So Iraq had a little election I hear? Almost 300 representatives were elected, none of which were Sadaam Hussein. Quite the turn around from the last “election” in which Hussein got 99.99999 percent of the vote. Don’t worry about all the nines, someone in China abstained. Interesting how fun elections can be when the voting machine isn’t rigged to electrocute you if you push the wrong candidate button; such a novel idea, this democracy in the Middle East notion is.

Rumors were out for a while that the terrorists were going to try and stop people from voting, those poor Iraqis must be so confused-one election they are intimidated into voting for a terrorist, the next they are intimidated into not voting by the terrorists. I heard a few of them went out and voted anyway; I guess they felt too strongly about the chance for democracy to be scared. Those terrorists sure tried hard, though, didn’t they?

The most surprising news coming out of the Iraqi election? Al-Jazeera was reporting it with “guarded optimism.” I had two-to-one odds it was going to report that George Bush himself came in and rigged the election, then left after popping off a few women and children huddled around AF-1.

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A few clarifications about my previous column: Nothing was mentioned about affirmative action at the undergraduate level because I’m not strongly opposed to diversification of an undergraduate population. Even though some people may have had a substandard education, affirmative action is still wrong. Why don’t we get logical and go to the root of the problem and fix education instead of robbing Peter to pay Paul? The Sherwood Forest experiment failed in Moscow already, people.

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The State of the Union address hasn’t occurred at the time of deadline- I also have two-to-one odds that Ted Kennedy sneers at least 30 times, then excuses himself when a young intern catches his eye. Something tells me I’ll do better with this bet.

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Hillary Clinton fainted on Monday; apparently she heard that she wasn’t the top dog woman Dem anymore. I spoke with insiders; it seems that Hillary is planning a big move to get back the spotlight from BB. She’s arming herself with maps and charts, and preparing to baselessly attack the first honest, respectable, intelligent, person she finds in a confirmation hearing. Afterwards she’s planning on purchasing a hybrid car-will she be eligible for reduced parking at UM? And for the record, I think I am Barbara Boxer’s biggest fan. Who needs to campaign in ’08 when you have opponents like her? Go, Barbie, go!

Don Donelson can be contacted at d.donelson@umiami.edu.

I’m a Philadelphia sports fan. I don’t think much of the New Jersey Devils, or the Yankees, or least of all, the New York football Giants and their overrated, overpaid, overpampered QB Eli Manning. Nope, I root for the losingest baseball team in the major leagues, the Phillies; the team that Larry Brown abandoned, the Sixers; and, as soon as they get back on ice, Jeremy Roenick and the Flyers. But most of all, I live for the NFC Champion Philadelphia Iggles, which is why I can hardly wait for this Sunday (you know, Sportsfest aside).

All Philly sports fans are peeing their pants for a crack at the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl this Sunday. Perhaps the most notable of them is Ed Rendell, who hosts a show on the local Comcast sports network after Eagles games. He also has another job: governor of Pennsylvania. He has also worn other hats, such as mayor of Philadelphia and chair of the Democratic National Committee.

On Tuesday, Feb. 8, Gov. Rendell was slated to give his annual budget proposal. Last week, he asked the state legislature to bump it back a day “in consideration of potential scheduling difficulties for those traveling out of state during the days immediately preceding Feb. 8.” Translation: “Tough break, Republicans and Steelers fans. You can wait a day on me. There’s a victory parade to be had!” For a guy whose team hasn’t won an NFL Championship in 45 years, 24 hours doesn’t seem like too much to ask.

Now, it may seem crazy that any sporting event could take precedence over a matter of government. But this isn’t the president throwing out the first pitch on opening day. This is a guy who lives and dies by Eagles football. He’s passionate. I’m pretty sure if given the choice between coach of the Eagles and governor, he’d happily give up his current title. Call it an unreasonable love of a game, but I for one think it’s kind of refreshing to see a politician care so much about something, even if it doesn’t affect policy. There’s no hidden agenda, no spin. When he talks about violations of weapons bans during the NFC title game against Tampa Bay two years ago to lessen the sting of the loss, he doesn’t start talking about bringing freedom to the city when they finally get to go to an election…er, Super Bowl.

Maybe it is a bit rash to move a major speech on account of a game. But it’s not like he’s going to take a month off and come back only to see the Liberty Bell and Pat’s Steaks destroyed by angry terror cells from Dallas because he was ignoring the warnings. But screw the Cowboys anyway. And here’s to more somewhat crazy, brutally honest pols like McCain, Dean and Rendell.

Patrick Gibbons can be contacted at p.gibbons@umiami.edu.

I have to admit: After four years, three debates and one big headache, I was ready for a new president. I was not alone; leading up to election day, I-and the vast minority of Americans-just had a gut feeling that John Kerry was going to pull through.

But with a resounding victory-and no recounts necessary-George W. Bush proved that even a popular university opinion writer can be wrong…from time to time, of course.

Whether he won for being conservative, religious, resolute or any combination of the three is all beyond me, but what struck fear in the hearts of most liberals (other than that they might be ignored) was the concept that such a dumb man was re-elected in the wake of a poorly planned (he recently asked Congress for an additional $80 billion, bringing the total to the $300 billion neighborhood), outlook-not-so-good (casualties across the board cannot even be estimated) kind of war.

Turns out, W. might not be so dumb after all.

The odds were stacked against him, from insurgent attacks to still-existing socio-religious turmoil. But in the end, 30,000 polling places were opened for the more than 14 million registered voters, which cannot erase, but most definitely dwarfs, the 25 civilian casualties caused by roughly one dozen insurgent attacks.

What’s more, feel-good stories abounded. There was a 90-year-old woman carried via a wheelbarrow, spirited chants from elated voters at various polling sites, voter turnout well above expectations, and a plethora of other pro-democracy images that Wag the Dog couldn’t have come up with.

So, it came as no surprise that President Bush, just after 1 p.m. local time Sunday, having digested four hours of post-election Iraq, came strutting on up to his lectern with this message: “[Iraqis] have taken rightful control of their country’s destiny.”

I didn’t pay attention to what he said after that, though it was probably something to the effect of “Yeeeee haw, bitches!”

So, he flashed that now-famous “I did good, right Daddy?” grin, and walked back behind the double doors, presumably to take a nap.

What didn’t shock me was that George W. Bush called this weekend’s elections a “resounding success.”

What did, is that, for the first time in a long time, I actually believed the man.

Ben Minkus can be contacted at b.minkus@umiami.edu.

Re: “Where is the voice of our generation?,” 2/1

I believe Sam Rega needs to rethink his position before criticizing the opinions of young people in this country. There are some large flaws in his comparisons to the ’60s and the Vietnam War. First, during Vietnam the draft was instituted because the military needed more soldiers and young people did not want to fight; they felt we did not belong there. The main reason for this is that we were not provoked by Vietnam nor attacked by them. However, everyone can remember what happened on 9/11 and are filled with rage. Now you can say that Saddam Hussein had no ties to Al-Qaeda, but can you prove it? No. The truth is that everyone knows that Saddam is a bad person (he tried to have the first President Bush assassinated) and that the world is better without him. Second, in Vietnam we lost 58,000 soldiers over a 10-year period. That is on average 483 deaths a month. In this conflict, we have only lost 1,400 soldiers in over a year and a half. If we needed to reinstitute the draft due to the loss of 1,400 soldiers, then we have no business invading anyone to begin with. The truth is that most people are glad to see our military in action and working hard on foreign soil to keep us safe here at home. What Rega fails to realize is that the young people of today do not want to protest because the circumstances are totally different than they were during the ’60s and Vietnam. My opinion is formed, and I, along with many others, feel we are doing the right thing. We have spoken, thus the reason G. W. Bush was re-elected. If Rega thinks we are not doing the right thing by punishing evildoers, and that we are in fact the evildoers, then perhaps he should sit down and watch the videos of the planes hitting the WTC and the Pentagon again and then ask himself if we deserved that. Are we Americans so evil that we deserved to be attacked the way we were? Some of us are willing to fight for what we believe in, and we do it different ways. Some, like myself, sign up to join the Marines, or the Army, Navy or Air Force. Others voice their anger towards terrorists in other ways, but we have made our voices heard, and we say that we will not stand idly by and be driven into fear by people who hate everything that we stand for.

Brad Tatum

Student

We’ve been hearing it since August: Welcome to the ACC! But, with the prestige of the conference comes the inconvenience surrounding men’s basketball that we at Miami normally only experience for football games-the typical wristbands and long lines are back. The only thing that seems to be missing is tailgating in the student parking lot. Yet, that isn’t what students and staff have been complaining about as an added headache. In fact, the headache is not that we miss having to travel across town (remember the Miami Arena?) as in the past, but instead that we can’t park at the Convocation Center on game days, because Parking and Transportation closes off the four lots surrounding the Convocation Center on men’s basketball game days, of which there are 15 this season.

The Serpentine Lot, which has 344 spaces, closes at noon on game day. Besides those days with special-event parking restrictions, the lot is open to those holding commuter, resident or employee parking passes. This means that residents of Hecht, Stanford and the Apartment area who use the lot as overflow parking are forced to park over at the Ponce Garage. It also leaves people who are going to the Wellness Center to work out or to go to class left with having to also park at the Ponce Garage. This, in many cases, has made students (and some instructors) late for their classes.

Additionally, the three lots immediately surrounding the Convocation Center- the VIP Lot, the North Lot and the Hurricane 100 Lot-all close at 6 a.m. on game day. These three lots combined have over 260 spaces, and they’re the ones nearest to the Apartment area. Granted, residents living in the apartments can’t ever park in the VIP Lot, since it is normally open to commuter and employee parking pass holders. Additionally, the North Lot and Hurricane 100 lots are only available to those who hold visitor parking passes. In short, those that are going to the Wellness Center and are mad because they have to walk from the Ponce Garage are also in the wrong. Just because they’re stopping you from parking in places that you aren’t supposed to be parking in the first place doesn’t give you grounds to complain.

The understandable complaint, however, is that the University failed to sufficiently notify students and staff of the parking restrictions during games. This caused additional parking and traffic headaches, and not only for students and staff, but also for people going to the game.

Yet, we do understand the need to close the parking so that only VIP parking passes are allowed. These passes are distributed to season-ticket holders (some of which are “guaranteed” reserved parking at the Convocation Center), suite owners, Hurricane Club members and any others that may show up, like Alex Rodriguez and Alonzo Mourning, who showed up at the Duke game. These VIPs are the ones who donated the money to build the Convocation Center. For example, consider this: There are 25 Executive Suites in the Convocation Center. Each suite “costs” $300,000 over 10 years; in that price are three parking passes per men’s basketball home game. In total about 400 passes are distributed to donors at various levels.

While it’s fair to criticize Parking and Transportation for not notifying the UM community about the parking closures, it doesn’t make sense to complain about not being able to park wherever you want. The people who are getting these spots are the ones who have donated to help build the Convocation Center (and the whole University for that matter) into what it is today. So next time you’re walking from the Ponce Garage to the Wellness Center, thank those people-not for taking your parking space, but for paying to make the parking space a possibility.