Tuesday March 27, 2007

Good news: The Rutgers’ women’s basketball team is headed to the Final Four. Bad news: The Final Four is in Cleveland. As SportsCenter put it this evening before showing the highlights: “Rutgers and Arizona State faced off tonight, battling for a trip to Cleveland. And that’s actually a good thing.” Sounds about right to me …

Meanwhile, the day after I watched my Tar Heels collapse like a house of cards in front of my eyes, the UNC mascot finally succumbed to his injuries. Kinda puts everything in perspective, no? The frivolity of sports and the mutability of existence … If you read the tributes, it’s clear that he was not only an energetic mascot, but a great human being as well, someone who surely shouldn’t have had his life cut short so senselessly. Carolina alumni everywhere mourn your loss, Jason. RIP.

Monday March 26, 2007

Holy smokes. They did it.

From the BBC’s top story:

Northern Ireland’s arch-rival leaders Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams have agreed a power-sharing deal at historic talks.

The two men agreed to form a joint executive on 8 May to run the province. Their first ever direct talks were held at Stormont, the province’s parliament.

Mr Paisley, leader of the Protestant [Democratic Unionist Party (DUP)], and Mr Adams of mainly Catholic Sinn Fein, have been implacable opponents for decades.

The DUP wants to keep British rule. Sinn Fein calls for a united Ireland.

Mr Paisley is expected to be first minister in the new administration, while Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein, the IRA’s political wing, would be deputy first minister.

Mr Paisley said the DUP was committed to full participation in government and Mr Adams said it was a “new era”.

UK Prime Minister Tony Blair said it was a very important day for the people of Northern Ireland.

The British and Irish governments had said they would shut the assembly if an executive was not agreed on Monday.

However, Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain later said that deadline might be allowed “to slip” for a few weeks if the parties agreed to work together.

Mr Adams – wearing his Easter lily to commemorate those who died in the 1916 Irish rebellion – and Mr Paisley were seated at one corner of a table at Stormont.

The Northern Ireland assembly was suspended in October 2002, amid allegations of an IRA spy ring at Stormont.

A subsequent court case collapsed. Direct rule [from Westminster] has been in place since that date.

In the assembly election earlier this month, the DUP and Sinn Fein emerged as the two largest parties.

After Monday’s meeting, Mr Paisley said: “Our goal has been to see devolution returned in a context where it can make a real, meaningful improvement in the lives of all the people of this part of the United Kingdom.

“On Saturday, the DUP executive overwhelmingly endorsed a motion committing our party to support and participate fully in government in May of this year – this is a binding resolution.”

Mr Adams said he welcomed Mr Paisley’s statement.

“I believe the agreement reached between Sinn Fein and the DUP – including the unequivocal commitment made by their party executive and reiterated today – to the restoration of political institutions on 8 May marks the beginning of a new era of politics on this island,” he said.

“The basis of the agreement between Sinn Fein and the DUP follows Ian Paisley’s unequivocal and welcome commitment to support and participate fully in the political institutions on 8 May.”

Mr Blair said it was “a very important day for the people of Northern Ireland, but also for the people and the history of these islands”.

“Everything we have done over the last 10 years has been a preparation for this moment.”

Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern said this had “the potential to transform the future of this island”.

“This morning saw unprecedented and very positive developments in Northern Ireland.”

An order signed by the Northern Ireland secretary restarted devolution at midnight.

UK Chancellor Gordon Brown promised an extra £1bn if devolution was back on Monday, on top of £35bn pledged by the government over four years.

The power-sharing executive will have four DUP ministers, three Sinn Fein, two from the Ulster Unionist Party and one from the [Nationalist] Social Democratic and Labour Party.

Sunday March 25, 2007

They choked. Really, really bad. And I watched that slow-motion train wreck from Row 20 of Section 235.

It feels like I’ve been punched in the stomach. I’m going to stop going to big games for my favorite teams.

I was there when the Indians were eliminated from the 1996 playoffs by a home run. In the 12th inning.

And I was there when Chris Duhon made a coast-to-coast layup for Duke to knock out UNC. In overtime.

And if that Louisville lineman hadn’t been offside, Rutgers would have lost that game in overtime, right?

… And clearly I have gender identity issues, as I have a container of ice cream and a spoon in hand …

But I do have something for laughs: a hilarious clips from the sea of mediocrity that was last night’s SNL.

Sunday March 25, 2007

From thenewspaper.com, which tracks transportation-related government abuses:

The city council in Brooksville, Florida voted this week to advance a proposal granting city officials the authority to place liens and foreclose on the homes of motorists accused of failing to pay a single $5 parking ticket. Non-homeowners face having their vehicles seized if accused of not paying three parking offenses.

According to the proposed ordinance, a vehicle owner must pay a parking fine within 72 hours if a meter maid claims his automobile was improperly parked, incurring tickets worth between $5 and $250. Failure to pay this amount results in the assessment of a fifty-percent “late fee.” After seven days, the city will place a lien on the car owner’s home for the amount of the ticket plus late fees, attorney fees and an extra $15 fine. The fees quickly turn a $5 ticket into a debt worth several hundred dollars, growing at a one-percent per month interest rate. The ordinance does not require the city to provide notice to the homeowner at any point so that after ninety days elapse, the city will foreclose. If the motorist does not own a home, it will seize his vehicle after the failure to pay three parking tickets.

Any motorist who believes a parking ticket may have been improperly issued must first pay a $250 “appeal fee” within seven days to have the case heard by a contract employee of the city. This employee will determine whether the city should keep the appeal fee, plus the cost of the ticket and late fees, or find the motorist not guilty. Council members postponed a decision on whether to reduce this appeal fee until final adoption of the measure which is expected in the first week of April.

Saturday March 24, 2007

Southern Cal ran circles around my Heels for 30 minutes and shot the lights out. Then they ran out of juice … and we made an 18-0 run … and yeah. It’s a rather bland Elite Eight, deprived of teams that have made miraculous runs to get to this point, and yet every team left in the field has at least one brutal comeback win.

In a post-game show interview:
Jim Nantz: “How did this team completely turn this game around?”
Roy Williams: “I have no idea.”

It’s that kind of coaching that makes these things happen, people.

And I’m trying to get a ticket — well, get a ticket for a halfway decent price — to the Elite Eight game against Georgetown: it’s here in my backyard (East Rutherford, about 20 miles up the NJ Turnpike) and something tells me that it’s going to be a classic.

UPDATE (8:00 pm): Ladies and gentlemen … I will be in attendance.

Friday March 23, 2007

The economic gains of the 1990s barely brought the place up to respectability. In this decade, the combination of manufacturing essentially vanishing from this country and the burst of the housing bubble are ripping the city apart once again. From the NY Times:

SHAKER HEIGHTS, Ohio — In a sign of the spreading economic fallout of mortgage foreclosures, several suburbs of Cleveland, one of the nation’s hardest-hit cities, are spending millions of dollars to maintain vacant houses as they try to contain blight and real-estate panic.

In suburbs like this one, city officials are installing alarms, fixing broken windows and mowing lawns at the vacant houses in hopes of preventing a snowball effect, in which surrounding property values suffer and worried neighbors move away. The officials are also working with financially troubled homeowners to renegotiate debts or, when eviction is unavoidable, to find apartments.

“It’s a tragedy and it’s just beginning,” Mayor Judith H. Rawson of Shaker Heights, a mostly affluent suburb, said of the evictions and vacancies, a problem fueled by a rapid increase in high-interest, subprime loans.

“All those shaky loans are out there, and the foreclosures are coming,” Ms. Rawson said. “Managing the damage to our communities will take years.”

Cuyahoga County, including Cleveland and 58 suburbs, now has one of the country’s highest foreclosure rates, and the worst is yet to come. In 1995, the county had 2,500 foreclosures; last year there were 15,000. Officials blame the weak economy and housing market and a rash of subprime loans for the high numbers, and the unusual prevalence of vacant houses.

Foreclosures in Cleveland’s inner ring of suburbs, while still low compared with those in Cleveland itself, have climbed sharply, especially in lower-income neighborhoods that border the city. Hundreds of houses are vacant because they are caught in legal limbo, have been abandoned by distant banks or the owners cannot find buyers.

The suburbs here are among the best organized in their counterattack, experts say, but many suburbs elsewhere in the country have had jumps in foreclosures and are also working to stem the damage….

And on it goes. Wonder why almost anyone with any money is fleeing the place?

Wednesday March 21, 2007

Just one simple chart for y’all to look at, from the Cato Institute:

It’s going up, too. And about 1/4 of that is simple drug possessors.

Wednesday March 21, 2007

Tuesday March 20, 2007

… Or does it? Bush’s two appointees to the Supreme Court seem to have vastly different views on Morse v. Frederick, which was argued before the Court yesterday. The punchline is that the students of the Juneau Public Schools were taken on a field trip to see the Olympic Torch pass through their city in 2002. One of the students, Joseph Frederick, unfurled a giant banner reading “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” (for whatever reason). The kid was then suspended by the schools. He sued, pointing out that the First Amendment actually does exist. The schools then hired Ken Starr, who presumably has some time on his hands these days, and this whole thing ended up in front of the nine justices (and in the NY Times).

Speaking for authoritarianism: Chief Justice John Roberts. In questioning/conversing with Starr, he said, “Why is it that the classroom ought to be a forum for political debate simply because the students want to put that on their agenda? … Presumably, the teacher’s agenda is a little bit different and includes things like teaching Shakespeare or the Pythagorean theorem…. Just because political speech is on the student’s agenda, I’m not sure that it makes sense to read [precedent] so broadly as to include protection of that speech.”

Speaking for liberty: Associate Justice Samuel Alito. Quoting from the Times: “During the argument, Justice Alito interrupted Mr. Kneedler as the deputy solicitor general was asserting that a school ‘does not have to tolerate a message that is inconsistent’ with is basic educational mission. ‘I find that a very, very disturbing argument because schools have defined their educational mission so broadly that they can suppress all sorts of political speech and speech expressing fundamental values of the students under the banner of getting rid of speech that’s inconsistent with educational missions.’”

It will be interesting to see how the court rules here. Public school students, as we know, have seen their rights abridged time and time again. Will the tide turn?

Monday March 19, 2007

Follow the example being drawn up in India. From the BBC:

The authorities in India’s premier engineering institute, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Bombay (Mumbai), have cut off internet access to students in hostels at night.

They feel that 24-hour internet access is hampering students’ academic performance and overall personality development.

Students have unlimited free access to the internet in their [dorms] to help with coursework and research, but many of them use it to download movies, play games and chat online instead.

The press relations officer for IIT Bombay, Aruna Thosar-Dixit, told the BBC website this was having an adverse effect on their academics and social habits.

The ban was an attempt at correcting that, she said.

Students say while the reasons for doing so maybe right, the way they are going about it is wrong and the move is proving to be counter-productive.

Extra-curricular

Ms Thosar-Dixit said they were beginning to see a drop in attendance during morning lectures and a noticeable decline in participation in extra-curricular activities.

“In the morning the students would not be fresh and attentive and their socialising patterns were changing as they preferred to sit in their rooms and surf the net rather than interact with their mates.

“Academics are of primary importance for us but we also want our students to have a well-rounded personality.”

Ms Thosar-Dixit said students would not have access to the internet in their hostel rooms between 2300 and 1230 but could log on in the library or their departmental laboratories where access will be uninterrupted.

The dean of students, Prakash Gopalan, said one only had to look at the hard drive of any of the students’ computers to see that bad content dominated over good.

“In the end, this is the Indian taxpayers’ money as well as the IIT’s network and we have an obligation to ensure that it is not misused,” he said.