Thoughts for the Day

- I am encouraged that the President addressed the issue of a flu pandemic and discussed $7.1 billion strategy to prevent a widespread outbreak. I just hope that they can properly implement and manage the plan to protect us. Unfortunately, critics say it won't be completed until 2010, and this administration's track record in preventing and handling crises hasn't been stellar.

- When I first heard about the extension that Notre Dame gave to Charlie Weiss, I thought something was a little off. Didn't Ty Willingham start out 8-0 in his first season at ND? Why didn't he recieve a fat extension? Some journalists have accused ND of racism. They have a point, but I don't buy think Weiss got the extension because he is white. Several NFL teams are interested in hiring Weiss, and ND was forced to offer the extension to avoid losing him. Weiss used that leverage to obtain it.

-If Virginia Tech beats Miami this weekend and runs the board in the ACC (and UT and USC also go unbeaten), it will be extremely hard to make an unbiased argument against Va Tech being in the National Championship.

-Props to the Democrats for getting a pair and forcing the Republican-controlled Senate into an unusual closed session. Democrats want to insure that Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts of Kansas completes the second phase of an investigation of the Bush administration's prewar intelligence.

-The AFC West and NFC East are the two top divisions in the NFL so far this season. And of course, the schedule has the two divisions playing each other for the interconference games. All of the teams in these divisions would have sick records if they faced the NFC North and AFC North instead of beating up on each other.