Had me some bad dreams last night. Richard Ashcroft had gained his expanded powers, under the revised Patriot Act, and he was using his Pizza Tanks and his Beetle Smashers to come after me. Because I hadn't prayed to the Lord that morning and because sang the National Anthem slightly off key.

I don't care if we do think somebody's a terrorist. Holding somebody indefinitely without sufficiently explained cause is not what America is about. Ashcroft and his ilk are less concerned with protecting America than they are protecting their stuff. It's all well and good to make laws making yourself the moral yardstick, but personally it worries me. I may be on the Moral Metric System, and while it's just as good a system (and easier to use), I might not meet all the right measurements.

I've gotta do more reading about all this. But I'd hate to be Ashcroft. I have my paranoid moments (usually in the mornings, from 8:45 to 9), but this guy takes the cake.

Some other things I think (or This Things I Know):

I think that if the Pirates and Red Sox are going to turn back the clock to 1903, I think they should also use baseball gloves from the 1903 era, when they're playing. Imagine trying to catch a 95 mph fastball with a mitt with barely a quarter inch of padding.

Also: No batting helmets.

And I laughed pretty hard at the joke Chick McGee on the Bob and Tom show about if they also returned to the former racial standards, as well.

I think Sammy Sosa's guilty. I think he used the corked bat on purpose. I think he was trying to get his stroke back after approximately 3 weeks off. He'd struck out something like 7 out of 11 times, and he just wanted to make contact with the ball. Watching the Cubbies play the Rays yesterday, he was still behind the pitcher's fastball most of the time.

I'm also wondering how much his beaning at the hands of Salomon Torres back around Easter is still on his mind.

Yeah.