Former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling has been sentenced to 24 years in prison for his role in one of the biggest corporate scandals in U.S. history, AP and Reuters report. Visit CNN for the latest.

“A mole is 6.02 x 10²³…”

“The chart weight in grams is a mole, is a mole…”

If, upon reading the above phrases, you know the proper scansion for the first one and the proper tune for the second one (hint: it sounds a lot like “If You’re Happy and You Know It”), that means 1) you’re a nerd; and either 2a) you took chemistry at Newington High School from Dr. William Pilotte; or 2b) you took chemistry somewhere else from someone equally strange. :) Because I fit into categories 1 and 2a, I’m celebrating National Mole Day today.

What is Mole Day? I explained on Mole Day 2002:

This annual holiday — which technically starts at 6:02 AM and ends at 6:02 PM — does not actually celebrate small furry animals that dig holes in the ground, but rather, a chemistry concept: Avogadro’s number, the “mole,” 6.02 x 10²³. (10/23… 10²³… get it?) That’s 602,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, for the scientific-notionally challenged among us, and it’s an inconceivably huge number. How huge? A mole of marshmellows would cover the planet Earth 12 miles high, and a mole of seconds would last so long, the universe would die out before it was done!

“Mole Day” is technically only 12 hours long; it lasts from 6:02 AM to 6:02 PM local time (6:02 10/23… 6.02 x 10²³… oh, the numerical hilarity!). So I’m a little slow on the uptake here (hat tip: Joel for reminding me that today is the big day), but we still have a little less than four hours left to pay our respects to good old Avogadro and his number. So… Happy Mole Day, everyone!

The Notre Dame chemistry department does not have any special Mole Day events on its calendar. Lame! But a Google News search reveals that they’re celebrating at Bucknell University and at Belleville High School in Ann Arbor. And there’s celebrating in lots of other places, according to this press release from MathematiciansPictures.com.

Others blogging about Mole Day: Supercords, Blondie, daecrist, biichan, coolblusunlight (warning: profanity), and Jacob Haqq-Misra (who notes that today is also the 6,010th “birthday of our very own Universe, which was apparently born on October 23, 4004 B.C.–at least according to the Ussher-Lightfoot Calendar,” which is based on “a reading of the Bible by Anglican Archbishop James Ussher in 1650″).

For much more, visit the National Mole Day Foundation.

P.S. For Mole Day greeting cards, click here. Heh.

I mentioned yesterday that it was very windy and the waves on Lake Michigan were mighty impressive, for a lake, yesterday when Becky, Andrew, Bea and I drove to Michigan City. I forgot to mention that there was a kitesurfer on the lake; here’s a picture:

More photos here.

Also newly online: photos of my flights to and from Connecticut last week, including this really cool shot of a Brocken spectre (or, if you prefer, Specter of the Brocken) and its accompanying glory:

The plane’s shadow got bigger and smaller depending on how close the clouds were. As we passed through different layers of cloud and mist, it seemed at times to spontaneously grow and shrink very rapidly. Two more photos of it:

Pretty cool, eh?

Incidentally, stay tuned for more pictures of my trip to Connecticut.

I’m not sure if anyone has noticed that hockey season is underway, but it is… and the Buffalo Sabres are 8-0! I guess this means Buffalo fans can’t complain too much about the ugly new uniforms, since after all, the Sabres have NEVER LOST while wearing them. :)

The best start in NHL history is 10-0, a record set by the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1993-1994. The Leafs finally lost (on my 12th birthday, Oct. 30, 1993) to the Montreal Canadiens — the same team that hosts Buffalo tonight, and has at least one player calling out the Sabres in advance of said showdown.

If the Sabres beat the Canadiens (4-1-2) tonight, they can tie the “best start ever” record Thursday at the New York Islanders (3-3-2) and, if they win that one, they’ll seek to break the record at home Saturday against the Atlanta Thrashers (6-1-1). Wait, Atlanta has a hockey team? Really? Apparently so.

Anyway, it’s a good thing Buffalo has the Sabres, because the Bills are bad… scary bad.

Becky’s one-time academic tutee, Mike Williams, has faded into NFL obscurity. What happened? One blogger asks the question. (Hat tip: TrojanWire.)

Newsweek takes a look at what the Democrats might do if they take back the Congress. If the account is accurate, it improves my opinion of Nancy Pelosi considerably. Excerpt:

Nancy Pelosi, who would presumably become Speaker if the party wins the House, has made it clear that she does not want to turn the Capitol into a courthouse. There will be hearings, and plenty of them, but according to a top Democratic staff member familiar with Pelosi’s plans—who, like all aides, wouldn’t be named talking about strategy—the would-be speaker intends to keep tight control. …

Pelosi is concerned that too many flying subpoenas would make her party appear petty and revenge-hungry, obsessed with blaming Bush. She does not want anything to interfere with her most important goal: making the Democrats look like leaders instead of obstructionists. …

She told [potential Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers] she didn’t want any “out-of-control investigations,” a senior House aide says; not another word about impeachment, she warned. “The impeachment talk gave the other side exactly what they wanted, which was an opening to talk about ‘those liberal Democrats’,” says the senior House aide. “It couldn’t keep happening. We were writing their campaign ads for them.”

This YouTube video of a 60 Minutes interview with Pelosi confirms her stance on that latter point: “Impeachment is off the table. … It is a waste of time.”

I must say, hearing Pelosi say that makes me feel much better about voting for Donnelly next month. I say that not because I like Bush (I voted against him twice, remember), but because impeaching Bush over purely political “crimes,” which is what any such effort would boil down to, would be a terrible, terrible thing for the country in this age of mortal threats to our way of life from terrorists and rogue states. Wasting a year of the country’s time on the Clinton impeachment, regardless of whether it was technically justified (which I think is a close question), was a luxury of a bygone, pre-9/11 era. When we’re at war, we can’t afford to paralyze the country with impeachment proceedings on the basis of anything short of truly heinous, Nixon-or-worse crimes. Maybe that should be the attitude all the time, but certainly in a time of war, the mere ability to make out a technically colorable case for “high crimes and misdemeanors” isn’t enough. Impeachment inevitably weakens the president’s authority in the eyes of the world, and as such, during wartime it needs to really, really, really be necessary — not just justified, but absolutely necessary for the continued legitimacy of the government, or else it just isn’t worth it.

Pelosi’s comments seem to rule out impeachment of the vice president as well. That’s what I’d wondered: whether the Dems, realizing that impeachment proceedings against Bush would be too controversial in wartime, would try to impeach Cheney instead. But that would be just as much of a “waste of time,” and Pelosi says the Dems don’t want their record to be defined by “talk[ing] about George Bush and Dick Cheney,” so I guess not. Good.

Man, it's windy and the waves are pretty intense (for a lake) on Lake Michigan in Michigan City.

For a day that looked boring on paper (Texas-Nebraska and Clemson-Georgia Tech were the only matchups between ranked teams), yesterday sure ended up being an eventful Saturday in college football. It was no October 15, 2005, but then, what is? It was still pretty damn memorable, what with the stunning upsets, great escapes and incredible comebacks. Some highlights:

• Notre Dame 20, UCLA 17: Y’all already know about this one, but depending on how religiously you watch ESPN, you may or may not know that it was only the third time in Notre Dame’s storied history that the Irish scored a game-winning touchdown in the final 30 seconds of a game. And we were there. Pretty sweet.

• Michigan State 41, Northwestern 38: In what can only be seen as a massive disruption in the Force caused by the football gods trying to restore several decades worth of karmic balance all at once, John L. Smith, Teddy Ruxpin and the Spartans came from 35 points behind to beat Northwestern in Division I-A college football’s greatest upset ever… ever… EVER!!!

• Texas 22, Nebraska 20: The Cornhuskers had the Longhorns right where they wanted ‘em, getting what should have been a game-sealing first down with just over two minutes left… but then the receiver tried to tack on some unnecessary extra yardage, and fumbled a huge win away. Texas, for its part, almost fumbled it right back on a subsequent play, but was ultimately able to hit a game-winning field goal, escape with a big win in Lincoln, and keep its hopes of a successful national-title defense alive.

• Cal 31, Washington 24 (OT): The underappreciated Huskies almost pulled off a stunner against Pac-10 and national championship contender Cal, on Cal’s home field no less. Washington’s Marlon Wood hauled in a 40-yard Hail Mary as time expired to send the game to OT, but a touchdown run by Cal’s Marshawn Lynch on the second play of overtime, and an interception by Cal’s Desmond Bishop, saved the Bears’ season, and left the Huskies with a three-game losing streak (nevermind that two of those three losses were road games at the Pac-10’s two best teams, and both went down to the final play) and still two wins short of bowl eligibility with games remaining vs. Arizona State, at Oregon, vs. Stanford and at Wazzu remaining.

• Washington State 34, Oregon 23: While one team from the Evergreen State couldn’t quite pull off the incredible upset, Wazzu shocked the world and delighted the home crowd in Pullman with a dominating win over Oregon that suggests we might want to rethink the Pac-10 pecking order. Dare I say that Oregon was a bit overrated? They crushed Stanford (hardly an accomplishment), barely beat Fresno State at Fresno (which seemed like a big deal at the time, but now, not so much), “beat” Oklahoma at home with a huge assist from the refs, crushed Arizona State (again, hardly an accomplishment), got destroyed by Cal, earned a solid, workmanlike win over UCLA (which is more than Notre Dame can say, but still isn’t something to write home about), and got destroyed by Wazzu. Is Oregon really the third-best team in the Pac-10? I’d say Wazzu, with a win over Oregon and a near-win over USC, might have a better argument.

• Miami 20, Duke 15: The winless Blue Devils almost pulled an unthinkable upset against the suspension-addled Miami Thugs Hurricanes. Duke had a 3rd-and-7 from the Miami 11 in the game’s final seconds, but the QB threw an interception in the end zone and Miami survived. Drat. Comeuppance denied.

• Minnesota 10, North Dakota State 9: Speaking of unthinkable near-upsets, Minnesota nearly lost at home to North Dakota State, a Division I-AA school that only moved up from Division II four years ago. NDSU is also the same school that stunned Wisconsin at home in basketball last year. The Gophers didn’t score a touchdown until the fourth quarter, and it took a blocked field goal as time expired to preserve the win.

• Texas A&M 34, Oklahoma State 33 (OT): In a game that I honestly couldn’t care less about (sorry, but the Big 12 bores me), the Aggies scored a touchdown with three seconds left to send the game to overtime, then blocked an extra point in OT to beat the Cowboys in Stillwater.

• Baylor 36, Kansas 35: The Bears came from 18 points down in the final 9:22 to match the greatest comeback in Baylor history. Kansas coach Mark Mangino reacted to the loss by eating Charlie Weis.

• Tennessee 16, Alabama 13: The Vols somehow overcame Lee Corso’s godawful rendition of “Rocky Top” on ESPN College GameDay Saturday morning, and after trailing for nearly the entire game, scored a touchdown with 3:28 left to beat ‘Bama and keep their championship dreams alive.

• Georgia 27, Mississippi State 24: The inexplicably-still-ranked Georgia Bulldogs, playing at home, survived five turnovers and a late comeback attempt by one of the SEC’s worst teams to barely win the Battle of the Bulldogs. Mississippi State had the ball on the Georgia 22 in the closing seconds, but Georgia recovered a fumble to survive the upset bid.

• Boise State 42, Idaho 26: In a game that I rightly predicted might be close, homestanding Idaho — which came into the game 3-0 in the WAC — gave undefeated Boise all it could handle, but the Broncos pulled away late to reach 8-0 on the season and keep on truckin’ toward a BCS bowl bid.

• Ohio State 44, Indiana 3: Fresh off a stunning upset of Iowa, the Hoosiers jumped out to a 3-0 lead over the #1 Buckeyes. It was all downhill from there. Admittedly, this game doesn’t belong on this list, but I just had to include it to torment Nick. :)

Finally, a brief update on the undefeated and winless teams.

Ohio State and Boise State won, as mentioned above. So did Michigan, Louisville, Rutgers and (on Friday) West Virginia. USC was idle. So the Spectacular Seven remains unchanged.

But fully one-third of the nation’s previously winless teams finally won yesterday, as San Diego State beat Air Force and Eastern Michigan beat Toledo. So there are four winless teams left: Duke (mentioned above), Stanford (which lost to ASU), Temple (which lost to Northern Illinois) and Florida International (which was idle). That reduces the field of potential 0-12 teams to four. But what should we call them? Leave your vote in comments:

• The Foul Four
• The Feeble Four
• The Faulty Four
• The Floundering Four

I love this picture… partly because it shows Notre Dame winning, partly because it shows UCLA losing, but mostly because of the usher. Check him out, near the top left-hand corner:

Heh. That’s a happy usher right there.

I’m watching the rebroadcast of yesterday’s game right now on Channel 5. One of the NBC announcers just said, “If you give Notre Dame too many chances, sooner or later, Brady Quinn is going make you pay.” Which made me think: if Brady was truly a Heisman-worthy quarterback, wouldn’t it be “sooner” more often than “later”?

The National Review’s John Derbyshire says conservatives should stay home on Election Day:

The only thing we can usefully do then is to assert our existence as a voting bloc in the one way that’s available to us: by not voting. That lays down a warning to any future GOP administration that might be tempted to go as badly wrong on important conservative issues as this one has.

This nation survived Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton; it will survive Nancy Pelosi and Charlie Rangel. Ten, fifteen, twenty years from now, when our kids are voters, some GOP administration and Congress might be tempted to violate core conservative principles as egregiously as this one has. But they will hear key voices, the voices of party elders and wise commentators, warning: “Remember the Great Congressional Massacre of ‘06! Let’s not risk that happening again!” And Congress and the admin. will then turn the wheel to the right.

So stay home Nov. 2nd—-Er, for the sake of the children.

A few observations. First, I doubt that “staying home” on Thursday, November 2 will send any particular message to the administration, unless there’s some sort of anti-immigration protest happening that day. Electorally speaking, it would be much more relevant to “stay home” on Tuesday, November 7. :)

Secondly, and more importantly, I get Derbyshire’s point, but I don’t understand why he stops at “not voting.” It’s one thing to “stay home” if you’re simply disgusted with both parties and thus don’t care who wins. But if you are specifically hoping to achieve a particular result — the “the Great Congressional Massacre of ‘06,” i.e. a Democratic victory — wouldn’t it make more sense to vote for that result? I’m not sure how good Derb is at math, but let me clue him in: if you’re a normally solid Republican who wants the Democrats to win this time around, voting for the Democrat in your local race is twice as effective as merely “not voting” for the Republican. Instead of a one-vote Republican net loss (one less vote than usual for the GOP candidate), you produce a Republican net loss of two votes (one missing vote for the GOP candidate, and one extra vote for the Dem candidate).

That said, if people really do want to simply not vote for either major-party candidate for Congress, I would encourage them to see if there are any palatable third-party candidate in the race who are worthy of a “protest vote.” And I would also encourage them not to literally “stay home” unless there are no races on the ballot that are worthy of their vote. Even if you hate all the candidates for your local House district and Senate seat, surely there’s some Judge of Probate or Fire Commissioner race that’s worth voting on. There are lots of elections on Election Day!

Oh, and hey, if you live in Connecticut and don’t care about the U.S. Senate race, I’ll happily “vote swap” with you… just tell me which Indiana race you care about, and I’ll vote the way you want me to in that race, if you promise to vote for Lieberman. :)

The rest of my Notre Dame-UCLA photos are now online. Here are a few of ‘em:

Andrew, Bea, me and Becky at the game.

(more…)

I think we have a front-runner for BrendanLoy.com Photo of the Year 2006:

Heh. That would be Mike Tran, the Irish Bruin, who was rooting for UCLA, being forced to do pushups after Notre Dame’s go-ahead touchdown. I don’t want to speculate about which finger it is that he’s sticking up, since it’s blurry enough that I have plausible deniability, but uh… yeah.

I don’t mean to gloat, though. It sucks to lose a game in such heartbreaking fashion… and there but for the grace of God Matt Leinart and Dwayne Jarrett go I. :)

Anyway, here are my videos of the game’s incredible ending. The first one is the go-ahead touchdown; I basically went nuts after the Irish scored, so the video is rather chaotic. If you get motion sickness easily from watching videos, you may want to refrain. :) The second video is Mike doing pushups, and the third one is the game-ending sack and the clock hitting 0:00.

source file

It was great to experience a dramatic, last-minute win at Notre Dame Stadium that I could celebrate with the crowd, instead of against them (as in the USC game last year). And, major kudos to Brady Quinn, Jeff Samardzija and the rest of the team for an awesome final drive.

That said… Notre Dame did not impress me at all today. The Irish ARE NOT a Top 10-caliber team, and Brady Quinn IS NOT a Heisman-caliber quarterback. I love the Irish, and as such, I’d love to buy into the hype like everybody else. But I honestly don’t understand how anyone can watch this team play and conclude that they’re the #8 team in the country.

(more…)

Notre Dame came back in the last minute to win it against UCLA at home, but whats even more amazing, the Huskies scored a 40 yard touchdown on the LAST PLAY in regulation to tie the game and we are now going into overtime! Meanwhile Washington State leads #16 Oregon 13-3 at Halftime in Pullman. Forget the SEC, the Pac-10 is the toughest conference this year.

UPDATE

Cal wins it after Husky back-up QB, starting today for the injured Isaih Stanbeck throws his 5 int of the day. Oh well, atleast the Huskies beat the spread!

UPDATE 2

An anonymous commentor points out an even more amazing comeback, in fact a record setting one by beleagured Michigan State who rallied from a 35 point deficit to beat the Wildcats of Northwestern, including scoring 24 points in the fourth quarter, 41-38

WOW! Notre Dame scores on a miracle in the final minute, and wins 20-17. The photo is of Mike Tran, who was rooting for the Bruins, being forced to do pushups after the winning TD. :)

Don't let our smiles fool you… the Irish are in dire straights. It's 17-13 Bruins with five minutes left, and UCLA has the ball. C'mon, Irish!!! … This will probably be my last update till the
game is over.