Later this morning I am going to make a pot of fiery chili to take with me to a Super Bowl party. (Oddly enough, I went to the same couple's party the only other time the Bears were in it). It will be a good antidote to the cold snap that has Chicago in its grip. The current temperature is 5 below according to the thermostat at my front door.

I don't know what will happen in the game. Nothing will surprise me. Obviously I am cheering for Da Bears but for the second game in a row will not be crushed if the other team wins. I like the Colts, especially Tony Dungy and Peyton Manning, and their wide open style. If they win the folks who dismiss all of Manning's accomplishments with airy "can't win the big one" digs will have to shut up about it.

Speaking of that crowd, interesting that Mr. Goff has not had anything to say about football lately ;-) After dissing both Super Bowl teams all season and going down in flames with his playoff picks, maybe that's understandable.

Here's hoping for a great game! No predictions from me. Last week, for the first time all season, I thought the Bears were going to lose and I made the mistake of predicting that publicly. As it turned out they knocked the snot out of a pretty good Saints team and my enjoyment was marred by regretting the bad prediction. I'm not going to do that again. Go Bears!

It was a fun day at work on Friday. From lunchtime on it was a Bears party. Food was brought in, plus everyone was asked to bring in something sweet for dessert. (If we had eaten even half of it we would have all gone into insulin shock). After lunch a highlight video of the 1985 Bears, including "The Super Bowl Shuffle", was shown on a 60 inch TV everyone gathered around. The son of the couple who own the company, aged about 3, was running around like a banshee pelting people with a toy football and shouting "Fumble!" Before the video one of our employees who is in a band sang the national anthem, then led a group rendition of "Bear Down, Chicago Bears." Simon Cowell would have gnashed his teeth but the heck with him, it was fun. I think it's fair to say the Super Bowl has not escaped notice in Chicago.


>As a matter of fact I just got back from the store. I needed to pick up the last few items I need for the brine for some baby back ribs for tommorrow. Made the sauce last weekend. So the plan is to apply the first rub for the ribs tommorrow morning. That will give them enough marinating time. So I can throw them on the grill when I get to party central tommorrow afternoon. No need for me to bring beer since I'm queing up some food.
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>I don't know if this was discussed in these parts before, but I just started reading Chalmer Johnson's first book, "Blowback". Blowback is a term coined by the CIA to qualify "unintendended consequences" caused by CIA actions on foreign soil.
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>This book originally came out in 2000, I believe. In the preface, which was updated after 9-11, Johnson discusses how the book was basically ignored in the US when it first came out. Any interviews he had were overseas. Post 9-11 the book became a bestseller.
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>I just found out about him because the LA Times had a review last week of his 3rd book, to close out his trilogy. In the 3rd book he discusses how because of bush/cheney's goal to establish the "imperial presidency" and CIA actions on foreign soil, the US can not last too much longer as a world power.
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>Unfortunately, his discussions make too much common sense.
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>>Shouldnt you be at the beach or icing down some beers for tomorrow's game? I think there's now 6 or 7 people so far who's testimony contradicts Libby's story. The testimony by FBI agent Deborah Bond was interesting... that Libby said that he learned about Plame from Cheney and that Cheney said she worked in counter-proliferation. Russert's testimony next week should be good.
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>>>No it appears from the last several of his posts that any work to investigate a repub is bogus. Tom Delay did absolutely nothing wrong. Libby/Cheney/Rove did nothing wrong.
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>>>>>>I find the testimony, the amount of people contradicting Libby's story, and the amount of activity in the VP office regarding Wilson to be very compelling.
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>>>>>I find the FACT that many of the reporters are having problems with their memory compelling. They want to excoriate Libby for not remembering every detail, yet they can't even remember who, what, when or where. It's a bogus case, as per usual.
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>>>>Do you always describe the work of multiple federal prosecutors and the investigative work of multiple FBI agents as bogus?