Yes, the website is loading very slowly. I know. I would describe its current speed as somewhere between a snail’s pace and the pace of Wazzu’s offense. :) Also, recent permalinks are broken. Sorry. It’s a server issue. We’re working on it. My apologies for the inconvenience. Stay tuned…

The USC men’s basketball team bid a proper farewell to the Sports Arena earlier tonight with a much-needed 89-84 win over Oregon State, a crucial victory that boosts the Trojans’ hopes of earning the Pac-10 tournament’s #6 seed and the all-important bye into the quarterfinals that goes with it.

USC has two more regular-season games, at Stanford and at Cal next Thursday and Saturday. If they win both, they definitely get at least the #6 seed; if they split or lose both, their seed will depend on what Oregon, the Trojans’ main rival for the #6 seed, does. The Ducks play at UCLA tomorrow (FIGHT ON, BRUINS!!! BEAT THE DUCKS!!! :) and at Oregon State on Saturday. USC is currently 8-8 in conference; Oregon is 7-9.

Hopefully, the Trojans will get that #6 seed, rattle off three straight Pac-10 tournament victories, and go to the Big Dance. However, if they fall short of that lofty goal, but still earn an invitation to the NIT, the Sports Arena may actually host another game or two, depending on the Trojans’ NIT seed. (The early-round NIT games are held at campus sites.)

The Zags are one win away from an undefeated conference regular season!

Adam Morrison had an off-night, scoring just 11 points, but Gonzaga won convincingly anyway, 75-59 over San Diego — a team it needed a buzzer-beater to beat in their first meeting. J.P. Batista scored 26 points, and Derek Raivio, seemingly starting to get his groove back (finally!), scored 13 points on 5-of-10 shooting, including 3 of 5 from three-point land.

Gonzaga has now won 15 straight games, 22 in a row in the WCC, and 37 straight at home — the best such streak in the country. The Zags’ final regular-season game is at home Monday against San Francisco; they will then host the WCC tournament.

Stanford 39, Washington State 37. Final.

Holy crap. 39-37. In basketball. Major-conference basketball, no less. Perhaps Stanford’s players decided to follow the Tree’s example and play drunk, and convinced Wazzu’s players to do the same. :)

Other, less awful games of interest to yours truly, now in progress: San Diego at Gonzaga and Oregon State at USC. (In the latter game, they’re on pace to score more points in the first half than the Cardinal and Cougars managed in the whole game.)

UPDATE: Yup. USC 44, Oregon State 41 at halftime.

More on the Stanford-Wazzu suckfest:

The total of 76 points was the lowest in a Pac-10 game since Oregon State defeated Oregon 29-23 on March 23, 1984 (prior to the shot clock).

Stanford’s 39 points was the team’s lowest score in a victory since a 38-33 win over UCLA in 1946-47. Stanford had not scored fewer points in any game since a 42-34 loss to UCLA in 1981-82.

Washington State had not lost a game with so few points allowed since losing 37-36 at Washington in 1969-70.

Stanford shot 32.6 percent from the floor, including 30 percent on 3-pointers (3 for 10). Washington State shot 32.7 percent from the field, which included going 2-for-17 on 3-pointers.

Wazzu’s previous game was a 43-41 loss to Cal, so the Cougars have scored a grand total of 78 points in their last two games. Heh.

Miscellaneous memories that I took away from the train wreck of a game I just watched:

* Torin Francis getting the ball directly under the basket with 2 seconds on the shot clock… and passing it out to the perimeter.

* Torin Francis’s butterfingers throughout the game.

* Numerous ridiculous turnovers, including several in the crucial closing minutes (though not the final minute, when the game was effectively over and the Irish started magically playing well again).

* Missed layups.

* The stark contrast between Marquette’s offense, in which all five players seemed to be moving at all times, and our “offense,” which mostly involves 3 or 4 guys standing around while one guy (usually Chris Quinn) dribbles… and then occasionally someone moves, whereupon he is immediately and predictably passed the ball. Everyone then proceeds to stop moving until it’s time for the next pass. Rinse and repeat, until there are 5 seconds left on the shot clock, at which point Chris Quinn is expected to make something happen out of nothing.

* The crucial Marquette putback late in the game that occurred when some guy who looked like he was about 5-foot-5 got a rebound while surrounded by Francis and… I think maybe Kurz? Anyway, the point is, a short Marquette player easily grabbed the rebound while the two tall Irish players near him just stood there, and the result was two Marquette points.

* The play in the first half when an Irish player shot a three-pointer at the shot-clock buzzer, and instead of getting in position to go for a potential rebound, the entire Irish team stood on the permieter and watched the shot rattle out, whereupon Marquette got an uncontested rebound.

* The play where a driving McAlarney made a great pass to an open Francis in the lane, but Francis wasn’t paying attention and wasn’t ready to shoot, and in his confusion, made a bad pass out to the perimeter. Either McAlarney or Francis would have had a good shot if they’d taken it; instead, we got nothin’.

Forgive me for being so down on this team right now, after having my heart ripped out of my throat for the 86th time this season… but honestly, what’s the point of rooting for them to make the Big East tournament? It’s not like they have a snowball’s chance in Hell of winning it. All this talk about the “snakebitten Irish” ignores the fact that this team, for all its potential, is fundamentally flawed, from the coach on down. Torin Francis is a Jekyll and Hyde player; yeah, he scored 16 points and had 15 rebounds tonight, but those were almost entirely in the first half; late in the game, he was responsible for several mistakes and missed opportunities that arguably cost us the game. Chris Quinn has the heart of a champion — and yes, his biggest problem is simply that he’s asked to do way too much because Mike Brey doesn’t have a legitimate offensive strategy — but the kid can’t hit a crucial layup to save his life (he’s missed four game-winning baskets this season). Colin Falls is inconsistency personified: an asset when he’s hot, a liability at other times. (He shot 1-for-10 tonight.) The whole team has an odd habit of going cold at the most inconvenient times imaginable. And while Mike Brey has unquestionably done a superb job at keeping the kids motivated despite all the crushing losses, that’s basically the only part of the job description of “head coach” that he’s good at. Play calling? Late-game strategizing? Player development? Not his strengths.

Oh, well. GOOOO IRISH, BEEEEEAT FRIARS.

And… Fire Mike Brey.

P.S. Becky is also not exactly a Mike Brey fan.

Guestblogger: David Kreutz
Don Knotts, a veteran comedic actor, passed away due to pulmonary and respiratory complications Friday.

Knotts was born in Morgantown, West Virigina in 1924. He started out his entertaiment career as a ventriloquist. He enrolled in college at West Virginia University but enlisted in the army when WWII engulfed America. He was assigned to the Special Services Branch as an entertainer. It was at this time he ditched ventriloquism for straight comedy. After his stint in the Army he returned to WVU where he earned his degree in Theater. After graduation he moved to New York where he used his conections from the Special Services to break into show buisness. It was during his time in New York that he met Andy Griffith while playing a small part in the Broadway play “No Time For Seargents”.

Knotts had a long and succesful career spanning stage, screen and televison but is probably best known for his role as the bumbling Deputy Barney Fife on The Andy Griffith Show. Knotts and Griffith would remain life-long friends, and he would make a number of guest appearances on Andy Griffith’s other major hit show, Matlock. For his work on The Andry Griffith Show, Knotts won an unprecedented five Best Supporting Actor Emmys in a row. He continued to appear on a number of other well-known shows including The Cosby Show, Fantasy Island, The Love Boat, Step by Step and the animated show Inspector Gadget.

After leaving The Andy Griffith Show, Knotts went on to star in a number of family movies including The Incredible Mr. Limpet, The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, and The Apple Dumpling Gang. He was also a member of the cast of Three’s Company, playing landlord Ralph Furley. Knotts continued working until recently; his last role was as the voice of Mayor Turkey Lurkey in 2005’s Chicken Little.

Notre Dame gives away another one, 80 to 72 (actually our biggest losing margin of the conference season, but we had several utterly wasted possessions when it was still close). Big East tourney hopes
now officially on life support.

Marquette leads, 38 to 35 at halftime.

A terrorist act, a college prank gone way too far, or the revenge of a bitter Trojan fan? We report, you decide…

Early tests show the powder found by a student in a dormitory at the University of Texas at Austin is ricin, a powerful poison that can be used as a biological weapon, according to the university.

The preliminary tests were conducted at a state lab Friday; a sample was to be flown to a government lab Saturday afternoon, FBI spokesman Special Agent Richard Kolko said. The FBI is leading the investigation and has not linked the discovery to terrorism, he said.

No one at the university who may have been exposed has shown any symptoms, which would usually appear within six to eight hours, said Dr. Adolfo Valadez, medical director for the Travis County Health and Human Services Department. “The exposure risk, we feel, is low,” he said.

(Hat tip: my dad.)

P.S. The Daily Texan has more.

Heh:

Shares of H&R Block Inc. sank Friday after the nation’s largest tax preparer said it was having problems with its own taxes and would have to restate earnings going back to 2004.

(Hat tip: dcl.)

I’m not sure whether to call today’s ND-Marquette game at the Joyce Center a “must-win” for the Irish in their quest to qualify for the Big East Tournament. Certainly, a win would help. But the real must-win games are the last two, at Providence and vs. DePaul, since we’re in direct competition with those teams for the coveted 12th spot in the standings. A loss today would drop Notre Dame to 4-10 in conference, but at 6-10 they could still make the tournament… probably.

The Irish are currently 4-9. They’re guaranteed to stay ahead of South Florida (0-13) no matter what. Assuming Seton Hall (7-6), Syracuse (7-7) and Cincinnati (7-7) don’t go into ridiculous tailspins that bring them down into range of the #12 spot, Notre Dame needs to finish ahead of three of the following five teams:

Louisville (5-8) - at West Virginia, vs. Marquette, at UConn
Providence (5-8) - at Pittsburgh, vs. Notre Dame, at Marquette
Rutgers (5-9) - vs. South Florida, at St. John’s
St. John’s (5-9) - at Villanova, vs. Rutgers
DePaul (3-10) - vs. Seton Hall, vs. Syracuse, at Notre Dame

Notre Dame owns the head-to-head tiebreaker over Rutgers, and, if they beat Providence and DePaul, would own the head-to-head tiebreakers over those teams, too. (Hence my saying that those games are the “real must-wins.”) Louisville owns the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Irish. Notre Dame and St. John’s did not play each other this season. In a multiple-team tie (or an ND-St. John’s tie), things get complicated; here are the tiebreaker rules (PDF). As the end of the season gets closer, I’ll try to figure out the various scenarios, but at this point there are just too many variables.

Here’s one scenario I’ll figure out, though. Suppose Notre Dame loses today, but beats Providence and DePaul… and suppose all of the other teams in question manage one more win (which, looking at their schedules, seems fairly realistic). The result would be a five-way tie for 10th place:

Louisville (6-10)
Notre Dame (6-10)
Providence (6-10)
Rutgers (6-10)
St. John’s (6-10)

Heh. Well wouldn’t that just figure? DePaul (4-12) would be out, as would two of the five teams listed above — but which ones? Under the above-linked tiebreaker rules, the 6-10 teams form a “mini-conference” based on their records against one another. Assuming that St. John’s beat Rutgers, that mini-conference would look like this:

Notre Dame 3-1
St. John’s 3-1
Louisville 2-2
Providence 2-3
Rutgers 1-4

As you can see, the Irish would be solidly in the conference tournament as either the #10 or #11 seed under this scenario. (The ND-St. John’s tie would be broken by further tiebreakers which I don’t really care about at the moment.)

Different configurations of tied 6-10 teams would change the “mini-conference” records around, of course, but since Notre Dame’s only loss to any of the teams in question — assuming, again, they beat Providence — is the one loss to Louisville, it seems unlikely that they would lose any multi-team “mini-conference” tiebreaker. Unlikely, but not impossible.

(Of course, the Big East’s notorious “unbalanced schedule” renders this whole exercise completely and utterly unfair… unless someone thinks it somehow makes sense that Louisville gets the #12 seed ahead of Providence because the Friars played one more game against the relevant competition than the Cardinals did. Bah.)

So, is the Marquette game a “must-win”? Maybe. Probably not. We won’t know for sure until the season ends. So, as an insurance policy, especially since it’s at home, why not win it? Eh, guys? If nothing else, it would help erase the memory of one of Mike Brey’s game-deciding coaching mistakes. (Fire Mike Brey.)

GO IRISH! BEAT GOLDEN EAGLES! (Gametime is 6:00 PM.)

UPDATE: Here is the Big East scoreboard. So far, good news and bad news: Louisville lost to West Virginia, despite having led by a substantial margin early in the game. That’s the good news. The bad news? DePaul won to stay in the hunt. Later tonight: Providence at Pittsburgh.

Okay… are there any other Mac users out there who find that it’s far too easy, when you’re trying to double-click an item in the Finder, to slip and accidentally highlight multiple items (sometimes a dozen or more) and then double-click, opening all of them simultaneously? I’m not sure exactly how it happens, but it’s happened several times in recent weeks, and it’s really annoying. All of a sudden, I’ve got an Excel spreadsheet, a couple of Word documents, 5 PDF files, 3 archived Safari pages, a DMG file I downloaded a month ago, and some random JPEGs, all opening at the same time. Gah! Really irritating, and it slows down my computer for a good minute or two, as I try to close down applications while others are still opening. All the while, my Dock looks like it’s gone insane, with bouncing icons as far as the eye can see.

Of course, there are sometimes legitimate reasons to double-click on multiple files at once, like if you’re opening a whole bunch of JPEG files in Preview. But IMHO, Finder really ought to have a dialog that pops up if you double-click on, say, five or more items at once, which says something like: “You are attempting to open multiple files simultaneously. Do you wish to proceed?” Or at least, the option to have such a dialog pop up should exist. If some people don’t have this problem, and want to turn off my proposed dialog warning, then fine. But it’s really frustrating to have this multiple-files-opening-at-once happen by accident, repeatedly, with no ability to prevent it (since I can’t really tell what’s causing it in the first place, other than that I’m somehow accidentally scrolling while clicking).

Six years ago today, on February 25, 2000, Becky and I started dating.

Six years! Holy cow! That’s, like, almost a quarter of my life! (And more than a quarter of Becky’s.) That’s an Olympiad and a half! A presidency and a half! A full senatorial term! :)

For the uninitiated, Becky and I met our freshman year at USC, when we were 17 years old. We both lived in Trojan Hall (which is where the picture at left was taken, en route to a dorm dance — on the eve of our first “month-aversary,” as it happens). We’d been friends since very early in the school year, and I had been trying to woo her since sometime in October, but it took her a while to be seduced by my obviously overwhelming charms. :) This picture is one of my favorites from our early days, because it perfectly encapsulates our relationship back then, hehe. But eventually, I got the girl (proving that skinny, funny-lookin’ nerds with big ears sometimes can do that!), and the rest is history. I remain today, as I was then, convinced that I’m the luckiest guy in the world!

Of course, February 25 isn’t our “main” anniversary anymore, as it has been for the last six years. That honor now falls on December 30, our wedding anniversary. But today is still a date well worth noting, and celebrating.

Happy Anniversary, Becky!

Yes, “Red Ken” Livingstone is Off the Job for a month, by decree of the Adjudication Panel for England. / Joe Loy, guestQuestioning. :>

LONDON, Feb. 24 - A disciplinary tribunal on Friday ordered London’s outspoken mayor, Ken Livingstone, suspended for four weeks for causing “damage to the reputation of his office” by comparing a Jewish newspaper reporter to a concentration camp guard.

“His treatment of the journalist was unnecessarily insensitive and offensive,” said the decision by the Adjudication Panel for England, an independent body that oversees the conduct of local officials. “The mayor does seem to have failed, from the outset of this case, to appreciate that his conduct was unacceptable.”

…Critics said Livingstone’s comments showed a bewildering lack of appreciation for the pain caused by using Holocaust imagery to insult Jewish people. The mayor and his allies called it an absurd and disproportionate punishment in which an appointive panel has reversed the will of the London electorate.

…[The Mayor said] “Elected politicians should only be able to be removed by the voters or for breaking the law. Three members of a body that no one has ever elected should not be allowed to overturn the votes of millions of Londoners.”

…”It sends a clear message that people in public office should act and speak responsibly,” said Karen Pollock, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust…

…The issue centers on an exchange Livingstone had with Oliver Finegold, a reporter from the Evening Standard, as the mayor was leaving a reception in downtown London in February 2005. The newspaper has frequently criticized the mayor and his policies.

Finegold…said he introduced himself as an Evening Standard reporter and the mayor replied: “How awful for you. Have you thought of having treatment?”

Finegold was tape-recording their conversation, and audio of the following exchange was posted on the BBC Web site:

Livingstone: “What did you do before? Were you a German war criminal?”

Finegold: “No, I’m Jewish. I wasn’t a German war criminal, and I’m actually quite offended by that. So, how did it go tonight?”

Livingstone: “Actually you are just like a concentration camp guard. You’re just doing it because you’re paid to, aren’t you?”

…Livingstone steadfastly refused to apologize to Finegold, or to the Evening Standard and its owner, Associated Newspapers, which also owns the Daily Mail…Livingstone accused those papers of being “the leading advocate of anti-Semitism in the country for half a century,” and said more recently that they had targeted asylum seekers and Muslims.

In his exchange with Finegold, Livingstone condemned the Evening Standard as “a load of scumbags” and “reactionary bigots . . . who supported fascism.”

The disciplinary panel concluded that “matters should not have got as far as this.”…

With that, I would Agree. Read the whole thing.