This is why we have free speech laws in the U.S.

So that we can avoid a complete cluster-intercourse trial like this on in Canada.

Check out this article.

Or this earlier one.

Or this even earlier one.

An excerpt:

Much of yesterday's proceeding was punctuated by angry shouts and taunts from a gallery packed with members of the Jewish and native communities. And many of the jeers were directed at Crown attorney Brent Klause, who was booed and called a racist several times.

"This isn't a circus. I've had enough. I just think it's time we had some decorum," Mr. Klause said, after he asked the judge to put a stop to the constant comments from the gallery.

Many of Mr. Ahenakew's supporters were angered that Mr. Klause had challenged the native leader's assertion that aboriginals aren't immigrants because they were born "here on this land."

"Your people came across the Bering Strait," Mr. Klause said to Mr. Ahenakew, which elicited jeers.

He later apologized to the court after suggesting Mr. Ahenakew was media savvy and not "an unsophisticated individual from some remote northern band."

"That's bullshit," one middle-aged aboriginal man said later as he demanded an apology from the Crown.

The guy was right about one thing. That's bullshit.

David Ahenakew made overtly anti-Semitic remarks. He did. He really did. Now, he is being made a martyr.

You want to expose the guy, embarrass him in the press, fine. But to have the freakin' state put the guy on trial....Things are not so bad that some ham-handed prosecution can't make it worse.

(Props/nod to JP)

George McGovern

An important figure in American history, and an incredibly energetic intellectual, will be visiting Duke next week. He is doing a book tour, for his new book, The Essential America: Our Founders and The Liberal Tradition. I have read parts of it, and while I think he is wrong he is hardly completely wrong, and always interesting.


For more info, see the news release.

But, the essentials....

George McGovern
April 13
Duke East Campus
White Lecture Hall
5:00 pm
Followed by Q&A
(Books will be available for purchase, if you are interested)

Moron Intellectual Diversity

(I meant to write "More On Intellectual Diversity", but now that I look at the title I'll leave it. Freud smiles).

I found this, at Gadflyer:

In fact, liberal bias in the academy is a fiction based on the same sort of selective analysis used to "prove" bias in the media. While there are certainly plenty of liberal professors, never mentioned are inherently conservative departments like economics, right-leaning frats and student groups, the influence of campus ROTC or the fact that for every left-leaning Vassar or Oberlin there is an equally conservative Washington and Lee or BYU.

Instead, the focus is on departments like sociology or ethnic and women's studies where there's a lot of progressive thought. In those departments conservatives collect liberal professors' statements, take them out of context and use them to weave a circumstantial case of bias. The goal is not to promote diversity of opinion but to convince people that our nation's universities have been hijacked by, as the title of one book put it, "tenured radicals" who brainwash our youth with their crypto-socialist ideology.

ATSRTWT...

Well....thanks for playing, but no. Econ departments and Business schools are also mostly liberal in terms of affiliation. The ratio is 5-3, instead of 10-1, but still. Academic leftists are kidding themselves with this kind of crap. It is simply a fact that far and away most academics are liberal, and far too many have long ago stopped caring about honest intellectual discourse. They are so comfortable, and isolated from real debate, that they can't stand to have anyone disagree. When I tell colleagues that I am conservative, their response (seriously) is "But you seem smart."

Sure, lots of people do good teaching, and are honest intellectual brokers. But there is a real problem. The only solution is an intellectually diverse commitment to good pedagogy.

I was on an NPR show recently, where we talked about this. Interesting response from Judith Wegner: see no, hear no, say no, do no.

I try to be fair, but most faculty are just so sure that (1) There is no bias, and (2) Conservatism is to intellectualism as Creationism is to biology. If you believe #2, you can't argue #1 with a straight face. Unless you are a liar or a fool. And they are not fools.

Some Links:
1. On the documentary from AcademicBias.Com....A small role here for KGrease himself. I tell the drama of Robert Brandon, revealing all the facts for the first time. (Okay, no, but I do appear in the film for a few minutes).
2. NPR "State of Things" show on the subject
March 31, 2004
3. Duke's rather raucous forum (yes, I was brilliant. Thank you).
4. And then....Coturnix. An interesting and (for him) fairly balanced polemic. I think I disagree with him, but there are some good points here.
5. Poliblogger on Ward Churchill and academic freedom.
6. Post on MB article from the Chronicle
7. Ju-Gen on Western Culture
8. Finally, as I blogged before, here is Peter Lange (Duke Provost) addressing, if not quite answering, a difficult question.
9. Finally plus one (sue me): This.

Lange on "Biased" Teaching

Peter Lange, Duke Provost, was recently asked this question at an Academic Council meeting (March 24):

"In the Jan. 25 issue of the Chronicle, a Duke student complained about what he perceived as propagandizing in one of his classes: 'One of the most insulting moments of my Duke education occurred in an ancient Chinese history class in spring 2003, when the U.S. was preparing to invade Iraq. Our teacher took a break from Confucius and the Han Dynasty to stage a puzzling "teach-in" about Iraq in conjunction with some national organization. During this supposedly neutral discussion, she regaled us with facts and assertions suggesting that the Iraq war was scandalous, foolish and doomed to fail.' If the student's account provides to be accurate, do you think that the instructor's conduct was a legitimate use of class time? Or did it go beyond the limits of academic freedom, in which case, what action do you think might be appropriate on the part of the academic administration?"

His response, in part:

Creating, fostering and enhancing our culture of learning must be our goal. This goal must guide our decisions about how we judge and possibly intervene in any specific event or incident that may appear to threaten the quality of that culture. In determining whether such a threat exists and whether and how to respond to it, it is worth remembering that our culture of learning is best fostered by shared norms of conduct, ones that encourage and accept the free expression of ideas and that reflect mutual respect for the expression of ideas by others.

Such shared norms, and the behavioral habits that reflect them, stand in some contrast to formal rules that seek sharply to define "appropriate" or "legitimate" behavior. Such "rules" in the academic context are likely almost always to falter in the face of the complex processes through which students learn and our faculty teach or, at times, through which our faculty learn from what their students say and do. The application of formal rules, while occasionally necessary, is unlikely to advance the deeper commitments that must support a true culture of learning.

I have to say, I largely agree. If faculty are not committed, genuinely committed, to real teaching, I don't see that some Jesuitical set of rules and appeals procedures is going to help.

ATSRTWT.

****************************
UPDATE: Then, there's this. Question: When exactly did Paul Krugman sell his soul? He makes Jerry Springer look honest and tasteful.

An Academic Question
By PAUL KRUGMAN
(NYT, April 5)

It's a fact, documented by two recent studies, that registered Republicans and self-proclaimed conservatives make up only a small minority of professors at elite universities. But what should we conclude from that?

Conservatives see it as compelling evidence of liberal bias in university hiring and promotion. And they say that new "academic freedom" laws will simply mitigate the effects of that bias, promoting a diversity of views. But a closer look both at the universities and at the motives of those who would police them suggests a quite different story.

Claims that liberal bias keeps conservatives off college faculties almost always focus on the humanities and social sciences, where judgments about what constitutes good scholarship can seem subjective to an outsider. But studies that find registered Republicans in the minority at elite universities show that Republicans are almost as rare in hard sciences like physics and in engineering departments as in softer fields. Why?

One answer is self-selection - the same sort of self-selection that leads Republicans to outnumber Democrats four to one in the military. The sort of person who prefers an academic career to the private sector is likely to be somewhat more liberal than average, even in engineering.

But there's also, crucially, a values issue. In the 1970's, even Democrats like Daniel Patrick Moynihan conceded that the Republican Party was the "party of ideas." Today, even Republicans like Representative Chris Shays concede that it has become the "party of theocracy."

Consider the statements of Dennis Baxley, a Florida legislator who has sponsored a bill that - like similar bills introduced in almost a dozen states - would give students who think that their conservative views aren't respected the right to sue their professors. Mr. Baxley says that he is taking on "leftists" struggling against "mainstream society," professors who act as "dictators" and turn the classroom into a "totalitarian niche." His prime example of academic totalitarianism? When professors say that evolution is a fact.
...
Think of the message this sends: today's Republican Party - increasingly dominated by people who believe truth should be determined by revelation, not research - doesn't respect science, or scholarship in general. It shouldn't be surprising that scholars have returned the favor by losing respect for the Republican Party.

Conservatives should be worried by the alienation of the universities; they should at least wonder if some of the fault lies not in the professors, but in themselves. Instead, they're seeking a Lysenkoist solution that would have politics determine courses' content.

And it wouldn't just be a matter of demanding that historians play down the role of slavery in early America, or that economists give the macroeconomic theories of Friedrich Hayek as much respect as those of John Maynard Keynes. Soon, biology professors who don't give creationism equal time with evolution and geology professors who dismiss the view that the Earth is only 6,000 years old might face lawsuits.

If it got that far, universities would probably find ways to cope - by, say, requiring that all entering students sign waivers. But political pressure will nonetheless have a chilling effect on scholarship. And that, of course, is its purpose.

Parent abuse

Me, this morning, driving carpool: "I can't believe people keep knocking down those bricks around the driveway. I have to rebuild that wall every two weeks. It's like I never make any progress."

My son, with even tone and not looking up from his book: "Yep, Dad, you are truly the modern Sisyphus. You should write about it. As much as I like to hear about this every morning, I'm sure others want to hear about it even more."

Butthead. I wish I had said it.

Old Yobbo, But Good Yobbo

Yobbo on PETA: He seems upset. Quite right, of course, but upset. It must be hard to live in Australia. You get people like....well, like this. And you can't just kill them. Though, now that I think of it, PETA would not object to killing humans.

Conservatives Less Likely to Advance?

Some research, summarized in the Chronicle (premium ATSRTWT)
Thursday, March 31, 2005
Conservative Professors Are Less Likely to Advance in Academe, Study Finds
By PIPER FOGG
A report released this week offers evidence that American academe is dominated by political liberals, and that conservatives are less likely to attain jobs at top colleges. The report, based on a study that relied on data from a fairly large sample of institutions, is the first to attempt to answer the question of whether conservatives in academe face discrimination in hiring.

Published in The Forum, a journal of applied research in contemporary politics, the report is based on a 1999 survey of 1,643 faculty members at 183 colleges and universities in the United States. The study was conducted by Stanley Rothman, a professor emeritus of government at Smith College; S. Robert Lichter, president of the Center for Media and Public Affairs, a research group affiliated with George Mason University and supported by conservative foundations; and Neil Nevitte, a professor of political science at the University of Toronto.

Stephen H. Balch, president of the National Association of Scholars, an advocacy group that supports tradition-minded education, hailed the report as groundbreaking. "It's the first time that a rigorous social-science study has brought forth strong evidence" for discrimination against conservatives in academic hiring, he said.

The report also says that over the past several decades academe has become increasingly liberal, and that liberals outnumber conservatives even in disciplines like economics, which are often perceived as more-conservative fields.

The study examined the correlation between the quality of professors' academic
affiliations (measured using U.S. News & World Report rankings and Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching classifications) and three measures
of ideological orientation: self-identification on a "right-left" scale, political-party designation, and self-reported attitudes concerning abortion, the environment, and several other political and ideological topics.

Ideology Ranks Second
According to the study, academic achievement -- measured by such variables as how many articles, chapters, and books a scholar has published and the amount of time spent on research -- mattered most in determining the level of institution at which a professor teaches. But ideology was the second-most-important factor.

"The ideological orientations of professors are about one-fifth as important as their professional achievements in determining the quality of the school that hires and retains or promotes them," says the report. After taking professional achievement into account, the study showed that being a Republican or conservative significantly reduces the predicted quality of the college where a scholar teaches. Women and Christians, it also concluded, are similarly disadvantaged.

"We did validate the notion that conservatives are discriminated against," Mr.
Rothman said in an interview. "No one has ever done that before."

But Roger W. Bowen, president of the American Association of University Professors, said the study's methodology is "suspect" because the sample size of the survey was too small. "It's difficult to determine its value," he said.

Mr. Bowen also said the study does not take into account other theories about why there may be fewer conservatives in academe: that conservatives may self-select themselves out of academe, or that "the intellectual cream rises to the top." Even if there are many more liberals than conservatives in academe, he added, "So what? What difference does it make to students?"

In the report's conclusion, the authors acknowledge that the results are "preliminary," but say that conservatives' complaints of the practical effects
of what they see as liberal bias in academe deserve to be taken seriously.

I'm not so sure I believe this, at least not as baldly as it's stated. So often, I find that people who consider themselves conservatives do not consider this to have much to do with their work as scholars. But it is clearly true that those who consider conservative evangelizing to be the essence of their work DO get punished in academe. I would like to think that the same is true for people on the left; it may not be. But the point is that by comparing only those who consider their work and their politics to be inseparable, you are picking the bottomfeeders of academics in the first place.

Snaps, Slaps, and Cold Water

Well, we raised $411 for Special Olympics. (A picture of the action: That's Tallman Trask with the ball and the hat, and John Burness sitting tall on the vat, about to get wet...)

I did my time in the Dunk Tank. Worked on some snaps, to try to get people mad enough to (1) spend money, and (2) miss the target (water was COLD! 63 deg F).

Here they are, in no particular order. Important to yell them just as someone starts to throw.

*********************
Hey, don’t throw it so far! You’re liable to hit my car, and wake up your sister!

Your mama so fat, her blood type is Ragu!

I heard that your mama has so much armpit hair, it looks like she has Buckwheat in a headlock!

Your mama so fat, she wears two watches, one for each time zone she blots out.

I hear your mama can’t lie down at the beach anymore; housecats keep trying to cover her with sand!

I hear your mama so fat, her favorite song is: “We are family! Hardees, Dunkin Donuts, and me!”

I hear your mama so ugly, she came in first place in the ugly contest. She also came in second, and third, ‘cause she’s fat, too!

Sidd Finch Lives

I had forgotten about this.

Great story: Tibetan monk, one work boot. 168 mph fastball.

Happy April Fools Day...

(Nod to JJ, who is better with stories than with days of the week)

Who's Pro-Choice Now?

From the NYT, a while back:

March 27, 2005
Choice Is Good. Yes, No or Maybe? By Eduardo Porter By EDUARDO PORTER

CHOICE is the driving force of capitalism. Choosy consumers determine what products and companies thrive or die as they pick among tubes of toothpaste or plans for cellphone service. Choice fuels competition, innovation and efficiency.

These days, consumer choice has claimed a prominent new position as a policy tool: the prescription for everything from improving public schools to paring bloated health care costs to saving Social Security.

Yet even as choice is brought to bear on the nation's most pressing problems, critics point out that expanding consumers' options is not always a good idea. People, they argue, often do not know how to choose properly or they simply refuse to choose. Sometimes, critics argue, government should limit people's choices. That is, choose for them.

"More choice can be worse than less choice," said Sheena Iyengar, a psychologist at Columbia University.

Advocates of unfettered markets are riled by these arguments. "If you were to walk into a Wal-Mart and say to people, 'Don't you feel really depressed by having 258,000 options; shouldn't it be their obligation to reduce the choice you must endure?' They would think you were nuts," said Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House of Representatives.

Free marketeers like Mr. Gingrich argue not only that consumers are better than the government at making choices that drive an efficient economy. Choice, they argue, is a right. The government can limit it only when one person's choice imposes costs on the rest of society.

"The notion of entrusting a bureaucrat with the power over people's choices is inauthentic in a particularly offensive way," said Richard A. Posner, the legal scholar and federal appeals court judge.

But empirical studies have found that people, regardless of intelligence, do not always choose well. Often they prefer to let inertia take over, unable or unwilling to choose for themselves.

For instance, participation rates in 401(k) plans are known to rise sharply when the default choice for the employee is switched to an opt-out from an opt-in.

In Sweden, where personal savings accounts were carved out of the social security system in 1998, 9 out of 10 new entrants to the work force let their investment portfolio go to a default fund set up by the government, instead of choosing one themselves.

Too many options may drive consumers away. In one experiment, Ms. Iyengar found that people who were shown a selection of six different jams in a store were about 10 times as likely to buy a jar than those exposed to a range of 24 flavors.

In another study, she found that people who chose one chocolate from a selection of 30 expressed more regret and uncertainty about their decision than those who chose among six kinds. That's because with 29 other options, there is a bigger chance of losing out on something better.

Of course, lack of choice will also inhibit people. When Ms. Iyengar gave undergraduate students $10 and the option to spend it right away or invest it, only 6 percent of them chose to invest when the professor decided the asset allocation.

The key is whether people understand their choices, said Richard H. Thaler, an economist at the University of Chicago. "People have to know what their preferences are and they have to know how the options they have map onto their preferences," he said.

This might be easy when choosing between chocolate and vanilla ice cream. But it gets progressively more difficult as the number of flavors increases. When the risks are high and the decisions complex - as when choosing between medical procedures or investment portfolios - consumers may become easily flummoxed.

In one experiment, Mr. Thaler and Shlomo Benartzi of the University of California, Los Angeles, asked employees in one company to select among three 401(k) portfolios.

Unbeknownst to the employees, one portfolio was their own. The other two reflected the average and median choices of all the workers in the company. Yet only one in five employees preferred his or her own portfolio over the median. "Apparently people do not gain much by choosing investment portfolios for themselves," Mr. Thaler wrote.

Mr. Thaler and Cass Sunstein of the University of Chicago Law School suggested that it is proper for the government, or an employer, to set boundaries to choice to achieve desired social objectives, an approach they call "libertarian paternalism."

Sweden's default fund for social security accounts - a mixed low-fee portfolio - is an example of such paternalism. Another would be to place the dessert display at the far end of the company cafeteria. Employees could still have dessert, but the hurdle to make that choice would be a little higher. Obesity might decline.

Eric J. Johnson and Daniel Goldstein, co-director and associate director, respectively, of the Center for Decision Sciences at Columbia University, found that big majorities of Americans approve of organ donations, yet only about a quarter consent to donate their own. Meanwhile, nearly all Austrians, French and Portuguese consent to donate theirs. The difference?

In the United States people must opt to become an organ donor. In much of Europe, people must actively choose not to donate. So if organ donation is considered a social good, American defaults could just be flipped around.

Despite the problems, free marketeers argue that more choice is better, simply because it builds character. For instance, Judge Posner said, allowing people to invest part of their Social Security taxes in personal accounts is a step toward a system in which people pay for their own retirement. "It makes people more independent and responsible for their future," he noted. "It makes them better citizens."

Some questions: If you lead with a professional psychologist as the advocate for one side, would you balance that with well-known scholar Newt Gingrich? Does the author think that the fact that I want to allow vasectomies also means that I want to have a vasectomy? Do you have to be an idiot to write for the Times, or is it just one of those extra things that helps at bonus time?

This is a false dichotomy. Imagine that I have three choices, examine all of them, and choose A. Now, imagine that I have 100 choices, examine all of them, and choose A. In both cases, I choose A, so the outcome utility is the same. But my search costs were much higher, so of course I'm worse off with more choices, given that in both cases I choose A. It's trivial.

But if there are, in equilibrium, 100 viable choices, that must mean that some people are choosing EACH of those 100 choices. So, obviously a diverse capitalist economy with lots of choices makes the entire population better off.

Furthermore, brand name and lots of other market innovations reduce my search costs. I don't have to reexamine every alternative, every time.

Life arrangers just can't stand the thought of letting people make their own choices. "Libertarian Paternalism" misses the point. We are not trying to make everyone better off. We are allowing everyone to choose, and take responsibility for, their own path in life.

(nod to JP, who knows things)

Dunk Tank Blues

Aw, jeez. It's cold today. And windy.

And I have to go sit in a #$%&%@ dunk tank. At 2 pm.

SPECIAL OLYMPICS CHARITY DUNK TANK: DUKE WEST CAMPUS, NEAR CHAPEL
********************************************************************
Noon John Burness
Senior VP Public & Government Affairs
12:30 p.m. Durham Police Sgt. Dale Gunter, East Campus
1 p.m. Heather Dean and Jesse Longoria (in support)
GPSC President and DSG VP Athletics/Campus Services
1:30 p.m. Anthony Vitarelli
Campus Council President/Young Trustee
2 p.m. Mike Munger
Professor/PoliSci Dept. Chair
2:30 p.m. Karen Hauptman, Chronicle Editor
3 p.m. Duke Police Officer Juan Chirino
3:30 p.m. Duke Police Officer Kelly Mankowski
4 p.m. Jim Wulforst, Duke Dining Director


I'm thinking the highlight of the day will be at the outset. John Burness (who is Jewish) was accused of being anti-Semitic for allowing the PSM conference this fall. He is also very funny. He also weighs about 275, on a 5'4" frame. EVERY dive he does is a cannonball. I hope there is some water left for me.

UPDATE: I went by and looked at the dunk tank. It's real high, frighteningly so, and the water is this gross opaque green. Ick. 65 degrees at game time. That's cold water.

The Early Bird Gets to Blog

JMPP transforms a silly mistake into performance art.

She went to class, thinking classes started on MONDAY after break. But, of course, lots of kids aren't done throwig up yet. Classes don't start until Tuesday.

Does she panic? She does not; she blogs about it on the spot. Blogs can turn embarrassing mistakes into performance art. And they can help with those dry patches on your elbows.

Thinking of the early thing: My first teaching job was at Dartmouth, in the Econ Department. The chairman and his wife were having a party at their house. I got all dressed up (meaning i wore socks, and freshly laundered wrestling spandex), and went to the chairman's house. He was mowing the lawn; not a good sign.

But I figured he was running late, and I was five minutes early. It turns out I was five minutes plus a WEEK early.

He was so embarrassed for me (he was very old school) that he shut off the mower and invited me inside. We sat at his kitchen table and had lemonade. He had these great old chairs, antiques. I leaned back in one, and it immediately broke into about 100 small pieces. I took one piece of shrapnel/splinter in the bottom, and he helped me remove it. He refused any payment for the chair.

A week later, I was too embarrassed to go to the real party.

If I could have blogged about it, I would have felt better.

I feel better now.

Now I'm Confused

The Schiavo case is NOT just a minor curiousity.

It is revealing splits in the right/libertarian coalition.

My canary in the coal mine is the very clever, and (I thought) solidly libertarian William Sjostrom.

The point is that I have great respect for his views. If he is this angry, or this angry, then I really am missing something.

Things I could be missing:

1. There is a conspiracy among doctors to misrepresent the mentally long-dead Terry's condition. Their motive is....I have no idea.

2. Freedom-loving people should want the government to waste lots of time on person-specific, ex post facto laws substituting emotionally hysterical mob rule for the established rights of next-of-kin to control the manner of living, and if necessary of dying, for their loved ones. The reason is....I can't imagine.

3. If I was brain dead, and had been for years, as a result of a failed suicide attempt, I would want people to prolong my misery, allowing me to be a huge burden both financially and emotionally, for as long as possible. The reason is...remind me, why did I want to go on living in a ghoulish, nonsentient suspended animation, exactly?

In short, I may just be projecting. The doctors who say she is brain dead, I believe. The people who say that government should intrude, using its coercive powers in the service of craven politics, I don't believe. And I beg anyone who will listen to fucking SHOOT ME if I ever end up like that.

Robbed, I bin ROBBED!

Wow. Turns out that people charge different prices to cut hair, with women paying more. Call Larry Summers: either women are not bright enough to open their own hair care salons, and compete the price differential down to zero, or else there is SOMETHING DIFFERENT about men and women in terms of the level of quality and service they expect in haircuts.

Here is an excerpt from the exciting expose:

When the haircutters who charged women more than men for a basic haircut were asked why a price disparity existed between men's and women's identical services, the following responses were given--25% stated that a combination of hair length, extra time, and hairstyles were the reasons...22% attributed the length of a woman's hair...11 % stated that the extra time spent on women's hair was the main reason...9% said that women's hairstyles and the complexity of some of them were the reasons...15% replied that that's the way the prices are set or that the owners sets the prices...12% said that they did not know why women were charged more than men. The remaining 6% either hung up, said it depended on which hairdresser cut the hair, didn't want to speak about it, said that the price was a special, or said that the prices were set ". . .because a man is a man and a woman is a woman. "

These responses suggest that many haircutting establishments rely on gender-based stereotyping in setting prices for basic and comparable services. Despite the fact that Council staff informed the haircutters that both the caller and her, his boy/girlfiiend had the same length hair, these haircutters did not appear to factor this into consideration when quoting a price.

ATSRTWT.

Now, those of you who have had the great pleasure of beholding Kgrease in the flesh know that (1) there is a lot of flesh, and (2) my hair is shoulder length, very curly, and with lots of blonde highlights. Some of those highlights are from the sun, but most come from chemical products applied by a trained and highly competent hairdresser. (That's right: "My name is Blonde....Fake Blonde.")

A wash/haircut/highlights job from my hairdresser costs $90, plus $15 or so tip. Turns out that is the same price my lady charges women for the "same" work.

So....I have been ripped off! I should have been charged less, 'cause I am a guy. Next time I get a 'do I'm going to drop trou and show her Mr. Winky, and demand a refund. (She might give me the money, too, out of amusement, or pity for my wife).

You might want to look at this, by Russ Roberts. He says his kids are wary. Mine are, too. Hard to have an econophile for a dad.

(Nod to RF, who wrote this)

I Must Just Be Inert...

...cause I cannot work myself into a fevered, irrational fury for either side in l'affaire Schiavo. It is tragic, all of it. Why is it a matter of national policy? Why is the state (both the FLA state and the FED state) butting in?

I think that two of the best things I have seen are these:

I started the week off thinking that Congress and the President did a good thing by allowing the federal courts to have a look at this. In the mean time it has become clear that the other supporters of that decision won’t be happy until they get the right outcome, regardless of what the law says. Every time a decision that goes against them is made, they move the goalposts and no-one will be spared from their wrath. I hope the Republicans (and I, also) never fall for an attempt to pander to hysterics again.

ATSRTWT

and this:

In all the debate about "what Terri would have wanted" people seem to be forgetting that her vegetative state was initially caused by anorexia and bulimia. She was TRYING to starve herself. Let her finish.

ATSRTWT

(Nod to CL, who said this the Schiavo controversy:
the libertarian in me thinks (perhaps on the erroneous assumption that time is a meaningful legislative commodity) the more time they spend on this the less they can spend futzing with my life. )

Pooling Resources

In my book, ANALYZING POLICY, I have a chapter on politics and voting.

In it, there is an example of municipal pool. 5 citizens, 3 want a pool and 2 don't. Now, the 3 citizens could form a private club (Thanks, Professor James B!), and build their own club (pools are excludable, no need for them to be "public" in any sense).

But the 3 citizens can force their will on the other 2, and make the pool collective. Not public (pools are excludable, at low cost. Have to have a fence, anyway, to keep little kids and goats out) but collective. That way, the 3 citizens who want a pool can steal the "support" (meaning money, taken against their will and at gunpoint) from the other 2 citizens. As usual, democracy is 3 wolves and 2 sheep deciding what's for lunch (feeling sheepish?)

Anyway....the Onion has this excellent satire. Excerpt:

MANKATO, MN—The Mankato City Council voted 6-3 against the issuance of a $500,000 municipal bond Tuesday, marking the end of one man's tireless, 10-year-long crusade to ensure that a proposed community pool not be built.

"Victory!" said Irv Draper, founder of Taxpayers For Wise Choices, who announced the bond's defeat from the steps of City Hall. "Today, the city council stood up in favor of the long-term interests of tax-paying Mankatoans. After 10 long years of ceaseless toil, I can finally say that a swimming pool will not be built!"

Compare that with this excerpt from my chapter 6:

Suppose that five citizens of tiny Ruttenton have met for their annual town meeting. This body is empowered to make decisions for the entire town, and all citizens have agreed in advance to abide by the collective decision. Notice that this doesn’t mean that the citizens expect to agree on all policies. Instead, the citizens (Mr. One, Ms. Two, Ms. Three, Mr. Four, and of course the mayor, Mr. Fish) all have pledged in advance to accept the collective decision.
At a previous meeting, the five citizens agreed unanimously that decisions will be made by majority rule: if three of the five citizens favor one alternative, that alternative will become Ruttenton law. Each citizen can make any proposal they care to introduce, but the time for making proposals or debating motions is restricted to a total of five hours. At the end of five hours, the citizens must vote to decide on the best policy.
The meeting this year has only one agenda item: The Ruttenton Community Pool. Mayor Fish, who very much enjoys swimming, now has to travel 25 miles to the pool in Blaineville. He wants to build an enormous, Olympic size pool (expected cost: $100,000), both because it would be more convenient for him and because it would be a statement of Ruttenton civic pride (the Blainville pool is rather small). As Mayor Fish is fond of saying, “You can’t attract a new Mercedes plant without a community pool!”
Ms. Three and Mr. Four also favor building a pool, because they like to swim for recreation and occasional exercise. Three and Four only want to build a medium-size pool (expected cost: $60,000), however, thinking that an enormous pool wouldn’t be used enough to justify the expense. Furthermore, they don’t believe Mercedes is going locate a new assembly plant in the area anyway, since Ruttenton has no roads.
Mr. One and Ms. Two have no use for a pool, and vehemently oppose the proposal to build a community pool in Ruttenton. They claim that they should not have to pay for a pool if they are not going to use it, and object to Mayor Fish’s plan to finance the pool out of property taxes. One and Two argue that, if a pool is built at all, it should be run as a community “club”, with the costs of building and operation coming from membership fees and charges at the door.

(Nod to RL, who is really a libertarian)

Man are From Mars

News flash: Big differences between men and women. At 11: Dog bites man!

In fact, there is not one human genome, but two: the male genome and the female genome.

I know we all claim to believe size doesn't matter, but the X chromosome is a lot more complex than the stunted, shriveled little Y chromosome.

My Duke colleague, Huntington Willard, can apparently never be Prez of Harvard. Too many of those bothersome scientific questions, that might have answers, instead of the theology self-important emotion.

3 links, no relation

First: on blogging. A charming simplicity, but a bunch of stuff I wish I had known. Not like I'm an expert now, except in surrealism.

Second, this headline didn't make sense to me: US TROOPS SHOOT DEAD IRAQI GENERAL. If he was dead, why did they shoot him? But it turns out that we just screwed up again. Perhaps the troops thought the general was an Italian communist ex-hostage journalist, and they shoot those on sight? Seriously, what do the conspiracy theorists think about this shooting of a general? Why not just accept the fog-of-war, scared-kids-in-combat, and-it-was-dark, thesis? The claims about the Italian journalist are bizarre.

Third: patterned after Jeff Foxworthy ("if...you might be a redneck"), we get "You know it's a dictatorship". (Nod to Betsy)

What Do You Do When You're Branded?

Apparently, segun Captain's Quarters, the new buzzword for the political left-overs is "branding."

And the branding mistress is Hillary Clinton.



Sounds pretty fun, actually. Branding Hillary, I mean. Yee-haw.

FEC: I Like to Watch

As I said a few days ago, there is a real problem here. Believing government officials are good people, and won't abuse their powers, is not what we are about.

An update from Patterico, via GR.

I try to make this point to students all the time, but most of them just don't see the difference. Here is the way to make the point, in my view: Consider

1. The U.S. First Amendment
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Not many qualifiers, not much about trade-offs. No law.

2. Now, the analogous part of the French Dec'n of the Rights of Man
10. No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, including his religious views, provided their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by law.

11. The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every citizen may, accordingly, speak, write, and print with freedom, but shall be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by law.

WHAAAAAAT? Opinions can't disquiet the public order established by law? I have to be responsible for abuses as shall be defined by law?

In other words, you can say or write anything you want, so long as it is not against the law. But any speech, writing or thoughts prescribed by law are not protected.

I wonder if "FEC" stands for "French Election Commission".

Are the Congressional Republicans Bankrupt?

William Sjostrom has some interesting thoughts on the bankruptcy bill.

I have tended more to the Glenn Reynolds view, though of course Sjostrom points out this smacks of "daily Kos" style argument, than which nothing is more superficial.

Making discharge of credit card debt harder makes it more attractive to lend. Moreover, borrowers who know themselves to be high risk (call them dishonest) are driven away by customers who know themselves to be lower risk (call them honest). It is Daily Kos level analysis to try to reduce this problem to us poor little helpless consumers against the big mean corporate interests.

WS also notes:

Easy discharge of debts drives up interest rates. The gainers are the dishonest borrowers who plan to retreat into bankruptcy (why worry about the interest rate if you do not plan to pay off?). The losers are the more honest borrowers who face higher rates.

ATSRTWT.

Blog for Blog's Sake: Accepting My Lott in Life

Interesting now to look back at this article from the Chron of Higher Ed, nearly two years old now.

Most people, even in the U.S., don't know what a "blog" is today. Two years ago, you had to be pretty up on things to read blogs.

Here is Crooked Timber's list of academic bloggers. It is clearly not up to date (it doesn't include Mungowitz End) but tasteful (it doesn't include Mungowitz End).

From the Chronicle article:

One of the most combative strains of scholarly blogging is the investigation of alleged academic misconduct. The work of John R. Lott Jr., a gun researcher who has been accused of inventing the results of a telephone survey out of whole cloth (a charge he denies), has persistently been scrutinized by at least six bloggers. Mr. Lott's research, in fact, is the sole topic of a blog maintained by Timothy D. Lambert, a lecturer in computer science at the University of New South Wales, in Australia. And it was another blogger, Julian Sanchez, a staff writer at the Cato Institute, who discovered and confirmed that Mr. Lott had been participating in Internet discussion groups under the name "Mary Rosh."

Well, I was just on a panel at the Public Choice meetings with John (who I have known for nearly 20 years, and who I consider a friend), and I can at least confirm that he is not DRESSING as Mary Rosh. Not that I didn't ask him to. Beg, really.

And I had never seen the Lambert blog. Good lord. The guy is a "large mammal" on the TTLB ecosystem. WTF?

UPDATE: I take it back. I spent about 45 minutes reading different part of Lambert's blog, and I can easily see why people read it, and link to it. As I said, I really do like John L, and admire his ability as a scholar. But he has made some (to say the least) questionable choices.

And, a personal anecdote. I had agreed to serve as a discussant on a panel at Public Choice, a panel John himself had organized. The papers were: Groseclose/Milyo, Lott himself, Dan Sutter, and Ricardo Puglisi. I had been going to offer comments on the G/M paper, but had prepared remarks on everything. This was an excellent panel, one of the best and most coherent at the meetings, and John Lott did all the work of organizing it. There were probably 40 people in the room, a very good turnout.

When Milyo could not come to the meeting (because he's a weasel; yes, Jeff, I said that), that meant that my primary discussant role was cut. But I had worked for a couple of hours on other things to say.

Well....what happened was that the other papers' time was expanded. Near the end, I got ready to speak. But we hadn't had time for audience questions, so I said I would wait until the audience had a chance. John Lott took up all the remaining time, giving detailed point-by-point refutations of even the tiniest remark or question. In the end, I never got to speak at all.

I don't blame John for this. He can't help it. And, to be fair, he had asked me to go ahead and take my turn earlier, so it wasn't like he didn't give me a full opportunity to speak if I wanted to. He did; he asked me to go ahead. But the audience hadn't asked questions yet.

The point is that, when there was open time in the panel, which I thought we would use for audience questions, he just had to take it himself. It's an obsession, not a choice.

I think this explains the book reviews, and Mary Rosh comments: he needs the positive response, or else he has to take as much time as there is available to rebut any negative response. Sad, really. Because he really is a good guy, and very smart.

Larry, Larry, Quite Contrary

Larry Summers takes the "no confidence" vote. He has plenty of confidence all by himself, of course.

Then, the Harvard faculty spend hours calling each other names.

"You are McCarthy."

"No, YOU are."

"I know you are; what am I?"

"Yo mama so fat, her blood type is Ragu!"

and so on.

The article at several points mentions "faculty governance." Most of these people can't govern themselves. Faculty governance is an oxymoron.

UPDATE: Betsy channels Walter Williams

Pop the Cap

(I had to post this, before TtwbC blew his cap)

NC has this ridiculous law. Beer is restricted, nothing over 6% alchohol content can be imported or produced.

But it could be amended.

Fight the power.

Pop the Cap.

Interesting example of a thoroughly political blog.

The talking points:

North Carolina is one of only five states that restrict alcohol by volume in beer to 6%. The other four are Mississippi, South Carolina, Arkansas, and Alabama.

The world's finest beer styles are illegal in North Carolina. These are beers that are meant to be sipped and savored -- and sometimes aged -- like fine wine.

North Carolina is a world-class destination, but due to a Prohibition-era law, we North Carolinians are not able to enjoy world-class beers.

Teenagers do not drink these specialty beers - they're far too expensive and difficult to drink.

Neither wine nor spirits have an alcohol by volume limit - why should beer?

My local brewer can't brew beer styles that are legal in forty-five other states.

It's frustrating to spend hundred/thousands of dollars every year on beer purchasing trips to Virginia / Tennessee. This is money that should be spent supporting North Carolina businesses.

NO MORONIC STATEMENTS PLEASE. Do NOT say there's better and cheaper ways to get drunk. Do NOT come up with your own "creative" ideas like raising taxes on higher-alcohol beer. Do NOT discuss malt liquor. Straying from the message can destroy two years of hard work. Be smart.

Stick with the talking points listed above, tell a story about your appreciation for specialty beer, and respectfully share your opinion about how the law is old-fashioned and damaging to the image of North Carolina and the craft beer industry.

You can't say that from here

Wow.

Check this:

As a substitute teacher in the public schools here, Scott McConnell says students are often annoyed that he does not let them goof off in class. Yet he was not prepared for the sixth grader who walked up to his desk in November, handed in an assignment, and then swore at him.

The profanity transported him back to his own days at Robert E. Lee Elementary School in Oklahoma in the 1980's, when there was a swift solution for wiseacres: the paddle.

"It was a footlong piece of wood, and hung on every classroom wall like a symbol, a strong Christian symbol," said Mr. McConnell, who is 26. "Nobody wanted that paddle to come down."

He said he had been a disruptive student, and routinely mouthed off until his fourth-grade teacher finally gave him three whacks to the backside. Physically, it did not hurt. But he felt humiliated and humbled.

"I never wanted that again," Mr. McConnell recalled. "It was good for me."

Supporting corporal punishment is one thing; advocating it is another, as Mr. McConnell recently learned. Studying for a graduate teaching degree at Le Moyne College, he wrote in a paper last fall that "corporal punishment has a place in the classroom." His teacher gave the paper an A-minus and wrote, "Interesting ideas - I've shared these with Dr. Leogrande," referring to Cathy Leogrande, who oversaw the college's graduate program.

Unknown to Mr. McConnell, his view of discipline became a subject of discussion among Le Moyne officials. Five days before the spring semester began in January, Mr. McConnell learned that he had been dismissed from Le Moyne, a Jesuit college.

"I have grave concerns regarding the mismatch between your personal beliefs regarding teaching and learning and the Le Moyne College program goals," Dr. Leogrande wrote in a letter, according to a copy provided by Mr. McConnell. "Your registration for spring 2005 courses has been withdrawn."

Dr. Leogrande offered to meet with Mr. McConnell, and concluded, "Best wishes in your future endeavors."

If the letter stunned Mr. McConnell, the "best wishes" part turned him into a campaigner. A mild-mannered former private in the Army, Mr. McConnell has taken up a free-speech banner with a tireless intensity, casting himself as a transplant from a conservative state abused by political correctness in more liberal New York. He also said that because he is an evangelical Christian, his views about sparing the rod and spoiling the child flowed partly from the Bible, and that Le Moyne was "spitting on that."

He is working with First Amendment groups to try to pressure Le Moyne into apologizing and reinstating him, and is considering legal action as well as a formal appeal to the college. He says Le Moyne misconstrued his views: he believes children should not be paddled without their parents' permission. He said that even then, the principal, as the school's head disciplinarian, should deliver the punishment.

"Judges live in the real world, and I think they would see that Scott got an A-minus on his paper and was expressing views on a campus that supports academic freedom," said David French, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a group based in Philadelphia that is supporting Mr. McConnell. "It's hard to see a court looking kindly on Scott's expulsion."

Dr. Leogrande did not respond to telephone messages. Le Moyne's provost, John Smarrelli, said the college had the right as a private institution to take action against Mr. McConnell because educators had grave concerns about his qualifications to teach under state law.

New York is one of 28 states that ban corporal punishment; most of those that allow it are in the South and West. Most states did not ban corporal punishment until the late 1980's, after parents, educators, and other advocates began pressing for the laws. More than 342,000 students received corporal punishment in the 1999-2000 school year, in the most recent figures from the federal Education Department.

Because it has an accredited school of education, moreover, Le Moyne officials said that the college was required to pledge that its graduates will be effective and law-abiding teachers who will foster a healthy classroom environment.

"We have a responsibility to certify people who will be in accordance with New York State law and the rules of our accrediting agencies," Mr. Smarrelli said. In Mr. McConnell's case, he said, "We had evidence that led us to the contrary."

Mr. McConnell said that he had been only conditionally admitted to the graduate program; typically, such students earn full admission by earning good grades and meeting other requirements. Mr. McConnell added that he had earned mostly A's and his fate rested largely on his November paper.

Mr. Smarrelli said that the paper itself was "legitimate" and "reasonable," because the assignment sought Mr. McConnell's plan for managing a classroom. Yet Mr. McConnell's views were clearly not in the mainstream of most teachers' colleges.

For example, many educators focus on nurturing students' self-esteem, but Mr. McConnell scoffed at that idea in his paper. He said he would not favor some students over others, regardless of any special needs some might have.

"I will help the child understand that respect of authority figures is more important than their self-esteem," he wrote.

Some professors and college officials were also concerned that Mr. McConnell wrote that he opposed multiculturalism, a teaching method that places emphasis on non-Western cultures.

In an interview, Mr. McConnell said he disliked "anti-American multiculturalism," and gave as an example a short story on the Sept. 11 attacks intended for classroom use. The story, published in a teachers' magazine in 2002 by the National Council for the Social Studies, was about young American boys teasing an Iraqi boy named Osama.

Mr. Smarrelli said Le Moyne had to ensure that its students had the judgment, aptitude, temperament and other skills to succeed in challenging their students.

But Dr. Smarrelli acknowledged that Le Moyne had not warned students like Mr. McConnell that they could be removed for expressing controversial beliefs, nor had the college said that education students must oppose corporal punishment or support multiculturalism.


Some points that occur to me:
1. LeMoyne is a private college. I would defend their right to choose their student body. But then I would defend the right of the Boy Scouts to choose their scoutmasters, even if that means that gays and nonChristians are left out. So why does LeMoyne get to censor ideas, when other organizations have to make hiring decisions decided by the state? (Personally, I think gay men can make good scoutmasters. But I can always start my own scouting organization if I want to make that a policy. Just like I can start a college, and admit who I want).
2. On the other hand....is the position of the Lemoyne brain really that opposing a law is, in effect, treason? The student, Scott McConnell, did NOT break the law. He only argued against it. That's more than a little disturbing.

It's True: I am a just another blogging fetality

Prof. Drezner describes admirably in this post the Public Choice panel I organized.

Prof. Lawrence likewise shares his views.

Thanks to both.

I have only two things to add to what they said:

1. I still think there is a legit question about whether a junior person can blog, or if a senior person can blog, and ever get a first/another academic job. Same as with a supreme court justice nominee: too much paper trail, and people who oppose you can find stuff to use against you. I am clearly going to die at Duke, so it is easy for me to act all tough, but I think this is a real concern. I have colleagues who have tenure, and say they would like to blog, but that the stuff would be used against them in their senate confirmation hearings if they ever get a top appointment in a regulatory agency. They are completely right, of course.

2. As to the Daniel saying I am still in the "fetal position" (his "Furthermore" #2 in this post)....it's all true. He has made the point several times, in different forums, but let me confirm it as a matter of personal experience. It is, by and large, pretty to cool to be me (no, THAT is not Drezner's point; pay attention) in academics. I have tenure, I have published some widely read books and articles, and at conferences I get deference. In elevators, people see my name tag, and their eyes light up, and they ask me a question or too. Of course, I love this, because I am a completely narcissistic jerk.

But, in Blogania, I am a bug, six legs, no brain to speak of. This was brought home to me, in just the way Drezner describes: I was all excited, and went after him pretty hard. He was kind enough to link back, and it was a like a virtual mercy fuck: the crumbs from his hits that DAY were much bigger than my average WEEK. I am not used to needing mercy fucks, because my own self-perception (like most of my senior colleagues) is that I am a Captain of the Universe.

So, what all this goes to show is that Daniel D was right all along, in his initial assessment of why senior people in political science might be reluctant to put themselves out there as bloggers. It is not hard to "be" a blogger, but it is hard to be a good blogger. You can't just phone it in. And lots of academics (I'll deny this if you quote me) have been phoning it in for years.