All abroad aboard tonight’s Very Special Episode of the Love Boat:

“A series of startling revelations will change the lives of everyone on the Love Boat, as tonight they will loose one–or several–of their own. The four-star cast is joined by surprise guests.”

The NCAA has banned Penn State from college football bowl participation for four years, fined the university $60 million, vacated 110 victories from 1998 to 2011, and enabled all football scholarship athletes at the school to transfer without having to sit out a year. Except for banning, this is perhaps the most that could otherwise be done in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal.

A new Gallup poll taken after news of his alleged sexual harassment history broke shows he is still tied at the top with Mitt Romney. Apparently, the scandals haven’t yet hurt his standing, possibly because over 50 percent of Republicans tend to disbelieve the charges.

As I said last week, The Party Line is my attempt to take the ideas and thoughts that have been bouncing around in my head all week, and use them to kick off a weekend’s worth of conversation, and,well, my thoughts were a little extra bouncy today. There was just so much this week, and so much to say about Egypt all by itself, that I had a hard time editing my thoughts. . . but stick with me because, as you can see by the tags, I also talk about sex.