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Blogspot has been acting up a bit lately - when I try to load up Blogspot sites, I just get a generic Blogspot error message saying that no such website exists (this happens about a quarter of the time - the rest of the time, it goes through normally). Is anyone else having this problem?
posted by Dan at 9:51 AM

 
The good news is, it's looking more and more like that a problematic Supreme Court nomination isn't likely to occur this summer. Generally, Supreme Court retirements happen during the summer break (excepting cases of illness), which starts fairly soon. If any of justices were to retire right now, it seems unlikely it's probably too late for the White House to put forward another uber-conservative on the court without creating a rather big issue for the presidential election, something the polls seem to show that can't be afforded right now.
posted by Dan at 7:55 PM

 
Given the recent questions about Rumsfeld, I've started to wonder about whether there's a method for impeaching Cabinet secretaries.

I should note that I don't actually think that this should be done, at least not yet, as it would be overplaying the hand by a lot. I'm just wondering about it. If there's anything the Clinton impeachment should've proven, it's that impeachment proceedings should not be so much a means of dealing with an inability to be have in a trustworthy manner, but only to deal with cases where there has been a clear and conscious decision to violate the law (see Nixon, Richard).
posted by Dan at 11:16 AM

 
One of the Daily Kos posters is waxing enthusastic (uh, I think I've just committed a rather serious sin against the English language, but you get the point of what I'm trying to say ... I hope) about the chances of Capri Cafaro of unseating Steve LaTourette in OH-14.

If there's a year to unseat LaTourette, this is certainly it - while no one wants to expressly bring his marital difficulties to the fore (well, OK, I'll do it - he cheated on his wife with a lobbyist and then called his spouse over the phone to inform her of this and tell her that he was filing for a divorce) - the district is never going to be too favorable to electing a Democrat. Moreover, the job losses are hurting the district as well (though the 14th isn't as manufacturing-oriented as neighboring districts).

A lot is made of the fact that the district elected a series of Democrats up until LaTourette. It certainly hasn't helped that the Democrats couldn't find a top-tier candidate against him for so long - nor would Cafaro count as one, but for the fact that her family is enormously wealthy - but Lake County has been trending Republican for a while, and the district as a whole has been doing so as well. The district elected Democrats for a couple of decades until 1994, when LaTourette upset Eric Fingerhut,* who had taken over for Dennis Eckart in 1992. It became clear over the next couple of elections, though, that 1992 had been more of an abberation than 1994 - the district turned out more Republican than had been intended by the redistrictors during the post-1990 Census revisions. This trend was exaggerated further when most of the Cleveland/Cuyahoga County precincts were cut off in the last round of redistricting.

(Before any of my Democratic-leaning readers start lamenting this, despite the fact that the redistricting was clearly Republican-oriented, the changes to the 14th district were mostly motivated by a need to adjust for the fact that Stephanie Tubbs Jones' neighboring district had lost a significant amount of its population and had to be maintained for reasons pertaining to the Voting Rights Act).

Anyhow, with most of the Cuyahoga County portions of the district gone, the 14th leans even more to the right than it did previously. Her family's links with disgraced Rep. Jim Traficant, currently sitting in jail, probably won't help. Cafaro was actually granted immunity for her testimony in the trial. Caparo's campaign, previously quite impressive, doesn't seem to be doing the same job of outreach to the general population - the campaign website doesn't seem to have been updated since the primary. She might be doing a great job of linking up with the movers and shakers, but it'll be the decisions of the voters that actually count in November.

The moral of the story is this: If anti-Bush momentum picks up further, Cafaro could be one of the likeliest upsets of an incumbent Republican Congressman. Without it, though, she's going to face an uphill battle, money and all.

*Usual disclaimer: Eric is, broadly speaking, something of a family friend.
posted by Dan at 11:15 PM

 
I found myself watching the Indians beat the Red Sox on ESPN2 tonight, and the announcers kept marvelling about the addition of new seats to Fenway Park brought in by the (relatively) new ownership, and how it affected the stadium for the first time in its history (this isn't true ... I'll get to it later). Well, in reality, the field of play hasn't been affected significantly by the new seats on the roof in right field nor the Green Monster seats, no matter how much they alter the view from the press box. The only change to the field of play has been the slight alteration resulting from the addition of a few dozen seats in foul territory in front of where the fences used to be (incidentally, the people who owned the seats that were just behind the old boundary must have been mighty pissed about that change). This only barely reduced the already small foul territory, though.

Anyway, this brought me back to a Tim Keown column from a couple of weeks ago criticizing the addition of quirks to the new stadium in San Diego, Petco Park.

Keown said: "Petco Park in San Diego is the latest retro ballpark to incorporate funky angles and cheeky quirks in an attempt to appeal to the bohemian sensibilities of the well-heeled baseball fan. The result of all this visible strain, sorry to say, is a wonderful trend that threatens to turn into self-parody.

Some of the new ballparks -- not including the design brilliance in Baltimore, San Francisco, Pittsburgh and Cleveland -- are too damn cute. The old parks, the ones they're trying so strenuously to imitate, came by their eccentricities naturally."

Anyway, it seems to me that this is a bit false. There's a real difference between those baseball stadiums that were designed with quirks that actually reflected the layout of the surrounding neighborhood. Camden Yards and Jacobs Field were limited by the layout of the neighboring streets (and Camden Yards by the desire to leave the B&O; Warehouse intact). The stadiums in Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Cincinnati were strongly limited by large bodies of water adjacent to the stadiums.

On the other hand, the Ballpark in Arlington, Safeco Field in Seattle, Miller Park in Milwaukee, Citizens Bank Park in Philly and Tropicana Field in Tampa were all set down in parking lots, and given cutesy little quirks because they could. And they all look a lot worse for it. The Seattle, Houston and Milwaukee stadiums were all heavily affected by the desire to include a retractible roof, anyhow.

The other point is that the latter type was designed with significant quirks in them for no reason. On the other hand, most of the legendary stadiums that the new stadiums want to mimic - pre-renovation Yankee Stadium, Ebbets Field, and the Polo Grounds in New York, Shibe Park in Philly, Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, Tiger Stadium in Detroit, Fenway, Wrigley, and a few others - almost entirely developed their quirks over time, mostly as the result of a desire to shoehorn new seats into existing stadiums in sites that were already bound by existing streets and seating areas. In almost all of these stadiums, the stadium had far more quirks in its later years than its earlier years. Indeed, if one looks at the photos of these famous stadiums in their early years, the stadium layout looks downright boring. Basically, it's often the renovations that produce the quirks that make great stadiums great, not the initial construction of quirks.
posted by Dan at 10:55 PM

 
I don't think it's visible here, but Blogger has updated its template for posting once again. I'll probably test out the new comments system in a few days, which will once again get rid of the old comments. The new system is rather annoyingly user-friendly (I'm rather stuck in my ways about old software), though it does have a few new bells and whistles.
posted by Dan at 12:23 PM

 
George Will: "Michael Barone, America's foremost political analyst, wonders why America produces so many incompetent 18-year-olds but remarkably competent 30-year-olds."

Uh, maybe it's because I'm 22, but I've often seen it the other way around, with the 18-year-olds far more competent than the 30-year-olds.

Will seems to blame increased schooling for coddling our youngsters, but to the extent that Americans become more competent from ages 18 to 30 is not so much a reflection of the failings of the secondary schooling system at younger ages but the success of the higher education systems, warts and all.

Will also says: "Barone says racial preferences, which were born in the 1960s and '70s, fence some blacks off from Hard America, insulating them in 'a Soft America where lack of achievement will nonetheless be rewarded.'"

Uh, I have to think that neither Will nor Barone has been to Northeast DC, or any other ghetto in a damn long time if they can actually believe this. Pardon my language, but it's utter bullshit.
posted by Dan at 12:47 PM

 
Three things strike me about the current CNN top story - that George Bush is angry with Donald Rumsfeld about the lack of accountability in the situation at Abu Ghraib.

1. Uh, how nice of the Secretary of Defense to fall on his sword for Bush.

2. Except that he's not actually falling on his sword. There utter lack of any culture of responsibility in the current administration continues to astound me. There's not one peep of accepting any sort of punishment for this. If this were the British cabinet, the Defense (well, Defence) Secretary would have resigned, or been fired by now. Here, though, the buck seems to stop ... well, it mostly seems to peter out on its own eventually.

3. It was leaked anonymously. Now, one can start getting into the conspiracy theory mindset that the White House purposely leaked this so as to deflect any harm from Bush to Rumsfeld. On the other hand, though, this White House seems to have steadfastly avoided the leaking game that most White Houses tend to play. Most senior officials have been extremely tight-lipped, unwilling to bad-mouth each other. Maybe that's coming to an end. Or maybe it was on purpose. I don't pretend to know (that's Bob Woodward's job, I guess ...).
posted by Dan at 11:31 PM

 
I realize I've got three hundred years of history of semantics and literature going against me, but if D'Artagnan - whose actual remains may have been found recently - was a swordsman, why was he called a musketeer? I mean, a musket was a gun, not a sword. Shouldn't Dumas have written about the 'Three Swordsmen'?
posted by Dan at 7:09 PM

 
I have Pardon the Interruption on the TV right now, and Kornheiser, Wilbon and Jon Miller are discussing the possibility of changing the intentional walk rule - requiring that one strike be thrown first, sending the runner to 2nd base, etc., because of Barry Bonds.

First of all, it's a dumb idea. The intentional walk is good strategy, whether it's exciting or not. Secondly, it'd tip the balance towards the batter in a wholly unnecessary. How about starting to testore the balance and banning those damn elbow guards that Bonds wears. I'm willing to accept that they have a valid role when someone is coming off the DL, but there's no way that they should be allowed year-long - batters should be worried about the possibility that pitchers are going to throw inside. Maybe then we can think about changing the intentional walk rule.
posted by Dan at 5:48 PM

 
I'm watching the evening news (actually, 'watching' is a fairly generous term but ...), and they're discussing possible running mates, listing Dick Gephardt, Gov. Tom Vilsack of Iowa and John Edwards.

Now, I don't have much reason to admire Gephardt. He's unabashedly protectionist, and while he does appeal to the 'old Democrat' wing of the party, I don't think that's as large of a block that needs to be appealed to as in the past. As far as Edwards, I don't think he'd do badly, but I don't know that he'd set the house on fire, either. And as far as Vilsack, well, I guess Kerry wants to carry Iowa, but I really don't think Vilsack will help at all elsewhere. I saw Vilsack speak here a few months ago, and he's a deadly boring speaker. Admittedly, he was mostly speaking off the cuff, and didn't seem to have much in the way of prepared remarks. It's possible that he's better when working off of a stump speech (Kerry does seem to do better with prepared remarks than when winging it). But he wouldn't seem to bring much excitement to a ticket that seems to need it.

Looking around, it's disappointing how little 'outside-the-box' thinking seems to be going on ... unless you listen to the inane chatter about McCain. There's little talk of, say Gov. Locke, Sen. Lincoln or Sen. Breaux (who, though planning to retire, and one of the more conservative members of the Democratic party, would seem to be a pretty attractive choice when you think about it). Then again, most of the recent VP choices have been individuals who were generally a surprise to the public. I can't really recall whether Gore's name was tossed around that much in 1992, but Kemp clearly came out of the blue in 1996, Cheney sort of chose himself when put in charge of the Bush campaign's search for a VP candidate in 2000, and Gore's choice of Lieberman, though mooted a little bit in the media, was still fairly surprising. So it wouldn't be surprising to see Kerry go out there and choose someone surprising, I guess.
posted by Dan at 7:00 PM

 
The feds have seized all of the steroid test samples for Major League Baseball from last year. If there ever was a case that called for a leak to the media, this is it.
posted by Dan at 6:48 PM

 
In defense of grade inflation - since it isn't all it's cracked up to be

There's an article in the WaPo today looking at efforts at Princeton to roll back the tide of rising grades. The article states that:

"More than 45 percent of the grades awarded at Princeton from 1997 to 2002 were A's, compared with just 30 percent a quarter-century earlier. The number of C grades declined over the same period from 15 percent to 7 percent."

...

"Experts on grade inflation trace the phenomenon to the Vietnam era, when professors were reluctant to give grades that would lead to their students flunking out and becoming eligible for the draft. Grade averages tapered off during the '70s and '80s and then shot up again during the '90s, according to Stuart Rojstaczer, a Duke University professor who has collected nationwide data on grade inflation."

Er, yes and no.

There's anecdotal evidence that grades were inflated to prevent flunking out in the Vietnam years. On the other hand, it's pretty clear that a large element of rising grades at most universities reflects the fact that students today are smarter and better prepared for their university studies, and seem to be working harder as well. Looking at average SAT scores, it's pretty clear that aptitude levels have risen pretty dramatically over the last thirty years or so, even once you account for the recentering of the SATs in the mid-90's.*

This change is particularly true at elite universities. Rising aptitude levels are the result of a couple of factors - the reduction of widespread legacy admissions, demographic issues (the children of baby boomers have entered the educational system more quickly than many top universities have expanded their slots), and improvements in secondary education. Students also appear to be working harder - there is a decent amount of evidence that the greater pressures to seek post-graduate studies and to build directly for a professional career have led to higher workloads. This appears to be particularly true when one looks at trends in extra-curricular participation - there has been a fairly noticeable shift (again, particularly at elite universities) - away from fraternities and sororities and towards pre-professional groups on a relative basis.

In other words, the university students of today are smarter and harder working than those of thirty years ago. And those of thirty years from now will likely smarter and harder working than those today (frightening, no?). There may be some inflation of grades that has gone on. But it's worth noting that a sizable part of the trend has been a real increase in academic achievements.

*SATs aren't perfect of course, but they're the best measure I can think of that is used on a widespread basis. ACTs aren't as common, and grade point averages are measured in a multitude of different ways.
posted by Dan at 10:10 AM

 
Popping a few bubbles

There's a good deal of speculation going around that Google is about to offer an IPO. The reasoning is that Google gave out stock options to most of its 1,000+ employees recently. SEC regulations require that any company with more than 500 shareholders and $10 million in assets must file an annual report with the SEC. Since filing an annual report is a fairly onerous process - and also necessary before going public - it's possible that Google may just go public soon.

Not to burst anyone's bubble, but there are a couple of problems with this. First, the options may not have been exercized yet - that is, it's possible that while most of the employees have a rightt to buy stock at a certain time, there may not be 500 actual shareholders yet. The other thing is that there is, as I understand it, a clause in SEC regulations allowing for exemptions under certain circumstances. So it's quite possible that Google may not go public quite yet.

UPDATE (4/30/04): OK, so there's no two ways about it, I was wrong.
posted by Dan at 9:26 AM

 
So I went down to the abortion protest today.

I have to say that the organizers had seriously weird tastes in music while they were waiting for the marchers to arrive back at the Mall. I mean, I'm not expecting them to play "Brick" by Ben Folds Five, but "Ice Ice Baby"?

Yep, definitely tackling the tough issues here.
posted by Dan at 2:03 AM

 
Matt Yglesias has an interesting post discussing the applicability of the Law of One Price to gasoline and blog ads.

My response (which I already posted in the comments there, but then, I'm lazy) is this:

The Law of One Price fails to hold in its strong form pretty much everywhere (as do many economic rules when applied to reality, which is so much messier than the theoretical world), even with fairly mobile commodities

There's an intersection in the East Side of Cleveland (Cedar & S. Green) where there are three gas stations. The price is usually pretty close for most grades of gasoline - I can't remember it ever varying more than a nickel a gallon from high to low, but it often varies by a cent or two. The stations differentiate themselves by convenience in terms of location - it's easier to just turn right than go left across traffic - in terms of facilities - one has a small convenice store, another has a garage - and in terms of the exact grade of the gasoline.

Interestingly, though, the price divergence seems to be smaller for the price of standard unleaded gas than for the premium higher octane gasolines. Standard unleaded rarely deviates by more than a penny, but the higher octane gasolines sometimes vary by three or four cents per gallon. One possibility is that the suppliers for the different stations offer different prices. Another, more interesting, possibility is that the station owners think that customers just look at the price of standard gasoline rather than the grade that they're actually buying.
posted by Dan at 11:49 AM

 
Rep. John Hostettler was briefly detained yesterday after he tried to board a plane with a loaded gun in a carry-on.

Hostettler claimed that he "completely forgot" that the gun was in his bag. And considering how dumb he is, that's a wholly plausible explanation. Hostettler may be one of the dumbest members of Congress, definitely among those I've seen in action - he's one of the few who can make Jim Moran look smart by comparison.
posted by Dan at 2:51 AM

 
Georgetown (finally) hired John Thompson III today (actually, yesterday, as I write).

Back to work. (writing/editing the neverending thesis)
posted by Dan at 1:47 AM

 
Say what you want about Bob Woodward's new Plan of Attack, but the man clearly knows how to do PR for a book right. (hell, he's only had about three decades to get it right)

By the way, why the hell was anyone in the White House willing to speak to Woodward?One would think that Bush at War would have been education enough for them. There are a couple of possibilities - one is that one major White House figure spoke to Woodward, and the rest were essentially obliged to follow in order to prevent a view that made that person look like a hero and the others badly (i.e., Powell talks and denigrates Rumsfeld, or vice versa). Another possibility is that they were just that idealistic and sure of being correct. Or that they're complete and total idiots (which even I don't believe).

UPDATE: CNN is reporting that Colin Powell is saying that the White House told him and others to speak to Woodward. Honestly, what the hell were they thinking?
posted by Dan at 6:31 PM

 
There's an op-ed in the Washington Post today by Steve Hayes, who served alongside John Kerry in Vietnam, suggesting that the Democratic presidential nominee earned three Purple Hearts for relatively minor wounds and then used them as a means to apply for an early return to the States (the article does not question the Silver Star earned for gallantry) - as well as criticizing the current administration for blindly sending men and women into combat with little experience or idea of the dangers.

From what I know, it seems that this is realistically more an indictment of the military culture in Vietnam than of Kerry, who may have used the system to his advantage. Purple Hearts were generally allotted in a rather generous manner during the war (I have no way of knowing whether this is still true today). One of my high-school teachers, who worked various support jobs at the base and never actually went into combat, nearly earned a Purple Heart - during a hot night, he had gone up to sleep up on the roof of one of the buildings at the base, and, briefly forgetting where he was when the base came under light arms fire from the Viet Cong, fell off and suffered a cut to his leg. This made him eligible for a Purple Heart, but, more embarassed than proud, he refused to put in the necessary paperwork.

Long story, short: getting a Purple Heart during the Vietnam War wasn't always a difficult thing.

NOTE: Obviously, this isn't meant to denigrate the contribution and risks borne by thousands of men and women who did put themselves in great danger during the war.
posted by Dan at 11:58 AM

 
Kriston Capps has moved off Blogger and into the wonderful world of Moveable Type. The new address is www.grammarpolice.net.

(by the way, who the hell would have thought to have squatted already at http://www.grammarpolice.com?!?)
posted by Dan at 11:18 AM

 
Rumors are swirling around campus that Princeton John Thompson III is about to be hired as the new head coach of the men's basketball team, replacing the recently fired Craig Esherick. Thompson, for the uninitiated, is the son of legendary G-Town coach John Thompson, whom Esherick rather unsuccesfully replaced.

I can't help but think that this isn't the best possible outcome. It isn't that Thompson won't improve the team and restore it to adequacy - pretty much anyone would be an improvement over Esherick - but that he'll face a very hard time restoring it to glory. Working under his father's shadow - and his father still works on both local radio and national TV covering basketball - will be incredibly difficult. Thompson has succeeded at Princeton, but hasn't done anything spectacular there, and hasn't exactly taken the Tigers to new heights.

Thompson has previously stated that he wouldn't be tied to Princeton's legendary old-school style of basketball if he moved elsewhere - he would be willing to consider something more up-tempo. The back-to-fundamentals style of basketball actually might be a significant improvement at Georgetown over Esherick's schizoid style of play, but one has to wonder whether we have the right perimeter personnel to make such a strategy work right now. The alums probably wouldn't be happy at first, given Georgetown's traditional style of relying on the biggest guys possible in the low post - Ewing, Mourning, Mutombo, Sweetney, etc. - but that wouldn't be too much of the problem if the team were to start winning again.

That said, financial considerations undoubtedly played a role in the choice, given the current dire financial situation of the university. Getting a big name mid-major coach like Bobby Gonzalez would probably be too expensive, as would getting a widely known assistant (the name of Duke Assistant Coach Johnny Dawkins has been repeatedly floated, but one can't help thinking that Dawkins would be little different than Esherick). So the university pretty much has to go in-house to some extent, in order to get someone who's willing to work for less than they might demand on the open market.
posted by Dan at 11:16 AM

 
Uh, anyone know of a source where I can find historical data on Finnish police strength levels?

Actually, at this point, I'd take pretty much any data on the subject I can get.
posted by Dan at 6:45 PM

 
About the Kerry speech yesterday in Gaston:

It was pretty good. As a speaker, Kerry comes across far better (i.e., less aloof and more emotive) in person than he comes across on TV. He's still not Clinton-esque, though. He's also far better than Bush, whose public speaking style is - in the words of a staunch Republican I know - 'somehow both incredibly boring and cringe-inducing,' due to his habits of mumbling and lapsing into malaprops. That said, Kerry has developed a habit of ad-libbing during his speeches. Some of this is quite entertaining and beneficial to his speaking style - particularly when responding to hecklers - but it looked like he's going to end up putting his foot in his mouth pretty soon in a manner that's going to require the jaws of life to get it out. It seems almost certain that Kerry is going to say something that - possibly by getting taken out of context by the Republican spin-and-smear machine or possibly just by misspeaking - is going to cost him a few points in the polls.

As far as the actual text of the speech, it was good to start to hear specifics about Kerry's economic plan. Much of it was stuff I'd endorse, particularly on his deficit reduction plans (The New York Times likes it, while the Washington Post doesn't like it, because they feel that it doesn't go far enough away from Bush's economic governance). He also tended to make a couple of vaguer remarks about supporting American manufacturing - slowing the decline of American manufacturing, particularly where it has occurred due to the pegging of the Chinese Yuan, is admirable, but the idea that the decline can be halted or reversed is pretty stupid - and moving away from free trade, seemed to be more politically-driven and far beneficial - or even harmful - to the national economy.

Pointless addendum: I can be seen on the C-SPAN tape of the event at a couple of points, sitting in the balcony. As far as anyone who can actually recognize me - I really need to shave and get a haircut (the broken finger has impeded the former, my laziness has impeded the latter) - and I don't usually look quite that morose.
posted by Dan at 6:44 PM

 
Kerry is speaking at Georgetown tomorrow, apparently to give the vaunted speech laying out the economic policy that he expects to campaign on, and I expect to be able to see the speech. Usually (though not always), Georgetown sets up microphones so that speakers can take Q-And-A's after the speech. Any suggestions for a question, should I get the chance?
posted by Dan at 4:29 PM

 
Summarizing Charlie Cook's round-up of the upcoming elections, Wonkette roughly quotes Cook as saying the following:

"Cook (ignoring his own advice about making VP predictions) suggested that Kerry should pick Gephardt. Ohio is most important state in race. Northern Ohio is where job losses are hurting Bush; Southern OH is more conservative; but the votes are in the North."

Well, he could have been more wrong, but it'd have been pretty difficult. It's true that job losses are hurting Northern Ohio, and that Ohio may well be the most important state in the presidential race (though, seven months out, it's something that could well change in the coming weeks). The problem is that, as the past decade has shown, Democrats do very well in Northern Ohio, but can't win without enough support in the south.

Unfortunately, this isn't something the incredibly incompetent state Democratic party has realized. As a result, it's run a series of Democrats from the northern part of the state (mostly, though not all, from the Cleveland area) with almost no success. Tim Hagan, Mary Boyle, Ted Celeste. Lee Fisher, yet again. As a result, no Democrat has been elected to a state-wide office other than the State Supreme Court in a decade. Rather than give a Democrat from down-state a chance for once, Eric Fingerhut is running for the Senate this year.*

Bill Clinton did win the state twice, by understanding that winning Ohio means showing up in the north once in a while to get sufficient turnout, but mostly by running strongly enough in the southern half of the state to keep ahead overall. It isn't necessary to win the southern half of the state - it's pretty damn near impossible - but just to do well enough in the Canton and Columbus areas and to get enough voters out in inner-city Dayton and Cincinnati to let Cleveland, Toledo and Youngstown the Republican votes in the deep south. Running toward the northern half of the state might be easier, but it'll also be running away from victory.

Hell, I think the Democrats could still carry the Cleveland area if they nominated a houseplant (though this isn't as true as it used to be).

*Disclosure: Eric is, broadly speaking, a family friend. He served the East side of the Cleveland suburbs in the House for one term in the early '90's. He's a nice guy, and a good politician. Barring an unforseen anti-Bush tidal wave, he doesn't stand a chance of winning.
posted by Dan at 4:28 PM

 
Sorry for the lack of posting here of late, but I've got a pretty good excuse this time - a broken finger, injured late last week playing football. I can still type adequately, but somewhat slower than normal, and it's slowing up all my coursework and leaving me with less time for other things.
posted by Dan at 12:55 PM

 
More minor adjustments to the template.
posted by Dan at 10:32 AM

 
I've been watching far too much of the NCAA tournament lately, and it seems that far too many of the close games degenerate into foul-fests at the end of the game. (witness Wake Forest vs. St. Joseph's as I write this). So, can I make a suggestion?

Make any foul beyond the three-point arc during the double bonus worth three foul shots, rather than the current two foul shots. This would offer a pretty significant discouragement to fouling every single player anywhere near the ball whenever a game gets close in the final minute.

Another alternative, I guess, would be to create a triple bonus, so that any fouls after the tenth or so, would automatically result in three shots.

Something has to be done, though. The final minute of a game should not take fifteen actual minutes to be carried out.
posted by Dan at 12:18 AM

 
In the middle of a surprisingly intelligent Newt Gingrich op-ed arguing for free trade and ensuring that America 'insources' jobs by "by making America the best place in the world to create the next high-value-added, wealth-creating jobs," the former Speaker speaketh:

"The debate, then, is between those who embrace the future and those who try to prop up and defend the past and who, in the process, crush the country's growth potential. One example: The result of failed protectionist policies in West Germany has been massive unemployment, with many young people never having held a job. It is a situation that instills a sense of malaise and decay."

Er, no.

There are plenty of cases where protectionism led to economic decay (including pretty much everywhere during the Great Depression, though this was worsened strictures on foreign exchange and capital movements at the time). West Germany wasn't one of them.

West Germany actually maintained fairly low trading barriers with its neighbors in Western Europe in industrial goods from 1951 (the founding of the ECSC) and agricultural goods from 1958 (the founding of the EEC/EC/EU). Now, the EU certainly maintains plenty of idiotic barriers against trade from outside its borders (the CAP is largely a subsidy program, but it creates numerous trade losses). That said, barriers to trade within the EU are almost nonexistant, and much of German trade has historically been unaffected by tariffs. (of course, there's an argument to be had that their major trading partners were major trading partners because of trade diversion rather than trade creation).

The recession in Germany after reunification was largely the result of an ill-conceived currency policy at reunification that drastically overvalued the East German Mark relative to the West German Mark, spending policies that caused the junking of the EMU in 1992 and led to much uncertainty in neighboring economies as well as Germany, and plenty of market inefficiencies due to problems with the structure of the welfare state and strict regulations on the labor market. Basically, it was everything but protectionism.
posted by Dan at 4:30 PM

 
Gregg Easterbrook is complaining about "the NCAA's disgraceful new policy of not disclosing the graduation rates of men's basketball teams"

First of all, I'm not entirely sure it's new - plenty of colleges have been doing their damnest to suppress the true graduation statistics for a while (this is true insofar they estimate that students can take six years to graduate when scholarship athletes only get four years of tuition covered).

More than that, there are, as I understand it (this with the caveat that I'm not a lawyer and don't play one on TV), pretty sound reasons for not disclosing certain academic information such as graduation rates where it is possible to discern information about specific individuals from the broader data. FERPA (the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) and the Buckley Amendment basically make life a lot more interesting for university administrators by making the disclosure of much of the information that a university must keep illegal to disclose publicly. I've been involved with numerous activities at Georgetown that have required me to either sign Buckley waivers or to be reminded of the need to avoid any disclosure of sensitive information to avoid making myself or anyone else eligible for lawsuits. Of course, then again, this also gives universities an incentive to hide behind FERPA and the Buckley Amendment whenever they don't want to give out certain information (as Georgetown notoriously did following the death of a student in an altercation in early 2000).
posted by Dan at 11:53 PM

 
For those wishing to denigrate the recent statements of Richard Clarke on the Bush administration's attitude on terrorism before 9/11 and focus on Iraq afterwards as the result of partisan sniping from a former Clinton administration employee (see Pundit, Insta for one example), it's worth noting that Clarke originally came to work for the Reagan White House and stayed on in various posts working for George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. He's not exactly the partisan stereotype.
posted by Dan at 2:48 PM

 
More thesis crap

Does anyone know of a good historical data set that involves annual numbers on poverty in developed countries over the last half-century or so? Theoretically the World Bank should have something along these lines somewhere, but I haven't been able to find anything in the format I need there as of yet. Thanks.
posted by Dan at 11:53 PM

 
There's a rumor going around campus tonight that Craig Esherick will be out tomorrow as head coach of the Georgetown men's baskeball team. It's not clear as to whether he is thought to have been fired, re-assigned or resigned.

None too soon, really.

It's not that Esherick's a bad guy. He's certainly dedicated almost all of his adult life to the Hoyas basketball program. And I have no doubt that he's a damn fine assistant coach, gets along well with the alums and Georgetown community more generally, and would probably make a fine Athletic Director. It's also clear - and I've seen this far too much over the last couple of years - that he's a horrible head coach. He can't manage during the game worth a damn, and can't recruit worth a whit (the only top-notch player we've had over the past few years was Mike Sweetney, who actually committed to John Thompson shortly before he resigned). We've done horribly in the Big East in recent years - though we're still perfectly capable of beating the crap out of MEAC teams. It's pretty clear that he can't motivate at all either (and he's about admitted as much in a couple of interviews recently). Which has basically left us with a coach who does very well at running practices and very poorly at everything else.

More than that, Esherick has steadfastly tried to take credit for the success of 1970's, 1980's and early 1990's while denying any responsibility for the recent troubles. At the press conference after the first-round loss in the Big East tournament last week, Esherick blamed our crappy record this year without once acknowledging that he was ultimately responsible for that recruiting.

It's possible that the decision was made in response to a rally that was put together by a bunch of alums that was scheduled for tomorrow. The alums had also put together a petition here that had about 3600 signatures at last check.

Then again, it's just a rumor.

(If true, this will bring about the rumors about who they're going to hire. There will be some pressure, no doubt, to bring in a big name. Which ain't gonna happen, since the school is pretty much broke. My guess would be that they'll lean towards one of John Thompson's sons - Ronny, a former GU assistant coach who's currently an assistant coach at Arkansas, and John Jr., currently the head coach at Princeton - or Horace Broadnax, another alum who used to be the head coach - though not a particularly good one - at Bethune-Cookman. Possible extremely dark horses might include dragging either John Thompson or Lefty Driesell - whose son is currently a Georgetown assistant coach - out of retirement. )

UPDATE: And it's official. He's been fired. (honestly, could the President's office please get someone to write press releases who can actually make it sound like DeGioia is actually talking rather than writing press releases that sound like a committee wrote his quotes)
posted by Dan at 10:57 PM

 
Moral Dilemma

I'm currently in the process of writing my thesis. Which is one of the reasons I'm not writing much here right now. I'm working in a fairly esoteric field in which there are very few existing academic papers (because it's a highly politically charged topic, I've decided not to discuss it here until I have at least have all the data before me). One of the papers was co-authored by John Lott. I'm seriously queasy about citing Lott, given his spectacularly unprofessional behavior in the past surrounding "More Guns, Less Crime" and the Mary Rosh fiasco. So, the question is: do I cite Lott, cite Lott with a footnote indicating that the man is all but entirely discredited, or just ignore the paper?

UPDATE (March 25): For those who are truly curious, I cited the paper in my literature review and included a footnote detailing Lott's behavior, as Tim Lambert suggested.
posted by Dan at 9:19 PM

 
Happy (slightly belated) blogiversary to Wizblog. Anyone who can refer to me as a trendsetter and still keep a straight face about it is fine by me.
posted by Dan at 2:46 PM

 
The shadow cabinet. As I've said before, it's a good idea.
posted by Dan at 9:54 PM

 
Kieran Healy makes the argument that divorce is far more of a threat to the social order than gay marriage.

I agree. To a point, anyway. I'm all for restricting the use of no-fault divorce laws where children are involved. I've seen far too many times amongst my friends (and arguably, between my parents), where parents have just given up on a marriage rather than fight through tough times, and in doing so, causing serious emotional damage to their family members. This isn't to say that I'm against divorce in case of a fault (adultery, violence, etc.) or no-fault divorce where no children are involved. But social costs aside, allowing people to just give up on their families so easily is a bad way to run a society.
posted by Dan at 9:41 PM

 
I haven't written much here in the last week or two because of midterms - I'm increasingly convinced that midterms are worse to deal with than finals, as the rest of university life doesn't come to a grinding halt during midterms as it does during finals - and regular posting (or what passes for it here) should resume shortly.
posted by Dan at 9:36 PM

 
I'm not usually in the outrage-manufacturing business, but ...

I just came across this notice at the Political Graveyard. It seems that a bill has been reported out of the House Judiciary Committee in and is now before the House Energy and Commerce Committee to overturn the Supreme Court's Feist decision, which decided in 1991 that facts could not be copyrighted.

If passed, this bill would wreak untold havoc on the internet, forcing the removal of the Political Graveyard, Wikipedia, Froogle, Google News (both Google sites gather information from other sites), and numerous other sources of information, both on the internet and across all media.

Basically, if you want a dumber and more ignorant America, support the bill. Otherwise, you can send a fax to the committee members here (note: you have to register). You can also write your Representative here.
posted by Dan at 9:08 AM

 
More minor changes to the template. Nothing terribly noticeable, really.
posted by Dan at 12:57 PM

 
Y'know, it's one thing when Charles Krauthammer writes something really stupid. It's another thing when he just writes something entirely wrong, as he does in today's column.

So says Krauthammer: "Not again. We are the only Western country to have legalized abortion by judicial fiat rather than by democratic approval of the people or the legislature. Are we going to do it again with gay marriage?"

Well, actually, no. I dunno about the link between abortion and gay marriage in Krauthammer's argument, but the United States is not the only Western country to have legalized abortion through a court decision (five states actually legalized abortion in 1970, three years ahead of Roe v. Wade - some due to state court decisions and some via state legislatures). Canada fully legalized abortion in 1988 through a decision by the Supreme Court of Canada in the Morgentaler case (it had previously legalized abortion under certain restrictions in 1967). Australia legalized abortion on a state-by-state basis from 1969-86 through a variety of court decisions (except for South Australia, which legalized via legislation in 1969, and Tasmania, which has yet to repeal its laws criminalizing abortion as best I know). The United Kingdom first liberalized its abortion laws via the Bourne case of 1938, which allowed abortions to protect the life of the mother or to prevent her from becoming a "mental or physical wreck." Abortion laws in the United Kingdom (excluding Northern Ireland) were subsequently substantially liberalized by an Act of Parliament in 1967 (in effect in 1968).

So much for fact-checking.
posted by Dan at 2:38 PM

 
Josh Marshall is musing on the apparent reticence of Congressional Republicans to wholeheartedly support the Federal Marriage Amendment. As Marshall points out, the FMA is clearly about getting Bush re-elected, regardless of the health of Republicans in the House of the Senate. They're upset - and with good cause.

The more I think about it, the more I have to believe that the cultural war isn't a winning issue for Republicans. Yes, it will motivate a large part of the base, but it simultaneously angers a smaller part of it - more libertarian types - while pissing off moderates. Similarly, if Bush were to propose that Congress move on a constitutional amendment to overturn Roe v. Wade, it would essentially be electoral suicide. The American public doesn't support gay marriage and/or civil unions quite as strongly as it supports abortion, but it's just a weaker version of the same argument.

I find myself repeating Al Franken's story about the 1992 Republican convention. Pat Buchanan gave a particularly vitriolic speech in which he openly stated that the Republican party was in the middle of a cultural war. The major networks all simultaneously proclaimed the speech to be the 'red meat' needed to rally the base and put Bush back on top. Meanwhile, Franken, offering live commentary on Comedy Central, alone mused aloud that the speech would be scaring away moderate Americans from the Republican party. Only Franken was right.

This isn't to say that the cultural war, in some weaker form, isn't a means for the Republican party to draw support. But at the end of the day, people want to tell each other how to act, not to be told how to act themselves.
posted by Dan at 11:01 AM

 
With the Federal Marriage Amendment now closer and closer to reaching the floors of the House and Senate, I think we have to start wondering about it's actual chance of passing, regardless of the actual quality of the amendment (for the record, I think it's bigoted and idiotic, randomly snatching a state issue and making it a federal one). Josh Chafetz thinks that it's not likely to pass the Senate, but I have to wonder about that, given the large majority that the Defense of Marriage Act got - as it did in the House. I have to wonder, though, about the chances of ratification by the states. An enormous anti-amendment campaign will likely be taking flight soon. And while 38 states have passed laws refusing to recognize gay marriages, I have a hard time believing that a similar number would approve an amendment now. The small territorial size of northeastern states relative to western ones could be a distinct advantage there.
posted by Dan at 5:57 PM

 
Random Tech Support

For reasons I can't understand, my ancient, Windows-95-running, laptop, has decided to start printing out one blank sheet when I turn the computer off at times. Basically, when I shut it down, it makes a lot of noise, the printer lights start blinking, and after about five minutes, a blank sheet gets fed out and the computer shuts off. Any ideas as to what's going on?
posted by Dan at 5:53 PM

 
Arnold Schwarzenegger has come out in favor of an amendment to the Constitution proposed by Orrin Hatch that would strike the language requiring that the President be a natural-born citizen and replace it with a requirement that the President be a U.S. citizen for 20 years.

I oppose it.

I oppose it not because I think that the language in the constitution is any good - it's plainly a relic that is no longer needed. I'd quibble with the 20 year requirement (I think it ought to be a little longer, but I'm not so opposed to this as to oppose the amendment entirely. I oppose it because the Hatch Amendment seems plainly intended to promote the possibility of a Schwarzenegger campaign for the White House. And I do not believe that the Constitution should ever be altered because of one individual. The constitution is intended to represent the entire nation, not one individual. Come back to me in a few years, and I'll happily support the amendment, but not now, not for Schwarzenegger.

(I should point out, for consistency's sake, that I would argue that the 22nd amendment, which limited the President to two terms and was a reaction to the long presidency of FDR, was a bad idea, and that any attempt to repeal the 22nd amendment on behalf of a sitting or former president - as was talked about for Reagan and Clinton - would also be a bad idea)
posted by Dan at 5:52 PM

 
I haven't seen anything written about this, and have no indication of how certain or accurate the report is, but the local NBC affiliate in DC is reporting that investigators are now considering the possibility that the tests on the letter thought to have ricin that was found in the Dirksen Senate Office Building were oversensitive and produced a false positive by detecting castor bean pulp used to make the paper rather than ricin. Good news, I suppose, if true.

UPDATE: WRC has put up this synopsis of the situation.
posted by Dan at 9:01 AM

 
Maybe the folk singers actually can save the world

There's an interesting article in the Guardian on the role of - of all people - Billy Bragg, in the reform of the House of Lords. Bragg, an English folk singer, has put forth a proposal that's actually being considered quite seriously alongside other proposals put forth by individuals more involved in the political process (Bragg has been quite politically active in the last couple decades, strongly promoting Labourite left politics, but isn't actually a politician).

Lords reform, of course, has been ongoing for nearly a century, as the upper house has been slowly neutered. Most of the hereditary lords were ejected a few years ago, but the house remains unelected. It has little power in dealing with most legislation passed by the Commons - it can only delay and amend - though it has occasionally stifled the passage of certain bills, most recently in blocking anti-fox hunting legislation. As the article notes, the Lords remains quite conservative and Conservative, despite the ejection of the hereditary lords, and tends to oppose Labour-held governments far more than Tory-held governments.

Bragg's proposal would allocate seats in the Lords through Proportional Representation party lists on a regional basis. The proportional representation rather than being decided by separate elections, would be set out at each general election by how many votes Commons candidates for each party receive. Thus, if the Lab-Tory-Lib Dem breakdown in Commons votes were 45-35-20 across an entire region, the seats in the Lords allocated to that region would be allocated accordingly. There would be a 4% cutoff for any party - that is, any party receiving less than 4% of the total votes in a region would receive no seats in the Lords from that region. Thus, there would still be no separate elections for the Lords, limiting election fatigue, but the Lords would become essentially representatives. This would probably allow some small parties - the Greens, Socialists and UK Independence Party - to take a few seats, but would still keep out the truly minor parties - i.e., the Monster Raving Loony Party, etc. The actual power of the Lords vis a vis the Commons would stay the same, though it would gain additional legitimacy in the eyes of the public.

The end result of this plan, though, would be to make the Lords as reflexively left-wing as it currently is right-wing. The result of the current single-member district system has been to distinctly penalize the left as votes have been split between Labour and the Lib Dems - even at the height of her premiership, with a hundred seat majority, Margaret Thatcher's Tories never won a majority of the popular vote.

The reform could also significantly affect the formation of cabinets. Current rules allow members of the Lords to sit in cabinets, but leaves parties choosing possible ministers from a group that does not sit on its political merits. The reform would allow parties to place favored ministerial candidates on the party lists for the Lords, thus ending any uncertainty about winning a position in the Commons.

The biggest downside about the reform would be that it would make the Lords distinctly more partisan, eliminating the role of non-partisan cross-benchers, and would convert the Lords to being a chamber for debating from a chamber for carrying out oversight.

I don't know about how it stands up to the alternatives, but Bragg's plan does seem likely to be able to please far more of those on both political extremes more than any other plan I've seen yet.
posted by Dan at 11:21 PM

 
Monroe Doctrine redux

Josh Marshall, writing yesterday, asked whether the possibility of French intervention in Haiti to deal with the ongoing rebellion would raise any Monroe Doctrine issues?

Well, no, not really.

First, the Monroe Doctrine - glibly simplified, the idea that the Europeans should leave international conflicts in the Western Hemisphere to the U.S. to deal with and the U.S. would do likewise to international conflicts in Europe - was never as strong in reality as it was on paper. At the time the doctrine was first promulgated, British, French and Spanish troops were garrisoned in Canada and throughout Central and South America. Anyhow, Haiti is internally divided, not currently at odds with anyone else (though this could conceivably change if relations with neighbors or humanitarian issues deteriorate). Anyhow, it would seem that any pretense to the Monroe Doctrine was abandoned by the American government during World War I, irretrievably so after World War II.

Second, the French aren't proposing to send troops from France to Haiti. They're considering sending some troops currently stationed in the Caribbean to Haiti (the French still have a few troops in territories in the Caribbean - I believe the British also do station a few troops there, as well as in Belize). Technically speaking, this would a reorganization, and not any new intervention in the Western Hemisphere.

This, of course, ignores the question of whether foreign powers should currently interfere in the internal conflict. I'm inclined to feel that nothing more than humanitarian aid (and what ever security needed to safeguard it) should be sent right now. To intervene now would essentially be to protect Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who has, a la Robert Mugabe, abandoned any pretense of running the country in a transparent and democratic manner. Of course, the rebels might well not be any better ...
posted by Dan at 10:57 PM

 
From the 'I have some truly weird professors' dept.

Earlier today ...

Prof. X: Um, sorry, I keep having trouble remembering your name ... it's that you look exactly like my roommate when I was in the Peace Corps ... uh, do you mind if I just call you Jim?
Me: Umm ... ok.

I think he might of been joking. I hope he was joking.
posted by Dan at 12:06 AM