Girls Basketball update

The Waukon Indians defeated Dubuque Wahlert 46 to 34. Apparently it was an ugly game, but, as legendary coach Gene Klinge has been known to say, you only need to win by 1. They advance to the state tournament and play a week from Tuesday in Des Moines.

Late Update: Finally got my dad on the phone, and he said it was definitely a sloppy game. After being up 17-3 in the 2nd quarter they let them get within 6 in the second half. Emily had 7 points. Here's the newspaper write-up:

The coach is a 68-year-old local legend reliving his teenage years and discovering exactly who Snoop Doggy Dog is.

The star guard is a 23-point per night force [Sam Reiser] and NCAA Division I prospect.

The spunky, sure-handed point guard doesn't even reach 5-foot-6 in heels. The bench is a deep collection of seasoned, skilled role players who have been playing together since grade school.

Add it all together and it's an unbeatable, state championship combination. The Waukon girls basketball team is playing in Iowa Class 3A, but in another league than the rest of the state. The Indians are also wearing a size 24 Bulls'-Eye.

"We love the pressure," senior forward Stephanie Snitker said.

Apparently. The unbeaten Indians survived a furious coup attempt by Dubuque Wahlert and booked another trip to Des Moines with a laboring 46-34 triumph Friday over the unranked Eagles before an estimated standing room crowd of 1,300 in the Region 6 final.

. . .

The Indians' 52nd straight victory came on a night when their shot went south and the Golden Eagles lowered the volume Waukon's high-voltage 70-point-per-night offense by 24 points in a dazzling defensive performance.

Read the rest here (you have to register but it's free). 1300 isn't bad for a high school girls game where both teams are playing away from home. Waukon has a population of about 4000.

Solomon Amendment

Had a meeting over lunch regarding educating the student body about the Solomon Amendment, which is the law/reg requiring universities to permit military recruiters on campus and backed by the threat of loss of all federal funding for the whole University (across departments). To be accredited by the ABA, law schools must have an anti-discrimination policy. They are forced to violate parts of this policy when they are forced to allow military recruiters on campus, as the military discriminates against homosexuals.

This brings up two issues as I understand it. First, there is a potential problem when Congress uses it's tax and spend power to achieve an end which is arguably forbidden by the First Amendment (infringing school and student speech association rights). Second, it invites debate on the underlying policy, here whether gays should be excluded from the military.

Any thoughts?

We show up in google

Just search for "spring break 99 blogspot"

Vergasy posting for Wiley

Just found out that a colorful character from our years in college, the "reverend" stephen white, or "brother stephen" as he affectionately encouraged others to call him, was arrested, convicted, and sentenced to three years in prison for attempting to pay a 14 year old boy $20 to be allowed to perform oral sex on the boy. You might remember stephen standing between beinecke and cross campus denouncing gays, pedophiles, liberals, and other evildoers with a megaphone and generally making an ass out of himself.

You can find out all the sordid details you want to by typing the words "reverend stephen white sex" into google.

Leninist party politics alive and well in Republican Party

Dan Froomkin calls attention to a Newsweek story with this passage:

"Rep. Tom Tancredo was stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic on his way to the Capitol one Friday morning in April 2002 when his cell phone rang. Though the caller ID read unidentified, Tancredo had no trouble recognizing the voice on the other end of the line: it was White House adviser Karl Rove, and he was seething.

"The congressman had been quoted in that morning's Washington Times attacking George W. Bush's immigration plan, which he warned could be an 'open door' for illegal immigrants and a national-security risk. As Tancredo remembers it, Rove screamed at him for more than 20 minutes, accusing him of disloyalty to his party and the president in the wake of 9/11. The conversation grew so heated that Tancredo had to pull over. As the congressman recalls, Rove ended the call with a warning that Tancredo should 'never darken the steps of the White House again.' (The White House disputes Rove's comment.)

And of course we shouldn't forget the Arlen Specter fiasco, in which his expected chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee was threatened for what he described as daring to acknowledge that 60 votes are needed to end debate in the Senate and confirm a judicial nominee.