Oh well

There comes a time when you know you are beat.

The paralysis that overwhelms you as the seconds steadily beat away into a fine powder of crushed dreams.

The "what ifs" start immediately as you stare at the stretched smiles of your advesary, thinking about your cold shooting, or your failure to box out, or your inability to reverse the trend of losing.

All you can do is bit the inside of your lip, knowing that the dream is over.

To the Duke Blue Devils, thank you for an exciting, uncertain season of basketball. Two All-Americans, a tried and true system, and a good coach all added up to an unpredictable season of insane chokes vs. brillant individual play.

This was not the best Blue Devil team. However, a good year in all regards. Bitter-sweetly, Duke's ride is over.

*****

In other news, a story from the BBC. Moussaoui had information to track the hijackers of 9/11. FBI could have tracked down the criminals.

Yawn.

Do I really care? Should I care? Really, does America really care about the fact that Al Quida could have been stopped if information had been intercepted, or if someone had ordered extra surveillance, or if someone had volunteered more information? What does this news do for us?

Absolutely nothing: simply put, this type of story is a smoke screen, a what-if scenario that simply clouds us from the stark reality of the situation. The towers were struck, peoples died, and our response has been to disassemble the Taliban in Afghanistan and to depose Saddam Hussein. Meanwhile, Osama bin Laden continues sending low-fidelity messages like a pirate broadcaster, pumping up the volume from his hide-away in a complacent Arab country. Meanwhile, American lives are lost in rebel fighting so fierce that footage of actually fighting has been severely restricted in the US. Meanwhile, non-cooperative individuals the world around have voiced their displeasure of our actions in Iraq, future eroding confidence in the US faster than the dropping of the American economic credit rating.

Pointing fingers is the easy answer. Who dropped the ball, Brownie? Assessment of blame is a constructive activity when paired with the idea that future incidents will be handled in a better manner. However, for all of the improvement in Homeland Security, what happened in New Orleans? Weren't we funneling massive amounts of money so that we would be prepared for the aftermath of disaster stateside? Is it really the fault of a career bureaucrat who was overwhelmed and sent some fatutious emails?

This story is buried for a reason. It demonstrates the ridiculousness of our current government. Only with proper oversight provided by a responsible leadership can America raise itself to speak of stepping toward the future in pursuit of a global democracy. If this is the result of democracy, then Alexander Hamilton was correct. We are a mass of ignorant people lead by holy pied pipers.

*****

Finally, any Howard Stern fans, here's a poll question discussed on the show today: who will be fired first, Sal the Stockbroker or Richard?