The second-round NCAA women’s volleyball tournament game between Notre Dame and Northwestern is 7:00 PM tonight at the Joyce Center. I doubt it can match last night’s thriller against Dayton — indeed, it would probably be better for my sanity if it doesn’t :) — but hopefully we’ll get to see the Irish advance to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 1997.

I’m kicking myself for forgetting to watch last night’s much-hyped David Letterman show, on which Oprah Winfrey appeared for the first time in 16 years, ending a supposed “feud” between the two. Oprah presented Dave with an autographed photo of herself an Uma Thurman, a reference to Dave’s failed “Oprah … Uma” Academy Awards joke ten years ago:

Heh. Articles here and here.

The Washington Post’s Lisa de Moraes says the appearance was sad.

Peter Jackson’s King Kong, which comes out a week from Wednesday, is “jaw-droppingly brilliant: the most entertaining blockbuster movie this year,” according to the Daily Mail’s review.

The University of Pennsylvania, stung by bad publicity over its attempt to crack down on obviously innocent conduct, has dropped all charges against the student who took a photo of two other students having sex for all to see against a dorm-room window. (Hat tip: bink.)

Andrew Geier, a graduate student who is advising the photographer, and Alan Kors, a History professor and First Amendment defender, “called the outcome expected but said the case raises larger questions about how the conduct office operates,” according to the Daily Pennsylvanian:

“If this Office of Student Conduct was willing to pursue this case with these facts, then what cases don’t we know about?” he asked. “That is frightening because most [students] plea bargain.”

Geier said that before he agreed to advise the student, the photographer was on the verge of agreeing to the OSC’s initial proposal [that he be put on disciplinary probation and write a letter of apology and an essay stating what he had done wrong].

Kors called for a University investigation into the office and its definition of students’ rights as well as what constitutes certain violations.

“We have got to know what criteria of student conduct this office is working with,” he said, adding that the OSC is “clearly out of its mind and out of control.”

Meanwhile, the woman in the photograph — apparently still not understanding that a) if you have sex in public, people can see you, and b) this embarrassing business will only get worse the longer it stays in the press (the photo was on the cover of the Philadelphia Daily News yesterday) — is planning to “pursue further legal action,” according to her attorney. Perhaps she could sue herself for being so freakin’ dumb.

UPDATE: The Daily News has more:

Doyle said in a statement that although the university decided not to pursue disciplinary proceedings, “we are disturbed by the photographer’s conduct in this matter.”

“We are concerned about the wide dissemination of the intimate photos in a manner and to the extent that subjected another member of the Penn community to embarrassment and ridicule,” the statement said. “We have asked the student photographer to apologize and sincerely hope he does.”

But Andrew Geier, a psychology grad student advising the accused, could not confirm whether the student would offer up a mea culpa. “I can’t imagine what he would be apologizing for,” he said.

“The university should apologize to him for labeling him a sexual harasser and for bringing charges against him that infringed on his civil rights,” Geier added.

Amen! Geier also points out that the picture which appears on collegehumor.com was actually not taken by the photographer at the center of this controversy. It seems there was more than one photographer — and this happened on more than one occasion! — according to the Philly Inquirer:

The pictures were taken during broad daylight, with no telephoto lenses. Small crowds that included a number of people with cameras gathered to watch the couple, who repeated the act in front of the dorm-room window over several days, said [Geier].

“They chose deliberately not to be private,” said [Kors]. “Whether it was part of their thrill, I don’t know.”

The thrill apparently was gone by October, when one half of the naked duo filed a complaint against the photographer, according to university spokeswoman Lori Doyle.

If the idiot girl had not filed that complaint, the photo never would have gotten beyond collegehumor.com. Now it’s been published on the front pages of the Daily Pennsylvanian and the Philadelphia Daily News. And if she “pursues legal action,” as her lawyer says she will, the publicity will continue.

Anyway, the notion that the photos of these acts of blatant exhibitionism are “a public invasion into her personal life” (in her lawyer’s words) is freakin’ laughable. Here’s hoping the judge smacks down her frivolous lawsuit at the earliest possible stage.

P.S. All you people reading my blog are invading my privacy! How dare you read what I make publicly available? I’m going to sue you all!

:)

Tropical Storm Epsilon has defied the forecasts again and has become a hurricane, the 14th of the Atlantic tropical season that supposedly ended on Wednesday. “One wouldn’t expect sea surface temperatures (SSTs) this cool to support a hurricane, but Epsilon is squeezing every little bit of energy out of the ocean,” writes Bryan Woods of The Storm Track. The NHC discussion has more.

Epsilon is the sixth December hurricane in the recorded history of the Atlantic basin, and the date it reached hurricane strength, December 2, is the fourth-latest ever.

Guestblogger: Kristy LaPlante

The NY Times published an article yesterday revealing the Pentagon’s involvement in planting “pro-American” articles/advertisements in Iraqi publications, and in paying Iraqi journalists monthly stipends to do so as well. The result, I think, is completely detrimental to our mission. One publication’s thirst for a juicy story could - and maybe has - sabotage any credibility we have overseas with those pro-freedom Iraqi’s we are supposed to defend. Am I the only one who thinks that passive, propoganda warfare is better than, I don’t know, the very aggressive battlefield warfare that everyone has been protesting so ferociously? And if journalists here going to question the ethics behind publishing biased materials, why not argue the same for war in general? Surely shooting someone is worse than printing an ad. I’m disappointed in the people who exposed this story. There are better causes to take up.

[& I know I’m not the only one. Hat tip: ECD3]

Heh:

With their spot in a BCS bowl all but given away to Ohio State and a very questionably-deserving Notre Dame squad, Oregon players and coaches learned today of a gift from NCAA and BCS officials that will make them feel better about their unjust snubbing: signed 5×7 color photos of the great Charlie Weis for each and every coach and player.

On a more serious note, here’s what soon-to-be Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush said about the ND-Oregon debate:

Chris, Boise ID: You played them both, so which would be the better team fit for the Fiesta Bowl, Notre Dame or Oregon?

Reggie Bush: I don’t know. It’s a toss up, but I guess I would say Notre Dame.

(Hat tip: Kate Spitz.)

And yet, let us always Remember the wise & eternally-applicable dictum of Alderman Paddy Bauer, RIP: “Chicago Ain’t ready for Reform.”

Or put Otherwise, as Brendan recently did as Regards his friend who, presumably with the Best of intentions, Pooped on the Floor at USC’s Trojan Hall: “Why am I bragging about these things? I have no idea.” / Oh, well, what the Hell: CONNECTICUT RULES! I guess. Sort of. Ahem. Gratefully-retired CT state elections officer Joe Loy, guestEquivocating. :)

The Constitution State leads the nation ~ again. (Yes; but Where?) ~

The General Assembly approved the nation’s most sweeping campaign finance reforms early today, transforming Connecticut into a political laboratory.

The House voted 82-65 to give final approval at 2:44 a.m. and sent the bill to Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell, who set aside minor reservations about the Democratic measure and promised to sign it into law.

“This legislation makes Connecticut a national leader on campaign finance reform,” said Rell, who called for limits on so-called special interest money in January. “It can’t happen soon enough.”

The legislation bans contributions by lobbyists, their spouses, and state contractors, limits political action committees, closes a loophole that permits corporate donations and creates a voluntary system of public financing.

By overhauling campaign laws crafted 30 years ago after the Watergate scandal, the bill upends long-established relationships between power and money, though few would predict precisely what might rise in their place.

Read the whole thing. / Despite (or, Because of? :) Governor Rell’s backing, only 4 out of 12 Republicans in the 36-member Senate, and a pathetic 4 out of 52 in the 151-seat House, voted for the abomination COUGH COUGH that is to say, the Legislation, which is to be first Implemented at the 2008 state Legislative elections; and then for the Statewide offices (and Again with the Legislature of course) in 2010. / Only 1 of the 24 Senate Dems voted Nay; 78 of the 99 House D’s voted Aye. [Newington’s Sandy Nafis, D-AD 27, btw, was among the several liberal Dems voting Against.] / According to informed Oracular sources :), R Governor M. Jodi’s Dance with the Devil in the Pale Moon Light has generated some very unlunarlike Heat within the Party. :) However, considering her skyhigh Approval ratings by her adoring She’s-not-Rowland Public, I seriously doubt that the Repubs would dare to Diss her On the Record.

For any fellow Nerds who’d like to learn what the bloody thing actually Does, as distinguished from reading its MSM Puffpieces, here are (a) the Office of Legislative Research report on it and (b) the legislature’s Office of Fiscal Analysis, um, analysis. ;> For the Truly courageous Geek, here’s the full text of the Bill Itself, which I (Myself :) haven’t read because I know from sad Experience that if I Open the 120-page .pdf file it will Kill the Hamster who powers my PC & replacing those dirty little Rats ain’t Cheap, they get Union scale plus a bigfat Signing bonus y’know, plus Management has to pay for the Funeral, why it’s almost as bad as with the g*ddamn State Employees, hi Andrew & Bea :).

All purely Philosophical considerations aside (I leave such Trivia :> to You smart Kids out there :), in my Ex-professional opinion the legislation ~ again either Despite, or Because of, the intensive Majority-building labor that went into Cobbling it together ~ is deeply Flawed as regards (a) its administrative Workability and (b) its Constitutionality. Especially do I Dislike: (1) its blatant discrimination against all non-Major-party candidacies, for whose campaigns the obstacles to Public funding are so Huge that the Office of Fiscal Analysis serenely declares them virtually Insurmountable and accordingly, quite Cost-efficient; and (2) its preposterously Invidious identification & treatment of so-called Party-Dominant Districts, wherein Contenders within the formulaically-Dominant party would get Vastly more Moohlah for their supposedly-dispositive Primary, and without a corresponding Reduction in their subsidy for the presumably-pro-forma Election ~ while the hapless candidate(s) of the Other party (the Submissive one, One supposes :) get the Usual, i.e., Screwed. Now there’s a Plan to increase political Competition, by Golly. :| (Note: also the Registration-based 20%-Advantage definition of a Party-Dominant District is so Narrowly drawn that it would Easily make the entire State of Connecticut a Party-Dominant District, if the State of Connecticut were a District. / I suspect, though I don’t yet Know, that They may have actually Goofed Up, statistically, on That one ~ definitionally carving out a lot More P-D Districts than they Think they have.)

As to the bureaucratic Minutiae of my Administrative objections, I’ll Spare you but just Trust me: Oh it’s going to be Fierce. :) Even WITH the Built-in & fully-Funded expansion of the pre-existing Empire of my Good friends at the State Elections Enforcement Commission, at the Expense of my even Better friends next door at the Office of the Secretary of the State. :)

The Irish pull out a thriller, 3 to 2!

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Becky and I (and Alex Talcott) are at the volleyball subregional, where Notre Dame is warming up for its first round match with Dayton. Winner faces Northwestern tomorrow, after the Cats came from behind to beat Texas A&M.

The Outback Bowl has a poll on its website which allows visitors to vote on “which Big Ten and SEC team would you most like to see play in the 2006 Outback Bowl game.” Boi From Troy urges Pac-10 fans to “tell them you want to see the Ohio State Buckeyes in Tampa Bay for the January 2nd game. That way, they can’t take Oregon’s rightful spot in the Fiesta Bowl.” Heh.

Meanwhile, fellow ND 2L Alex Ho, the Irish Buckeye, is looking ahead to a possible Irish-Buckeyes Fiesta Bowl. He writes, “Fortunately for my ND friends, I’ll be at home during the Fiesta Bowl and not around to harrass them when OSU wins. :) Although I’ll have to make a note to avoid wearing my OSU shirts and sweatshirts for a while at the beginning of next semester if the two teams do play over break.” Funny, this Irish Trojan never thought of an Irish-Trojans football game as a reason not to wear Trojan paraphernalia… quite the contrary, in fact… :)

Coming soon to an ice age near you?

For all its scientific absurdities — preposterously fast climate change, impossible global superstorms, ridiculous “flash freezing” by a wave of sinister frost from the upper troposphere, and all manner of defiance of the laws of physics — last year’s blockbuster global warming/cooling flick, The Day After Tomorrow, did get one thing right: melting polar ice could potentially have the side effect of disrupting the North Atlantic Current (the movie, in a truly hilarious you-can’t-make-this-stuff-up blunder, contained a graphic which showed the current moving in the wrong direction, but never mind that), and if the North Atlantic Current were to severely weaken or shut down, that would be a very bad thing.

Well, the media is abuzz today with the news that, according to a new report in the journal Nature, it might be starting to happen. Here is Nature’s brief article about the report. Drudge is headlining the Guardian story, “Alarm over dramatic weakening of Gulf Stream.” But I prefer the summary from The Storm Track, written by Bryan Woods, a Yale meteorology grad student who (unlike, say, me, or a Guardian reporter, or Drudge) actually knows what he’s talking about:

Shockwaves have been sent through the climate science community today as a new article published in the December 1 issue of the journal Nature is reporting that the transport of water across the Atlantic Ocean towards Europe has decreased by 30 percent. This shutdown of the ocean’s circulation is thought to be caused by a build-up of fresh ocean water at high latitudes caused by rapidly melting ice packs. Increased input of fresh water from the melting of ice and increased precipitation at the poles are thought to be strongly linked to global warming. The implications of these findings are huge and could effect the climate across the globe. A shutdown of the North Atlantic’s circulation is thought to be the cause of the last ice age 12,000 years ago during a period known as the Younger Dryas.

The Gulf Stream provides incredible amounts of energy to warm Europe. Remembering that the ‘warm’ Mediterranean climate is located at the same latitude as New England will give you an idea of how substantial this warming is.

A slowdown in the warm water transport should theoretically lead to cooling of Europe. Such a cooling has yet to be observed, however, the dramatic warming trend observed during the 1990s has stopped. This has led researchers to believe that the cooling trend forced by the slowdown of the ocean currents may simply be cancelling the effects of greenhouse warming, while the rest of the world continues to warm. A decrease in warm water transport across the Atlantic would also leave considerably more warm water in the western Atlantic to fuel increased hurricane activity. Instead of warm water traveling across the Atlantic, the Gulf Stream was found to be recirculating warm water back into its own current off the US coast.

It is still not clear whether or not this is a long term trend or just an anomaly that will disappear. Some climate models have predicted that such a circulation shutdown would take place at the end of this century, but none forecasted a change like this so early. North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) production north of Europe seems to have slowed significantly. NADW is a significant player in the world wide ocean circulation system and it can be found clear across the globe. The elimination of NADW would likely completely alter the global circulation patterns. In the past the elimination of NADW has been directly linked to ice ages.

Hollywood has taken this long postulated change and used it for the basis of the movie The Day After Tomorrow. However, climate changes are almost always gradual and no catastrophic consequences like those in the movie are forecast. In fact, the movie went as far as to incorrectly diagram the direction of oceanic flow. With that said, nobody knows the true consequences of these findings. One thing that can be certain is that substantial attention will now be diverted to these sensational findings and their dramatic implications for the world in which we live.

If you want to read the full Nature article, you’ll have to pay $30, unless you’re a subscriber to the journal.

Anyway, interesting stuff.

Heh:

A junior at the University of Pennsylvania faces punishment from the school for posting photos he took of two naked students who could be seen through a dorm window, according to confidential memos obtained by a student newspaper. …

By featuring the pictures on his personal Web site hosted through the school’s server, the photographer violated the school’s code of student conduct, sexual harassment policy and policy on acceptable uses of electronic resources, the university said in the memos.

But a graduate student who is advising the photographer in the disciplinary process said the worst thing the student could be guilty of is poor taste.

“If somebody chooses to make a public spectacle of themselves, then they get what goes with that,” Andrew Geier told the school newspaper.

Since the pair was visible in the window, Geier said, the photos were taken in public and are completely legal. …

“The student took a photograph of a public event. That is protected expression,” said professor Alan Charles Kors.

In the interest of, ahem, promoting free speech, I am providing this link where you can see one of the photos for yourself (NSFW!!!).

UPDATE: Here’s the Daily Pennsylanian article — also NSFW, because it includes the photo… and more power to the Pennsylvanian editors for having the guts to publish it! Mona would never let the Daily Trojan publish something like that. (Hat tip: bink.)

UPDATE 2: Penn has dropped all charges. Hooray! God bless America! :)

P.S. On a somewhat related note, the president of the student government at Arizona State University wants his beloved school to stop appearing on the cover of Playboy:

Undergraduate Student Government President Yaser Alamoodi is hoping to pass a rule that would prohibit males and females from posing in magazines he believes are damaging to ASU’s reputation.

“I was concerned to see logos and the name of ASU being associated with such magazines,” he said. “I don’t want the name of ASU to be a joke anymore, and I think the Playboy association is a big reason why the ASU academic reputation is not up to what it should be.”

Dammit, this is America! Those hot hot hot ASU girls have a constitutional right to bare their boobies as they see fit!