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.

Brooke notes yesterday’s Fed Courts quote of the day. It was indeed pretty damn funny.

Elsewhere in the soon-to-possibly-be-renamed “Brendansphere,” Alex offers an update on another bowling team’s exploits. Casey has a great top picture at the moment. And fellow NDLS 2L Chris McLemore’s blog My Day in London, which I really ought to link to more often, has great pictures all the time. Check it out, and peruse his archives.

There was a rally in support of Denmark at the Danish Embassy in D.C. today. InstaPundit has coverage here and here, with links to other bloggers who have coverage (of course).

There was also apparently a rally at the Danish consulate in Minneapolis. If there was one at the Chicago consulate over the weekend, I would totally go.

Somewhat related is this story, which provides a good example of why we must unequivocally support freedom of expression, even when we don’t necessarily agree with what is being expressed. A female Muslim singer is receiving death threats after releasing a video in which she “shed[s] a burka in favor of a bikini.” An Asian TV station has stopped playing the video because of threats: “We played the video a couple of times and then did not play it again. We had threats which we were forced to take very seriously. These things are sensitive issues.”

Now, presumably we can all agree with this singer’s stance against the oppression of women, but I know plenty of conservative Christians and other decent folk who think we shouldn’t be glorifying the Western “bikini culture” — more skin, more sexuality, more shaking your booty. But I have no doubt that all of those people, to a man (and woman), would condemn in no uncertain terms the attempts to silence this singer. They wouldn’t make mealy-mouthed statements about how, well, of course violence is wrong, but at the same time, she shouldn’t be so “provocative,” and ought to “respect” her oppressors and have a “dialogue” with the extremists who want to kill her. After all, “These things are sensitive issues.” Nope. They would absolutely support her freedom to express her views. And then, as an entirely separate matter, they would exercise their own freedom to disagree with her. That’s how free societies operate.

This same logic applies, of course, to the Cartoon Jihad. No matter how much you may personally disapprove of the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, it’s nonsensical to say that you support freedom of expression while exuding anything less than 100% support for the Danes in their fight against being blackmailed into silence by religious extremists. Which is why, although I personally have no love for cartoons of Mohammed with a bomb in his turban, I would “totally go” to a rally in support of Denmark.

It’s also important to note that only two or three of the cartoons were really potentially offensive at all, unless you accept the notion that we should all abide by the belief of devout Muslims that all images of Mohammed are inherently offensive*. And if you believe that, you’ve already surrendered your freedom, because you’re allowing religious zealots to impose their rules on everyone. It would be like a devout Jew demanding that nobody eat pork, or a devout Catholic insisting that no one have sex before marriage. (Morally disapproving of those who disobey the rules is one thing; expecting the law to enforce the rules, or enforcing them yourself by imposing fear through violence, is quite another.) Devout religious beliefs and austere religious practices are fine, but when you try to impose them on society at large by anything other than simple persuasion, you’ve crossed the line, and are no longer on the side of “freedom.”

P.S. Also worth noting: the belief that images of Mohammed are inherently verboten apparently isn’t universal or absolute anyway.

Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff on the prospect of hurricanes in 2006 hitting areas of the Gulf Coast that are hyper-vulnerable as they try to recover from the calamity that was 2005: “I personally am very concerned.”

This problem isn’t unique to the Gulf Coast, of course. New Orleans is a special case, but as for the rest of the affected areas, this is a normal post-landfall worry — and rightfully so. It takes time to recover from a hurricane, especially a devastating one like Katrina. But as Florida learned in 2004, Mother Nature doesn’t always abide by our recovery timetables. We can only hope that she’ll be a bit more cooperative this year than she has been in the last two.

We can thank our friends the Saudis for the fact that gas won’t cost $3.00/gallon next week. A major terrorist attack on a huge oil plant was foiled earlier today:

Two cars exploded at the gates of Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq oil facility on Friday when security forces fired at suicide bombers trying to storm the world’s biggest oil processing plant, officials said. …

Former Middle East CIA field officer Robert Baer has described Abqaiq as “the most vulnerable point and most spectacular target in the Saudi oil system.”

As it is, oil jumped $2 a barrel on the mere foiled attempt. Imagine if it had succeeded! “The prospect of an attack on Saudi crude facilities has deeply worried nations reliant on Saudi oil, which makes up one-sixth of the world’s exports, or 7.5 million barrels a day.”

Oregon 73, USC 61. Bah. The Trojans blew their chance to clinch the #6 seed in the Pac-10 tournament Thursday night at the Sports Arena. Now it promises to be a dog fight down the stretch with the Ducks for that crucial free pass into the quarterfinals. USC is 7-8 with three games remaining: vs. Oregon State, at Stanford and at Cal. Oregon is 7-9 with two games remaining: at UCLA and at Oregon State. If the teams finish with identical records, the tiebreakers described on page 53 of this PDF file will determine their seeds. It is also hypothetically possible that they could finish in a three-way tie with either Arizona State or Washington State, or in a three- or four-way tie with Stanford and/or Arizona. The Trojans could potentially be seeded as high as #4 or as low as #8. It’s enough to make your head spin. It would have been so much simpler if USC had just beaten Oregon…

(Updated Pac-10 standings here.)

P.S. I’m not the only person who thinks this sixth-seed business is important. They’re talking about it in L.A. (see also here) and Oregon (see also here).

P.S. Considerable discussion of this issue in comments on Bracketology 101.

There is an ongoing hostage situation in a courtroom in the high-rise building at 2600 North Central Avenue in Phoenix, AZ, about two miles north of where I’ll be working this summer. The Arizona Republic reports:

A gunman burst into the Phoenix office of the National Labor Relations Board on Thursday and took as many as nine people hostage inside a courtroom.

One of the hostages escaped about five hours later, and a second was released shortly after. But the rest still were being held late into the night. …

Sgt. Andy Hill said tactical teams and negotiators were “in communication with the suspect,” but he would not reveal details other than to say, “We have met every one of his requests.”

Hill said the gunman was allowing hostages to speak to family members and that no one had been harmed. No shots had been fired, either.

P.S. The building in question is the Phelps Dodge Tower. Back in 2004, when I was living in Phoenix, I worked at a different Phelps Dodge building, the Phelps Dodge Center, which is right across the street from where I’ll be working this summer.

UPDATE: The standoff has ended peacefully:

Nine people were free late Thursday after a gunman held them hostage for seven hours inside the Phoenix office of the National Labor Relations Board.

None of the hostages had been harmed and it wasn’t immediately clear what demands, if any, police met to secure their release.

Police say George L. Corran, 42, surrendered peacefully and was arrested.

(Hat tip: LaundraMatt.)

My bowling night was at once solid and frustrating. I bowled a 125 in my first game, tying my third-best score ever, and I made it “on the board” for our team with that score. But I had an excruciating number of near-spares; if I could have converted more of them, my score would have been much higher. And after a 111 in my second game, again filled with near-spares, I fell apart with a 74 in my third game, dragging my three-game average down to 103 — just below by personal best of 106. Also, I came within one lousy pin of my first-ever turkey. Strike, strike, 9-1 spare. Bah.

The real story, though, wasn’t me, it was my teammate and former roommate Chris “Diaz” Aemisegger, who scored a 247 in his fourth game. (His scores kept improving throughout the night: 156, 161, 214, 247.) Chris is legitimately a good bowler, so his high score isn’t a huge shock, but it’s still damn impressive. I could be wrong, but I believe this is his all-time-best Law School Bowling score. (He had a 246 in an unofficial practice round last year.) Anyway, congrats, Chris!

Beefeater’s top four bowlers’ best scores were:

Chris 247
Nick 158
Joel 156
Brendan 125

That’s an average of 171.5… not too shabby! (For what it’s worth, Meg had a 100 and Becky a 99… actualy, two 99’s… so, nobody was without at least one relatively solid game.) Well done, all!

From what I understand, one of our team’s four consistent triple-digit bowlers (Brian) isn’t coming tonight, so — if all goes according to form — the fourth spot on the Beefeater scorecard will be up for grabs between me, Becky and Meg. It being the first week of competitive scoring, that means at least one of us needs to bowl at least one decent game during the course of the evening, or else the team’s standing will suffer. Will we do it? Will I set another career high? Will I finally get my first-ever turkey? Stay tuned! :)

P.S. Yeah, our team name is “Beefeater.” Well, technically it’s “Fun Nights Start With Beefeater”; yeah, you can blame Joel for that mouthful. Personally, I wanted to be either the “Bush Pushers” or the “Irish Chain Gang” (you may remember the chain from last season), but Joel picked the “Beefeater” moniker. Oh, well. GO BEEFEATER!!!

P.P.S. Yes, I will be wearing my lucky Gonzaga shirt again. It’s in the dryer right now.

If anybody (well, any Notre Dame student) needs tickets to the ND-DePaul game next Saturday, I have two (mine and Becky’s) available, since we’ll be going to Saint Louis for the MVC tourney. Just e-mail me, or leave a comment letting me you’re interested.

We will, however, be going to the Marquette game this Saturday — a crucial game for ND’s efforts to qualify for the Big East tournament. Anyone else going?

P.S. In other news, it’s a big night for USC tonight. If Washington State loses to Cal (gametime 8:30 PM) and USC beats Oregon (gametime 10:30 PM), the Trojans will clinch at least the #6 seed in the Pac-10 tournament — which means they don’t have to play an opening-round game, and thus will merely need to win three straight games, instead of four, to qualify for an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. (Pac-10 scores here; standings here.)

P.P.S. In The Fieldhouse’s wrap-up of Tuesday’s UConn-Notre Dame game, “Teds” provides yet another excellent example of Mike Brey’s inability to coach:

An interesting sidelight on possession length: during Notre Dame’s 18-0 run, they scored on seven consecutive possessions. In the course of those possessions, the average amount of time used before taking the first shot was just over 11 seconds, with 23 seconds representing the longest stretch that the Irish held the ball to work for a shot. Conversely, in the team’s final eight possessions over the last 6:30 of regulation (excluding Falls’ missed jumper from the corner in the closing seconds, when ND was forced to work quickly), they held the ball an average of over 27 seconds before shooting. In all, there were five trips among those final eight in which Notre Dame burned the shot clock under five seconds before acting; they scored zero points on those possessions. Perhaps Connecticut’s defensive presence (or lack thereof) played a role in the shift in offensive tempo, but the Irish did themselves no favors in the final minutes of regulation by getting away from what had led the charge and falling into the familiar late-game trap of what amounted to “prevent offense”.

That’s more than “interesting,” it’s damning. One of Notre Dame’s problems all season — easily recognizable to any fan, but apparently not to the team’s coach — has been the tendency to stand around the perimeter, dribbling and passing the ball uselessly, wasting time and then finally starting a legitimate offensive possession with about 10 seconds left on the shot clock. (Either that, or never bothering to attempt anything inside the arc at all, instead shooting random unnecessary three-pointers with 15 or 20 on the shot clock.) Yet here we had a situation where — finally! — the Irish weren’t either wasting time or taking bad shots, but were instead, y’know, running a legitimate offense, at a reasonably fast pace. And, lo and behold, it worked! So what does Mike Brey do? Tell them to stop it, and go back to the old “strategy” that begat their previous eight conference losses. Brilliant, Mike. Brilliant.

Fire Mike Brey.