Thursday Aggreposting: Briles to Baylor, Van Halen to Houston

A few more items to aggrepost while I stave off work and editing chores ...

» Art Briles out at UH, in at Baylor. I'd love to rip any coach that heads from UH to Baylor, but in this case, I can't. Briles as a huge part of Cougar history. Certainly, that adds to the agony of it all. But at the end of the day, UH is stuck in Conference USA while Baylor is in a real football conference. It's hard to begrudge anyone for wanting to compete against the best ... regardless of whether the paycheck doubles or not. Best of luck Coach Briles. Be sure to schedule UH sometime soon so we can really express our sentiments more thoroughly. (Note to self: Does the MOB rent themselves out to other schools?)

» Henry Hyde passes away. Mike Huckabee's 15 minutes are now ticking. Sad to learn of the first. As difficult as Hyde made it at times (like say, when he tried to overturn the 1996 election), I had a fair amount of respect for him. Though his policies will no doubt engender debate, he at least strived to be consistently pro-life. I caught a bit of the GOP YouTube debate. Still don't care for the format, but I guess it'll only get better. And maybe it's due to having seen Huck work out all those "witty" one-liners in his week-long appearance with Kenneth Copeland, but he still strikes me as a cold fish when he tries to be funny. He's not without his redeeming qualities, but the pandering schtick I'm seeing in him lately is a bridge way too far for my taste to even respect him as a nominee. If my calls to read Greg Boyd's "Myth of a Christian Nation" have gone unheeded, I'm even more strongly recommending Philip Yancey's "The Jesus I Never Knew" - chapter 13 - as a refresher course. Lacking that, go read Phil Cooke's post. It sums up my sentiments rather well.

» Van Halen adds Houston to it's tour (1/28). $80 for a decent seat. The Briles-less Texas Bowl with the Old 97s jamming ... $35 for a decent seat (12/28). Stellar Kart at Reliant for cheap (1/26). Doubtful that all three of those are going to happen, but it's a nice selection to choose from. Also on a musical note, an obscure release out of Missouri has my full attention and esteemed recommendation. New tunage on MySpace. And a somewhat less obscure release comes out this week from the former lead singer of Stryper. Oh, and have I plugged the latest Carrie Underwood CD enough times yet? Tis the season.

» Anyone seen an Amazon Kindle yet? As one who probably qualifies as a target audience for this gadget, I've got to admit to being intrigued. But the test for me can only come from operating it with an actual chapter or two. I'm a bit reluctant to lose the "real book feel" but the prospect of downloading Dostoevsky for a few bucks while lounging in my pajamas, untethered to the PC? ... therein lies the temptation.

» Oh, and Ed Kilgore has a great little post. Just another in a long series that busts the myth of a liberal media. Remember ... if the partisan nature of that headline were reversed, Republicans scream bloody murder. When it happens to us? Meh. Nevermind the complete vacuousness of the "liberal media" belief.