Cheney at BYU

I don't know how many of you have heard this, but Vice President Cheney called BYU and asked if he could speak at their commencement. No other school was willing to take him, but, for some reason, BYU was. I think it is a poor decision that reflects poorly on BYU and on its friends and alumni. Aside from his office, I can't imagine how Vice President Cheney--who, among other things, championed the war in Iraq under questionable terms, awarded no-bid reconstruction contracts to friends and donors, and calls anyone who questions him "unamerican"--could be considered a good commencement speaker.

If you also think that it is a bad idea to have Vice President Cheney speak at BYU's commencement, then you can sign this online petition asking the BYU administration to decline the Vice President's request to speak at commencement. I just signed it, and I was 1,099th to sign. Here was my comment that accompanied my signature: "BYU should respectfully decline Vice President Cheney's request to speak at its commencement exercises. Over the past six years, the Vice President has repeatedly demonstrated political mediocrity and moral flexibility. A commencement speaker should be an enlightening and inspirational figure. I will be sorry if the class of '07 is not afforded that opportunity."

W. Speaks on Global Warming

I'm glad the president finally came out with a statement about global warming. I was beginning to get a little tired of Al Gore's junk science and hypocritical powerpoints.

Basketball Weekend

It was a pretty good weekend of basketball. Here were the highlights for me:

Best game: Texas A&M v. Louisville. This was a real heavyweight battle that felt more like a elite eight or final four game than a second round matchup. Both of these teams were really good, and the entire game was closely contested with each team making one big, clutch play after another. Even with fifteen minutes left in the game, it felt like every shot/play was huge.

Best moment: When the little point guard from VCU, who had been getting into it a little bit with Duke's annoying point guard Greg Paulus, took over in the final few minutes and lead VCU to victory. After he hit the game-winning shot over Paulus with one second left, he just stared Paulus down. It was great seeing the Dukies go down hard.

Most disappointing game: BYU v. Xavier. BYU blew it. BYU had its best team in years, and it had several solid leads throughout the game. But it gave the game away. See Jayme's post.

My bracket: this is one of the best brackets I've had in years, probably because of the real dearth of major upsets. For the first time that I can remember, the two teams that I picked to be in the championship game are still alive, although I'm starting to second-guess my Texas A&M pick (they are playing great ball, and I really like their team, but I think they have the hardest road to the final four than anyone).

March Madness

Let the madness begin. I can't wait for tomorrow. I have carefully deliberated my bracket picks, trying to pick the right upsets and to predict the ultimate champion. Here's a brief summary:

My final four picks: Florida, Kansas, Georgetown, and Texas A&M (I have Kansas beating Texas A&M in the final).

Upset specials: in my most daring upset special, I picked Texas A&M Corpus Christie to upset Wisconsin (sorry Cblakes). I will either look like a total genius or a total idiot on this one. A&M Corpus Christie beat Northwestern State in their conference tournament final to get their bid, and I really like Northwestern State (they played Utah State really close last year, I picked them as an upset special in last year's tournament and they came through with a win over 2-seed Ohio State, and they destroyed Utah State this year). So I've got a good feeling about them. I also picked Winthrop over Notre Dame (a common pick), VCU over Duke (another common pick), and Albany over Virginia (Albany beat Utah, Utah beat Virginia, therefore Albany must beat Virginia, right?).

Helping Hippies

Sorry to post about another Utah Supreme Court opinion, but I'm pretty proud of this one. We worked pretty hard on it. It provides protection for pot smokers everywhere. You should all be proud. Its a pretty accessible opinion, so even you non-lawyer types would probably enjoy reading it. But if you don't want to wade through the opinion, here's a link to an article on the opinion from the Salt Lake Tribune.

Staying on the topic of helping hippies, I went to a pretty interesting place for lunch today. Its called One World, and its like stepping into Haight-Ashbury circa mid-1960s. The restaurant is based on two core philosophies: everybody eats and eliminate waste. There are no set prices for the food; you pay what you feel the food is worth, based on what and how much you eat. If you can't afford to pay what you feel the food is worth, then you can work for them for an hour to pay for your meal. Also, they have some rice and beans up front that is always free for whoever wants to eat it.

To eliminate waste, they don't have any serving sizes. You ask for as much as you think you will eat, and they ask that you eat it. You can always come back for more if you want more. And when you clear your dishes, you clear the food that you haven't eaten into a compost bin.

The atmosphere is also very unique. The employees--all first or second generation hippies--are extremely nice and helpful. There is a selection of soups, salads, and vegetables with ample vegan and vegetarian samplings (if there was meat on the premises, I couldn't find it). The dishes and silverware are all of the mix-matched, thrift store variety. The decor is equally eclectic and likely taken from various thrift stores. Instead of one large eating area, there are several separate rooms with comfortable seating arrangements.

The philosophy behind the place is actually really cool. I had some black bean soup. It had black beans and some other organic-looking things floating around in there. They kind of looked like the mosquito larvae that would sometimes end up in your water cup in Argentina. It was pretty bland. They should have found some organic peppers to spice it up a little. I also had a mixed green salad, and a carrot salad with some organic yeast something-or-other. It was ok. If the food weren't so bland and meatless, I would probably go there more often.

Anneversary

Musingian celebrated its one year anneversary on Saturday (March 3). Its been a fun year, and its been fun being a blogger. Here's what I love about blogging:

Interacting with family and friends on an almost daily basis
Being able to brag about Katie and Grace
Keeping a journal-like record of what's going on in my life
Discussing interesting and important social topics
Recording past memories
The self-satisfaction that comes from making a clever joke or writing a good sentence.
Keeping up my writing skills
Getting excited when a post generates good discussion
Opening my blog to find that a new comment has been posted
Linking with blogs of friends and family
Coming up with new ideas for blog posts
Seeing that people from all over the world have visited my blog
Seing my blog's readership consistently increase

Thanks for visiting my blog and for commenting often. Here's to another year of blogging.