Somebody’s NCAA bubble just burst.

Sixth-graders having sex during shop class… in Indiana.

When I was in sixth grade, I think I once ineffectually flirted with my crush during shop class. I guess today’s middle schoolers are a little more, uh, advanced. (And now, having said that, I need to go have some Geritol, because I’m officially old.)

[UPDATE: Bumped to top because of a surprisingly robust and interesting discussion. -ed.]

A Boeing 757 airliner burst into flames on landing at Yogyakarta airport in Indonesia, witnesses say.

Visit CNN for the latest.

Perpetual BrendanLoy.com whipping boy Mike Brey, caught in a “coaching death spiral” just a few months ago, has been named Big East Coach of the Year.


“Hey, you! Yeah, you, Brendan Loy! Come over here, I’ve got some tasty crow for you to eat. Mmmm, crow.”

Nice season, coach. Keep it up.

There’s a new edition of NIT-ology out, and it claims UConn’s bubble has, for the moment, burst, as has two-time defending NIT champion South Carolina’s. The Huskies may need to beat Syracuse tomorrow to get into the NIT! Same goes for South Carolina against Arkansas on Thursday.

Speaking of tournaments that don’t matter, Rakes of Mallow has links to the BCS conferences’ tourney brackets. (The Pac-10 bracket there is outdated; here’s the updated one.)

UPDATE: Speaking of UConn, the women lost to Rutgers in the Big East title game. The Huskies join Duke, Tennessee, North Carolina and Ohio State as teams ranked in the Top 5 who lost in their conference tournaments. The highest-ranked conference tourney champion: #6 Stanford.

It is soon going to be illegal in France to record and/or broadcast acts of violence unless you are a professional journalist. The apparent motivation behind this is to crack down on people who film their friends performing violent acts and then post the videos for others’ amusement. I guess the French just completely ignored the whole idea of bystanders filming something like police brutality or other acts of violence that might be useful as, um, evidence in criminal trials? Then again, what do you expect from the country that banned Muslims (and other religious groups) from wearing religious garb in public schools because, well, they felt threatened by New York’s ban on using your iPod in a crosswalk and wanted to prove that when it comes to being a Big Brother state, they are still number 1!

With #1-seed Wright State taking on #2-seed Butler in the Horizon League championship game tonight at 9:00 PM on ESPN, one thing is certain: somebody’s bubble is going to burst. The only question is whether it’ll be an NCAA bubble or an NIT bubble. Butler is dancing no matter what, so if Wright State wins tonight, they “steal” an NCAA bid, and the Horizon becomes a two-bid NCAA league and a zero-bid NIT league. That means somebody’s NCAA bubble — perhaps Missouri State, perhaps Clemson, perhaps Illinois, perhaps Old Dominion — will burst. On the other hand, if Butler wins, that bumps Wright State, the Horizon’s regular-season champion, down to an automatic NIT bid, “stealing” a bid from some NIT bubble team, like perhaps Northern Iowa, UConn, LSU, or two-time defending champion South Carolina.

Also on tap tonight: the Mid-Continent Conference title game (#1 Oral Roberts vs #2 Oakland, 7:00 PM, ESPN) and the Sun Belt title game (#2 Arkansas State vs. #5 North Texas, 9:00 PM, ESPN2). Neither game has NCAA bubble implications — both will be one-bid conferences — but an Oakland victory would swallow up another NIT bubble bid, sending Oral Roberts down to the Little Dance. (You may remember Oral Roberts as the fashionable pick last year to become the first #16 seed ever to beat a #1, though as it turns out, they didn’t come nearly as close as Albany did. This year, they’re widely projected as a #13, #14 or #15 seed in the NCAA Tournament, assuming they win tonight.)

Meanwhile, on the women’s side of things, the UConn women play Rutgers for the Big East championship tonight at 7:00 PM on ESPN2. The Huskies have made it to the Big East title game 17 of the last 19 seasons, which, according to Kyle Whelliston’s logic vis a vis Gonzaga, means they need to find themselves a better conference.

Looking a little further ahead, here’s a list of big games tomorrow and Thursday, from the perspective of Brendan Loy’s giant list o’ favorite and quasi-favorite teams:

• UConn vs. Syracuse (Big East first round), 2:00 PM Wednesday, ESPN
• Buffalo vs. Central Michigan (MAC first round), 5:00 PM Wednesday, live radio
• Central Connecticut State vs. Sacred Heart (NEC title game), 7:30 PM Wednesday, ESPN2
• Notre Dame vs. UConn/Syracuse (Big East quarterfinal), 2:00 PM Thursday, ESPN
• USC vs. Stanford (Pac-10 quarterfinal), 9:00 PM Thursday, FSN / Comcast
• Tennessee vs. LSU (SEC first round), 9:45 PM Thursday, ESPN Full Court

Former White House aide Lewis “Scooter” Libby has been found guilty on multiple counts in the CIA leak case.

Visit CNN for the latest.

According to Drudge: “A verdict has been reached in the CIA leak trial of former White House aide Libby… will be read at 12 noon EST.”

UPDATE, 12:11 PM: Guilty.

A Russian journalist who criticized the Putin regime “fell out of a window” to his death last week. The authorities are saying it was a suicide. Like hell it was. (Hat tip: InstaPundit.)

I don’t generally get my foreign-affairs news from Maxim magazine, but last night I was perusing the copy in our bathroom while on the john, and because I had already read all the good stuff (e.g., the interview with Christina Aguilera, the NYC-vs.-L.A. “which city has the hottest club girls” feature, etc.), I flipped to the article titled “President Putin: Mob Boss?” It isn’t available online, but it basically goes through the ominous recent history of Putin critics dying mysteriously, talks about how Putin has been consolidating power and packing the government with fellow ex-KGB goons, and concludes with a quote from some expert saying words to the effect that “what we are seeing here is the birth of a new fascist state.” A comparison to Mussolini’s Italy is made. (There’s also a quote — with reference to certain deaths of Duma members — along the lines of, “Imagine the FBI going around and killing Congressmen with impunity.”)

Anyway, a Maxim article obviously isn’t authoritative on such a weighty topic, but I think it’s clear we need to be paying more attention to what’s going on over in Mother Russia. And I’m not just saying that because of what’s happening on 24 with Consul Denethor and The Bomb, Dmitri.

The Evening Standard asks: Will a blood clot force Cheney to step down?

Oh, who are we kidding? Dick Cheney has been dead for years. (He spends all his time in an underground “undisclosed location”… does he sound alive to you??) The guy sitting next to Pelosi at the State of the Union was one of his robotic body doubles. This “blood clot” is clearly just a ruse to get more old people’s medicine to fuel the Cheney-bots. (That was also the motivation for the Prescription Drug Bill, by the way.) It’s only a matter of time before the Robotic Dick Cheney Army launches its attack on the unsuspecting populace… and when Dick Cheney grabs you with his metal claws, you can’t break free, because they’re made of metal, and Dick Cheney is strong.

Two suicide bombers struck a crowd of Shiite pilgrims today in Hilla, Iraq, killing at least 47 people and wounding at least 117, a Hilla police official told CNN.

Visit CNN for the latest.

Download it while you can! (Hat tip: Andrew Hiller.)

[Bumped to top. -ed.]

The first post-P-Dizzle-gate, non-SBA-endorsed issue of the Patty O’Herald has been released, and is circulating via e-mail. I just got a copy forwarded to me. After the jump, for everyone’s edification, a GIF file of the issue.

To understand what the heck the second story is talking about, you may want to re-read the controversial article that caused this whole kerfuffle.

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In light of the latest developments in the Patty O’Herald kerfuffle, including the SBA’s official statement and the release of a new issue of the Patty O (above), I thought now would be a good time to revisit the substance of the controversy. After the jump, I’ve quoted in full the official BLSA resolution condemning the controversial article. But first, I want to say a couple of things.

You may recall that things got rather nasty in the comments on my initial post about this. I want to apologize for my part in allowing that to happen. I made two major mistakes: first of all, I responded to personal accusations/attacks by upping the ante with further personal accusations/attacks, rather than taking the issue offline and discussing privately and civilly what really started out as largely just a simple misunderstanding. I’ve since made peace with the people involved in that side of things, and we’ve all expressed regret that the discussion developed the way it did. So, case closed, issue over, as far as I’m concerned, with regard to the personal stuff.

Secondly and more fundamentally, I made the mistake of coming flying out of the gate with accusations about people being “thin-skinned” and “easily offended” without even hearing their side of the story. It’s one thing to blog in that sort of combative fashion when dealing with a distant controversy involving people I don’t know, but in a controversy involving my friends, classmates and peers, I should have anticipated how explosive this issue was, and toned down the rhetoric at least until I had a clearer idea of the other side’s position. I, of course, reserve the right to say that people are overreacting if that’s what I honestly believe, but I should have made more of an effort to at least hear the other side out before condemning their position. A strong indicator of my failure to do so is that I still, more than three months later, really don’t have a good sense of precisely what is the position of the offended parties. In view of which…

I’m genuinely curious what exactly it is about the controversial article that was considered so offensive. I’m open to the possibility that there’s a reasonable interpretation whereby it is offensive — I’m just not seeing it, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Here’s how I framed the issue in a comment on another student’s blog (I’m not linking to it because I believe the blog is sort of quasi-private) last December, trying to be more diplomatic than I initially was on this blog:

While I certainly agree that “there’s just something inherently wrong with perpetuating racial/ethnic stereotypes,” for me the fundamental question is whether the article was perpetuating stereotypes, or mocking them. In my opinion, it was the latter, and I believe that’s perfectly OK — indeed, laudable! Stereotypes suck, and they should be mocked!

You mentioned that you respect me, and I appreciate that. I respect you too, and I respect lots of people who disagree with me on this. Yet I don’t really understand your position. Maybe if we break this issue down, we can come to some sort of understanding about why we disagree…

Surely you would agree that, in some circumstances, it is OK to mention stereotypes — simply for the purpose of debunking them, not spreading them. (After all, if we can’t even talk about them, how can we possibly discredit them?)

The question then becomes: 1) whether satire is ever an acceptable means of debunking stereotypes, and 2) if so, whether this particular article was intended as that sort of satire, and 3) if so, whether it succeeded in its intention. I think the answer to the first question is clearly and unequivocally yes, the answer to the second question is also clearly yes, and the answer to third question is debatable. I wonder which answers you would disagree with?

I personally feel that the article was clearly satirizing the stereotypes, not perpetuating them. Obviously, lots of people disagree with me about that. I’ve yet to really hear a compelling counterargument from the folks who were offended, explaining why this particular article was so offensive even though on its face, it appears to be satirizing stereotypes, and I think most people would agree that stereotypes deserve to be satirized. But, although I haven’t heard a compelling counterargument, I don’t doubt that one exists.

I also added, in response to a question, that “no, I wouldn’t feel differently if it involved stereotypes of Arabs or Jews (or Irish people, or whomever), for precisely the same reason. Making fun of stereotypes, making the stereotypes themselves look foolish, is perfectly OK, and does not ‘perpetuate’ the stereotypes.”

The fellow student to whom I wrote that comment never responded in full, as finals intervened before we could really finish our discussion. But — if the statute of limitations for debating this issue hasn’t passed already :) — I’m curious what anyone else who was offended by the article thinks about the points I made and the questions I asked.

And now, as promised, after the jump, the BLSA resolution condemning the article. I scanned it from a paper document, so if there are any obvious typos, they’re probably artifacts of the scanning process. I think I caught them all, though.

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