and did not euphemize it, as Nixon’s writers did, as “the adversary”) a half-dozen times in this speech. The archenemy of freedom, now as ever, is tyranny.

(Or, The Hand of Fu Manchu Grips Beacon Hill :)…

Seems that It’s the old “Nuclear Oxide” from the old Cathay…This report relayed by Your Faithful Correspondent, Sir Neyland Smith :)…emphases added…

 FBI Adds 10 Names to List in Boston Threat
By CURT ANDERSON
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI on Thursday added the names of nine Chinese people and one other man to the list of those being sought for questioning about a possible terror plot targeting Boston.

FBI spokesman Joe Parris said the names “were developed as a result of the ongoing investigation” but did not signal that credible evidence has emerged indicating such a plot actually exists.

“Information is still uncorroborated and from a source of unknown reliability and motive,” Parris said.

The names are part of the same anonymous tip that led authorities on Wednesday to announce that they are seeking to question four other Chinese and two Iraqis. The new names bring to 16 the people being sought for questioning.

Another federal law enforcement official in Washington, speaking condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation, said the tip was received by the California Highway Patrol. The tipster claimed the four Chinese - two men and two women - entered the United States from Mexico and were awaiting a shipment of “nuclear oxide” that would follow them to Boston.

The official said the nuclear oxide could be a reference to material used to make a “dirty bomb” that would spew radiation over a wide area.

U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan of Boston said earlier Thursday that authorities had learned more background about the original four Chinese, but “it makes us no more alarmed this morning, this afternoon, than we were yesterday.”

“They’re not wanted at this point in time for any crimes because there’s no evidence at this point in time that they’ve committed any crimes,” Sullivan said. “We’re not certain exactly where they are. We can’t even say for certain that they’re in the country…”

We Report. You Decide. (Far be it from Us to suggest, “No Tickee, no Shirtee.” :) Read whole Thing.

Is it just Me? Or, did President Bush’s 2nd Inaugural Address eloquently approximate - rather Closely - the Messianic?

I really don’t know. / No, really.

I pray he may be Right. About, that is, the universality of the innate human appetite for — and the all-Curative properties of — the peculiarly American Take on the ideal of human Freedom.

If he IS, then indeed we may look forward to a global Golden Age.

If Not, then (in the Lyric of the mad & wise Tom Lehrer)…

…this is what he said, on

His way to AR-ma-GED-don…

~ from “So Long Mom (I’m Off to Drop the Bomb)”

A Historian, re TR: “He really did think he was the American Flag.”

“…And what rough Beast, his hour come ’round at last,
Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?”
~ WB Yeats: “The Second Coming”

The inaguration today reminded me of another inaguration that happened recently, Washingtons Governor Christine Gregoire. Thats right the election mess in Washington is over! We have an elected Governor and Dino Rossi, who said he would have conceded if their positions were reversed bowed out gracefully. Well, the part about having an elected Governor is right, but my prediction that Dino Rossi was full of crap when he said he would concede in a close election was spot on.

(more…)

I watched the inauguration on NBC instead of CNN this morning because, having watched a bit of the CNN pre-inauguration coverage last night, I objected in principle to the logo in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen labeling the event “George W. Bush: The Road Ahead.” Dammit, people, it’s a news event, not a reality show; it doesn’t need a catchy name and fancy graphics. It’s the Second Bush Inaugural — that’s its name, and you don’t get to give it a new one. Humbug!

Alas, I wish now that I had watched it on CNN anyway. Drudge reports:

CNN AIRS PROTESTER SHOUTING ‘F#%& BUSH’ SIX TIMES… NETWORK DOESN’T CUT AUDIO FEED OF PROLONGED JEER… DEVELOPING…

Heh. Man, between the f***ing balloons and the f***ing president, CNN is really becoming the network of profanity, aren’t they? (Or maybe just the network of f***ing? :)

P.S. Speaking of protesters, beware snowball-terrorists! :)

Polls show the nation evenly split as to whether Bush is a uniter or a divider. 49%-49%

The South Bend Tribune has more on the CJ’s Pub collapse.

President Bush was just sworn in.

I think something was wrong with Rehnquist’s microphone. It sounded that way on NBC, anyway.

On a side note, how did Trent Lott get to be the Master of Ceremonies? You know he wishes he was swearing in Strom Thurmond… :)

UPDATE: Nice speech! Money quote: “Our country has accepted obligations that are difficult to fulfill, and would be dishonorable to abandon. Yet because we have acted in the great liberating tradition of this nation, tens of millions have achieved their freedom. And as hope kindles hope, millions more will find it.”

P.S. “We cannot carry the message of freedom and the baggage of bigotry at the same time.” Well said! Too bad he thinks bigotry against the gays doesn’t count…

HEH: There are some protesters yelling, in response to which the rest of the crowd is now cheering wildly for Bush. The end of his speech ended up being quite raucous as a result.