Morning Whip, 3/31/05

Kansas City’s getting a shiny new arena[*1] . It may be getting an Arena Football League team[*2] to play there.

“Could ten of the largest College Republicans start walking up and down the aisles and start removing anyone shouting?”[*3] The Coulter Chronicles[*4] , Lawrence Edition.

Related: Bush Foes Get Shown The Door at Rallies.[*5] Perhaps, every once in a while, it might be useful to shut up for a while and listen to what your political opponents have to say rather than intolerantly try to shout them down at every opportunity. Hm?

Speaking of which, out of curiosity, I went to the AARP’s web site[*6] to see what they say about Social Security:
Some simple steps can be taken to begin making a down payment on that future Social Security shortfall. AARP supports:
* Investing part of the Social Security surplus so that it earns higher returns than those offered by U.S. Treasury bonds.
. . .
Market returns can be attractive, yet they come at a risk. Private accounts can lose money just as fast as they can make it.
So . . . it’s a good idea to invest part of the (mythical) Social Security “surplus” but it’s not a good idea to invest it?

Fark[*7] is Farked[*8] . Sarcastic geeky wiseasses worldwide hold vigils.

Morning Whip, 3/30/05

Tennessee punched their ticket to the women’s Final Four[*1] . My Snookums is (once again) delighted.

Johnny Cochran dies of a brain tumor[*2] . I can’t help but think of a certain rhyming phrase using “head” and “dead” **. (I know it’s really tasteless, but so was the OJ verdict.)

The Supreme Court yesterday heard arguments regarding peer-to-peer file sharing technology[*3] . This is another issue I’m not sure about — both sides have decent arguments. The content producers have a reasonable expectation to profit from their work, but I have big problems with outlawing technology as a replacement for enforcing the law. For instance, there are lots of things in my garage (or my kitchen for that matter) that I could use for illegal purposes. Should crow bars be illegal? This is one of those “slippery slope” situations, I think.

Timing is everything. Vatican says Pope given feeding tube[*4] .

** If it’s in your head, you might be dead. Sorry.

Report from the Regionals

Just got back home from the women’s basketball regional final, where Michigan State beat Stanford. No John Elway sighting tonight. Michigan State came out from half time on fire and got a 10 point lead before Stanford came back to make a game of it. The Spartans pulled away again towards the end for a 76-69 victory.

Among the highlights for this Jackrabbit was the entry on page 41 of the 2005 NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Championship official program, in the article All Across America: News and Notes from the 2004-05 Season by Blake Whitney:

January 5, 2005 — South Dakota State 86, Alabama 83
The former Division II power Jackrabbits, who won’t be come full-fledged Division I members until 2008-09, picked up their second victory against a Southeastern Conference team with a three-point win in Tuscaloosa. The Jackrabbits beat Kentucky, 57-55, and routed Big 12 member Oklahoma State, 89-61, earlier in the season. South Dakota State, which also pushed then-No. 20 Purdue to the limit before losing by seven points, looks to have a bright future in Division I.

You might think my priorities are out of whack, but I do bleed yellow and blue, after all.

Now Snookums and I are settling in to watch the rest of the Rutgers-Tennessee game (Rocky Top!).

Morning Whip, 3/29/05

Colleges do go out of business.
Si Tanka University in South Dakota is going under[*1] .
The school’s financial crisis this academic year stems from the Bureau of Indian Affairs August declaration that Si Tanka no longer was eligible for about $1.4 million in federal funding for tribal colleges because the university’s Indian student enrollment fell below 50 percent after it purchased the Huron school.
Over the past 30 years, colleges in South Dakota (Yankton College, USD-Springfield) have closed their doors. It doesn’t happen often but traditional campus-based colleges do occasionally go belly-up.

Thomas Sowell[*2] always has something interesting to say:
It is fascinating to hear teachers say that having to “teach to the test” reduces their ability to engage in good teaching. What they call “good teaching” is the very reason our students do so badly in international comparisons and why colleges have to have large numbers of remedial courses to teach students what they didn’t learn in school.

Did you sleep well? Tell the truth . . .[*3]

College Basketball update:
UWM coach Bruce Pearl jumps to Tennessee[*4] .
Baylor [*5] and LSU [*6] advance to the Women’s Final Four.

Morning Whip, 3/28/05

Haven’t heard of Sungard? That’s OK, most people haven’t. They provide computer services, primarily to financial companies. They’re going private, in what is reported to be the second largest deal of its kind[*1] . The company had planned to spin off their disaster recovery business[*2] but that transaction is apparently on the rocks.

Somehow, a bag with a gun inside got through the security checkpoint at the Cincinatti airport[*3] .
The passenger and the bag were never found.. . . Confident the concourses were free of weapons, TSA officials reopened the concourses at 9:05 a.m. All passengers had to be rescreened before entering . . .
WHAT!?!?!?!

Finally this morning, Snookums and I saw a couple of pretty good women’s basketball games last night. Vanderbilt lost to Michigan State[*4] , and Stanford beat Connecticut[*5] . We found ourselves in the Stanford section, about six rows behind John Elway whose daughter plays (or, more accurately, sits on the bench) for Stanford.
Attendance was disappointing, as Mechelle Voepel of the K.C. Star[*6] notes.

Morning Whip, 3/27/05

Happy Easter, everyone.

We’re working our way towards the Final Four on both the Men’s and Women’s side. Illinois[*1] and Louisville[*2] punched their tickets for St. Louis on the men’s side, and LSU[*3] , Duke[*4] , Baylor[*5] , and North Carolina[*6] advance to the Regional Championships on the women’s side.
The Women’s Kansas City Regional kicks off tonight, where we’ll see Michigan State-Vanderbilt and Connecticut-Stanford. Snookums and I will be there.

Closer to the Palatial Abode, congratulations to Washburn University for winning the Division II women’s basketball national championship[*7] .

OOPS! Secret data returned to thief[*8] .

Jeremy Rifkin is worried about “chimeric experimentation[*9] ,” with an op-ed that begins with the line
“What happens when you cross a human and a mouse?”
Can someone tell me why we take this guy seriously? If you want to understand the moral implications, you’re better off reading Terry Pratchett’s The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents[*10] or watch The Secret of NIMH[*11] than listening to Rifkin, who’s been freaked about bioengineering[*12] for quite a while. Someone needs to explain to Jeremy how genetics works . . .