ABC’s telecast of the Academy Awards is underway. This thread will remain on top of my homepage throughout the show.

After the jump are the latest standings in the 4th annual Irish Trojan Oscar Pool, as well as any liveblogging I may do about the show itself. Updates are in reverse chronological order, so the latest update will always be posted on top (immediately after the jump). You may want to simply go to the permalink and reload it throughout the evening.

You may also want to check out Nikki Finke’s liveblog.

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Cuba’s National Assembly has named Raul Castro, Fidel Castro’s younger brother, as the country’s president.

Heh.

Ralph Nader is running for president again.

Says Obama: “I think anybody has the right to run for president if they file sufficient papers. And I think the job of the Democratic Party is to be so compelling that a few percentage of the vote going to another candidate is not going to make any difference.”

He also says, in response to Nader’s criticism that Obama lacks substance: “My sense is that Mr. Nader is somebody who, if you don’t listen and adopt all of his policies, thinks you’re not substantive. He seems to have a pretty high opinion of his own work.” Obama added that, “historically,” Nader is a “singular” and “heroic figure” for his consumer advocacy, but “I do think there is a sense now that if somebody is not hewing to the Ralph Nader agenda, then you must be lacking in some way.”

P.S. If Nader’s percentage of the vote keeps declining at the rate it did between 2000 (2.73%) and 2004 (0.38%), he’ll get 0.05% this year. Or, if you prefer subtraction to division and multiplication, he’ll get negative 1.97%. :)

Just a reminder that the deadline to enter my Oscar Pool is 7:00 PM EST tonight! And of course, I’ll be posting live results during the show, beginning at 8:00 PM, so stay tuned for that.

(This post will remain on top of the homepage until the deadline has passed. New posts will appear below.)

Politico’s Ben Smith has a post up about “chaos” at a Nevada county convention, an event that he says “was supposed to be something like a formality, ratifying the choices of caucusgoers last month.”

Hmm… well, as a practical matter, that might be true. But procedurally speaking, it’s not correct. Let’s go to The Green Papers for an explanation of the actual process.

Back on January 19, when Nevada held its public caucuses, voters in each precinct chose not presidential candidates, nor national-convention delegates “pledged” to a particular candidate. Instead, they chose delegates to the very county conventions that were held yesterday. It’s a bit like how, on “Election Day” in November, we’re actually voting for presidential electors, not the candidates they’re pledged to. Except in this case, the system is even more convoluted, and nobody’s “pledged” to anybody. “While a non-binding Presidential Preference Poll is conducted during the caucuses, delegates at the Precinct Caucus level are not bound to their declared Presidential preference.”

Next in the process are the county conventions, which choose the county’s delegates to the Nevada State Democratic Convention. Again, “while a non-binding Presidential Preference Poll is conducted during the Conventions, delegates at the Precinct Caucus level are not bound to their declared Presidential preference.”

Finally, the delegates selected by the county conventions meet at the state convention from April 18 to 20, and only then are the national convention delegates actually allocated and chosen.

Nevada is hardly unique in this regard. Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Nebraska, North Dakota, Texas, Washington and Wyoming will all be allocating national-convention delegates at little-noticed, low-profile events over the next few months. These events will be treated as rubber-stamp formalities by the media — if they’re even discussed at all — but in a race this close, where every delegate counts, they could potentially be very important.

For instance, if you thought you knew the pledged-delegate count in Iowa (supposedly Obama 16, Clinton 15, Edwards 14), you may be in for a surprise when the county conventions convene on March 15. Will Edwards’s county delegates stick with Johnny Boy, or will they vote for one of the other two candidates? Will any of Hillary’s county delegates have changed their minds as Obama-mania has taken hold over the last month-and-a-half? Or, conversely, will any Obama supporters have switched to Hillary? As The Green Papers notes, there’s nothing to stop them from doing so. And a switcheroo here or there could alter the delegate balance.

Iowa is particularly likely to see changes from the expected tally because of the Edwards effect, but the other states bear watching, too. The Obama and Clinton camps may have pledged not to “poach” national convention delegates once they’re allocated, but that isn’t the case yet in these states. And even without “poaching,” we could see delegates individually changing their minds. So I think it’s worth a closer look at this bit of potentially important procedural minutiae.

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I’m expecting a busy afternoon and evening, and thus probably won’t be able to watch as much basketball as I’d like. But there’s plenty to talk about, with the day’s biggest games being Drake @ Butler at 5:00 PM on ESPN2 (the BracketBusters marquee game) and, of course, Tennessee @ Memphis at 9:00 PM on ESPN2. Although, don’t sleep on Kent State @ St. Mary’s at midnight on the Deuce, which Kyle Whelliston says is potentially the most consequential ‘Busters game of them all, bubble-wise.

Anyway, here’s the scoreboard. If you’re watching the games and you feel like commenting, fire away.

P.S. Nice wins for USC and Notre Dame on Thursday night, eh?

P.P.S. Check out 4th through 9th place in the Pac-10 standings. Wow. Is that conference balanced or what?

UPDATE: Tennessee wins, 66-62! Come Monday morning, the Vols will be #1 in the nation for the first time in school history. (Er, on the men’s side, that is.)

And so ends Memphis’s bid for an undefeated season. The Tigers were 8-for-17 from the free-throw line, and they didn’t hit a single three-pointer after their white-hot start in the game’s first 12 minutes.

Oh, and Drake beat Butler in another very exciting game.

This is just another reminder to get your Oscar picks in! The deadline to enter my 4th annual Oscar Pool is 7:00 PM EST tomorrow.

UPDATE: Nikki Finke on what to expect tomorrow night:

A chilly rain is forecast for Sunday so the Red Carpet has been tented.
Nerves are still frayed from the writers strike just ended. Panic is setting in about an actors strike that may be on the way. Few
in America or the world have seen the nominated pics and performances.
There’s no suspense because Hollywood has long ago guessed who and what
will probably win. The vast majority of the presenters aren’t big
names. And not only has the host done it before to really poor
ratings, but Jon Stewart couldn’t even find anything funny to say about
it while guesting on Larry King Live. So, all in all, I think everyone should expect the Worst Oscars Ever In The History Of Hollywood.

Heh.

Josh Marshall: "There’s no way of getting around the fact that McCain routinely, almost
constantly, issues categorical denials that are demonstrably false."

More here. ("He can’t put this one behind him simply by asserting that he’s JOHN
MCCAIN, a living embodiment of honor and integrity, and so we all have
to trust him.")

For me, these dissembling denials of side-issues are a much bigger problem than vague, anonymous allegations in a liberal newspaper that some people thought he was maybe having an affair. … Look, McCain’s chance of winning over centrist voters like myself is largely premised on his reputation for "straight talk." If that’s just another hollow brand, then what’s left?

P.S. On the other hand, maybe some swing voters will vote for McCain just to spite the Times. Though I doubt it. It’s February. The anger against the newspaper can’t possibly burn white-hot for 8 1/2 months, can it? On the other hand, 8 1/2 months is plenty of time for McCain’s "straight talk" bubble to either solidify or be popped. So I still think the false denials are the bigger problem. (It’s always the cover-up…)

Slowly but surely, the superdelegates are abandoning Hillary Clinton. It’s been a slow trickle, but Obama has gained a net 27 supers in the last two weeks, according to the Associated Press. "Given where the race is at right now, I think it’s very important for
us to play a role around bringing the party together around the
candidate that people have chosen," says one former Clinton super.

That sentiment will spread very, very rapidly unless Hillary’s "firewall" works. Presumably, if she loses either Texas or Ohio, she’ll drop out (as Bill suggested). But suppose she wins both states by narrow margins — perhaps edging Obama in the Texas popular vote but losing the delegate count — and decides to press on despite still being way behind by every measure (pledged delegates, total delegates, popular vote, states won, etc.). If that happens, I think there’s no way the superdelegates will let this thing go all the way to April 22 (when Pennsylvania votes). The trickle will become a flash flood, the numbers will become totally lopsided, and Hillary will be hounded out of the race very quickly. Worst case, Mississippi on March 11 (the last pre-PA primary) becomes Obama’s final coronation, and Hillary concedes that night or the next day.

The only thing Hillary can do to stop the bleeding is win, and win big.

P.S. For Hillary, there’s a big advantage to bowing out gracefully, of course: if Obama loses in November, she immediately becomes the prohibitive favorite for
2012 — perhaps truly inevitable this time. (This creates an
interesting situation on both sides of the aisle, with Clinton and
Romney both at least half-rooting for their own party’s candidate to
lose, so they can get another shot in four years.)

Indiana head coach Kelvin Sampson is walking away from Hoosierland — a $750,000 walk of shame.

Dan Dakich is IU’s interim head coach. It remains to be seen whether anything will come of the threatened mutiny by the team’s players.

Condoleezza Rice says she won’t be running for veep.

Of course, they always say that. (For example…) But in Condi’s case, I tend to actually believe it.

Speaking of potential vice presidential runningmates, today I stumbled upon this Obama veepstakes post from Marc Ambinder. It’s a week old, but it’s interesting. Just keep scrolling through the comments.

On the eve of perhaps the most important college-basketball game in the history of the state of Tennessee, tomorrow night’s #1 vs. #2 showdown between Memphis and UT, the sports world here in Knoxville is, as you’d expect, abuzz with talk about… football.

Wait. What?

Well, it seems Knoxville News-Sentinel sports editor John Adams has created a mighty kerfuffle with his commentary on the Tennessee football team’s recent discipline problems. On Tuesday, Adams wrote that Phil Fulmer should be fired for allowing his team to become "the college equivalent of the Cincinnati Bengals." He harshly criticized Fulmer for responding to punter Britton Colquitt’s arrest by suspending him for five games, rather than dismissing him from the team. "Keep in mind this wasn’t Colquitt’s first brush with the law. Or second. Or third," Adams wrote. "How could Fulmer not dismiss Colquitt from the team after what could be fifth alcohol-related offense? Answer: Colquitt is a starter."

Oh, snap!

But Fulmer didn’t take this lying down. Oh, hell no. He’s a man! He’s 57! So, in today’s paper, at the very top of the sports section, there is a column by, ahem, guest columnist Phillip Fulmer. Explaining that the importance of the issues raised in Adams’s column "compels me to do something I have never done in my career - respond directly in writing to a negative column in the newspaper," Fulmer writes:

Mr. Adams has never sat next to me in a prospect’s living room, looking his mother or grandmother in the eyes and promising to treat the young man like he was my own child - giving him tough love when necessary and an opportunity to straighten up when that’s in order. It is a promise I take seriously and will never abandon to please any columnist.

Ouch! He goes on:

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There are a fair number of District attorneys, Public Defenders, Judges, and Law Clerks in this country. Wouldn’t it make sense to close court for a day and put one of them at every polling place across the country as a public voter advocate that any voter could ask for help? Or should campaigns come up with their own lawyer for every polling place to serve the same purpose? Or would it just be silly to send out a legion of lawyers every election? Obviously it would be best if the lawyers were completely neutral, though of course nobody is neutral. But would such a thing help make elections more free or more fair?

This chart seems like excellent news for Obama. So does this article, and so do these numbers. And then there’s Kos’s prediction:

Today I talked to a reporter working on a piece on the Obama movement, who had just returned from Texas to see the Obama ground game close up. I asked if it lived up to the hype. He said that he had gone down there cynical, not expecting much, but had been utterly blown away. His piece will be out next week I think, and I can’t wait to read the details. But bottom line is that Obama has run a volunteer-driven ground game while the Clintons thought they’d run an advertising air war.

There’s a reason Obama is outperforming the polls and even my most optimistic vote predictions — his volunteer-driven ground game is blowing whatever meager operation Clinton has completely out of the water.

The numbers are moving dramatically in Obama’s direction right now. He’s going to win Texas, and win it comfortably. Here’s the thing — if the Texas election were today, Obama would likely win it by 10 points, regardless what the polls say. His ground operation is that good.

By the time this thing finally rolls around, expect Wisconsin-like numbers. Obama’s victory will be complete.

In an unrelated story, yesterday I asked for a world map of the Democrats Abroad results, and — hurrah! — somebody made one.

Also, following up on another post from yesterday: Mayor Bloomberg is backing off his "fraud" claim.