A great Letter to the Editor in today’s Star Tribune.

It comes from a former soldier who writes of the need to let new strategies take effect. His editorial is very convincing. Mr. Hegseth says the right things: I was there, I saw what worked. Old Strategy was obviously not working, but this new one will. The military is getting the Iraqis involved in their own protection and enforcement of law. There’s a new sheriff, er, general in town. Early reports sound good. Etc.

Mr. Hesgeth asks for time. Time to give this “winning strategy a chance”. My question back is, “how much time is enough?”

As Keith Olbermann is fond of saying, today is day 1480 since Mission Accomplished was declared. I’m not a “cut and run” liberal, although Republican wonks would like everyone who even questions the war to be labled that. The U.S. is unfortunately in this for the long haul, but how long of a haul does it need to be? Why as it taken over 4 years (1523 days today) to figure out this new “winning” strategy?

As much as I hope that the strategy that Mr. Hesgeth speaks of works, after 4 years you’ll excuse me if I don’t hold my breath.

There is a really fascinating story that 60 Minutes on Yahoo is running right now. Gay or Straight takes a look at a controversial study that is providing a lot of clues on the nature vs. nuture debate on homesexuality.

The research confirms a lot of my thoughts about homosexuality (from a scientific perspective). It’s not nature vs. nuture, it’s a combination of both; and in ways you may not have thought of. One of the more interesting pieces is a study that youngest brothers have a much higher chance of being gay. A first born son has a 2% chance of being gay, and that number increases with each additional son. This was of particular interest to me being that I have older brothers. However, if a younger son is left-handed, that negates the increased probability (I’m left handed). Oddly enough there is no correlation for daughters. I think you can sum up the information by saying: there’s a reason we have stereotypes of gay people, but they don’t apply 100% of the time; and nature and nuture contribute to being gay.

If you’ve got some time on a lazy Friday afternoon, check it out.

in case you missed it, the twins lost today. again. shut out, actually. by whom? fausto carmona. he’s the cleveland starter whose name roughly translates to jackass cockpunch. you may recall him from such hits as “beating the twins on april 24th.” we actually were able to notch two runs against the wily dominican that night. who knows how that may have happened.

it’s late, so i’ll keep this to two things:

a) four hits. that’s how many the twins amassed today. bartlett, hunter, kubel, redmond, and something called garrett jones all did o-fers. only castillo, morneau, cuddy, and little nicky sunshine could muster a hit. i don’t care if we’re facing carmona, sabathia, or the ghost of sandy frickin’ koufax, we aren’t going to win many games with four hits. our hitting is awful.

2) four hits. that’s how many santana allowed today. that’s thirteen less than our staff gave up on tuesday. not only did we not score any runs, we wasted a fantastic effort by– some might argue– the only reliable starter on the staff. our pitching is awful.

and, unlike last season, there’s no f-bomb in the wings. one of our young’n's (boof) is already flailing in the major league rotation. garza had a decent spring but apparently didn’t get outs in the right fashion. and… scott baker? how many more chances will he get? apparently one more, at least.

mark it down, kids: your twins finish fourth in the AL central this season, ten games behind the division-leading tigers.

i wish it wasn’t so…

Yes, it’s another installment of links. I’d apologize, but I’ll just point out that I could do worse for you.

Here’s a nice story of a prank gone… well, not wrong, but perhaps astray. It’s a good read, and perhaps the morale of the story is that just because something sounds funny, it doesn’t mean you won’t feel guilty about doing it.

Hong Kong residents clamor to have the Bible termed “indecent”. While I can see the devil’s advocate (spare me your pun comments) position of there being a double-standard… I think the proper response here is: meh.

A recap of last night’s Republican debate. Who is this Ron Paul fella? I shall learn more about him…

Finally, if this ever goes into production, I will nominate it for cuckoo clock of the year. If such an award exists.

we’ll be light and fluffy today. to be honest, i’ve been a little too heavy on the gambits lately, haven’t i?

first: click here and have a good laugh. the fine folks at FJM disagree, but i’ve always found junior pretty entertaining to watch. thanks to ETC for the link.

second: i’ve been a regular viewer of saturday night live since 1987. actually, i think i watched a few episodes in 1982, but, even as a six-year-old, i knew that cast was terrible. anyways. my favorite recurring sketch (if you can call it that) has been weekend update; it was the daily show before the daily show existed. and, in the past twenty years, i’ve seen the good (norm macdonald, dennis miller, tina fey), the meh (kevin nealon), the bad (jimmy fallon), and the “i can’t believe this guy is on this frickin’ show” (colin quinn).

however, i must now unequivocally state that the weekend update desk has never been funnier than it is currently, with amy poehler and seth meyers at the helm. meyers became the head writer when fey left in 2005 and, to me, the show is funnier now than it’s been in fifteen years. over the past four or five years, i’d catch SNL if i remembered it was on or if i remembered to record it. since meyers has started on update, though, i faithfully record and watch every week.

weekend update and seth meyers– you receive the official wade a. anderson seal of approval!!