Who will be Max Mayfield’s successor at the National Hurricane Center? We’ll find out tomorrow. (Hat tip: WXNation.) The rumored front-runner is Bill Proenza, whose last name sounds like a prescription drug. (Ask your doctor if Proenza is right for you.) Margie Kieper has more:

Not only was Max Mayfield’s retirement unexpected, but things have not gone that smoothly in the search for a new director. There is speculation that the current appointment may be a short-term one. Proenza has around 40 years of service — more than the retiring Mayfield, who has 34. In the mid-sixties, Proenza worked at the NHC and with hurricane reconnaissance. And the response of someone in the field who was recently interviewed, when asked if he was a candidate for the position, was that he didn’t apply “this time,” and that he was “keeping his options open.” …

Max has so completely excelled at the position of director, in both the public and internal aspects of the job, that it is hard to imagine anyone else filling those shoes. Subsequent speculation about who could, and who would also be willing to do so, has included many candidates, some far afield, even though there is a tradition of promoting from within at NHC. And it has been kept a tight secret outside the community, as this morning’s Miami Herald was still speculating about who would be the new director. After the initial announcement [of Mayfield’s retirement] on August 25th, it became clear there was no obvious first choice, and NOAA bought time by extending the job opening for an additional month after the original closing date for applications, and suggesting that Ed Rappaport would be the heir apparent (he declined for personal reasons and the extensive amount of travel required). …

[E]veryone is sorry to see Max leave. With the potential for more active seasons looming, the idea of a change at the helm of the NHC, from such capable hands, was not welcomed. But things change. After tomorrow, the spotlight will be on the new director, who will have almost six months to become a trusted presence on the national scene before next year’s Atlantic hurricane season.

On a related note… what with all the football madness, Daily Trojan kerfuffles and other stuff going on last week, I failed to make note of the official end of the 2006 hurricane season last Thursday. In fact, the last two hurricane-related posts on my blog were by Jay Johnson and Briandot. I haven’t blogged about hurricanes since October 1!

There’s a reason for that, of course. It was, as it turns out, a rather anticlimactic year in the tropical Atlantic, especially after all the hair-on-fire warnings of a hyperactive season with hurricanes hitting the East Coast. There were, in the end, nine tropical storms, five hurricanes, and two major hurricanes — making for a slightly below-average season, in stark contrast to all the forecasts of a significantly above-average season. (Hat tip: Andrew Leyden.) Then again, we shouldn’t be too stunned that the forecasts were wrong; after all, it’s not like they correctly predicted 28 storms in 2005 right, either! Long-range forecasts are notoriously shaky, and the media really paid way too much attention to them this year.

Anyway, my politically minded readers will doubtless ask, what does this tell us about global warming? Answer: Precisely nothing. Just as those people who said that the 2005 season clearly proves that OMG OMG EVERY SINGLE SEASON WILL BE LIKE THIS FROM NOW ON BECAUSE OF GLOBAL WARMING, AAAAHHH!!! were idiots, likewise those who now claim that the relatively inactive 2006 season disproves global warming are also idiots. Climate change is measured over decades and centuries, not individual years (let alone individual storms). The larger point is that, whether because of global warming or not, it’s clear that we are in a generally active hurricane cycle right now — but even active cycles have inactive years, and this was one of those, thanks in part to El Niño. Thank goodness. Coastal residents should count their blessings and then make sure they’re prepared for next year, because it won’t always be like 2006. The peace and quiet this year is no reason to become complacent.

It’s not “peace and quiet” everywhere, by the way. In the Philippines, the death toll from Typhoon Durian is well over a thousand, making it the worst tropical cyclone of 2006 anywhere in the world.

If you can’t light a match on an airplane to cover up the smell of your flatulence without thereby forcing the plane to make an emergency landing, the terrorists have already won.

This is cool. (Hat tip: Mark West.)

USC isn’t having a great week athletically (on Saturday our football team was stunned by UCLA, on Sunday our men’s water polo team fell to Cal in the national championship game, and on Monday our men’s basketball team failed to take advantage of numerous late scoring opportunities and lost to Kansas), but at least we can still engage in schadenfreude at Texas’s expense (link goes to Boi From Troy). Heh.

In quite possibly the stupidest thing that has ever happened, ever, New York City has banned artificial trans fats from its restaurants, taking the logic of municipal smoking bans and applying it to fatty foods. Which would make sense, if there was such a thing as “second-hand obesity.” As it is, I have a hard time even thinking of a plausible justification for this, let alone agreeing with it. It’s one thing to require labeling and full disclosure, but to ban something outright because it’s unhealthy for the individual consumer? The libertarian inside me is screaming.

UPDATE: Some decent arguments in favor of this measure are made in comments (along with some less decent ones). The best arguments are the ones relating to health-care costs. There are also some very good rebuttals. Overall, a healthy debate. Anyway, perhaps “no plausible justification” was an overstatement, but this sort of thing still definitely rubs me the wrong way.

A major, X9-class solar flare erupted from the sun during the wee hours of this morning. SpaceWeather.com has details, and a photo.

A dozen-and-a-half college newspapers across the country, including the Daily Trojan itself (in its online edition) — though not, alas, the Observer — published a “collaboratively written editorial” today that blasts the USC administration for its actions in the Zach Fox controversy. The L.A. Times published it, too. Money quote:

Our society relies on its newspapers to check powerful individuals and institutions. An administration-controlled student paper poses the same threat to an academic community that a state-controlled press would to a nation; oversight limits the press’ ability to act as a watchdog and prevent misuse of authority. The USC administration’s interference with the student press creates a chilling effect, forcing student journalists to weigh the risk of losing their jobs against the duty of writing a story about or questioning the administration. Such considerations hamper a paper’s ability to do its job. If USC intends to imbue any journalistic values in its students, it must allow its students to be journalists without fear of administrative reproach.

The editorial reveals that Fox’s hand-picked successor, Jeremy Beecher, was approved by the Media Board yesterday. This despite the fact that, from what I understand, Beecher intended to go into the Media Board meeting and straightforwardly demand full editorial autonomy immediately, including disbanding of the Media Board process itself. I don’t know how that turned out, but I do know that Jeremy Beecher is officially the editor-in-chief. Sounds like progress.

P.S. The Daily Californian signed on to the collaborative editorial, but also published its own editorial, proposing a more radical solution: “when Michael L. Jackson, USC vice president for student affairs, announced last week that the board had refused to even hear the application of incumbent editor in chief Zach Fox, the choice of the Trojan’s employees, there should have been only one acceptable response—a staff walkout.”

Heh. Typical Berkeleyites. :)

The Daily Cal concludes: “while this editorial should not be interpreted as a call for the Daily Trojan to declare their independence, now is the time for bold action. Student publications across the country, from the Daily Californian to the Harvard Crimson, have united in support of the Trojan staff. But it is ultimately up to them to salvage their paper. And if history is any lesson, timid appeasement is hardly the way to go about it.”

My cell phone says I missed a call from Mike. He didn’t leave a message, but I’m guessing he was calling to complain that my bet-mandated “UCLA is superior to USC” post is scrolling down the homepage too fast. I’m not doing that deliberately — there’s just been a lot of stuff that I’ve wanted to blog about this evening/morning — so I’m not breaking the rules. Still, lest anyone think I’m violating the spirit of the bet, here’s the damn link again. Harumph.

Anyway, it’s not like the post isn’t getting plenty of readers. The UCLA message boards have caught on, so I’ve been getting a ton of hits to that particular post from places like BruinZone and BruinReportOnline. I’m also linked from a UCLA Facebook group. Bah. I hate UCLA.

The finals of the 2006 edition of Athlon’s cheerleader contest are underway. (Another hat tip: Scott Fort.) And I think it’s time to retire those “inbreeding” jokes, because once again it’s the West Virginia gal who has my vote.

Vote for Lindsey! She’s from West F***in’ Virginia!

That said, not to take anything away from the lovely Lindsey, but back in Round 3 — which was absolutely loaded with, uh, talent, yet somehow produced only one finalist — Valorie from Oregon was totally robbed!! East Coast Bias, I say!! :) I’m heartbroken: not only is she gorgeous, but she’s a Political Science & Journalism major. She coulda been a contender! I blame Pac-10 refs.

Then again, I wouldn’t be quacking so much about Valorie’s defeat if she’d lost to Gina from Minnesota or Heather from South Florida. But Caris from North Texas?! I mean, she’s okay, but c’mon! This voting makes about as much sense as the Katherine Harris Poll.

Anyway, you can choose your cheerleader here.

P.S. This post brings to mind again the need for something along the lines of a “hot babes” category on the blog. I’ll have to work on that.

P.P.S. I love you, Becky. :)

With everything else that’s been going on, I hadn’t gotten around to posting about this, but Reggie Bush had a breakout game for the Saints on Sunday, scoring four — count ‘em, four! — touchdowns en route to a 34-10 victory. (Hat tip: Scott Fort.)

In other USC-related news, the Trojans lost to #12 Kansas in men’s hoops tonight. Oh, well.

Casey has cool pictures of lake-effect snow developing over Lake Erie.

…Tennessee had beaten Florida (they lost by 1), Georgia had beaten Vanderbilt and Kentucky (they lost by 2 and 4, respectively), and Notre Dame had lost to either Michigan State or UCLA?

In all likelihood, the BCS top 14 would feature six SEC teams (Florida, though not #2, would still be in the mix, along with LSU, Auburn, Arkansas, two-loss Tennessee and two-loss Georgia) and no Notre Dame … and there wouldn’t be enough eligible at-large teams to fill out the available BCS bowl slots! (Five teams in the top 14 — Wisconsin and four of the six SEC teams — would be ineligible because of the two-teams-per-conference rule. 14 minus 5 equals 9… which is, obviously, less than the ten spots in the five BCS bowls… and with all the major-conference champions being in the top 14, that equals not enough teams!)

[CORRECTION: I just realized, this scenario is flawed, because West Virginia would still be eligible, at #14. This is possible because automatic qualifier Wake Forest would fall to #15. Thus, there would still be enough eligible at-large teams. In order to make the scenario work, either West Virginia would need to have lost an additional game (to someone other than Rutgers, because a Rutgers win would have made Louisville an eligible at-large team rather than a conference champion), or Wake Forest would have needed to win an additional game (thus jumping WVU and knocking them out of the top 14). Since Rutgers was West Virginia’s only remotely close win, let’s suppose Wake Forest had beaten Clemson (they lost by 10). Then the scenario would work as I’ve described. More details after the jump.]

(more…)

Lex icon is dreaming of an eight-team playoff. I say, that’s not ambitious enough! It’s we’re going to fantasize about the best sporting event on the face of the earth that will never, ever come to pass, let’s go all-out!

If we take the 11 conference champions, plus the top 5 at-large teams, and seed them according to the BCS standings, we get…

Okay, so I’m taking some liberties with the predicted winners. :) But the point is, a 16-team playoff would be AWESOME!!!

But noooo, heaven forbid we actually spend December and January playing meaningful games. Instead, we must respect college football’s sacred traditions with TCU vs. Northern Illinois in the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl.

P.S. Speaking of lex icon, in an earlier post he makes an excellent point that I hadn’t thought of: “When Arizona beat Cal, I was almost disappointed, because it made the win over Cal less valuable for BCS purposes. Turns out, had they won that game, we’d be going to the Holiday Bowl.”

P.P.S. On a somewhat related note, lots of good stuff — with varying degrees of bitterness — from the Michigan bloggers:

MgoBlog is putting Reggie Fish, the Harris Poll, and various other people and entities “on notice.” But the most scathing commentary is reserved for “smarmy-ass CBS”:

SEC fans constantly decry ESPN/ABC as some sort of Big Ten propaganda machine. On Saturday night ESPN and ABC featured debate. Corso, Mark May, Lou Holtz, and Craig James all argued for Florida. Herbstreit, Flute, Fowler argued for Michigan. By comparison, CBS was Pravda, beating out a steady SEC SEC SEC SEC SEC drumbeat without the barest hint of debate. The second half of the the SEC championship game was less a football game and more an informercial for the magical juicing power of Florida. It was unprofessional, inappropriate, and hypocritical. I never want to hear another word about “bias” from SEC fans.

The Michigan Sports Center and (again) MgoBlog are justifably ripping on the Harris Poll.

So is The M Zone, but humorously.

Maize n Brew bashes the SEC, says Michigan got screwed, and wonders “how 71% of the coaches who voted on this thing lost their {bleep}ing minds in the span of 24 hours.”

iBlog for Cookies is also bashing the SEC: “You cannot make a legitimate claim to being the best conference in the country when your top 4 teams’ best non-conference wins are against Southern Miss and Louisiana Lafayette.”

Last but not least, The M Zone finds humor in something non-BCS-related:

Heh.

JohnMac justifably scolded me yesterday for not giving props to the Notre Dame basketball team, which upset #23 Maryland in Washington, D.C. last night, improving to 6-1 on the season and earning 11 votes in the AP poll. Frankly, I was so focused on the BCS and my term paper that I totally forgot about the Irish-Terps game, but that’s obviously a big win for ND. Next up: a huge test this Thursday, when #4 Alabama (7-0) comes to town. ROLL THE TIDE!!!

More immediately, unranked and unvoted-for USC (5-1) faces its big test tonight, playing at #12 Kansas (6-2). The game is on ESPN2 at 9:00 PM. Kansas is coming off an upset loss to DePaul, which may be bad news for the Trojans. The Jayhawks’ other loss was also a stunner — to Oral Roberts back when Kansas was ranked #3 — and they responded with a five-game winning streak, including a victory over then-#1 Florida. On the bright side, USC’s basketball team can’t possibly disappoint any more than the football team did on Saturday. BEAT THE JAYHAWKS!!!

Last but not least, #18 Gonzaga, fresh off a huge statement win over Texas, also has a big week: tomorrow they’re at Washington State (7-1), and then on Saturday they host Washington (6-0) in the annual Trojan Hall Room 379 Roommate Rivalry Game (hi David). The Huskies won last year in Seattle, so the Zags will be looking for revenge — and for their 45th straight home win. GO ZAGS!!!

P.S. I just noticed that Wichita State, which is 6-0 with wins over Georgia Mason, LSU and Syracuse — all on the road — is ranked #10. Wow!

Hurricanes? He don’t need no stinkin’ Hurricanes! Greg Schiano is staying at Rutgers, rejecting overtures from Miami in favor of building something lasting at the The State University of New Jersey. (Hat tip: Patrick.)

Good for him.

Rutgers is a young team. Ray Rice is only a sophomore, and so will be around for at least another year. Quarterback Mike Teel is a redshirt sophomore. And now we learn that Coach of the Year candidate winner Schiano is staying, instead of leaving for greener pastures like so many successful coaches at upstart teams do. So while the loss to West Virginia was heartbreaking and “The Drop” was crushing, the Scarlet Knights should be a Big East contender again in 2007-08, and beyond.

But first: the Houston Bowl. Go Rutgers, Beat Kansas State!