bigjim links links this piece on the Red Bull-vodka combo that I expect tells you nothing anyone who’s ever consumed this concoction didn’t know already—I think I can safely attribute my last five years’ of insomnia to having two Red Bull & vodkas in Ann Arbor in the summer of 2001 (plied on me by a young woman, no less).

Nothing much new here, but since some of you seem to be coming here for news on the Duke men’s lacrosse rape allegations, there you go. The press conference itself was nothing earth-shattering; it was one of those deals (admittedly like most) where there was something for everybody who wanted to reinforce their preconceived notions.

More interesting perhaps is the team captains’ categorical denial of the charges in the face of DNA evidence. Since Duke students—even lacrosse players, by stereotype—aren’t stupid and presumably understand the rudiments of how DNA works, they’re either extreme outliers on the IQ scale or extremely confident that nothing happened. My money? As far away from this wager as possible.

George Mason’s president has taken it upon himself to excuse those students who decided to blow off class on Monday after GMU’s (and, lest we forget, classical liberalism’s) victory over UConn. If I were a GMU faculty member, I’d likely have invited the president to take over all of my other duties at that point, or perhaps to go fornicate with himself. Under my breath, of course.

þ: Deadspin and PTI.

Go read the cover of this month’s issue of Reason and then report back to me on the most egregious problem with it. Besides my concern that Reason had finally surrendered to the neo-Malthusians, that is.

I figure if I keep publically linking to the ads where the University of Memphis advertises its craphole instructor positions, maybe they’ll be shamed into paying a living wage:

The University of Memphis invites applications for a non-tenure-track position in political science at the rank of instructor for the 2006–07 academic year. The main responsibilities of the position are in the area of Comparative Politics, International Relations and American Politics, and include lower division courses in these areas plus an upper-division course in International Relations Theory. The teaching load is five courses per semester; the salary is $30,000—$32,500, depending upon experience and qualifications. The Instructor will teach three on-ground courses for the Department of Political Science, and two on-line (RODP) courses for the University College. The University of Memphis is a comprehensive, research institution with an urban mission. The Department of Political Science offers the B.A. and M.A. degrees.

For the record, my undergraduate alma mater is classified as a research university by the Carnegie Foundation; it charges out-of-state students $14,836 per year to attend the institution. In 2004–05, according to the AAUP survey, its median salary for professors at the assistant rank was $53,100.

The blaring headline on today’s Duke Chronicle is “Unrest hits Main West.” I hate to think how they’d report a riot.

Meanwhile, for those of you out in the real world beyond Duke, go read Timothy Burke’s response to the Kenyon debacle.

Update: Actual news on the rape allegations is here, including the not-very-shocking revelation that there are lacrosse team members who have faced alcohol-related charges in the past (your Claude Raines moment of the day) and the news that what really made the dancers run for the door wasn’t the alleged racial slur about the provenance of one of the players’ shirts but instead that “one of the men watching held up a broomstick and threatened to sexually assault the women,” presumably using said broomstick. (þ: UD)