I am in the rather odd position of now having two declared gubernatorial candidates on my blogroll, which has to be some sort of record.

Incidentally, Karlson’s rhetorical question—can’t they both lose?—has been plaguing my thoughts about the Missouri U.S. senatorial race too, wherein we have a choice between an anti-cloning clone of John Ashcroft and someone who was clearly out of her depth as state auditor, much less as a national legislator. At this point, I’m trying to decide between exercising my nonseparable preferences and voting in favor of divided government, even though I’d rather be represented by a broken vacuum cleaner than Claire McCaskill, or voting for Frank Gilmour, the Libertarian candidate, for purely symbolic reasons, even though I think his position on Iraq is dopey and his moustache is creepy-looking.

At least there will be some ballot propositions to make my election day amusing.

This weekend’s disgusting display of thuggish behavior by the Miami and Florida International football teams is a black eye on college football—and one that Miami president Donna Shalala is not treating very seriously to say the least.

Given the Miami program’s long and storied history as a rogue organization under a series of coaches, the NCAA would be more than justified in imposing the death penalty at this point—and if Shalala had any guts, she’d impose it herself, along with demoting Miami out of Division I-A and banning the program’s alumni (I advisedly hesitate to use the word “graduates”)—including former Miami receiver Lamar Thomas, who functioned as a de facto cheerleader for the brawl from the television broadcast booth—from having anything to do with Miami football in the future.

Update: Prof. Karlson proves prescient; I too wondered what exact qualifications Shalala had for running a major research university, and never really thought being known in recent years solely for being a FOB, despite her previous appointment at Wisconsin, was either a necessary or sufficient condition.