Go Braves! Go Dawgs! and a great big hip-hip-hooray for the Culture of Entitlement!

The wireless access point on north campus has proven to be rather unreliable of late. I can connect, hop on the old interweb for a minute or two, and then the connection disappears. I can't figure out why--which is not too surprising, given my limited computing capacity. Maybe Augie can tell me what the problem is. Aug?

I play poker a couple of times a week with an outfit called the National Pub Poker League, as long as I'm not working or loaded up with too much homework. I have secured a spot at the regional tournament, which is a week from saturday, and if I finish first or second there I get to play at the national tournament, and the winner of that one wins a seat at the World Series of Poker main event next year. Do you have any idea how cool that would be? Pretty damn cool is the answer.

Not too much is going on besides the usual mess of Papa John's and school. The Braves are right where they belong, atop the National League East by a few games and playing phenomenal baseball. Bobby Cox is the greatest manager of all time--there is no longer any question about it. Any sport, any era...no one else comes close. He is winning in the toughest division in baseball, fielding a team that is mostly rookies, and with a bullpen patched together out of nothing to make a decent relief squad. Leo Mazzone will be the first pitching coach to go into the hall of fame for being just a pitching coach because he is the greatest of all time. Most picked the Braves to finish second or third in the division this year, and instead we're going to win number 14 in a row.

The Bulldogs got off to quite an impressive start last weekend. South Carolina's Gamecocks are coming in on Saturday, with the evil genius Steve Spurrier leading the charge. It is going to be a thing of beauty to see him slaughtered inside Sanford Stadium. As some new Georgia t-shirts say, "We always knew Spurrier was a cock."

A couple of thoughts on the hurricane mess going on over there in New Orleans...

Oprah Winfrey, that bastion of rational, reasoned intelligence, believes the federal government owes the people of New Orleans an apology for not responding quickly enough to the disaster with aid and supplies. I agree that they are owed an apology, and I believe it should come from the federal government, but not for their "slow response" to the relief effort.

The federal government should issue an apology to the people of New Orleans for helping convince them, and the rest of the country, that they have to rely on the federal government in order to survive. Thousands of people in the region didn't evacuate largely because they were waiting for their government life-subsidy check to come in the mail on the first of the month. They were waiting for their welfare money. For their food money. Were some too poor to leave either way? Undoubtedly. I have sympathy for them. But I believe most people who stayed behind did so out of pure stupidity, with a rather disturbing faith that the federal government not only WOULD bail them out if things got nasty, but HAD to come to the rescue if things got nasty. Human beings have the right to one thing, and one thing only--not to have their will infringed upon by the will of another. By extension, we have the right to PURSUE life, liberty, property, and ultimately happiness. These are not things we are guaranteed in any inalienable sense. These are not things that have to be provided to us. It is up to the individual to acheive these things, not up to the society or government under which they live to provide them.

People on the street, screaming into television cameras about how they're dying, and where is George Bush, and where is the federal money, and where is what I have coming to me, are products of a system that has taught them that they are entitled to everything and it is not their responsibility to secure their life for themselves. This culture of entitlement is an almost exact parallel to the victim mentality Uncle Gil talks about.

So, yes, the federal government owes these people an apology. "We're sorry we have facilitated the process of you becoming lazy, self-centered, helpless, government-reliant cretins. Please, continue stealing large boxes of Nike basketball shoes and automatic rifles and designer jeans from the deserted stores of your drowned city. Continue to steal from your neighbor's empty houses. You're entitled."

The worst part is, it will be those filthy politicians who scream and yell the loudest about the federal government's inept response that will be most easily elected the next time those wonderful citizens go to the polls. The more that people believe that their government will coddle and care for them instead of having to fend for themselves, the worse off this country is going to be, and further down the road to a place where only revolution will be this country's salvation we will travel.

Talk to you soon...