John McCain says critics of his “Bomb Bomb Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran” quip — which may have been based on an antiwar Internet video that “went viral” last year — should “lighten up and get a life.” (Hat tip: InstaPundit.)

A convenient rundown of who/what to blame for the Virginia Tech shootings. On the list: Bush, Satan, The Illuminati, and of course, The Gays. (Hat tip: Pajamas Media.)

And here I thought Cho Seung-Hui did it. Silly me.

UPDATE: Actually, I think an angry, MSM-hating God did it!

Apropos of Mickey Kaus’s Instalanched quote — “The Imus affair does look kind of small in retrospect, doesn’t it?” — Andrew e-mailed me a few days ago about how the Virginia Tech massacre has taken over the 24-hour news cycle and erased the previous megastories du jour, Imus and Anna Nicole, in much the same way that 9/11 took over the news cycle from Gary Condit and Chandra Levy (and, I would add, shark attacks). He suggested: “Maybe God is trying to send us a message that He hates cable news and the 24/7 media cycle.”

Heh. Andrew could be on to something! Does anyone remember what stories were dominating the news media before Columbine? Before Katrina?

Scott e-mailed me this morning asking about the possibility of setting up a Yahoo Fantasy Baseball league for my blog readers. I’ve never done fantasy baseball before, but it seems like it might be fun. And the deadline to get in is eight days from now, so we still have time. So I just thought I’d try to get a sense of reader interest… would you join such a thing? And would anyone like to volunteer to manage the league, since I don’t really know what I’m doing? :)

I sort of hate to keep giving this controversy new legs, but I’m not going to arbitrarily cut off the discussion while people still have things to say, so… here goes. Fellow Notre Dame 3L Jimmy Paulino, the subject of much controversy and discussion stemming from his quoted remarks in an Observer article earlier this week, has submitted a lengthy piece to the Observer, which is apparently due to be published in tomorrow’s paper. A little bird sent me a sneak-preview copy, and I’ve published it in full after the jump.

First, though, two letters to the editor were published today: one by a trio of alumnae (a fuller version of that letter was on the blog yesterday), the other by a 1L named Laura Geldermann. Both defend the law school while acknolwedging that it is not without its problems. Both are worth reading, especially if you want to actually talk about the issues, rather than just about Jimmy’s controversial comments.

Now, on to Jimmy’s leaked op-ed. Again, it’s after the jump. Enjoy. And, as Randy Jackson might say, yo, dawg, check it out: keep it real, keep it civil. (Okay, Randy wouldn’t say that last part.)

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Earlier this evening, we received an e-mail about a “We are all Hokies” sort of event tomorrow, “Orange and Maroon Effect” Day:

Virginia Tech family members across the country have united to declare this Friday, April 20th, an “Orange and Maroon Effect” day to honor those killed in the tragic events on campus Monday, and to show support for Virginia Tech students, faculty, administrators, staff, alumni, and friends. “Orange and Maroon Effect” was born several years ago as an invitation to Tech fans to wear orange and maroon to Virginia Tech athletic events. We invite everyone from all over the country to be a part of the Virginia Tech family this Friday, to wear orange and maroon to support the families of those who were lost, and to support the school and community we all love so much.

We are all part of the Hokie nation now, touched by their tragedy and one in their healing.

We also received an e-mail containing Father Jenkins’s letter about Notre Dame’s emergency plans in the event (God forbid) of a Virginia Tech-style event here (or any other campus emergency, really). Particularly interesting is this paragraph:

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Just to follow up on yesterday’s post about Simon Cowell supposedly disrespecting the Virginia Tech victims, here’s a video of how American Idol addressed the issue at the top of last night’s show:

Also, if you missed it (as I did), you can watch the clip of Sanjaya being voted off. Note the crowd cheering wildly, rather than the loud booing from fans of the ousted contestants that usually predominates. Heh.

The jury in the trial of Mary Winkler finds her guilty of the volutary manslaughter of her preacher husband.

Visit CNN for the latest.

“At first they thought it was a turtle in there, but then they discovered an alligator.” –Sheriff’s Deputy Larry Butler of Adams County, Indiana. (Hat tip: Becky.)

About NBC’s decision to air portions of Virginia Tech killer Cho Seung-Hui’s “multimedia manifesto,” commenter Angrier and Angrier writes:

Is it me, or is it outrageous that the media are doing exactly what this psycho Cho wanted by airing his s**t on TV? There was a time when the news media wouldn’t have done this. All NBC and the like are doing is encouraging the next Cho/Klebold/Harris, etc… by demonstrating that they can, indeed, get the 15-minutes of infamy they crave by killing innocent people and sending a tape into a TV network.

Ron Coleman agrees, stating bluntly that “the blood of the victims of the ‘next one’ is on the hands of everyone in the decision-making chain at NBC for this utterly inexcusable decision.” (Hat tip: InstaPundit.) The American Spectator’s Happy Feder also blasts NBC, and plays the Imus card in the process: “Don Imus calls some young women ‘nappy headed hos’ and we’re all supposed be to shocked, shocked I tell you…but I guess it’s okay for NBC is going to realize Cho’s dreams of celebrity status at the expense of 32 lives.” Feder adds:

To run the Cho video is a vile act. It doesn’t take a genius to know other whack jobs are out there watching. Maybe even a terrorist or two. They’ll see how easy it is to spit in the face of America. Just make a nice little video, mail it off, whip out a few guns and start pulling the trigger.

Ann Althouse, by contrast, defends NBC, writing that “professional journalism isn’t about expressing condemnation or praise. It’s about reporting newsworthy facts.” And NBC News President Steve Capus defending his decision by saying, “This is I think as close as we will ever come to being inside of the mind of a killer, and I thought that it needed to be released. Pretty much every single news organization all around the world has made the same decision, that it was appropriate to release this information.”

However, that last statement appears to be demonstrably wrong, given that the editor-in-chief of CBC News says his network made a different decision:

At the CBC, we debated the issue throughout the evening and made the decision that we would not broadcast any video or audio of this bizarre collection. On CBC Television, Radio and CBC.ca, we would report the essence of what the killer was saying, but not do what he so clearly hoped all media would do. To decide otherwise - in our view -would be to risk copycat killings. Speaking personally, I have long admired NBC News and I am sure my admiration of their journalists will endure. But I think their handling of these tapes was a mistake. As I watched them last night, sickened as I’m sure most viewers were, I imagined what kind of impact this broadcast would have on similarly deranged people. In horrific but real ways, this is their 15 seconds of fame. I had this awful and sad feeling that there were parents watching these excerpts on NBC who were unaware they they will lose their children in some future copycat killing triggered by these broadcasts.

Thoughts?

Leo Lewis, movie reviewer for the Times of London, liked what he saw at the world premiere of Spider-Man 3 yesterday in Tokyo, but he ends the review with a gripe:

Also disappointing is the inability of the director, Sam Raimi, to end the romp without a fleeting shot of the American flag. The Stars and Stripes just happens to be fluttering behind Spidey as he makes his triumphal return to honour, probity and good honest fist-fighting.

Andrew Hiller (who e-mailed me the review) responds: “Come up with your own superhero, you whining Tories.” Heh.

Now that American Idol has aired on the West Coast, I think it’s safe to blog this:

WOOHOO!!! Sanjaya got voted off!!!

The folks at VoteForTheWorst.com are unhappy, of course, and I’m sure Howard Stern is, too. But the vast majority of Idol’s fan base is relieved, as we can stop fretting about the possibility of Sanyaja (gasp) winning… and stop listening to him sing (or should I say, “sing”) every Tuesday night. If you missed it, here’s the ghastly performance that finally led to his ouster:

For all the hype, controversy, hunger strikes and so forth, Sanjaya didn’t get as far as the last severely under-talented contestant to make it into Idol’s later rounds: Buffalo’s own John Stevens, who wasn’t voted out until the Top 6 show of Season 3, outlasting Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson (who was voted out at the Top 7 stage, which is what last night’s show was). Of course, Sanjaya was significantly worse than John, and also, I think Sanjaya’s fan base was more cynical, voting for him because he was bad, whereas John’s fan base was more delusional, failing to recognize that he was bad. But still.

Anyway, 7 out of 14 contestants in my American Idol pool correctly predicted Sanjaya’s eviction. Only two of them, however — myself and my co-leader, Jay Johnson — picked Sanjaya this week after having never predicted his ouster in any previous week. (Mark Gardner and Kevin Hauschulz had each picked him once before; Marty West, twice; Toni Namnath, three times; and Vicki from NJ, a whopping five times. Heh.)

Updated standings after the jump.

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Two games in Long Island, two wins for the Sabres. Me likey. Here’s Bfloblog’s roundup of last night’s Game 4 (which Becky and I had a blast watching with a bunch of fellow Sabres fans at O’Neill Hall, by the way).

Oh, and that controversial “no goal”? Whatever. First of all, I think it was the right call, but regardless, the hockey gods totally freakin’ owed Buffalo a “no goal.” That’s all I have to say about that.

Now it’s back to HSBC Arena on Friday to try and wrap up a series win at home for the first time in almost a decade. LET’S GO, BUFF-A-LO!

Woohoo!

Becky and I are heading to a Game 4 party at the O’Neill Hall lounge, where they’ll have the game on HDTV. Alas, this being a Notre Dame dorm, they presumbly won’t have any of these:

(Hat tip: Bfloblog.) Oh, well. Go Sabres!

In one of Monday’s blog posts about the Virginia Tech massacre, commenter “4-7″ got reamed for suggesting that a Flight 93-like response was in order, that more people should have taken matters into their own hands. Now columnist Mark Steyn has weighed in with essentially the same point, saying the response to the tragedy is another example of a corrosive culture of passivity. An interesting read. (Hat tip: InstaPundit.)