Did I just slip into some sort of bizarro America?

This morning I got a message from a friend asking me to do what I can to draw attention to the legal situation of a friend of hers. I've seen his case talked about on a few blogs, but the only straight news source I've found it on is 9News in Denver plus an interview his lawyer did on Washington Times Radio, so confirmed details are a little sketchy and I'm pretty much going to stick with the information there.

Capt. Carl Bjork of Evergreen, Colo., is waiting to find out if he's going to be court martialed for two counts of premeditated murder while serving in Iraq.

Prosecutors are charging him with ordering Iraqi officers under his command to kill two Iraqi civilians while serving in al-Anbar Province. No other details about what happened are available from reliable sources as far as I know.

By all accounts, the people who know Bjork, who is a Bronze Star winner, say he was a good man and a good soldier who would never do such a thing.

Why should you care? Because the only evidence presented against him is the eyewitness accounts of three detained al-Qaeda terrorists. Let me repeat that, in case you missed it: An American soldier is being charged with double murder because of the claims of detained terrorists. What?!

But wait, it gets better. The terrorists all gave testimonies that were horribly inconsistent. They were later allowed to get together and miraculously they all had the same story afterward. I'm not a lawyer or an investigator, I just play one on the Internet, but I don't think that's a good way to conduct a case.

It's a sad statement on the way political correctness has overtaken the way we fight wars when something like this is allowed to happen. Unfortunately, this isn't the first time. I'm immediately reminded of the incident in Haditha in 2005, when 15 Iraqi civilians were killed in a Marine operation. Naturally, Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) did what he does and held a news conference to claim the Marines "killed innocent civilians in cold blood." Seven of the eight men charged have been acquitted our had their charges dropped altogether.

There are always atrocities committed during war and those of us who have never been in the military would be horrified to know some of the things that happen in a warzone. But the greatest atrocity of all would be for an innocent man to be convicted of murder based on the word of some terrorists whose main goal in life is to kill Americans.

Big 12 Championship Live Blog: The Second Half

Flying Suh is here to get back the momentum as Texas leads 7-6 at intermission.

First half post here.

Halftime Thoughts
After struggling with penalties all year, Nebraska has committed only one tonight. That would be great, except that the one was on third and long late in the half and set up the Texas touchdown.

Zac Lee is 2/10 8 yds, 2 INT. That's not good. If we're going to get a score and take back the lead, he'll have to be better. Mike McNeil is yet to get a look, and he'll need to be involved if we're going to get something going.

McCoy has been very average tonight. He came in as the Heisman frontrunner, but right now I give the nod to Alabama's Mark Ingram. Meanwhile, Ndamukong Suh has boosted his chances of at least getting invited to New York as a finalist.

I've finished off my Skittles and moved on to a Butterfinger and some cookies from the vending machine downstairs.

8:57 Dr. Pepper throwing competition. The hot chick is representing Nebraska, which pleases me.

8:57 "Whoever can get the most in her can is the winner." Sometimes the jokes write themselves.

8:58 I imagine this is what tryouts to start for the Oakland Raiders look like.

8:59 Nebraska chick wins! Give her a uniform; she has a better arm than Zac Lee.

9:06 Giving it to Roy on the first play. That's what we need to do to win.

9:09 Another three-and-out. It's going to be up to the defense to give us a chance.

9:10 Short kick by Henery.

9:13 Two or three missed tackles on that, fortunately another chop block called against Texas.

9:14 Congratulations on botching to story of how the Blackshirts were established Musberger.

9:14 The Ndominator in there again. 3.5 sacks today.

9:15 "Now Herbie is putting him in the Heisman conversation." Apparently the conversation that's been going on around here for the last four months never happened.

9:18 I just ran out of Mountain Dew. I can't be held responsible for anything I might write beyond this point.

9:20 Ball off Roy's hands, lucky it wasn't picked off the tip.

9:20 Tipped at the line and picked off. Lee now 2/13 3 INT, 0/3 1 INT in the second half.

9:21 Criiiiiiiiick.

9:22 Looks like we may see Cody Green on the next possession. I can't say I disagree with that move.

9:22 Well-timed corner blitz. Nice call by Carl Pelini.

9:23 Perfect pooch punt by McCoy. This looks like bad news.

9:24 Cody Green time.

9:25 There's what we've come to expect from this offensive line. Seriously, Barney Cotton needs to be fired at the end of the year.

9:27 Had a guy wide open over the middle, Cody just didn't see him.

9:32 Lee back in. Our offense is officially the NCAA equivalent of the Oakland Raiders.

9:35 Much like the Raiders, we have no quarterback, no offensive line, no receivers, a good tight end we can't get the ball to and good running backs who can't do anything because we have no QB, no receivers and no O-line.

9:37 Late flag on an uncatchable ball. Terrible call.

9:39 Defense holds Texas to a field goal, now 10-6. Unfortunately, I have a hard time believing we can score four points, unless Suh goes for a pick six with Colt McCoy doing his best Cody Hawkins impression.

9:41 Great return by Niles. Now I expect him to drop a pass when he's wide open on the next play.

9:43 Holy crap, we completed a pass for positive yards!

9:45 End of the third quarter. Texas leading, 10-6, but the Huskers offense showing some signs of life. Let's see how they screw it up this time.

9:48 Great defense by Earl Thomas. At least Lee managed to hit the guy in the red jersey this time.

9:49 Memo to Shawn Watson: if you need 10 yards for a first down, you shouldn't call a play that requires Zac to throw it to a guy who's five yards behind the line of scrimmage.

9:52 Another interference call on Hagg. He's a great run stopper, but never has any clue where the ball is on pass coverage.

9:53 Dodged a bullet on that dropped pass.

9:55 Hey look, there's that Crick guy I'm distantly related to.

9:56 Niles Paul! He ran one back against Colorado, and almost made another house call there.

9:57 Suh in to block, but no help. Run some playaction and throw it to the big fella in the end zone.

10:01 Hits Kinnie, but out of bound. Gotta go for it here, we may not get this close again.

10:01 Chip shot for Henery, now 10-9.

10:02 I can understand wanting the points so we just need a field goal to lead, but it's going to take some luck and even better defense than we've already had just to get in field goal range again.

10:04 Line drive kick dropped by the return man and down at the one. Great kick by Adi.

10:05 Well, they got some luck. Now for the defense to give us a shot at the go-ahead field goal.

10:06 Missed a safety by that much.

10:07 ...and then we give Shipley a first down.

10:10 We need a stop on third down here.

10:10 Breakitup, breakitup, breakitup...DAMMIT!

10:12 This is starting to feel like an inevitable touchdown drive to ice the game.

10:14 HUGE interception by Gomes!

10:15 Come on, offense. All I ask for is one more field goal.

10:16 Great effort by Brandon Kinnie! We're in field goal range now!

10:18 To quote the great philosopher Ben Kantack, "Field goal range!"

10:21 Here comes the second most popular guy in the state of Nebraska.

10:22 ALEX HENERY FOR HEISMAN!

10:23 Adi trying to repeat the last kickoff sends it out of bounds. Should have just put it in the end zone.

10:25 19 yard pickup and a horse collar tackle. Shit.

10:26 Third and long. Let's hold them here and block the kick.

10:27 Incomplete pass. Clock says :00, but looks like they'll put one second on.

10:28 46 yards on the kick. Far from a sure thing. Pitt lost today on a missed PAT.

10:30 SONOFABITCH.

10:31 Hopefully this will at least be enough to put us in the Cotton Bowl over OSU.

Big 12 Championship Live Blog

I haven't posted anything here in two months. Lame, I know. To make up for it, I'm live blogging the Big 12 Championship tonight!

#3 Texas (12-0) has been the favorite to win the Big 12 and play the SEC champion (Alabama) for the national title all season. The only obstacle left in their path will be a Nebraska team that's on its way back to national prominence.

#22 Nebraska (9-3) entered the first Big 12 championship in 1996 ranked #2 and eyeing a third straight national title. They were upset by a 7-4 Texas team that most people didn't think had a chance to win. Tonight they'll look for some revenge.

Key Players
Colt McCoy, QB, Texas - The senior quarterback is a favorite to win the Heisman as a solid leader for the 4th ranked offense in the country.

Jordan Shipley, WR, Texas - With 99 catches, nearly 1,300 yards and 11 TDs on the year, Shipley is without question the best wideout in the country and will present a big challenge for the Husker secondary.

Ndamukong Suh and Jared Crick, DT, Nebraska - The interior line for the Blackshirts has been a big reason for Nebraska's revival. Suh leads the team with 70 tackles, including 17 tackles for a loss and 7.5 sacks. Crick (who happens to be a distant cousin of mine) has blossomed into a star in his own right and has benefited greatly from the extra attention teams pay to Suh.

Roy Helu, RB, Nebraska - To say the Husker offense has struggled this year would be an understatement. If they're going to have a chance against the top defense in the Big 12, it's going to be up to Helu and freshman backup Rex Burkhead to get the job done running the ball early and often.

7:08 So far a pretty good day. Duke beat St. John's, Carolina lost to Kentucky, Florida loses to Alabama. If the Huskers can pull this off my day would be complete.

7:09 Unfortunately Brent Musberger is calling tonight's game. The guy is a notorious anti-Nebraska partisan. My understanding is that he once called a game in Lincoln and made a bunch of demands of the Memorial Stadium staff, which basically told him to go to hell. I don't know if that's true, but it seems plausible.

7:12 Nebraska wins the toss and defers.

7:14 Prince Amukamara getting off to a strong start breaking up the first pass. The guy has potential to be a shut down corner.

7:15 Apparently Texas has opted to go for Suh's legs, as opposed to the Oklahoma-Kansas strategy of holding on every play.

7:16 Great job by Pierre Allen to create that turnover. I'm not sure I've ever seen a defensive line tip as many balls as this one does.

7:17 Rex Burkhead getting early action. It's nice to have the true freshman from Plano, TX, fully healthy again.

7:18 First time this year we've seen Suh on offense. He scored a couple touchdowns receiving last year.

7:19 Should have had a first down on second effort. Not a very good spot.

7:20 If I'm Bo, I consider challenging the spot. I don't think he will, though.

7:20 Review coming. Rex's knee was definitely not down on first contact. I think he got it.

7:21 Already a mention of Jerry's giant video board. I hope Alex Henery bounces one off it sometime tonight.

7:22 First down Nebraska!

7:24 That's one of the best balls Zac Lee has thrown in a while and a nice grab by Kinne. Unfortunately, just a little too far outside.

7:25 3-0 Huskers. How is Henery not a finalist for the Lou Groza Award? Or the Ray Guy Award for that matter.

7:28 Second straight touchback. That's the best Adi has looked on his kickoffs in a while.

7:29 Jared Crick: The next Suh or the first Crick?

7:30 Blackshirts looking good early.

7:33 I love that the option is back in the playbook, but Lee just isn't fast enough for it. Watch out in the coming years when Cody Green starts running it, though.

7:34 That's exactly what we didn't need. Zac Lee is a game manager, not someone who can go deep with much consistency.

7:35 Suh and Crick making their presence felt.

7:36 Prince making up for Lee's pick in a big way. This kid is gonna be a star next year as a senior.

7:37 Great job getting that toe down.

7:40 Nice playcall, Watson. That never had a chance.

7:41 Alex Henery, MVP. Backshirts 6, Longhorns 0

7:41 Seriously, I can't think of any kicker who has ever been as popular as Henery is on this campus. Only Suh is more of a rock star.

7:43 Shorter kick that time, but pretty good coverage.

7:44 Since Musberger can't be bothered to mention it, if Nebraska upsets Texas, they'll go to the Fiesta Bowl

7:45 If Texas wins, the Huskers probably go to the Holiday Bowl. Not sure who it will be against since USC lost to Arizona today.

7:46 Oklahoma State is projected for the Cotton Bowl, but if we keep it close, we might be able to move up. How OSU is ahead of us in the first place after getting owned by Oklahoma is a mystery to me.

7:46 Two turnovers, two three-and-outs for the Blackshirts so far. That's our best chance to win.

7:47 Mostly we need short field so the offense can run three plays, then let Henery kick.

7:48 Traye getting a little action. He did a decent job filling in when Burkhead and Helu were both hurt.

7:49 Niles Paul getting his first catch. The guy has been a huge disappointment this year, but a nice job finding the gap there.

7:50 Apparently I didn't say it clearly enough the fast time: Zac Lee is not fast enough to run the option effectively.

7:52 Lee misfires again. He's now 2-7. Time for Henery to coffin corner one.

7:54 That's Henery's 27th punt downed inside the 20 this year. That's 41% of his punts.

7:55 Nate Newton's kid plays for Texas? I guess we know which team gets the bust drugs.

7:56 Phillip Dillard blowing up that play. He has been excellent the second half of the season since the Oklahoma game.

7:56 End of the first quarter. So far, so good.

8:00 Blocked kick! That's Eric Martin, primarily known for smoking fools and knocking out chumps on the kickoff team.

8:01 Two deep throws by Lee, two interceptions.

8:02 Nice job by McCoy scrambling. Shipley now over 100 catches for the year.

8:07 Musberger's ability to read graphics verbatim is matched only by Joe Buck.

8:08 My name is Suh. How do you do? Now Colt McCoy's gonna die!

8:12 After further review, Ron Brown snapped McCoy's wrist for daring to venture near Nebraska's coolest assistant coach.

8:12 Those balls seem to have a habit of "sneaking up and surprising" Niles. Lee now 2-9.

8:16 Steinkiller in to give Suh a breather.

8:17 Close to midfield, but Texas still yet to run an offensive play in Nebraska territory.

8:18 We're now an hour in. So far, I've gone through half a bottle of Mountain Dew and about 3/4 of a bag of Skittles. Gotta pace myself.

8:21 Herbstreit briefly mentioned that the Huskers haven't committed a penalty yet. That's been a huge weakness for them this year and it's a big victory if they can get to halftime without any.

8:22 First time the Texas offense has been inside Nebraska territory.

8:23 Barry Turner getting in on the action. I'm pretty sure he's been a senior for four years now. At least it seems like it.

8:25 Big series here. The Blackshirts have a bad habit of letting teams score at the end of the first half. We need to hold them out of the end zone.

8:25 Suuuuuuuuuuuh

8:26 Matt O'Hanlon, much like Dillard has really played well the second half of the season. It's almost like that blown coverage against Va Tech never happened.

8:27 Good coverage sack there. Now it's important not to relax too much on third and long.

8:28 Bad mental mistake by Hagg. He had no idea where the ball was. That's the worst possible time and way to get the team's first penalty of the game.

8:30 Once again, Nebraska gives up a score right before halftime.

8:35 Musberger: "I have a feeling the majority of votes are going to be cast tomorrow." Given that Heisman ballots are due Monday, that would make sense.

8:36 Another three and out. I don't want Zac throwing downfield, but offensive coordinator Shawn Watson is going too far toward the conservative side.

8:37 How cute, they think they can block Suh one-on-one

8:38 Heisman Trophy suspiciously absent from that list of awards for Suh.

8:40 Breaking news from Brent Musberger: Bo knows defense. Ric Romero will have the story at halftime.

8:41 Halftime. Texas leads, 7-6. Meet me back here in about 20 minutes for the second half.

Lacy vs. Citta

This week I debated Daily Worker columnist Kyle Citta. Here's the video.

Q&A with the Eli Young Band

Note: I meant to post this interview much earlier this week, but because of some technical issues (read: "I hate Avid") it got delayed until today. Better late than never.

Last week the Eli Young Band did a free show here at UNL along with Aaron Watson as part of the University's celebration of homecoming and the 300th consecutive sellout at Memorial Stadium. I had the opportunity to visit with the band on their bus for about 15 minutes.

For those who don't know, the members of the band are (from left to right in the above photo):
Chris Thompson (drums)
Jon Jones (bass, backing vocals)
Mike Eli (lead vocals, guitar)
James Young (lead guitar, backing vocals)

ANDREW LACY: First of all, walk me through a little bit of what a typical day is like when you're on the road.

JON JONES: It's so different. It seems like it changes day to day. It's weird because the focus for the day is always the show, which is anywhere between 25 minutes if we're the first out of a lot of bands or if we're headlining an hour and a half to two hours. So everything is kind of built around that. But every day we wake up in a different city, which is always the most disorienting thing. You fall asleep in one city then wake up someplace completely new and spend the first hour trying to get your new surroundings.

AL: How is playing a college setting like this different from some of the bars and bigger arenas that you play?

MIKE ELI: There's no distraction - I mean, there's a different sort of distraction. Here there's not the liquor and the smoke and the beer that can sometimes be a distraction, but, you know, it's just a different atmosphere.

JJ: And it's good for us because it's all ages, you know. A lot of the bars we play are 21 and up so you miss out on a lot of people that want to come see you, so this is great because everybody can get in.

AL: This is homecoming weekend and Jon, I understand you're from Omaha-

JJ: I am.

AL: so it's kind of appropriate for you to come back isn't it?

JJ: This is great. This is about the best weekend you could be here. I've spent a couple days in Omaha and actually just drove in, so this has been a different kind of a day for me meeting the bus and not waking up here. Totally disorienting. But I was really excited when I saw this on our schedule that we could be part of this.

AL: How did you guys come together as a group?

JJ: Well, we met in college, which is why it's always kind of fun to play at colleges. Down in Texas at the University of North Texas we were all students there.

JAMES YOUNG: And when we started, we really--you know, we'd play the bars and the local scene, but we also did a bunch of stuff for the university playing shows outside just like this at North Texas where we all met. It's a great way to impact people who might not come to see you play at a bar or whatever--

JJ: And we also get the randomly walking by crowd, which you don't get at too many other places.

AL: So what was it like those first few years when you were starting out and nobody really knew who you were?

JJ: It was a lot of fun. Our goal - I think for all four of us - was to make music part of our lives for the rest of our lives and make the band happen. But those first few years it was all about having fun and trying to make a few fans. We weren't taking anything seriously back then, so it made it really easy.

ME: I mean it's still fun now. It's not like it's--

JJ: Yeah, but now we have a couple hours of being serious a day now, whereas back then--

ME: Right. There's a whole lot more of the business that comes into the picture. Back then it was--you know, we had big dreams. We were hoping to one day make it to this point and those were hard times, don't get us wrong, but--

JJ: But if they were gonna pay us in beer, [gives thumbs up] yeah. We were on board.

ME: But now if they tried to pay us in beer, we'd probably give them the middle finger.

CHRIS TOMPSON: Unless it's Bud Light.

JY: We'll still take your beer.

AL: What's been the biggest change since you moved to a major label and began doing some of the larger shows?

JJ: It's just non-stop now. It feels like from the time we signed 'til now--the bus hasn't had any time for maintenance because there hasn't been time to stop--we're just trying to do everything at once. We're trying to conquer the whole nation, whereas before we were a regional band just trying to break out layer by layer, slowly by slowly, and now we're just trying to do everything at once. It's time consuming, but it allows us to--

JY: We went from doing Good Day Dallas to being on Jay Leno. I mean, we did like every morning show in Texas all across the state. It's really cool being able to impact radio and make new fans and we'll go someplace we've never played before and they know the songs and they know that back catalog and everything, so that's really cool.

AL: When "When It Rains" started getting played on radio, you weren't really doing anything to promote it, so what was it like to see your song showing up on the charts?

ME: That song was a publicity stunt. [Everyone laughs] That was a cool thing, because the way we found out our song was on Billboard was that a friend called and said, "I don't know if you know this, but 'When It Rains' is on the Billboard charts.' That was one of those things that will always be a part of our story. "When It Rains" gave us the opportunity to break out nationally because a few disc jockeys and program directors decided it was a great song and they wanted to play it. That song kind of changed our lives.

AL: I know when I first heard that song it jumped out at me because it sounded really different from anything else on country radio at that time. How would you describe your group's sound?

JJ: Really, when we started the band we didn't say we were going to be a country band or a rock band. The four of us just wanted to play music together. And so the first couple years was spent not only having a lot of fun but figuring out what kind of music we wanted to make and what we found out was that the four of us can only really make one kind of music. We're happy that it fits into the country genre, but it's just our kind of music.

JY: A lot of it was songwriting as well. We write songs from our personal experiences and life experiences and with us it's all about the song then we just go from there. I guess it hit a chord with some people and here we are now.

AL: With eight of the twelve songs on Jet Black & Jealous, at least one of you had a hand in writing. How important has it been to have that kind of artistic input on your first album for a major label?

ME: We wouldn't have done it any other way. We had full artistic input on the entire record. We made the record on our own without the label before we signed, so with the writing even the songs we didn't write were songs that sounded like us and writers we write with. I think that will always be a huge part of us. We have a lot to say and the songs are gonna come pouring out of us. I think that will always be a huge part of the Eli Young Band.

AL: The current single is "Radio Waves." Tell me a little bit about that song.

ME: It's got the word "radio" in it. The way that song started out, I wrote it with a good friend of mine, Blu Sanders--a good friend of ours, Blu Sanders--

JJ: He's my friend too, buddy.

ME: [Laughs] We were talking about radio and talking about how when you were younger you were making the mix tapes and all this for girlfriends in junior high and all that kind of thing and talking about how as artists we communicate through music so much and that song just follows that idea of how most of us--not even artists, but a lot of times we all communicate through music and through lyrics. That's were that song kind of came from and it ended up working out pretty good for us.

AL: Another song on that album I really like because it's unique is "Guinevere". Could you tell me a little about how that song came about?

ME: Well, I figured I'd just stake my claim in the whole King Arthur-Guinevere story, since everybody else has. James and I wrote that with a friend of ours, Scooter Carusoe, and we kind of thought at first that it was gonna be kind of a goofy idea. But it's about a girl that is having trouble and trying to figure out where her place is. We felt like the idea of Guinevere and her story kind of helped give some imagery to that story.

JY: We've written a bunch of songs and some songs don't make it on the record, but we fell in love with it once we were in the studio recording it. You just never know which songs are gonna hit and which songs are--'cause they're all our babies you know, and--

ME: I loved it from the beginning.

JY: [Laughs] But all the songs on the record are our babies and then you bring them out to the fans and this one kinda touched home with a lot of people.

AL: The way the music industry is right now, it's kind of hard to measure success in terms of album sales as much as in the past and things like that, so do you measure success for the group?

ME: By how many beers we can down in one night. [Everyone laughs]

JJ: We've always wanted to make records to go play live. Our audience, our fanbase, is growing at a great pace. A great way for us to measure it is how many fans and how many people were impacted. And you can go look at how many people are illegally downloading our songs - and there's a bunch of them [gives thumbs up] - and that number's growing too, so that means we're making more fans. You're right, it's not just about how many records you sell anymore; it's a little bit of everything.

JY: The traditional model's kind of out of whack, but what we really look for is people in the seats and fans that come out and fans that hear one song they think it's cool so they go buy our record. It's changing times in the music industry.

AL: Last year you got the ACM nomination for Best New Vocal Group. What does a recognition like that mean to you?

JY: We didn't pay off the right people, I don't think. [Everyone laughs] It's amazing to be recognized by your peers and to even be in that category. There's been so many wow moments in the past couple of years--

ME: And that's your P.C. answer.

JY: But mostly we didn't pay off the right people.

AL: You said earlier that you don't necessarily play what you might call country music, you just happen to fit in the genre. What is country music to you guys?

ME: Well, I know I grew up on country music and so for me as a vocalist and a songwriter the band kind of had no choice, I guess. With me being the lead singer it was going to kind of put us in that genre. But country music has always been about real life stories and the lyric is always the most important thing. It's what's driving the whole genre, I think. People are listening for that story and listening for that moment of wow and that last line that knocks it out of the park. Country music, I think, is always going to be a big part of who we are.

JJ: We really like that it's driven by the melody and it seems like a very honest type of music. That's what we really like about it. The song is the most important thing about the music, if that makes sense, whereas in a lot of other types of music there's so many other hype things that country music can be a little more pure.

JY: I was reading a quote the other day, and it was Eric Church talking in Rolling Stone and he said, "Country music is the new American music." I really agree with that. Just like the Chuck Berrys and the Elvis Presleys back in the day when all that first started rock and roll. It was R&B and it was soul and all of that. That's what I think country kind of is now. It's the voice of American music.

AL: Thank you guys for taking the time to talk with me.

Listen to EYB on Youtube:
"When it Rains"
"Radio Waves"
"Guinevere"