Some interesting facts from that Boston Globe piece I just linked to:

[C]oed bathrooms can be found in the dorms of some local universities, and in some cases students have been allowed to redesignate bathrooms on their floor. At Hampshire College in Amherst, bathrooms in student ”mods” (apartment-style suites) have been coed since the school opened in 1970. Amherst College allows students on a dormitory floor to designate their bathrooms coed, said Paul Statt, director of media relations.
And at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, undergraduates can voluntarily create coed facilities, said Scott Chesney, director of residential life.

Transgendered students at the University of Massachusetts are miffed that the school isn’t giving them co-ed bathrooms. A spokesman for a group with about 30 members that calls themselves Restroom Revolution says that “Transgendered students have nowhere to go to the bathroom on campus.” The school is considering the possibility.

The women’s-studies professors [why? ok, that's another post for another time] at The College of the Holy Cross in Mass., were forced to disinvite pro-abortion Catholic Church critic Frances Kissling, whose Catholics for a Free Choice she disingenuously tries to pass off as a legitimate voice of Catholics, to speak at the Catholic school for $500. Kudos to them for disinviting, but when will a school be secure enough in its religious identity to not invite people like that to campus? It’s not like there’s not enough room everywhere else in the world for Frances Kissling (pro-abortion groups who finance her make sure there is)–how about four years without her while you teach the young ones what the whole religion thing, as about as part of their higher-education experience? Sectarian schools have something to offer others schools don’t–so offer it already!

Microsoft has apologized to the Big Apple for a Butterfly epidemic in New York City that cost the company $50.

This is what Vladimir Putin told his nation today. I thought the remarks were very moving. The only thing I would say is the enemy is not “international” terrorism; it is Islamic terrorism: “Dear compatriots! These days we have, together, gone through a terrible test. All our thoughts were with the hostages, in the hands of armed vermin. We hoped for the best outcome, but each of us understood, that it is necessary to be ready for the worst. Today the rescue operation of this morning is done. It was possible to do almost the impossible – to rescue the lives of hundreds, hundreds of people. We have proved that Russia cannot be put on her knees. But now I first of all want to address the families and relatives of those who were lost. We could not rescue them all. Forgive us. Let the memory of the victims unite us. I thank all the citizens of Russia for their endurance and unity. Special gratitude to everyone who participated in the rescue operation. Special thanks to the employees of the special divisions who, without hesitation, risking their own lives, struggled for the rescue of the hostages. We are grateful also to our friends all over the world, for their moral and practical support in our struggle against the same enemy. This enemy is strong and dangerous, brutal and severe. It is international terrorism. While it is not defeated, anywhere in the world, people can not feel safe. But it should be defeated. And it will be defeated. Today in the hospital I talked to one of victims. He said to me, ‘It was not that terrible – there was a confidence among us, that the future of the terrorists is not enduring.’ And this is the truth. They do not have a future. We do.”

It’s a conservative’s favorite time of the year! Time to turn your clocks back. (A reader told me to say that. Your wish is my command. Just so long as you bribe on occasion.)

…for soccer in the U.S. Since there are no Yankee World Series games to watch, soccer is enjoying record attendance.

Saturday was an official day of mourning in Libya. Not for Muslim brothers dead-set on killing Westerners, but as part of an attempt to get Italy to apologize for occupying Libya from 1911-1952.
According to this BBC report, anyone from outside Libya who called in today got this recording:”As part of the mourning over the victims of the savage crimes committed by the Italian fascists against the Libyan people, all international telecommunications are to be halted today.”
News broadcasts were aired in black and white. The airports were closed except for a brief opening to accept a plane with an Arab League representative (as noted earlier in The Corner).
The studly Italian PM Berlusconi is scheduled to travel to Libya on Monday.

Ari says we don’t need the U.N.

The INS is defending its release of Malvo last year (which Michelle Malkin has written about). Rep. Tom Tancredo isn’t buying it.

I wouldn’t be at all surprised if former VP Walter Mondale were picked as to run as the Democratic candidate for Senator Wellstone’s seat–he’s a safe choice for the Democrats, name recognition, etc.
But I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we saw both Mondale and Lautenberg resigning by spring or summer.

…just, please, Mr. Redford, don’t become a real Candidate.

Andrew Sullivan has, he tells us, been re-reading Animal Farm. In his blog on Thursday he noted how, “one key shift toward totalitarianism in the novel comes when the old hymn “Beasts of England” gets replaced by Napoleon (the chief pig and Stalin figure) to a more generic song praising “Animal Farm.” Orwell’s point [thinks Sullivan] is that patriotism is, for all its faults, far more humane and progressive than its opposite.”
That’s very true, whether one is contemplating the rise of the international bureaucratic class in organizations such as the EU or the UN or, more dramatically, the appeal of communism or radical Islam, two ideologies with no room for the nation state.  

The World Health Organization’s conference on tobacco consumption closed on
Friday without agreement on a pact that would regulate tobacco at the
international level. The proposed treaty (due to be voted on next year)
includes draconian restrictions on cigarette advertising. With their message
that consumers are too stupid to decide such matters for themselves,
advertising bans are insulting nonsense, even more so in the case of
’legislation’ imposed by a coterie of unelected international bureaucrats.
The US has, along with Japan and Germany, been in the forefront of efforts to
oppose these moves. That’s quite right. Matters such as this should be
decided domestically, democratically and constitutionally.
It is, of course, unreasonable to expect any UN body to understand this.
 

Jim, Reuters too has something on the news that Bin Laden’s will (allegedly written in the middle of the Afghan campaign) has been discovered. Whether it is  genuine or not is anyone’s guess, but at least one part of the text quoted by Reuters (it looks like a slightly different version of what you were citing) fits what we know about the monstrously vain terrorist leader: “We saw the cowardly Crusaders [Christians] and the lowly Jews hold fast while fighting us, while soldiers of our nation raised the white flag and
surrendered to their enemies…Even the students of religion [Taliban], only
a handful of them were steadfast while the rest fled before they met the
enemy.”
This is, of course, very reminiscent of the complaints of another famously self-involved – and murderous – hysteric: Adolf Hitler. Towards the end of his life, the Fuhrer took to complaining that the Germans were just not up to the tasks he had set them. Those who had the effrontery to surrender to the advancing allies, even if against overwhelming odds, had betrayed the cause. They did not deserve to be led (in Adolf’s view) by such a great leader. Bin Laden, I am sure, would agree with Hitler on this, as on so much else. Let us hope that he has shared the former Fuhrer’s fate.

I hate to upset the delicate sensibilities of the Jewish student leaders at Georgetown, seeing as how they go to pieces when someone presents them with something unpleasant about Islam. But here goes. It seems that a satellite broadcaster in Egypt, America’s Peace-Loving Muslim client state, is going to celebrate Ramadan by televising a miniseries based in part on The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, the infamous 19th-century anti-Semitic forgery. Egypt’s state television is going to carry this program, which purports to explain how a Jewish conspiracy dominates the Middle East. The estimated viewership throughout the Arab world will be in the tens of millions.

One of the loveliest and most graceful things that will be written about Sen. Wellstone has this afternoon come from the pen of a conservative. Don’t miss this moving remembrance. It’s Peggy Noonan at her best.

Nice story from the London Times today on Ron Lantz, the trucker who spotted that a parked blue Chevrolet matched the description of the suspected snipers’ car. He called 911 and was told to stay where he was. Well, Ron Lantz didn’t just do that. Despite knowing that the car quite possibly contained armed men, he went and parked his truck in a way that blocked its exit. The car, and the alleged snipers, were still there when the police arrived.
“I’m no hero. I just want people to think what I did is what I should have
done,” he explained later.
No hero? That’s just where you are wrong, Mr. Lantz.

A school district mails out checks for one cent.

The Arab League is c