Quick hits from the home state

This week has been one for the road, so that "post an update at some point in the next week" thing didn't work out so well. Let's look at a few of the things that have gone down in my absence:

• Troy King has picked a fight with a highly respected district attorney, and he'll probably end up wishing he hadn't when 2010 rolls around. Rarely do all but one of the state's 42 DAs approve a public statement that says the attorney general "doesn't have the experience to understand death penalty issues," but then again, rarely is someone like King the AG. King might think he's making a name for himself as a victims' advocate and ardent death penalty backer, but what he's actually doing is angering a lot of people who are well-known in their districts, are popular among their voters, and have very long memories.
• Why exactly are our two-year colleges paying people to work for governors and congressmen instead of, you know, them? If ever we needed a law, we need one here.
  
• Fred Thompson is the Republican presidential flavor of the moment in Alabama. He also hasn't taken a clear position on much of anything. These circumstances seem related.
• What should you make of Alabama's heart-stopping win over Arkansas last week? As is the case with so many things, Nick Saban already has done a better job on that than I could: "[Y]ou can look at it one of two ways. You can be negative about it and say we didn't have a killer instinct [after giving up leads of 21-0 and 31-10]. Or you can be very positive and say that even with that, we were able to regroup and come back and win." I tend toward the middle ground: I was thrilled the Crimson Tide finally managed a fourth-quarter comeback, but I was concerned that it became necessary in the first place.
  

That's about it for now. Your second-ever Saturday football live-blog is coming momentarily. It's good to be back.