Dear Charlie, Okay, forget the blowout. Can we please just win? Thanks a million. Sincerely, the Irish Trojan. … Bruins lead, 14-13, start of the fourth quarter. The photo is of Irish Bruin Mike
Tran, doing the "Weis" cheer.

I've never seen this many empty seats empty here before. Remind me again why the ticket office only exchanges a limited number of student tickets per game? It's a travesty that there are ever empty
seats at ND Stadium. Anyway, it's 14-10 UCLA at the half.

So its the 4th quarter, you’re up by 1, less than 2:30 on the clock, 3rd down, 3 yards to go on your own 36.

Do you run or do you pass?

Well Nebraska elected to pass, which is questionable in that situation, but amazingly their reciever, Terrence Nunn caught it BUT then he fumbled it, giving texas the ball on the Nebraska 45. Texas went on to kick a game winning field goal leaving 23 seconds on the clock, not nearly enough for Nebraska to come back. Way to go Huskers.

No sign of Irish dominance yet. It's tied, 7-7, with 12:21 left, first half. In other news, Nebraska literally fumbled away a win over Texas. Bah. A Huskers win would have made USC look good, and also
helped the BCS prospects of 1-loss teams like ND & Cal.

Pay no attention to the weird lines across my eyes. :) The usher made me cover up my FUCLA shirt!

Bea, me & Andrew tailgating.

Dear Charlie,

Please, please, please, please kick UCLA’s ass today.

We’re favored by 13 points; I want to win by at least twice that. I want to embarrass the Bruins, humiliate them, send them back to Westwood questioning their very manhood and wondering why they ever decided to play this game called “football.” I want Karl Dorrell sitting firmly on the hot seat by the end of the day. I want blood.

Do this for me, Charlie, and I promise I won’t call you fat for a month. Or, if you prefer, I’ll have Becky bake you a yummy chocolate cake. Your choice.

Beat the Bruins. Check that. F*** the Bruins.

Sincerely,
The Irish Trojan

Thought for the day: How awesome would be if one of the “Sickening Six” winless teams, Duke, could earn its first win today against what may really be college football’s most “sickening” team, the suspension-addled Miami Hurricanes? Especially after listening to some of Miami’s players on ESPN this morning explaining that they don’t really regret their actions in last Saturday’s brawl because they have to “stick up for each other” — these are comments made a week later, not in the heat of the moment — I am totally rooting for Duke today (which I rarely do, in any sport), and I suspect I’m not alone in that. I realize it’s a long shot, but… GO BLUE DEVILS! :)

Anyway, after a the jump, a look at today’s (or, in one case, yesterday’s) games for the seven remaining undefeated teams in college football — and the six remaining winless teams.

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While the Irish hype machine has been pushing Brady Quinn as a Heisman contender and he’s admittedly a legit contender, I don’t believe that he deserves the award given his performance thus far this season.

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The Washington Post reported today that the campaign office for the [anti-immigrant] Republican candidate in California’s 47th District sent out thousands of letters to voters with Hispanic surnames stating that it was illegal for them to vote. All the more ironic because the candidate, Tan Nguyen, is an immigrant himself, it makes a number of false claims designed to scare recipients:

Written in Spanish, the letters advise recently registered voters that it is a crime for those in the country illegally to vote in a federal election, which is true. They also say, falsely, that immigrants may not vote and could be jailed or deported for doing so, that the federal government has a new computer system to verify voter names, and that anti-immigration organizations can access the records.

Nguyen claims that the letters were sent by an aide who has since been fired. However, Nguyen has praised the Minutemen, supports the California Coalition for Immigration Reform, and has come out against Bush’s guest worker proposal; he is not exactly a champion of California’s immigrant community.

The district is approximately one third Hispanic and is currently represented by Loretta Sanchez (D).

Personally, I’m willing to believe that it was sent out by an aide without permission — but I’m also inclined to believe that Nguyen wouldn’t mind if Hispanic voters stayed home on election day. This sort of lends credence to the idea that Republicans would rather limit the voting pool and use dirty tactics to keep them away (whereas Democrats try to be so inclusive as to even get dead people to vote!).

A new Quinnipiac poll, taken after Monday’s debate, shows Joe Lieberman opening a 17-point lead on Ned Lamont:

Sen. Joseph Lieberman now holds a 52 - 35 percent likely voter lead over Democratic candidate Ned Lamont, with 6 percent for Republican Alan Schlesinger and 7 percent undecided, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

This compares to a 49 - 39 percent Sen. Lieberman lead over Lamont, with 5 percent for Schlesinger in a September 28 poll by [the same polling organization, Quinnipiac University].

So, Schlesinger’s “bounce” is just a single percentage point, despite an entertaining debate performance in the debate that made him, ever so briefly, a media darling. I’m honestly surprised.

The “bounce” is slightly more noticable among Republicans. Within that subset of poll respondents, Alan’s support is up six points, from 12% to 18%, since the previous poll. But looky here, get a load of where that support is coming from:

THEN: Joe 69%, Ned 15%, Alan 12%
NOW: Joe 70%, Ned 9%, Alan 18%

That’s right, Schlesinger is stealing Republican support from Lamont! Huh?!? That makes no sense, but I’ll take it! :)

It’s not like people didn’t watch the same debate we did. “35 percent of Connecticut voters watched Monday’s candidate debate,” and “another 35 percent said they heard or read about the debate,” according to the poll. But only “3 percent say they changed their mind about whom they would vote for as a result of the debate.”

“Ned Lamont needed to score a knockout in the debates to catch Sen. Joseph Lieberman, but he apparently didn’t lay a glove on him,” said Quinnipiac University Poll Director Douglas Schwartz, Ph.D.

“Lamont’s negatives are up and he has fallen farther behind in the matchup against Lieberman because of his drop among independent voters and men.

“Observers had speculated that Alan Schlesinger would benefit from the debate exposure and take Republican votes away from Lieberman,” Dr. Schwartz added. “Instead, he took Republican votes away from Lamont.”

Do you think Ned is regretting the little pep talk he gave Alan about how he should ignore the media and keep on fighting? Heh!

P.S. Joe’s biggest gains between the previous poll and the one occurred among independent voters: his lead there improved from 50-36-4 to 58-32-5. From a 14-point margin to a 26-point margin in just over three weeks! Nice!

There was no major movement among Democrats, except some minor (probably statistically insignificant) slippage into the undecided column, as Lamont went from a 57-37 lead to a 55-36 lead.

UPDATE: It’s official, Ned Lamont’s campaign staff has gone completely insane. The Hartford Courant reports:

Lamont’s campaign took issue with the results, saying the poll bordered on the irresponsible because it surveyed voters before a debate broadcast Thursday night in which staffers believe Lamont turned in a strong performance.

Wait, wait, wait. How is it “irresponsible” to take a poll in between two debates? Can someone please explain this to me? Is Quinnipiac supposed to ask Ned Lamont’s permission before conducting a poll, so that they can do it at the most convenient, advantageous moment for him? Anything less is “irresponsible”! Cripes, what idiots. “We’re behind in the polls, so let’s blame the pollsters! How dare they take a poll when we’re behind?! They’re supposed to wait until we’re ahead!!”

UPDATE 2: Kos points out that Quinnipiac’s track record in the Connecticut Senate race is somewhat less than stellar:

The numbers and trends suck, but this one ain’t over. Do we remember this now-classic Q-poll result?

Lieberman (D) 41
Lamont (D) 54

That was two weeks before the primary. The Lamont campaign screamed that there was no way they were so far ahead. At the time, their internals had them lagging Lieberman. Lamont went on to win the primary narrowly.

The Q-poll completely blew the primary. If Connecticut Dems (now including Dodd) work for what’s right, we’ll prove Quinnipiac wrong in Connecticut twice in a single year.

Kos sounds almost messianic at the end of his post: “This is the year we’re turning the political world upside down. And Lieberman is destined to be a casualty.”

We’ll see.

Following up on my post from the other day about an angled electrical outlet, we have this brilliant yet simple (although not as much as the angled outlet) design from three students at the Pratt Institute. Its basically a modular power strip, you can rotate the pieces to better fit various strangely shaped powerbricks. How this and the angled outlet get silver and bronze is beyond me, especially when you consider the winners (an odd shapped plastic chair thingie and a GPS enabled public bike system. Not bad ideas per se, just not nearly as cool IMO).

Heh:

The Republicans are all like THEY’LL LET TERRORISTS KILL YOU and the Democrats are all like THEY F***ED UP THE WAR and Republicans are all like THEY’LL LET GAYS RUIN YOUR MARRIAGE and the Democrats are all like THEY’LL LET GAYS ELECTRONICALLY MOLEST YOUR SONS and Republicans are all like THEY EAT PUPPIES and Democrats are like THEY EAT KITTIES, AND DO SO INCOMPETENTLY.

I hear Joe Lieberman eats kitties and puppies.