Cool:

Organic globules found in a meteorite that slammed into Canada’s Tagish Lake may be older than our sun, a new study says. …

Most of the meteorite’s material is about the same age as our solar system—about 4.5 billion years—and was likely formed at the same time.

But the microscopic organic globules that make up about one-tenth of one percent of the object appear to be far older.

The study reports that “isotopic anomalies in the globules suggest that they formed in very cold conditions—near absolute zero.” Which, from what I understand, is slightly colder than the temperature outside when I walked the dog this morning.

No, but seriously, absolute zero conditions would never be found “anywhere close to the sun” — like, not even in the outer reaches of the solar system — so these globules were apparently formed long, long ago and far, far away. (Hat tip: InstaPundit.)

You’ve seen indignity #1 that I suffered as a consequence of losing my bet with Mike on Saturday’s game. And now, indignity #2.

To my fellow Trojans, I’m sorry. That said, believe me, this is going to hurt me more than it’s going to hurt you.

. . . . .

Why UCLA is superior to USC
by Brendan and Becky Loy

How is the University of California at Los Angeles superior to the University of Southern California? Let me count the ways.

UCLA is better at sports. For example, the Bruins have won more team NCAA championships (99) than any other school. Also, as winners of 9 out of the last 16 football games against the Trojans, it is clearly more of a football school than USC. With regard to basketball, no explanation is needed.

UCLA is also better academically than USC — as a result of which, UCLA has more kids that got into USC than USC.

UCLA has better fans than USC. For example, Snoop Dogg is a USC fan.

O.J. Simpson did not go to UCLA.

UCLA has a nicer campus than USC, and is in a better location than USC (Westwood v. South Central LA). Again, no explanation is needed.

Speaking of Westwood, Diddy Riese Cookies makes the world’s best cookies. USC does not have a Diddy Riese Cookies in its neighborhood.

UCLA has a better daily newspaper than USC. One reason for this is that the editor-in-chief of the UCLA daily newspaper was not recently fired by a university administrator who shares a name with a freaky pop star who likes little boys.

Unlike USC players, UCLA football players do not perform sexual acts on their opponents after getting knocked down.

Unlike USC cheerleaders, UCLA cheerleaders do not cheer when their opponent scores.

UCLA’s band knows more than one song.

UCLA students do not wear black Velcro shoes and black socks.

Spike Lee’s movie about Hurricane Katrina did not feature a goofy-looking red-headed dork wearing a garish UCLA sweatshirt.

UCLA students are better at making NCAA brackets than USC students.

UCLA has Mike Tran. USC has Brendan Loy. ‘Nuff said.

This list is not exhaustive, as it would be impossible to list all of the ways in which UCLA is superior to USC.

. . . . .

There you go. Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t welch on bets.

“Thanks” to Mike Tran for his “help” in compiling this list.

I hate myself.

The promised post singing UCLA’s praises will appear at 1:00 PM EST.

I hate UCLA.

P.S. In case anyone is wondering, the rules of the bet vis a vis the pro-UCLA, anti-USC post are: I won’t artificially cause it to scroll down the page by adding new posts specifically for that purpose, and I will put a prominent link to it in the left-hand column (where it currently says “DAMMIT”) and will leave that link there for 48 hours. I refused to make any official promise of how long the post will stay on top of the homepage, or on Page 1 for that matter, because I’m not going to reliquish the right to blog new stuff for two days. But I promised to act in good faith with regard to, like I said, not artificially bumping it down… and I will keep that promise. And of course, like all blog posts, it will stay on the blog for perpetuity, in the archives.

Please remind me not to make bets with Mike Tran anymore. :) My teams (USC, Gonzaga, Notre Dame) are 6-2 overall in college football and NCAA Tournament basketball games against his teams (UCLA, Notre Dame) in the last three years, 3-2 in games that we’ve bet on, yet somehow I’m 1-4 in those bets.

As you’ll recall, I lost the bet, so…

To paraphrase what Mike wrote last fall when he had to wear my USC sweatshirt: I hate UCLA, and now I hate myself.

Here I am walking into class:

Did I mention I hate UCLA?

P.S. The color of my shirt (underneath Mike’s jersey) wasn’t an attempt to sabotage the bet. I thought Mike was bringing a sweatshirt, not a basketball jersey, so I didn’t realize it would matter what I was wearing underneath.

Anyway, the bet didn’t say anything about what I could wear underneath. So there. :)

President Bush has accepted the resignation of U.N. Ambassador John Bolton when his recess appointment expires, The Associated Press reports. Visit CNN for the latest.

[Bumped to top of page. -ed]

The last time our Professional Responsibility class met, on Thursday, two of my classmates and I performed a skit in which I played a character named “Pete Poodle,” a county prosecutor described in the opening narration as “a recent graduate of USC Law School—and notoriously a loudmouthed, self-important jerk.” The character of Poodle was sort of a composite satire of Pete Carroll and me, complete with a “Tribute to Troy” ringtone on my phone, various references to my blog (PetePoodle.com) and having “my own Wikipedia page,” and lines like “You can’t do this to me! I was in a Spike Lee movie!” The whole thing was, needless to say, pretty self-deprecating. I had a lot of fun with it.

Naturally, there were several jokes in the skit related to Poodle’s status as a Trojan, some of them anti-USC and some of them pro-USC. For example, at one point the opposing attorney, arguing that sanctions be taken against Poodle for alleged unethical conduct, said, “Those folks at USC have access to far too much sun, Hollywood and ballroom-dancing courses, all of which clouds their judgment. I don’t see how any sensible person could ever rule in an USC alum’s favor.” I (as Poodle) later replied, “Well, I don’t see how any sensible person could ever have thought Notre Dame was going to win last Saturday, which is why I picked the Trojans by three touchdowns, but we’ll have to agree to disagree on that point.”

The skit was supposed to be performed on November 20, before the ND-USC game, and that last line was supposed to be phrased in the future tense (”I don’t see how any sensible person could think Notre Dame is going to win this Saturday”). Unfortunately, we had to delay the skit until after Thanksgiving Break — and thus after the game — because one of the guys in our group had a rather urgent reason to miss class on the day we were supposed to perform the skit: his wife went into labor the night before!

As a result, what would have been a fun bit of pre-game trash talking ended up sounding, to some people anyway, a bit like “rubbing it in.” That wasn’t my, or our, intention (certainly not; one of the group members was Kevin Carretta, a former member of the ND football team!) — and if the skit had been scheduled all along for the week after the game, we probably would have left USC out of it entirely — but because of an accident of timing, it just sort of worked out that way.

In any event, those among my classmates who felt I was “rubbing it in” on Thursday will certainly appreciate the karmic retribution in our last class of the semester Monday, when, thanks to my bet with Mike and USC’s loss to UCLA, I’ll be “proudly” wearing UCLA apparel to class.

Payback’s a b**ch.

UPDATE, Dec. 4: By the way, that post about why UCLA is better than USC — also mandated by the bet — will be forthcoming later today.

Heh.

Complete bowl schedule here. The big five:

Rose Bowl, Jan. 1, 5pm EST: #3 Michigan vs. #5 USC

Fiesta Bowl, Jan. 1, 8pm EST: #8 Boise State vs. #10 Oklahoma

Orange Bowl, Jan. 2, 8pm EST: #6 Louisville vs. #14 Wake Forest

Sugar Bowl, Jan. 3, 8pm EST: #4 LSU vs. #11 Notre Dame

BCS Championship Game, Jan. 8, 8pm EST: #1 Ohio State vs. #2 Florida

(Rankings based on BCS standings.)

P.S. Is everyone else as psyched as I am for the R&L Carriers New Orleans Bowl? Rice vs. Troy, baby!

To say nothing of South Florida vs. East Carolina in the Papajohns.com Bowl…

http://www.footballfoundation.com/pdf/bcs06/120306l.pdf

1. Ohio State - 0.9999
2. Florida - 0.9445
3. Michigan - 0.9344
4. LSU - 0.8326
5. USC - 0.7953
6. Louisville - 0.7944
7. Wisconsin - 0.7480
8. Boise State - 0.7099
9. Auburn - 0.6486
10. Oklahoma - 0.6297
11. Notre Dame - 0.6287
12. Arkansas - 0.5166
13. West Virginia - 0.5073
14. Wake Forest - 0.4314

And please, let’s not have any griping about how Notre Dame is “undeserving” of a BCS bowl invitation. Both Wisconsin and Auburn are ineligible by rule, due to the two-teams-per-conference limit, so the top nine BCS-eligible teams — including Notre Dame — will all be participating. (The tenth participant is Wake Forest.) The Irish are NOT leapfrogging any higher-ranked teams because of their fan base or ratings or hype or bias or anything else. In fact, the only BCS-eligible team not getting an invite is West Virginia. (Arkansas is also ineligible, despite being in the Top 14, because of the conference limit.)

P.S. UCLA is #25. Oregon State is #22. I’m not defending those losses, but still.

Notre Dame lost a heartbreaker to North Carolina, 2-1, in the NCAA women’s soccer championship game.

USC has a shot at a national title tonight, too — in men’s water polo. The defending champion Trojans crushed Navy in the semifinal yesterday, and are playing Cal for the championship in a game that’s just getting underway now.

UPDATE: And USC loses, 7-6. Harumph.

The Trojans tied it at 6-6 with 1.78 seconds left, but then Cal somehow scored at the buzzer to win it, 7-6. I don’t know anything about water polo, but that’s some mighty fast scoring.

The L.A. Times reports:

There isn’t going to be a rematch.

No. 1 Ohio State will play No. 2 Florida, not Michigan, for the Bowl Championship Series national title on Jan. 8 in Glendale, Ariz.

According to a BCS source, Florida moved from fourth to second today ahead of No. 3 Michigan in the final BCS standings.

An official announcement will come this evening [at 8pm EST] in a televised unveiling on Fox.

(Hat tip: Ken.)

If the standings get leaked again, they would presumably be at this URL. Nothing there yet, though. [UPDATE: Also possibly this URL. But again, nothing yet.]

If you didn’t watch the end of last night’s West Virginia-Rutgers game on ESPN, you missed more than just a triple-overtime thriller in which a missed two-point conversion instantly demoted the Scarlet Knights from the Orange Bowl to the Texas Bowl. You also missed the rare sight of a guy on a national TV wearing a shirt containing the f-word, uncensored.

That’s right, some Mountaineers fan somehow managed to get in front of the camera wearing a sweatshirt that said, “WEST F****IN VIRGINIA,” except without the asterisks. Deadspin has a screenshot (warning: profanity… obviously). [NOTE: The link isn’t working for everyone. I have no idea why; it works fine for me. If it doesn’t work for you, try this link and then click on the relevant headline, or else just go to www.deadspin.com and scroll down.]

I can’t even begin to fathom what the cameraman could possibly have been thinking. It’s not like the shirt wasn’t extremely prominent, front-and-center, in the shot. I suppose maybe that guy totally appeared out of nowhere, but really, the cameraman should have been paying more attention. I’m thinking somebody at ESPN is unemployed who wasn’t yesterday. Good thing it wasn’t on network TV, otherwise the Federal Censorship Commission would be getting involved for sure.

That said: LOL! I love it!

P.S. Whatever the cameraman was thinking, I think I know what the photographed fan was thinking: “I have had it with these m*****f***in’ Scarlet Knights tackling my m*****f***in’ Mountaineers!”

UPDATE: Since Deadspin is simply not loading for some people, I’ve copied the image to my own server and posted it after the jump. Again, warning: profanity!

(more…)

"It’s over": the coaches’ poll is out, and Florida has leapfrogged Michigan by such a margin that it’s almost certain they will be #2 in the final BCS standings:

What we know now:
• The computers are exceedingly likely to be tied.
• 71% of coaches went for Florida.
• Michigan was ahead on about 86 of 114 Harris poll ballots [last week].
• They need 81 of those to get in unless they get an Anderson-Hester miracle [i.e., unless they unexpectedly stay ahead of Florida in the Anderson-Hester computer poll, in which case the Wolverines would need to hold onto “50-ish of the Harris poll votes” — still a much higher percentage than what they got in the coaches’ poll].

So, it’ll be USC vs. Michigan in the Rose Bowl and Notre Dame vs. LSU in the Sugar Bowl, then.

GOOOOO IRISH, BEEEEEAT TIGERS!!!

FIGHT ON, TROJANS!!! BEAT THE WOLVERINES!!!

P.S. Wouldn’t it be odd if USC beats Michigan, meaning that I would have seen USC, but not Notre Dame, beat Notre Dame’s biggest non-USC rival (Michigan) this year, in addition to seeing Notre Dame, but not USC, beat the Trojans’ biggest non-Notre Dame rival (UCLA) this year? It’s an upside-world for an Irish Trojan!

UPDATE: The above-linked post just added: “AP poll goes to Florida by 3 points. Not relevant, but another indicator that Michigan is hopelessly unlikely to get the Harris landslide that is their last hope.�

Actually, it is relevant, for split-championship purposes (with Florida ahead of Michigan, albeit just barely, in the AP poll, it would take an awfully impressive win over USC to vault Michigan to #1 if Florida beats Ohio State — since any win over Ohio State is obviously very impressive, and is something Michigan failed to accomplish), and also for purposes of assessing the voters’ motivations. The AP voters presumably aren’t thinking about avoiding a rematch, since that’s not within their power — and yet a goodly number of them still saw fit to leapfrog Florida ahead of Michigan. That weakens, though it certainly doesn’t eviscerate, the argument that “voters are just doing this to avoid a rematch.� I guess people were really impressed by the win over Arkansas.

As the previous post about the Patty O’Herald controversy has now scrolled off the front page with 97 comments and counting, I thought I’d start up a new thread, in case anyone wants to continue the debate. Hopefully this one will remain more consistently on-topic. :) The latest developments, that I know of, is that this week’s issue of the O’Herald has been officially nixed by the SBA, and someone has started up a “Save the Patty O” Facebook group.

So… who goes to Glendale? As I noted earlier, it appears that the computers will probably be a dead heat between Michigan and Florida, so it’ll be up to the voters. BCS Guru crunches the numbers:

Prior to Saturday’s games, 86 of the 114 Harris voters (75 percent) and 40 of the 63 (63 percent) coaches had Michigan ahead of Florida. It would take a swing [of] 43 Harris voters and 20 coaches to get the Gators ahead of the Wolverines.

He adds that if the voters choose Florida, a split title is possible:

[A]n Ohio State-Florida matchup leaves open the possibility of a split national championship once again. Michigan is almost unanimously ahead of Florida in the AP poll (63 of 65 voters) and is unlikely to be jumped by the Gators for the No. 2 spot. If Florida somehow upsets Ohio State and Michigan impressively trounces USC in the Rose Bowl, the Wolverines just might win the AP title over the Gators.

That would make the Michigan vs. USC Rose Bowl essentially the mirror image of three years ago, this time with Michigan having a shot at a share of the national title. Of course, the difference three years ago was that USC came in ranked #1 in the AP poll, not #2, so they were virtually assured of the title with a win. Michigan would need help from Florida to secure a title, and that sort of scenario hasn’t generally worked out for teams in Michigan’s position in the past. There have been various previous years where a one-loss team had a shot at a split title if some other one-loss team upset the lone undefeated team in the official title game; think back to 2001-02, for example, when Oregon could have won the AP title if Nebraska had beaten Miami, or to 2000-01, when either Washington or Miami could have made an argument for a split if Florida State had upset Oklahoma. However, a one-loss team has never beaten an undefeated team in a BCS title game.

The official BCS Selection Show is at 8:00 PM on Fox.

P.S. What do you think?