It’s a sad, sad day. Does this mean that the good times are gone forever?

(If you skip that second link, it’s on your conscience. You’re only missing the picture that defines a generation.)

Kids say the dumbest things. I have no idea what the editors at WashPo were thinking, but bext, they’ll probably tell us that being a goody two shoes makes you a better student—a message already being sent out by quite a few pseudo-education-minded nonprofits.

When I met Joe Gibbs and Mark Brunell some months ago, I instantly recognized the two had a sacred bond. Either in prayer or on the field, there was something about them and their dynamic–one being a Hall of Fame coach and the other recently rated one of the worst quarterbacks in the league. Thus it didn’t come as a surprise to me that Brunell would inevitably become the Redskins’ starter. And so it was by an act of God that Patrick Ramsey got himself injured last Sunday, opening the way for this divine intervention to take place. Monday Night Football, Washington at Dallas (Cowboys by 6 according to the latest spreads).

I remember listening to Coach Gibbs talk about the importance of faith and that God has a plan for everyone. And I believe he is right. God does have a plan. To destroy the Washington Redskins.

Ross Douthat has a number of serious questions for John Hinderaker.

If he was doing a heck of a job, why is he being allowed to resign?

And why did he wait to resign until the Roberts confirmation had begun, instead of stepping down sooner, if it really was in the “best interest of the agency and best interest of the president”? Was it not in FEMA’s best interest to resign sooner? Or was it not in the best interest of the president to resign sooner?

It is unfortunate that in the midst of such events as the recent hurricane and the beginning of the Roberts hearings, that certain other news items may be overshadowed. Months or years later you end up wondering What ever happened to…

One such case I had thought of recently was the birth of Susan Anne Catherine Torres, born premature to her mother, Susan, who had been brain dead but kept on life support long enough for a delivery. As Stephanie McCrummen reports for the Washington Post today, the five-week-old baby passed away on Sunday after complications in surgery.

The Brussels Journal has a depressing post on the latest pop tune in Belgium, Raymond van het Groenewoud’s “Weg met Amerika”–or, “Down with America.” A selection of lyrics:

Hamburgers and coke, yes you already knew
But do you also know the cause of the general decay?
Short-sighted thinking, loud talking
Sticking to one-liners forever
Down with America! Down with the jerks from America
Down with America! […]

Down with American colonialism
Down with that ugly, biting English
All the Anglo-Saxon pretence, arrogance
Yes, a hot pick up their ass
And that is that […]

I am from the Belgian, the European panel
And I ask you: “Clear my channel! Clear my channel!”
Megalomaniac unicellular idiots
Kiss my ass, yes, kiss my balls

Luc Van Braekel has more.

Update, 12:02 p.m.: Galley Friend J.E. writes in:

The song would be funny, were it not so sadly ignorant of history. I suppose the songwriter, who decries “American colonialism,” has never learned of Belgium’s shameful colonialist past, resulting directly in the Rwanda slaughter, for it was the Belgians who created the artificial ethnic constructs of Tutsi v Hutu. Where, exactly, are the American colonies? Oh, and let’s not forget the 18 days it took the Belgians to surrender to Hitler in 1940, nor their willingness to give up Jews, nor the liberation of Belgium by our guys, nor the loss of life at the Bulge.

Apparently, there is a large leftist moron factory somewhere in the world turning out idiots from every culture 24/7.

In The Weekly Standard‘s 10th anniversary symposium, smart people are asked, “On what issue or issues (if any!) have you changed your mind in the last 10 years- and why?”

Andrew Ferguson’s answer is the best, naturally. But this passage sticks out in particular:

Under the circumstances, it’s not much of a surprise that the threshold Buckley tried to maintain has collapsed. I suppose any philosophical tendency, as it acquires power and popularity, will simplify itself, define itself downward. That’s democratic politics for you. But something more corrosive is also at work. Marshall McLuhan was righter than anyone ever would have guessed. The medium really is the message. Conservatism nowadays is increasingly a creature of its technology. It is shaped–if I were a Marxist I might even say determined–by cable television and talk radio, with their absurd promotion of caricature and conflict, and by blogs, where the content ranges from Jesuitical disputes among hollow-cheeked obsessives to feats of self-advertisement and professional narcissism (Everyone’s been asking what I think about . . . You won’t want to miss my appearance tonight on . . . Be sure to click here for my latest . . . ) that would have been unthinkable in polite company as recently as a decade ago.

Who on earth could he be talking about?