And we’re talking about homosexuality, polygamy, and polyamory. I even got to use the phrase “random fetish” (quoting Jon Stewart). God bless Con Law II.

P.S. For those who are interested in this topic of polyamory, here are the articles I sent to Professor Mason after the class discussion on Tuesday: from The Observer, from The New Scientist and (only tangentially relevant) from New York Magazine.

Myself, I agree with the Stewart Theory: the debate over gay marriage (and related issues) comes down to the fact that homosexuality is a fundamental part of the human condition, whereas polyamory and other such sexual traits are “random fetishes,” IMHO. That doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with them, necessarily (personally, I don’t care what people do, as long as they aren’t hurting anyone else… er, without that person’s informed consent, I suppose, so we can allow for S&M), but it’s relevant to whether society needs to recognize them in some way, protect them from discrimination, etc. That’s my opinion. But can I justify it on a legal, or constitutional, basis? That’s a somewhat more complicated question.

Anyway, it’s 1:39. Thirty-six minutes left…

P.P.S. The phrase “God bless Con Law II” is not intended to discriminate against anyone on the basis of their religion. :)

UPDATE, 2:05 PM: Ten minutes left!

UPDATE, 2:15 PM: Technically, the class period is over, but we’re still here. Not that I mind. This is a fun discussion. :)

UPDATE, 2:17 PM: Someone’s playing tetris. Heh.

UPDATE, 2:18:15 PM: Done!

P.P.P.S. I’m glad my law-school career ended (class-wise) with ConLaw II. It was one of my favorite classes ever. And I’m not just saying that because Professor of the Year Mason might be reading this. (I have no idea whether she’s one of the faculty members who reads my blog.) It was really a great class.

The U.S. Senate has voted to approve a war funding bill that includes an Iraq troop withdrawal timetable. The measure now goes to President Bush, who has vowed to veto it.

Visit CNN for the latest.

NDLS’s own Meg Tierney is nominated for Grad/Faculty/Staff Female of the Year in the “RecSpys,” the RecSports awards. You need a Notre Dame NetID to vote. Vote here!

[UPDATE: Xoxo is working again from NDLS. See below. -1:50 PM]

The self-described “Most Prestigious College Admissions Discussion Board in the World,” Xoxohth.com a.k.a. AutoAdmit.com, has seemingly been blocked by Notre Dame. People off-campus report being able to access it, and it’s still accessible through Anonymouse [WARNING: Anonymouse may display NSFW ads!!], so clearly the site isn’t down. But when you try to access it directly from campus (well, from the law school, at least), you get a standard error message:

I personally feel a degree of contempt for Xoxohth that exceeds even my contempt for NDNation — the cretins who inhabit that message board are a bunch of dishonest, pretentious, snobby, racist a**holes who delight in anonymous character assassination and tearing down their fellow human beings — so I’m not exactly shedding any tears over this, if it’s true. But, as with the Billy Packer thing, I guess I should be outraged, free speech or whatever, blah blah blah. But seriously, Xoxohth sucks.

P.S. Xoxohth was recently in the news because, in the wake of the Virginia Tech tragedy, some idiot user posted a threat to Hastings Law School, as a “joke,” which led to the school being closed for a day last Wednesday. I have no idea if that’s related to the apparent ban here.

P.P.S. You can read more about Xoxohth, and the many controversies it has spawned, here. That post in turn contains links to various others.

UPDATE: Lisa, who tipped me off to this story, sends along a link to Notre Dame’s Responsible Use of Information Technologies Policy, which forbids, among other things, using computer resources for any “purpose which is illegal, immoral, unethical, dishonest, damaging to the reputation of the University, inconsistent with the mission of the University, or likely to subject the University to liability.” Specifically cited examples of such purposes include “harassment,” “libel or slander,” “posting or sending obscene, pornographic, sexually explicit, or offensive material,” and “posting or sending material that is contrary to the mission or values of the University.” Xoxohth routinely involves all of those things. No idea if that has anything to do with this, though.

UPDATE 2: According to a commenter on a Xoxohth thread linking to this post, “It’s not just ND. I emailed around. A friend in the northeast is having trouble, too.” Not sure what to make of that.

UPDATE 3: False alarm! Xoxohth is accessible again from the law school, as of 1:50 PM. Dunno what was wrong before, but I guess it wasn’t a ban (or if so, it was lifted very quickly).

Incidentally, I e-mailed OIT (the Office of Information Technology) at 12:48 PM and asked: “Has the website www.xoxohth.com (also known as www.autoadmit.com) been blocked by the university? It is inaccessible from the law school (and I assume from elsewhere on campus), but the site isn’t down, it can still be accessed from elsewhere and through sites like Anonymouse.” I haven’t heard back, and I have no idea whether my e-mail has anything to do with the site’s restoration, I’m just throwing it out there.

UPDATE 4: OIT wrote back and said they’re able to access the site. They seemed not to know anything about the problem. So who knows?

So, there’s a Democratic presidential debate tonight.

I won’t be watching. I’ll be at the Flogging Molly concert at Legends instead.

Speaking of which, is anyone else here going to that? If so, when are you planning to get in line?

Heh:

Hugh Grant has been arrested and questioned by police after a photographer accused the actor of attacking him with a tub of baked beans.

What the hell was he thinking? ;)

Gonzaga at Memphis on Saturday, January 19? I’m so there!

Depending on the exact schedule, the USC-Memphis came in New York might also be worth a (slightly longer) trip…

Tomorrow (er, today, Thursday) is my last day of class.

Ever.

Dunno why that didn’t hit me until just now, but it didn’t. (Classes don’t officially end until Tuesday, but I don’t happen to have any classes on Friday or next Monday or Tuesday.)

I liveblogged my last undergraduate class. Will I do the same for Professor Mason’s ConLaw II (my very last class, from 1:00 to 2:15) later today? I dunno… back at USC, none of my profs read my blog. ;) But I’ll undoubtedly blog something, at least.

Of course, “last class” really just means “OMG, time to really really start panicking about finals.” But still, there’s a wee bit of nostalgia wrapped up in it.

A group of USC students wrestled a gunman to the ground after seeing him carrying a .25-caliber handgun at an off-campus party on Sunday. The gunman, a 19-year-old student named Zao Xing Yang, was arrested and later found to have meth, a .44-caliber revolver, a big wad of cash and “threatening materials” in his apartment.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said, “USC school police responded quickly, as did the Los Angeles Police Department.” So they did, and good for them, but of course, that’s their job. It seems like the real story is the quick response by civilians — specifically, fellow Trojans — that may have defused a violent situation:

LAPD Chief William J. Bratton said the incident occurred about 3 a.m., when students at the party overheard Yang “make intimidating statements to a coed and threatening her with violence.”

“At one point, the host of the party asked Yang to leave,” Bratton said. “Yang began arguing with the host, and that’s when he noticed Yang had a gun in his hand.”

The students restrained Yang until campus security officers and police arrived at the house, in the 2300 block of Portland Street, Bratton said.

This is especially interesting in light of all the recent talk about, arguably, a dearth of Flight 93-style individual action in the Virginia Tech shootings, leading to lots of discussion in the conservative blogosphere about the need for a culture of self-defense. Regardless of where anyone comes down in that debate, or the various gun-control arguments it has helped spawn, I certainly think there’s reason to laud these USC students for what they did. As Matt Wiser, brother of a Trojan but himself an LSU Tiger, wrote in the e-mail tipping me off to this story, “If ever there’s a time to be proud of your school, it’s now.” Indeed.

Time to break out the beer! Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinal series between the Buffalo Sabres and the New York Rangers is about to get underway in Buffalo. (Complete schedule here.)

You can read previews of the series here, here and here. Bfloblog has an open thread.

LET’S GO, BUFF-A-LO!!!

UPDATE: I’ve been too busy engaging in a political flame war to update the score of the game, but Buffalo has just scored three goals in the course of four minutes, and now leads 3-0 at the end of the second period. Woohoo!

UPDATE 2: YAAAY!!! Buffalo wins, 5-2!

Barack Obama says “Rudy Giuliani today has taken the politics of fear to a new low” because Giuliani made the following remarks about the war on terrorism:

If any Republican is elected president — and I think obviously I would be the best at this — we will remain on offense and will anticipate what [the terrorists] will do and try to stop them before they do it. …

[America will ultimately win the war on terror no matter which party wins the presidency.] But the question is how long will it take and how many casualties will we have? If we are on defense, we will have more losses and it will go on longer.

I listen a little to the Democrats and if one of them gets elected, we are going on defense. We will wave the white flag on Iraq. We will cut back on the Patriot Act, electronic surveillance, interrogation and we will be back to our pre-Sept. 11 attitude of defense. …

The Democrats do not understand the full nature and scope of the terrorist war against us.

Obama’s response? “America is united. We know we can win this war based on shared purpose, not the same divisive politics that question your patriotism if you dare to question failed policies that have made us less secure.”

Oh, good f***ing grief.

Okay, look. As I made clear on Monday, I don’t approve of attacking politicians’ patriotism or saying they “don’t support the troops” because of honest policy disagreements. But this is different. Will someone please point me to where exactly Giuliani questioned anyone’s patriotism?

It seems to me, Giuliani is expressing an honest opinion about policy, not calling the Democrats unpatriotic or claiming they disagree with the war’s “shared purpose.” He’s talking about method, not purpose. He is simply saying that he believes Republican policies (and in particular, his policies) will keep us safer against terrorists than Democratic policies will. How is that objectionable? I mean, it might be wrong as a substantive matter, but how can the topic itself be off-limits for discussion?!?

Democrats routinely say that President Bush’s policies have “made America less safe.” Obama himself said it in the same breath that he was condemning Giuliani (”policies that have made us less secure”), and Hillary Clinton made a similar statement in her response to Rudy: “The plain truth is that this Administration has done too little to protect our ports, make our mass transit safer, and protect our cities. They have isolated us in the world and have let Al Qaeda regroup. The next President is going to be left with these problems and will have to do what it takes to make us safer.”

Whether or not these opinions are correct, they’re certainly legitimate ones, well within the realm of acceptable political discourse, right? Well, if Bush’s policies have made America unsafe, it follows logically that maintaining Bush’s policies will continue to make America unsafe. In other words, the Democrats are saying that electing a Republican will make America less safe. For the love all that is holy, HOW IS THAT DIFFERENT from a Republican arguing that electing a Democrat will make America less safe???

The Democrats have every right to argue that the Republicans have made America unsafe and vulnerable with their ineffective policies, whereas the Dems will adopt a new course that will make us safer and stronger. And the Republicans have every right to argue the contrary position. In fact, it is essential that we have precisely this argument! Both sides need to make the case to the American people, “we have the proper strategy for this war; we will keep you safe.” If we don’t have that discussion, how can the electorate possibly make an informed choice?

This reflexive tendency to play the victim card — “how dare you question our patriotism! how dare you call us weak! how dare you talk about things that involve ‘fear’!” — is one of the major things that has driven me away from the Democrats in recent years. As a rhetorical tactic, it’s dishonest and hypocritical. More importantly, it distracts us from a very, very important discussion about the future of our country and the direction of this war. It’s also a strategic disaster, because it muddies the waters and deadens the outrage when the Republicans commit real rhetorical sins, like claiming that honest statements of principled opposition to the “surge” are somehow unpatriotic or off-limits. The Democrats are the Party That Cried Wolf in this regard: they scream “patriotism!” or “politics of fear!” so often that people are less likely to pay attention when they have a real point, and thus the Republicans can actually get away with more. Obama’s reaction is Karl Rove’s wet dream. All the moreso because an awful lot of voters agree with Giuliani on this point, and the Democrats are never going to change their minds simply by saying, “How dare you think that!!!”

Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats need to wake up and realize they cannot declare their foreign policy ideas off-limits to criticism. These are legitimate questions Giuliani is driving at, and Obama & co. need to answer them, not disingenuously deflect them. If Obama thinks Giuliani is wrong to characterize the Dems’ position on Iraq as “waving the white flag,” he needs to explain why that’s wrong, and what exactly the Dems’ position is. If Obama thinks the elimination of the Patriot Act, electronic surveillance and so forth will be costless in the war on terror, he needs to explain why and how that can be the case. Or, if he acknowledges that there are costs, but he believes the benefits are worth the costs, he needs to explain that and to delineate the costs and benefits — in other words, he needs to justify his position. If Obama disagrees with Giuliani’s assertion that “the Democrats do not understand the full nature and scope of the terrorist war against us,” then he needs to outline an anti-terror strategy which demonstrates that he does, in fact, understand the war’s nature and scope. Simply put, he needs to rebut the substance of Giuliani’s remarks, not simply accuse Giuliani of “playing the politics of fear” and “questioning his patriotism” when Giuliani is doing nothing of the sort.

UPDATE: It’s easy to see why the Irrational Far Left hates The New Republic with a passion only rivaled by their hatred for Joe Lieberman. TNR has writers who actually understand basic common-sense ideas like this one. Isaac Chotiner quotes Obama’s description of Bush’s “failed policies that have made us less secure” and writes:

It’s almost as if Obama is saying America would be safer without Republican policies!

Terrorism is an important issue, and politicians can and should be arguing about which/whose strategies will keep America more secure. Every time Republicans mention how much more they “get” terrorism than the Democrats, well, they may be wrong, but they are by no means out of bounds. Democrats have been saying for a good four years now that Iraq has made America less safe. This is the debate we should be having.

Exactly. And I literally don’t understand how anyone can not understand that. Well, any sane, rational, reasonably intelligent person, at least. There’s a reason I use so many question marks in my post above — I am utterly incredulous that anyone with any pretention to logical faculties could possibly think Obama is right about this.

Congratulations are in order for:

Professor of the Year: Professor Jennifer Mason

McLean Faculty/Staff Award: Tim Gritten

McLean Student Award: Jon Schoenwetter

Conrad Kellenberg Service Award: Stephen M. Duvernay

Huzzah!

Glenn Reynolds: “From what I can tell, the Taliban have fled Afghanistan and now run the Human Resources and IT departments at major American corporations.”

P.S. Speaking of Glenn: he wishes Southwest Airlines flew to his town, a.k.a. Knoxville. So do I!

William B. Lawless, dean of the Notre Dame Law School from 1968 to 1971, died Monday at age 84. Among other things, he started NDLS’s London Program.

Buffalo-area readers will be interested to know that he went to Canisius High School. He also got a B.A. from UB, though the timeline listed in the article doesn’t make any sense (he went to law school, then college? huh?). He later taught at UB and Fordham.

Anyway, “in lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be sent to support scholarships for Notre Dame law students. The address is: Notre Dame Law School Annual Fund, 1100 Grace Hall, Notre Dame, IN 46556.”

Make your predictions in commnts! Current standings here.