"Remember how we assumed you were guilty, suspended your team, and fired your coach? Yeah, about that, we're sorry. Are we good now?"

The understatement of the year award goes to Duke University President Richard Brodhead who finally apologized yesterday for his reprehensible actions.

Brodhead, speaking at the university's law school, said he regretted Duke's "failure to reach out" in a "time of extraordinary peril" after a woman accused three players of raping her at a March 2006 party thrown by the team.

"Given the complexities of this case, getting the communication right would never have been easy," Brodhead said. "But the fact is that we did not get it right, causing the families to feel abandoned when they were most in need of support. This was a mistake. I take responsibility for it and I apologize for it."

"Given the complexities of this case..." How complex it is to understand that, in the United States, people are presumed innocent? Not very. The article finishes with this paragraph:

Brodhead said the university is planning a national conference of lawyers, educators and student affairs leaders to discuss how schools should deal with students facing serious criminal charges.

Isn't that a crack up. Just hang up a big sign that says "Don't do what we did" and be done with it. No word yet from the Gang of 88 on their apology ETA.

I have all sorts of offsets for sale

WARNING: Heavy sarcasm ahead.

While pursuing the great Power Line, I came across this post that lead me to this article. Please read them both. Peter Schweizer is a wonderful author, so you won't be let down.

In this article, Schweizer has a fantastic proposal. He argues that carbon offsets are nothing more than a method of purchasing absolution of guilt. From the article:

Say you are wealthy and fly on a Gulfstream G400 jet. The plane will emit 1 ton of CO2 per passenger per hour. Flying commercial on a Boeing 777 will emit only .06 tons per passenger per hour. Wealthy environmentalists feel guilt about this, so they buy a carbon offset to supposedly reduce carbon emissions by an equal amount. The "offset" comes in the form of paying for solar panels or planting trees that "offset" the damage you have done. Buy an offset and — voilà — you are "carbon neutral."

Sounds like absolution to me. And there's already a market for this stuff. Schweizer continues:

Offsets are a brilliant idea: They allow people to carry on with their current behavior, buy their way out of their obligations, and along the way declare their moral cleanliness. As The Seattle Times put it, offsets are basically an "eraser."

We all have areas of our life that we feel guilty about. So why limit offsets simply to the carbon we produce? Why not expand offsets to erase our other sins? After all, why should environmentalists have all the fun?

Here are some suggestions:

• The Adultery Offset.

STOP RIGHT THERE! I read that line and instantly beheld a method of funding two college educations. To wit...

I am hereby announcing ADULTERY OFFSETS for sale to the highest bidder. You may purchase these offsets in daily, weekly, or monthly quantities. I have not committed adultery and will not as long as I am married to Mrs. Light Bulb. Therefore I have an eleven year supply (and building) of offsets. Serious purchasers only may contact me at thelightbulbblog at gmail dot com.

End of heavy sarcasm.

I may have to re-think this sarcasm thing.

Ahmadinenutjob at the Columbia Zoo

The circus came to town...and visited the zoo. But you really couldn't tell the difference.

Columbia President Lee Bollinger opened the program with a blistering introduction in which he lambasted Ahmadinejad for calling for the annihilation of Israel, denying the Holocaust and supporting the execution of children, and told the leader of Iran that he resembled "a petty and cruel dictator."

Bollinger levied repeated criticisms against Ahmadinejad, calling on him to answer a series of challenges about his leadership, blasting his views about the "myth" of the Holocaust as being "absurd," and saying that he doubted he "will have the intellectual courage to answer these questions."

"You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated," Bollinger told Ahmadinejad about the leader's Holocaust denial. "Will you cease this outrage?"

After sitting through Bollinger's rebuke, Ahmadinejad rose to applause, and after a religious invocation, opened his remarks by objecting to the scolding, saying it was insulting to be spoken about that way.

"At the outset, I want to complain a bit about the person who read this political statement made against me," Ahmadinejad said. "In Iran, we don't think it's necessary to come in before the speech has already begun with a series of complaints ... It was an insult to information and the knowledge of the audience here."

He said Bollinger's speech was full of "insults and claims that were incorrect, regretfully," and accused Bollinger of offering "unfriendly treatment" under the influence of the U.S. press and politicians.

He did not address Bollinger's accusations directly, instead launching into a long religious discussion laced with quotes from the Koran before turning to criticism of the Bush administration and past American governments, from warrantless wiretapping to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Just absolutely ridiculous.

This man is the leader of a nation that sponsors terrorism. His nation aids the enemy in Iraq. His government contributes to the death of Americans every day.

Why wasn't he arrested once he left the United Nations?

Why won't the amnesty monster just die already?!?

It's a really bad horror flick, but unfortunately it's not a film...it's reality.

Determined amnesty advocates who lost the fight for “comprehensive” immigration reform three months ago are now attempting to grant illegal aliens “amnesty on the installment plan.” Illegal aliens who entered the U.S. before age 16 and who have lived here illegally for five consecutive years will be the first to qualify under a bill the Senate is expected to vote on this week. Senator Dick Durbin (D., Ill.) will offer his Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act as an amendment to the defense-authorization bill. Later in the month, senators will attempt to extend amnesty to agricultural workers.

I thought that we, the people, made our thoughts known on this subject a few months ago. We were pretty clear, weren't we? Yep, I thought so.

Some questions. Has anything changed since then? Have the illegal aliens already in our country decided to go back to their country of origin and re-enter the United States legally? Have the taxpayer costs for illegal alien medical treatment suddenly decreased? Has the need for bilingual education evaporated overnight? Have drunk-driving illegal aliens vanished from our roads? No, I didn't think so.

Unfortunately, since neither of them can be depended upon to do the right thing as conservatives but instead must be hand-held on every issue of importance like the irresponsible political toddlers that they are, I cannot tell you how the senators from the state of Texas, Hutchison and Cornyn, will vote on this bill. But I know how they should vote, and I have told them so. Have you told them how you expect them to vote? If not, and you live in Texas, click here and here.

Ladies and gentlemen, Fred "the Snake" Hill has left the building.

Oh, happy day.

North Texas Rep. Fred Hill said Tuesday he won't seek re-election to the state Legislature, despite his bid to become Speaker of the House.

I am so grateful to say that I was there. I was there the day that Fred Hill showed himself to be the enemy of every tax payer in the state of Texas. I was in the room when he disrespected all of us who traveled from Harris county, Fort Bend county, Galveston county, and Montgomery county to speak to our elected representatives about how appraisal creep was taxing us out of our homes. His actions that day would, in part, enable me to be able to vote for Dan Patrick as my state senator.

Anyway, he's leaving. Here's a couple of his "thoughts" listed on the Dallas Morning News editorial blog:

• Spent a long time in public life -- 10 terms in the Legislature, two terms on Richardson school board -- and now feels a "need to move on."
  
  
• Sold his paper-products business in July after 35 years of ownership.
  
  
• Will be looking either for a new business or public-service challenge.
  
  
• Does not feel drawn to lobbying, but "you can't say never."
  
  
• Could get involved in two issues close to him: 1) transit goals for North Texas and 2) fight against limiting the property tax revenue that local governments depend on.
  
  
• Does not feel like a major commitment right away

And more "thoughts":

• Republicans on the state and national levels "need to do a better job of putting partisan concerns aside and concentrating on governance."
  
  
• Partisanship is hurting the GOP.
  
  
• An example is the call to curb local property taxes, which makes for great campaign rhetoric but can end up stranging local government's ability to deliver services.
  
  
• Local governments get no support from Austin but have to shoulder the burden of mandates passed by the Legislature. The best government is local government, not central government. "Local elected officials know what's best for their communities."
  
  
• One regret is not passing legislation letting North Texas have local elections on expanding rail service. The region is becoming too congested and opponents "have to look past the tax issue and focus on the benefits."
  
  
• The expanded Dallas-area House delegation (from one to six counties, beginning in 2005) has worked well for local interests. Passage of the water bill this year is an example.

How stupid. "Partisanship is hurting the GOP." No, Fred, you and your ilk are hurting the GOP by behaving like RINOs instead of conservatives. And you leaving is a giant step in the right direction.

I hope you have a wonderful retirement with your children and grandchildren. (And I truly mean that.) Don't let the door hit your butt on the way out. (And I truly mean that, too.)

Why is Barry Manilow afraid of a little girl?

Ridiculous.

"I had made a request that I be interviewed by (co-hosts) Joy (Behar), Barbara (Walters) or Whoopi (Goldberg), but not Elisabeth Hasselbeck. Unfortunately, the show was not willing to accommodate this simple request so I bowed out," he said in a statement on his Web site (http://www.manilow.com).

"It's really too bad because I've always been a big supporter of the show [The View], but I cannot compromise my beliefs."

In an earlier statement to the news Web site TMZ.com, which broke the news, Manilow said Hasselbeck was "dangerous" and "offensive."

And for those of you who don't know (and I hope that's a lot of you), Elisabeth is the (more) conservative host of the show.

Typical liberalism. They can't defend their beliefs, so they certainly don't want any questions about them. I wonder (not really, but for the sake of argument) what would happen if someone said that Whoopi was "offensive" (which she is).

Algore could fart and win an award in Hollywood...

...and they wouldn't even make him use any carbon credits.

I'm watching the Emmy Awards this evening. And for the category of "Best Alternative Program" or something like that, who did the television academy choose to honor? None other than Algore, because he and another guy started MySpace. (I think. I can't remember the specific award, and I really don't care)

Could these people be any more transparent? Oh, and the applause went on for quite a while, of course. I guess they were trying to bring to life their warped version of reality, if only for 30 seconds on an awards show. I have now had my quota of the loony left for the weekend.

Both Texas senators blew it last night

Both senators from the state of Texas, Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn, blew it last night with their votes to allow Mexican long-haul trucks to operate on our roads. Fortunately, the majority of senators got it right.

The U.S. Senate voted on Tuesday to block funding for a Bush administration test program to let Mexican long-haul trucks operate in the United States under 1994's North American Free Trade Agreement.

One day after a fiery truck accident killed dozens in Mexico, the Senate approved an amendment to a transportation spending bill that would cut off funding for the test, which the administration authorized last week to run for one year.

Worse yet, twenty-one other Republican senators joined them. When will they learn?

Never forget, we are at war

And in war, there are only two possible outcomes: we win or we lose.

I vote for us winning.