I’m going to just link and excerpt, not commentate (for now anyway) — except to say that this 2-decades-old CT Capital Punishment case has got to be One for the Books.

High Court Lifts Stay In Execution
5:45 PM EST,January 27, 2005
The Associated Press

The U.S. Supreme Court today lifted a stay of execution for Michael Ross, clearing away one of two obstacles that had blocked Connecticut from putting the serial killer to death.

The decision, on a 5-4 vote, brings Ross another step closer to becoming the first person executed in New England in 45 years. But it does not affect a separate 10-day restraining order that was issued on Wednesday after Ross’ father filed a civil rights lawsuit seeking to block the execution.

…Chief Public Defender Gerard Smyth said it ends his office’s attempts to block the execution.

“There will be no hearing on his mental competency,” Smyth said. “It appears he will be executed without anyone hearing all the evidence that we have that he is mentally incompetent.”

A hearing on the restraining order was scheduled for Friday at 10:30 a.m. before the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York.

…Ross is on death row for strangling four young women and girls in eastern Connecticut in the early 1980s. He also has admitted murdering four other young women in Connecticut and New York. He raped most of the victims.

Ross last year decided to fire his public defenders and forgo any remaining appeals.

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Tonight was the first night of competition in the Law School Bowling league. Unlike some teams, Five Drunks and a Ringer doesn’t have t-shirts… but that’s okay, we’re still cooler than everyone else. Why? Because, inspired by the Notre Dame defense, we have a chain!

We each keep one link from the chain with us during the week, and then on Thursday night, we reconnect it as a sign of team unity. (And whenever anyone bowls a strike, they get to wear it. I got the chain twice tonight!)

Anyway, the league-wide stats aren’t available yet, but here’s how our team did:

GAME ONE
Chris 213
Brian 140
Nick 139
Joel 120
Becky 84
Brendan 73
TEAM TOTAL: 769

GAME TWO
Chris 181
Brian 140
Joel 129
Becky 100
Nick 94
Brendan 81
TEAM TOTAL: 725

Yeah, so we got 44 pins worse between Game One and Game Two. I blame the beer. :)

The most interesting part of the night was when Chris had a perfect game going through five frames in the first game. Alas, he ended up bowling “only” a 213 — an excellent score by most people’s standards, by a far cry from his 246 in an unofficial practice round last weekend!

Speaking of last weekend, I broke 100 on Sunday!!! (I got a 102.) I didn’t do quite as well tonight — but hey, at least I didn’t get another 46! :)

More photos here.

A Brazilian 9-year old is being scouted for European soccer teams, wow- I think soccer needs a no-minor in competition rule, like the Tara Lipinski rule that the Worlds competition has (noone under a certain age can compete- I think 16 years old?) Fortunately, it seems that this kid is going to have a childhood before going pro.

As we were returning from a raucous game of bowling tonight, a slightly drunken Brendan turned to me and remarked, “You know, you should totally take advantage of me.” :)

The Notre Dame Observer’s Lance Gallop on Internet Explorer: “There is absolutely no excuse…for continuing to use software that is the computer equivalent of unprotected sex with a third world prostitute.”

I’m no conspiracy-minded, blame-America-first lefty, but is becoming increasingly difficult to believe that Abu Grahib was in any way an isolated incident. Accounts like this lend credence to earlier accounts like this, and lead to the inescapable conclusion that, well, we’ve really f***ed up this war, big time. The “force of human freedom,” my eye.

Well this was interesting. I walk into my class and what do I find? All my students gathered around one kid with pictures of me from this site. Thanks for disrupting my class, Brendan. :-P

Honestly, how many consecutive days is it possible to accurately publish news stories with headlines like “Insurgents Step Up Violence Ahead of Vote“? Hasn’t that been the headline for, like, a week straight now? How damn G-ddamn “steps” are there? Isn’t there some finite point at which no more “stepping up” is possible — i.e., a point at which the level of violence has reached a critical mass, and the country is just basically an active war zone, in which no one is safe anywhere, at any time? And if we’ve already reached that point, aren’t these headlines just an inaccurate attempt to impose a sequential plot line on a relatively static situation, for the sake of dramatic storytelling? In other words, shouldn’t the story really be headlined, “Iraq Continues to be Extremely Violent Ahead of Vote”?

I’m probably wrong. I’m just annoyed by the repetitive headlines, is all.

Yes, I know my website is having speed issues. I think it may even be going down altogether for minutes at a time, then coming back up. It’s been very spotty for the last few days. I also suspect people may also be having problems leaving comments, as my MySQL back-end has been very slow this morning.

I just submitted a help ticket to TotalChoiceHosting. I tried to preemptively address all of their typical excuses:

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The bus I needed to be late was early, the bus I needed to be early was late, and I am officially late for class. On the bright side, the reason Becky couldn’t give me a ride is, she is waiting for a phone call the could yield a job! Cross your fingers! This message will expire on March 28, 2005