This doesn’t really have any relevance to OC stuff, but I was talking with my friend who works at Circulation in the library . When he works closing shift, he does the announcements at 30, 15, and 5 minutes before closing. I told him that the last day he works (which would be next year when he graduates) he should go Samuel L. Jackson style and say: “I’m tired of these muthaf*ckin’ patrons in this muthaf*ckin’ library. Get the f*ck out in the next 5 minutes!”

Now, my friend isn’t very inclined to do this. But I want to start a petition, or a request, to get him to do this next year. What do you think I should do to get him to do this?

Polling closed at 11:59 PM last night, and now it’s official: Springfield, Vermont is going to host the Simpsons’ movie premier

Question: Sen. Nate Gulley and Osama bin Laden. What do they have in common? Answer to follow.

So this weekend, I took an experimental INTL class on ‘Militant Islam’, taught by Sociology/International Studies prof. Anita Weiss. We first studied the roots of Islam, how it started, and what some of its core values are. The general point of the class was to study the foundations of the faith and how it has become, in the average American mindset, such a militant and feared religion and culture.

Stemming from burns and wounds from the Crusades and European colonialism, many Islamic communities started different reform movements in the 1700s-1900s. Some called for more acceptance of the West, others said that Islam should be completely autonomous from the West, and yet others felt that the correct path of action was to overthrow their own governments and leaders for appeasing the infidels.

These are the roots of current Islamic extremism and militant-ness. At the core level, Islam actually has a check-and-balance system that says when the Islamic spiritual and political leaders are not following the religion, then the followers have a holy obligation to overthrow those leaders.

Osama bin Laden stated his mission as to destroy “infidel regimes, apostate rulers, and the ‘Crusader Alliance.'” The first and last are clearly the United States, Europe, and Israel. However, the second target, ‘apostate rulers’, refers to those Islamic leaders that have been lead astray by the West and gone against their roots and religion.

When I realized this, it resonated with something much closer in proximity. Something on campus. In essence, Osama bin Laden and these other militant groups are telling their spiritual and political leaders that they have ‘forgotten where they came from.’

Wait…where have I heard this before? Oh yeah. It seems like Osama bin Laden and Sen. Gulley have more in common than either thought. Perhaps bin Laden’s web-crawler will find this, realize how much he is like Gulley, and kill himself in shame.

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary to eat a disgusting amount of hot dogs in a short space of time, America will always be the best. Joey Chestnut claimed victory (as well as a world record) today at Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest by eating a stunning 66 hot dogs in 12 minutes. The former champion, Takeru Kobayashi of Japan, fell short of Chestnut’s mark by three franks.

This is perhaps the biggest symbolic victory for the U.S. since Rocky beat that big, Russian guy in Rocky IV – doubly so since it happened on Independence Day. Now we can forever remember the 4th of July for two reasons: the day we proclaimed independence and the day we took our rightful crown as hot dog eating champions of the world.

Dress up. According to the Southern District of Florida Blog, the jurors in the Jose Padilla trial showed their patriotic fervor (if not their commitment to giving Mr Padilla a fair trial) by dressing up for work yesterday. Apparently, one row of jurors dressed entirely in red, another in white and the third all in blue. What better way to prove you aren’t on the terrorist’s side? (Hat Tip: Volokh Conspiracy)

Pardon someone. Thanks to President Bush’s deep and abiding commitment to the principles which made this country great, Lewis “Scooter” Libby will have plenty to celebrate this independence day. As usual, Blogometer has a ton of blogosphere reactions, ranging from KLo’s renewed enthusiasm for the Bush presidency (ugh), to Earl Blumenauer’s comparison of Libby to Paris Hilton (double ugh). Get some perspective on the issue by checking out the Families against Mandatory Minimums list of people who actually deserve commuted sentences (via Hit and Run)

Release an intellectually dishonest movie about socialized health care. Except that it’s won’t make much money, even MTV won’t like it, and it will irritate anyone with half a brain.

Have a bong hit 4 Jesus. Just don’t do it at school. Or, just play Bong Hits 4 Jesus: The Game over at Students For Sensible Drug Policy. (via Hit and Run)

Check out the Daily Dish’s smorgasbord of reasons to love America.  Theyrange from video of Jimi playing the national anthem and “Freedom isn’t Free,” to Steinbeck and Whitman.

Get the hell off of your computer and enjoy the outdoors. Damn.

Someone over at the the Ayn Rand Institute must be having fun trolling the the OP/Ed pages of the country’s college papers, and someone at the Emerald must be biting, because today’s paper featured not one but two letters from America’s favorite objectivist think tank. One’s about how it would be immoral not to invade Iran, the other is about stem cell research.

I’m a little surprised that the Ol’ Dirty published both of these. There is a name for the practice of low-rent advocacy organizations sending out mass LTEs to newspapers, but I don’t remember what it is called. Generally, when you see a letter or guest commentary from somewhere far away, and it isn’t in relation to a news story, it is because it was sent out en masse. I fell for this in rather embarrassing style when I was the Opinion Editor. (I received about eight or nine of these things over a period of a week.)

Still, if it weren’t for the tireless objectivist editors of the ODE, and their Randian overlords, we wouldn’t know that: “Retaliating against Iran doesn’t mean embarking on an Iraq-like crusade to bring its people the vote; instead, it means using military force to make the regime non-threatening-for the sake of defending American lives.”

I can’t wait until the next issue of the Emerald, when the Heritage Foundation will run two commentaries, an editorial and this cartoon.