A -7 flare went over our apartment complex this evening:

Wider (but less zoomed-in) view here.

Speaking of college football playoffs… tonight in Chattanooga, it’s Appalachian State (12-2) against the Delaware Fightin’ Blue Hens (11-3) for the Division I-AA national championship. With a win, the Michigan-conquering Mountaineers can earn an unprecedented third straight title — and maybe, just maybe, quarterback Armanti Edwards can establish himself as a legit candidate for the 2008 Heisman Trophy. The game is at 8pm EST on ESPN2.

The shameless blog plugs worked! Julie Moffitt, the former SoCal VoCals phenom, is now a "FameCast Fenom" and winner of a cool $10,000! She won first place in the Internet competition’s Singer/Songwriter category, thanks to a furious rally in the final day of voting. (She was in third place as late as Wednesday evening; the polls closed at noon Thursday.) That rally is probably due mostly to Julie’s own network of fans, but hey, you never know — maybe it was support from the Irish Trojan crowd that pushed her over the top. :)

There’s been no reaction yet on Julie’s blog or her Facebook group — probably because she’s been busy celebrating, and deservedly so — but I’m sure there will be eventually. Anyway, congrats, Julie!! (Hat tip: Mike.)

UPDATE: Julie — who, incidentally, was also named the "Critics’ Choice," as seen in this video — just sent an e-mail to her fans titled "WE DID IT!!!" The full thing is reproduced after the jump, but here’s the money quote:

Whether I had won or not, this has been a life-changing experience.  It’s like the VH1 "Best Week Ever" – I won $10,000, was chosen as an industry favorite in my genre, and I got a puppy!!  I’m really excited for next year – more touring, a new album (HOORAY!) and time to take advantage of all these new industry connections I’ve been making.  :)  My 10-year high school reunion is about a year and a half away…is that enough time to get a Top 10 single on the radio?

Like I said, the whole thing is after the jump.

P.S. By the way, Julie’s 2006 debut album is available on iTunes. And one of its songs has already gotten a positive review in comments on this post!

P.P.S. I say "debut album," but of course, Julie is also prominently featured on the SoCal VoCals’ best album to date IMHO, V3: Previously Unreleased, including in particular Track #12, "Total Eclipse of the Heart," her signature solo.

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Frank Eck, one of Notre Dame’s most generous benefactors and the man for whom the new law school building will be named, died yesterday at age 84. Here is Dean O’Hara’s statement on his passing.

Looks like the Dookies have stolen themselves a coach from Tennessee.  According to local reports, Tennessee offensive coordinator David Cutcliffe has been offered and is expected to accept the head coaching job in Durham.

Best wishes to Coach Cut.  I hate to see him go, but I certainly understand the desire to make about 3 times what he’s making as OC here.  He’s going to have a long tough road to get any football success at Duke, but I certainly think he’ll do a fine job.

The USC Trojans are your 2007-08 college football national champions! Well, sort of.

I received a phone call this afternoon from a member of the Notre Dame Law School administration, in response to the e-mail that I sent to the deans about the construction situation discussed in Lisa’s post yesterday. The administrator with whom I spoke asked that I not reveal his or her identity (for reasons that I consider valid, and not damaging to the person’s credibility), but I can assure you that this person knows what he/she is talking about, and I have full confidence that he/she was being sincere and forthright during our conversation. Based on what we discussed, I now believe that the administration is being far more reasonable and accommodating than it first appeared to me.

(Continued after the jump. Don’t miss my abject admission of wrong-headedness at the end of the post!)

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MLB steroid report: Use widespread, includes biggest stars.

UPDATE BY BRENDAN: Here’s the report (PDF).

Deadspin: "Looking through the names, most of the big names in the earlier list are not there. But Clemens definitely is."

InstaPundit notices that it’s a bad press day for the Democrats.

George Mitchell’s report on steroids in baseball will be released this afternoon at a 2pm EST press conference, and it is expected to name names — "somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 to 70 players," including "potential Hall of Famers," according to sources. "One baseball official familiar with the findings called the report ‘painstaking’ in detail and said that it runs 300-400 pages and may
include some documentary evidence (as did the Dowd report, baseball’s
1989 investigation of gambling allegations involving Pete Rose)." Bud Selig will hold a press conference of his own at 4:30pm EST. More here, here and here.

P.S. An anonymous commenter has posted a list of the players allegedly named. The same list appears in several places on the Interwebs. However, I have yet to see any information about the sourcing of this "leaked" list, except that it’s apparently going around via e-mail, so I’d take it with a major grain of salt at this point. For all we know, some random fan might have just made this up off the top of his head.

UPDATE: Deadspin has posted the list, saying, "In the last hour, we have been forwarded a list of players mentioned
in the Mitchell Report by about 25 different people. Is this list
substantiated? No. Is it from an MLB official? No. Do we have any
reason to believe it’s anything but random bunk? No. But it’s what’s
making the rounds today, and we’re less than three hours away, and if
the list is wrong, we’ll know real soon.

But, if you’re curious, here’s the list of players supposedly
mentioned in the report, according to just about every email we’ve
received. It could very likely be one of those Web urban legends that
somehow got around, like when everyone thought Scott Baio was dead. It
probably is, actually."

But at least one name from the list seems to be confirmed: Roger Clemens. Ouch. This is leading to accusations of Boston Bias. Really?

Anyway, the Washington Post’s website will carry the press conference live.

I’ll probably have a post later on today (unless Brendan or someone else beats me to it) about the Mitchell Report and Bud Selig’s response to it, but for right now, let me just mention the two biggest deals of the last couple of days. 

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2007’s corrections of the year. (Hat tip: Becky.)

I don’t know whether that site published a similar item for 2006, but if they did, I would argue that Becky herself should have been in it (follow-up here).

Former SoCal VoCal Julie Moffitt (previous posts here and here) has risen to the #2 spot in the FameCast Singer-Songwriter Finals, which puts her achingly close to the $10,000 prize — but she still needs your support! In an e-mail to her fans last night, Julie wrote that she "think[s] an extra 15 or 20 votes will put me over the top at this point." The polls close at noon today. So, with apologies for the excessive shilling :) … one last time … vote for Julie!

(You must be registered to vote. Registration is free. One vote is allowed per account per day, so if you voted yesterday, you can vote again today.)

Sounds like both parties on Capitol Hill are being very mature:

The two sides are, in some cases, refusing even to speak to each other about the massive omnibus and an Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) bill.

Senate Republicans refused to meet Democrats Tuesday on spending and House Democrats rejected the Senate’s AMT “patch,” preparing a new version paid for with corporate tax increases.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) countered the majority’s plans with a proposal that would require Democrats to accept virtually all of President Bush’s demands on spending.

McConnell demanded that Democrats also provide $70 billion for the war with no strings attached.

McConnell further demanded that Democrats agree to immediately fund the addition of Ronald Reagan’s face to Mount Rushmore, and also that the national anthem be changed from “The Star-Spangled Banner” to “America, F*** Yeah.” Harry Reid said he’ll do those things if McConnell and the rest of the Republican caucus will each personally donate $10,000 to Planned Parenthood, and also agree to change “one nation, under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance to “one nation, under Hillary Clinton.” Reid further demanded that the Republicans publicly declare that sodomy, not baseball, is now America’s national pastime. “You’re an asshole, Reid,” McConnell stated upon hearing of the proposal. “I know you are, but what am I?” Reid replied. The two men then proceeded to begin slapping each other and pulling each other’s hair.

MGoBlog: “Something is rotten in the state of Schembechler, and it will not yield the throne.”