BREAKING: The United States Senate is a detestable pile of horse manure

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“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” an odious and indefensible policy of intentional and irrational discrimination whose repeal is supported by large majorities of voters, soldiers, and members of Congress, as well as the president / commander-in-chief and the leaders of the military itself, nevertheless remains the law of the land — likely for an indefinite period of time into the future, or until the courts strike it down, in which case opponents can again dodge the substance of the issue and make it all about “judicial activism” — because 1) Harry Reid is an idiot, and 2) “moderate” Republican “supporters” of repeal care more about stupid Beltway procedural games, ego battles and other such assorted bulls**t than securing civil rights for American soldiers in uniform who happen to love members of the same sex, and 3) Republican opponents will block any further attempt at passage because, uh, tax cuts are more important, or something, and 4) Harry Reid is an idiot.

Look, if you oppose repeal of DADT on principle, fine. I vehemently disagree, but I respect your opinion, no matter how wrong I feel it is. All I ask is that you state your stance forthrightly, that you “own” your opinion, or what some might call your bigotry. Own it, stand up for it, defend it. Fine. What I don’t respect is saying you “support” repeal, yet holding it hostage for procedural reasons in some sort of stupid game of legislative chicken. And yet also, with that having been said, God help Harry Reid if he could have gotten this thing passed with a few minor concessions to those procedural hostage-holders, yet decided to bull ahead because he wanted to make a political point, or because he’s an incompetent ass, or both. Every game of chicken has at least two players, after all, and they all deserve to rot for letting unrelated stupid nonsense decide the fate of this important issue.

UPDATE: But wait!!! Joementum to the rescue?!?

The Moraga Massacre

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Don’t do it, DU Bally! You have so much to live for! And the Sun Belt schedule will be much easier! #MoragaMassacre http://twitpic.com/3edl87

–me, on Twitter this morning

What can one say, aside from stuffed-basketball gallows humor, about a 77-47 loss — tied for the second-worst of the Joe Scott era, and worst since 2007-08?

Saint Mary’s (7-2) dominated Denver (2-7) in every facet of the game last night, shooting 60% to Denver’s 38%, overwhelming the Pioneers on the boards 37-14, outscoring them 40-20 in the paint, and sticking DU with its second-worst offensive (0.828) and worst defensive (1.294) efficiency nights of the season. The end result was even worse than Vegas thought it would be, and in fact, could have been worse still: Denver trailed by 35 points, 75-40, with 2 1/2 minutes left, before finishing the game on a 7-2 run.

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Toddler quotes of the day

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This should probably be a regular feature. Yesterday, while holding and playing with Becky’s iPhone: “Daddy, I’m tweeting, just like you tweet.”

Today: “Mommy, we might have to bring Ralphie [her stuffed buffalo] and the manatee and your teddy bear downstairs, to keep the Grinch away.”

Both quotes are from Loyette, obviously. Although Loyacita is starting to get old enough, and verbal enough, to have a few “quotes” of her own. Most notably, about 6 or 9 months ahead of her sister’s schedule, she has learned the word “no” … usually expressed more like: “No!!” Oh, goody. 🙂

BREAKING: Urban Meyer resigning, again

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One year after retiring and then un-retiring, Florida’s coach is stepping down, again. Retiring into obscurity, for real this time? Positioning himself to be the next head coach of Tim Tebow and the Denver Broncos? Trying to secure the coveted title “The Brett Favre of Coaches” by un-resigning (again) next week? Joining the WAC as its eighth football member? Simply couldn’t stand hearing the Gators’ infernal fight song one more damn time? Acknowledging his PTSD as a wounded veteran of the SEC #WAR!!!? Discuss.

P.S. Is Urban Meyer’s departure from Florida good news for Stanford? Follow Matt Zemek’s logic on this:

[Florida’s] first call should go to [Mississippi State head coach] Dan Mullen… Because Mullen is at the forefront of Florida’s list…Michigan’s chances of winning the Gator Bowl [against Mississippi State] increase. Accordingly, Rich Rodriguez’s chances of staying in Ann Arbor increase. Accordingly, Jim Harbaugh’s chances of staying at Stanford one more year increase.

And you thought this Urban Meyer story was relevant only to Florida.

The coaching carousel: it’s a WAR!!!

Denver (+21) at Saint Mary’s

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I just checked my Sportacular app, and it says Denver (2-6) is a 21-point underdog tonight at Saint Mary’s (6-2).

This is the first time the Pioneers have been a double-digit ‘dog this season — Utah State was a 9.5-point favorite at Magness last week; DU beat the spread, losing by 8 — but I can’t say I’m surprised. Saint Mary’s is #1 in The Mid Majority’s State of the Other 25 rankings, and #4 in College Insider’s Mid-Major Top 25.* They also rank first in the nation in offensive efficiency (1.147 points per possession) and 11th in field-goal percentage (48.4%), and are in or near the Top 10 in a number of other offensive categories (see BBState for more). And they’ve done this against a decent schedule — 84th out of 345, per Sagarin.

It’s early, of course, but despite coaching turnover and personnel changes, the Gaels look like a legitimate contender to repeat last year’s Sweet 16 run. Their only losses are to ranked Mountain West teams BYU and San Diego State. As it happens, those were their last two games, so SMC — returning to its home court in Moraga, CA for the first time since November 23 — will be looking to end its two-game losing streak tonight against the Pioneers. On paper, it’s certainly Denver’s toughest game of the season.

In his press conference yesterday, Denver coach Joe Scott said the Pioneers’ goal will be to control the tempo. DU prefers a much slower pace, whereas SMC’s style is much quicker. “When you’re on the road, you’ve got to control the game, you’ve got to keep the crowd out of it,” Scott said. “We have a way of doing that, and this is going to be one of our first tests. … We’re going to have to control the game with our offense, and have the ball a lot.” Scott said he views the game as a primer for road games in league play: “We’ve got to be good at controlling games, and making the other team play the way we want them to play.”

Scott added: “If we can go out to Saint Mary’s and control the game and play well and keep playing better, then we…give ourselves a chance to win that way.”

Tipoff is set for 8:00 PM Mountain Time. The game will not be televised, but will be streamed live on Mile High Sports Radio. I don’t plan on doing a full live-blog, but I may post occasional tweets, which you can see on my Twitter stream.

*Note: TMM and College Insider have slightly different definitions of “mid-major.” TMM’s, of course, is based on the Red Line. Both sites exclude the Mountain West, but TMM also excludes Gonzaga (which College Insider includes), while College Insider excludes the WAC, Atlantic-10 and C-USA (which TMM includes, except for Xavier and Memphis).

Deep thought of the day

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President Obama, whose political and communication skills were supposed to make him the “liberal Reagan,” has instead managed — somehow — to simultaneously and in equal measure piss off both his liberal base and swing voters, such that neither will be inclined to cut him any slack in the second half of his term. Liberals think he’s a total corporatist sellout and mush-head who has given up far too much in exchange for far too little; moderates have been largely persuaded by conservatives that he’s an uber-liberal who has driven the country off the rails in pursuit of his far-left agenda (a notion that actual far-leftists can only laugh at ruefully).

What’s the opposite of triangulation?

(Granted, moderates’ anger is driven in large measure by the terrible economy, but still. The White House’s shocking incompetence vis a vis messaging has basically ceded the argument to conservatives, and made things far worse with the center than they needed to be — though they were never going to be good.)

[Bumped. -ed.]

Denver 66, Cal State Northridge 63

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In front of their largest home crowd since Joe Scott’s very first game as head coach in 2007, the Denver Pioneers (2-6) edged Cal State Northridge (2-6) on Saturday, 66-63, to earn their much-needed second win of the season before heading into a brutal stretch against two WCC powers.

“You know, we’re not the most confident bunch in the world right now, but what we did today…is what makes you build some confidence,” Coach Scott said afterward. The Pioneers, he said, did “what we needed to do to win that game. … We’re playing better, and it’s good to get a win. I’m happy for our guys; everybody’s happy.”

The unusually large crowd for a DU basketball game — drawn in part by a promotion that saw hundreds of local elementary school students given free tickets and honored on the court at halftime — witnessed an ugly, foul-plagued victory for Denver. A total of 63 fouls were called, and 83 free throws were attempted (45 by Denver, 38 by Northridge). After the game, Scott expressed frustration about what he described as an artificial balancing of those foul-call numbers: “The way teams play us, they almost foul on every play. … That’s what everybody’s doing. They just want to foul, foul, foul. What I don’t like about it is, just because they’re foul, foul, fouling down there, that doesn’t necessarily mean we’re foul, foul, fouling down at the other end.”

But in any case, despite the referees’ best efforts, the game produced a fairly dramatic ending for those who stuck around until the end of the nearly 2 1/2 hour contest.

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It’s beginning to look a lot like #PANIC

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I already tweeted this, but since new tweets aren’t showing up in the sidebar right now, due to the hangover from the recent blog outage…

Friday’s Planet Money podcast, about Europe’s debt woes and the potential Lehman-style mega-crisis that could be in their (and our) future, was a classic in the #PANIC!!! genre. It may be their most unnerving episode since early 2009, when I used to routinely listen, on my light-rail commute to and from work, to Planet Money scaring the bejeezus out of me regarding the state of the economy and the financial system. Anyway, it’s worth a listen. Unless you want to, y’know, not be freaked out about stuff.

P.S. There’s one other cause for #PANIC in all this. Two words: President Palin.

No, seriously. If Europe implodes, the financial system collapses, and Great Depression II descends… you still think she can’t win?