Thursday's notes and links

The always brilliant Victor Davis Hanson uses the example of Socrates to demonstrate how the selective enforcement of the law is bad for society.

Aaron Gleeman has a link to a great video clip of the bat boy in Minnesota tackling some moron who ran onto the field.

While here in the U.S. we have the occasional idiot who runs on the field and disrupts and some people who take sports too seriously, we have nothing on the fans of soccer and the World Cup in particular.

Two football fans have been shot dead in Thailand for cheering too loudly during the World Cup. They roared when Italy scored their first goal and a man at a nearby table asked them to quieten down. A heated argument followed and the man pulled out a handgun and shot the football fans at point blank range.

An example of class: Bush Apologizes for Poking Fun at Reporter With Vision Loss.

Bush called on Los Angeles Times reporter Peter Wallsten and asked if he was going to ask his question with his "shades" on. "For the viewers, there's no sun," Bush said to the television cameras.

But even though the sun was behind the clouds, Wallsten still needs the sunglasses because he has Stargardt's disease, a form of macular degeneration that causes progressive vision loss. The condition causes Wallsten to be sensitive to glare and even on a cloudy day, can cause pain and increase the loss of sight.

Wallsten said Bush called his cell phone later in the day to apologize and tell him that he didn't know he had the disease. Wallsten said he told the president that no apology was necessary and that he didn't feel offended since he hadn't told anyone at the White House about his condition.

I don't like the sounds of this:

The nation's Roman Catholic bishops signed off Thursday on a new English translation for the Mass that would change prayers ingrained in the memories of millions of American parishioners. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops voted at its biannual meeting for a new translation after a brief but vigorous debate over several small changes in wording. The 173-29 vote on the Order of the Mass was aimed at satisfying Vatican calls for a translation that's closer to the Latin version.

Don Surber is spot on in his takedown of those in Congress who would abandon the cause in Iraq after having voted for the initial action. Kerry should make up for his ‘mistake' I was going to copy and past a portion, but decided not to, so go read the article.