Not like this is a surprise, but… dammit!

Gonzaga junior forward Adam Morrison will announce his intentions to sign with an agent and forgo his senior season on Wednesday, according to sources close to the situation.

The 6-foot-8, 205-pound Morrison will make the announcement at a news conference on Wednesday at 2 p.m. PT.

More here.

UPDATE: And he’s going to hire an agent, so there’s no going back. More here and here.

In my mind, the most dramatic moment during the whole Clinton-Lewinsky imbroglio — and one of the few genuinely stunning moments on the floor of Congress in this age of choreographed, made-for-TV debate — was House Speaker-elect Bob Livingston’s unexpected resignation from Congress on the morning of Clinton’s impeachment. Livingston had been chosen to replace Newt Gingrich (who had stepped down after the House Republicans’ disastrous showing in the November elections), but on December 19, 1998, that all changed. I watched it live on TV in my bedroom, and I remember it like it was yesterday: in the middle of a speech on the House floor calling on Clinton to resign — and amid juvenile Democratic catcalls of “You resign!” — Livingston, who was under fire for alleged sexual indiscretions of his own, called the Dems’ bluff and shocked everyone in the room and the nation by announcing that he actually would resign. (You can read, and listen to, his speech here.)

The Democratic leadership, notwithstanding the earlier catcalls of some party members on the floor, quickly found their way to the TV cameras and lamented Livingston’s decision, holding it up as an example of the “politics of personal destruction” claiming another victim. Privately, I’m sure they were delighted — though perhaps not as delighted as Dennis Hastert, who ascended to the speakership, where he still sits today, as a result of Livingston’s resignation. Anyway, Livingston quit both the speakership and the House in large part because of a threat from Hustler publisher Larry Flynt, who had offered $1 million to anyone with dirt on Clinton’s impeachers. Flynt supposedly had the goods on Livingston, and was on the verge of “outing” him for an extramarital affair.

Well, it turns out the whole thing may have been a hoax:

Hustler magazine tricked conservative former House Speaker-elect Bob Livingston into thinking it had proof of his extramarital affairs in 1998, forcing him to resign and taking the heat off then-sex-scandal-beleaguered President Bill Clinton.

That’s the bombshell claim by former Hustler editor Allan MacDonell in his tell-all about Larry Flynt’s X-rated empire, “Prisoner of X,” due out in May.

The hoax stemmed from a notorious publicity stunt that smut-raker-turned-political-muckraker Flynt pulled when he took out a Washington Post ad in which he offered $1 million or more to anyone who could provide evidence of “sexual indiscretions” by top Republican officials in the wake of the Monica Lewinsky affair.

In 1998, Livingston, a Louisiana Republican and avid proponent of impeaching Clinton, got snared in the Hustler hoax. “We actually had nothing on Livingston,” MacDonell tells Page Six. He explains, “an elected Republican office holder from Louisiana passed us the phone number of a woman who was supposedly Livingston’s girlfriend. But when we phoned her, she cursed us and hung up.

“About a day later,” MacDonell says, “a reporter from Roll Call [the Capitol Hill newspaper] called and said he’d heard that we were working up something on Livingston. I thought: What would Larry do? Then I said, ‘I cannot discuss any names or other details at this time.’ The reporter replied: ‘I’m running with it.’ ”

MacDonell, 50, says that after a news-show interview the next day - in which he claimed that Hustler was investigating Livingston’s sex life - “within 24 hours, the Speaker-elect quit Congress.” Chuckles MacDonell…”Clinton should have put me on his Christmas-card list for life.”

Heh. (Hat tip: Fark.)

You gotta love the Roll Call reporter who, according to MacDonell, “ran with” a story on the basis of, basically, a “no comment.”

USA Today looks at likely state-by-state abortion restrictions if Roe v. Wade is overturned. I’m not sure I quite buy into the methodology, as I suspect the whole public-opinion dynamic surrounding abortion will go through a significant metamorphosis if that happens. I think a lot of moderates — especially moderate women — who might presently identify themselves as “pro-life” will, rightly or wrongly, get cold feet when the debate shifts to a local level and focuses on whether to prevent their daughters from getting first-trimester abortions if an “oops” happens. Our society has gotten accustomed (again, rightly or wrongly) to the right to choose, and I don’t think it’s simply going to disappear in very many states. Thus, I suspect that compromise will generally prevail; I seriously doubt outright bans will be passed in more than a handful of even the “likely to significantly restrict” states. But anyway, USA Today’s analysis provides a good starting point for discussion, at least.

Becky and I just mailed our taxes… possibly (hopefully?) the last year for a long time that our federal tax for the year is $0.00 and thus we get all our withheld taxes refunded. :)

Suicide bomber kills 5 at bus station in Tel Aviv, Israel, local media report. Visit CNN for the latest.

The Northern Kentucky University student Right to Life group, whose “Cemetery of the Innocents” was vandalized by a group of “liberal” students at the urging of an unspeakably idiotic professor who thinks destruction of property is “free speech,” is pressing charges, and according to the Kentucky Post, the students involved “could face expulsion.” Personally, I think that would be overly harsh — but I’m less charitable toward to Professor Jacobsen, who should most certainly know better. As such, I’m inclined to agree with State Representative Paul Marcotte, who is calling for the professor’s head, demanding that the university fire Jacobsen over her “illegal and irresponsible…disgusting, offensive behavior”:

“Strong punishment will send a message to other unrepentant radicals that the university is part of a larger community and that its members must abide by the community’s laws.” …

“She’s a disgrace and is actually encouraging young students to break the law,” Marcotte said Saturday.

Alas, it may not much matter. According to this report, “Jacobson is set to retire in a few weeks” anyway. Perhaps she sees this bit of vandalism as her “parting shot.” If so, what an utterly disgraceful way to end her career.

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