Ohio State’s athletic department is circulating an online video encouraging Buckeyes’ fans to welcome the Midshipmen on Sept. 5 like no other OSU opponent has every been welcomed.

The idea is for the 105,000 fans inside Ohio Stadium to rise and cheer Navy just like they rise and cheer the Buckeyes.

***

“We would hope we would treat every opponent with great respect,” Ohio State coach Jim Tressel said. “But I think it’s even raised a notch when you’re talking about people running out on the field who are pledged to defend you.”

“I feel that everybody should respect the Naval Academy football team because we stand for something more than just a college football team,” junior Middies safety Wyatt Middleton said. “We’re going to be the people protecting those watching us.”

I thought this was a great gesture . . .

But there’s a rub. The Navy players do stand for a greater cause. The service academies could make legitimate claims to be being America’s teams. But for now, some of them also want to be just like any other football player, even though this is the first time a service academy has played in Ohio Stadium since 1931.

In an opposing team’s stadium, that means being the enemy.

“My dad always says how awesome it is when we run in and [opposing fans] clap,” Navy senior linebacker Clint Sovie said. “But I always say I kind of hate it. We love going into hostile environments.”

I wouldn’t worry about that Mr. Sovie. OSU could blanket the field with rose petals for the Midshipmen as they come onto the field, but the environment would still be plenty hostile from the moment foot meets ball on the opening kickoff.

As much as the midshipmen may want to be treated like any other team, it’s hard to find fault with the sentiment in the video:

Call me sentimental, but that video actually gave me a lump in my throat. So I can forgive them for calling it the “U.S. Navy” team instead of the U.S. Naval Academy team.

ESPN is carrying the game, so I’ll see if the fans answer the call. But whether they do or not, this effort is classy.

By the way, ever wonder why a perennial football powerhouse like Notre Dame plays Navy every year? Because ND has class, too.

If I wasn’t already watching the school like a hawk, I am now.

UPDATE: Oh, great!

Little did I know that I have been contributing to the downfall of civilization. Damn right you are, Deuce, some of you are saying. But I can almost guarantee you’re saying it for the wrong reason.

It’s not my political views, my blogging, the way my wife and I are raising our child, or the people I hang out with. Nah, civilization will get long just fine in spite of (or, I like to think, because of) all that.

No, apparently I am contributing to the downfall of civilization through my choice of footwear:

[T]oday, flip flops are everywhere! All the time. It is like syrupy Swedish pop on a never ending loop. Flip flops, from March to October, at baseball games, the movies, the super market, school, to meet the President [photo at post], and even Church! Yes, it is that last one that really gets to me. No, not just kids. Grown men and women wearing flip flops to Church! Now I know, Patrick, Patrick, Patrick, the important thing is that people are there. Fine. But I don’t like it.

I am working on a thesis that the percentage of flip flop wearers in public (beach and pool activities excluded) is directly related to the death of a culture (admittedly it is not fully developed yet). I am not saying that flip flops cause the death of culture, but I am not ruling it out. Suffice it to say, for now, that flip flops are a leading indicator of the unseriousness of a people. These are very troubling times. These are times that require work boots for men and at the very least a sensible pair of flats for women. Troubling times require serious shoes on serious people. No, shoes that boldly proclaim ‘I’m a Toys ‘R Us Kid’ are just not gonna cut it. Who has ever done anything important while wearing flip flops?

Normally, I think I usually agree with Patrick Archbold of Creative Minority Report. And even here, I agree with him, mostly.

But this is California, baby. Southern California. By the beach. Unless I’m at work (and, since I am a self-employed attorney, occasionally even then) I’m pretty much in flip-flops 24/7 year-round. None of that “from March to October” stuff for me.

Yes, I’ve even worn them to church, but when you attend an evangelical church that was founded by a surfer and meets in a rented room, that doesn’t seem so strange. I can’t imagine ever wearing them to a Catholic church, though. Those have a sense of majesty, so I think they would seem far more out of place there, and I can sure understand Archbold’s dismay. I can remember the shock of he older folks with the advent (no pun intended) of “guitar mass” back in the 60s. Sacrilege, it was!

Anyway, Archbold’s larger point is correct, even if he is a little overwrought (or writing that way for humorous effect). There are plenty of places I would not wear my flip flops. I just manage to wear them nearly 24/7 because I don’t get out much.

H/T: Pundette.

Let’s talk a little about my use of the word “freak.” I don’t say it with gusto, nor do I say it with venom. Well, not venom for Michael Jackson, anyway. I say it with venom for the culture and the media that not only made possible, but encouraged, Jackson’s descent into his freakish world. I don’t have the flair for writing Pundette does, so I’ll excerpt her post, “Disgusted” (which didn’t even start out about Michael Jackson):

How fitting that images of another great example of coolness, unconvicted child-molester/freakazoid Michael Jackson, should be everywhere right now. Only an ailing culture would fall all over itself for a performer who, at his peak (before the extreme self-mutilation), defined himself by his artificiality. It was evident in his dance moves, in his over-produced sound, and in the silly pseudo-uniforms he wore. Eventually artificiality bloomed into bizarre unnaturalness. A healthy culture would have averted its eyes from a man so overwhelmed with self-hatred. But we’re suffering from cultural arrested development and have developed a taste for self-destruction. Get ready for multiple tell-all books from the inner circle (time to cash in!) that will curl your hair, and endless tributes that gloss over his pervitude.

Jackson was a freak, but he wasn’t solely responsible for that status. And pedophile or not, that parents would serve up their children to him for such unnaturally close attention is frightening.

UPDATE: Jonah Goldberg also captures my thoughts well. (H/T: Pundette.)

I’m irked, but Randy Ranger at Cold Fury is, well, furious that Jackson’s death yesterday has so greatly overshadowed Farrah Fawcett’s death earlier in the day, and I can’t blame him. Pedophile or not, Jackson was a freak, even if it wasn’t entirely his fault. A neighbor of mine in show business assures me that Farrah Fawcett, by contrast, was quite sweet and down-to-earth. And her public persona was not freakish. Who knows, perhaps she is pleased that the press isn’t tearing her life story apart right now. I hope so.

UPDATE: Oh, for crying out loud. A moment of silence in congress. Are you effin’ kidding me? Bonus points (and cash contributions should go) to anyone in that chamber who refused to stand when Jesse Jackson Jr. asked them to.

UPDATE #2: It just gets worse at Fox News.

Michelle Malkin sums it up in one word: Losers. And correctly notes that this looks especially stupid and petty considering other riots going on right now.

So, in one of my rare applications of Stacy McCain’s Rule 5, I’ll chime in with my 2 cents on the topic. That way you can claim you subscribe to The Skepticrats “for the articles,” just like Playboy subscribers.

I’ll start with outrage — outrage, I say! — over two obvious omissions: Patti Ann Browne and Jenna Lee.

Techincally, Jenna’s with Fox News Business instead of Fox News, but she should have made the list anyway, and I doubt I’m the only one that thinks so:

And how can you leave Patti Ann Browne off the list? I always thought she was great looking as an anchor, but see her let her hair down on Redeye:

When she sat behind the anchor desk, it was hard to tell she was so . . . healthy.

On to those who made the list.

Right wing darling Megyn Kelly made the list.  I’m not big on blondes generally or her look in particular, but now the she’s pregnant, she does seem to have that “pregnancy glow” about her.

The only one on the list I can truly, truly, agree belongs on the list is Julie Banderas.  Gorgeous, gorgeous hair, and the rest of her — at least what we can see on screen — ain’t bad either. Hot enough to make you lose your head around her and say shocking things like this:

Did he really mean to say that?

Speaking of what you can see on screen (and what you can’t), Courtney Friel fans are in for a treat at nextround.net.  Here’s just the headshot from one of two bikini pics:

By the way, this is a follow-up to nextround.net’s list of “The 9 Hottest CNN Reporters.” Just remember, conservative babes are generally hotter. Just imagine you had hot identical twins next to each other, each on the opposite ends of the political spectrum from the other.  Who would you find hotter?

Then again, I once had a very politically conservative friend who viewed the desireability of women this way: you want to date a liberal, but you want to marry a conservative. If you get my drift.

UPDATE: Word Around the Net has “Tea Party Cuties.” (H/T Stacy McCain, who also links!)

UPDATE #2: Ace links in the headlines! Ace. I’m going to take a screenshot, frame it, and put it over the fireplace. Even though he doesn’t mention the blog by name. I’ll know it’s me.

Why should we care?

95% of the population is Sunni Muslim. And the legal customs they need to abandon are sharia-based. From Reuters via the NYT:

Mayotte will have to ban polygamy, raise the minimum age of marriage to 18 from 15 years old, and give women equal rights.

The Islamic justice system will be replaced by secular courts, though qadis [religious scholars who act as judges] will retain a consultative role.

95% of a 61% vote among 186,000 people, assuming 1/3 of the population is of voting age, means that roughly 36,000 Muslims voted in favor.  That’s  0.003% — or 3/1000s of 1 percent of the world’s Muslims.

But it’s a start.

Voice to text conversion using your in-car hands-free system so that you can both post to Twitter, and hear what is going on with your friends. Kind of crazy when you first think about it, but after a few minutes, you can start to imagine some cool uses. You can voice-tweet something like “I’m headed to downtown Seattle, where can I find the best slice of pizza?” You can then listen for responses, and when you hear one, have OnStar direct you to that location. Or you can just, you know, mess around on Twitter while driving without trying to juggle your iPhone and the steering wheel.

Kind of crazy when you first think about it? Are there really people on Twitter watching the incoming tweets from the 7,000 people they’re following (yes, I’ve seen numbers that high) just waiting to respond to inquiries about the best pizza in Seattle?

I swear to God I thought the post was a joke, until I saw this TechCrunch story cross-posted at WaPo:

All you Twitter addicts stuck in traffic, some good news. You might not have to risk your life any longer sending out one-handed Tweets on your Blackberry or iPhone, while trying to hide the fact that you are doing so under the dashboard. If you have OnStar in your car, you may soon be able to send and receive hands-free Tweets through OnStar’s voice-activated calling system. Andru Edwards at Gear Livediscovered the potential feature. Your voice messages will be converted into text and sent to all of your Twitter followers. (Don’t worry if the translation is not perfect, everyone will think you are just using Twitter’s abbreviated style). It is not clear, however, whether or not the system tells you if you are over the 140-character limit.

So get ready for this while driving:

I’m thinking Twitter rage is inevitable.

at self-described anti-Jihad blog Infidels are Cool, which features this header photo:

I’m guessing the click-through rate from Infidels are Cool isn’t too high.