Well, the fat lady is now singing: with 90 of 95 precincts reporting, I’m ready to call this thing for Frank Melton.

While searching for a PBS show on psychology I promised to record for my friend and colleague Suzanne (which I never found), I stumbled across this program listing:

Electric Orgasm: An anesthesiologist uses pain relief technology to trigger the brain’s pleasure zone in three women.

Ah, but will the anesthesiologist remember their birthdays? I think not.

The groom-to-be of the runaway bride still wants to go through with the wedding. I guess this proves both of them are insane. (þ: OTB)

I know of which Russell speaks all too well—and one of my best friends, not a political scientist, is going through the same hell at the moment… as, for that matter, was I not so long ago (not to mention, as I keep reminding myself, I didn’t even have a job offer until this time last year). There but for the grace of God, or at least the grace of KGM.

Incidentally, I made myself two promises last year: that I’d quit academia (or at least go and get an M.S. in statistics or survey research or maybe even a J.D.) if I didn’t get a tenure-track job for 2005–06, and that I’d get myself that social life I’d been putting off for the past decade-plus. I went 0–2—or maybe 1–1, depending on how you evaluate my social life (much better than in Oxford, but from a pretty negligible baseline)—but I’m not all that convinced that the first promise was the right one, since there’s nothing else I’d rather do than what I do now, even if the job security sucks. Thus I contribute to the collective action problem that leads to the proliferation of non-tenure-track jobs even at institutions that can afford them.

My future boss links an interesting article in today’s Duke Chronicle about the curricular and extracurricular use of blogs at Duke.

I’m still pondering to what extent I want to use blogs in my classes; I had a really good idea for using blogs in a State and Local class, but it only would work in a state capital. I probably will decide to work blogging into intro in the fall, at least in a limited fashion, instead of requiring a term paper—the Culture War papers this semester were OK, I guess, but I think there may be a better way to work with that idea in a “journal” type format as opposed to the term paper. (þ: Nick Troester)

Someone is trying to organize a “time traveler convention” this weekend at MIT. I’ve read and seen enough science fiction to know this is a really, really bad idea—particularly if it works. (þ: Alex Knapp)

Why Geeks and Nerds Are Worth It…. I need to slap this bad boy up on my office door… except it would look really pathetic, even by my standards. (þ: Joy)

Orson Swindle on Notre Dame’s new sweet deal with the BCS:

This is like giving Mongolia a seat on the UN Security Council in tribute to Genghis Khan.

Well, there are those French and British chairs in the room…

Me, three months ago:

The beauty of social security is that the public was conned into having a welfare system for seniors the only way a pluralistic society can—by turning it into a handout for everyone. That social security, and its related pal Medicare (which is universal healthcare for poor seniors, packaged as a handout for everyone), are both in serious fiscal trouble is no unforseeable accident; it’s the unavoidable consequence of a system established by Democrats to ensure these two welfare schemes wouldn’t be taken away at the ballot box, like “welfare as we know it” was and Medicaid is almost certain to be [in the future].

The New York Times, tomorrow:

In choosing to preserve benefits for the less well off and not raise taxes on more affluent people, Mr. Bush sought to cast himself in the Democrats’ traditional role as a defender of the poor. In his radio address on Saturday, he said: “By providing more generous benefits for low-income retirees, we’ll make good on this commitment: If you work hard and pay into Social Security your entire life, you will not retire into poverty.”

But critics, including most Democratic lawmakers, say that such an approach would undermine a central bargain conceived during the New Deal: that Social Security is not just a welfare program for the poor but a form of social insurance that people at all income levels pay into and reap rewards from.

“Social Security is not a poverty program, it is a retirement system people have worked hard for, paid into and have earned,” said Representative Sander M. Levin, Democrat of Michigan.

If it becomes increasingly irrelevant for middle-income people, the critics warn, Social Security will eventually become little more than an empty shell.

Most intriguing. (þ: Eric Lindholm)

Of late I’ve been making a vague attempt to broaden my appreciation of various things artistic and musical. A couple of students have pointed me in some different musical directions; here’s what I’ve added to my collection lately:

• The Postal Service, Give Up. I found this album pretty good, and it has some really good tunes.
• Frou Frou, Details. Probably my favorite of the new additions; I tend to prefer female vocalists, so that’s a likely explanation.
• Radiohead, The Bends and OK Computer. While I wouldn’t call OK Computer overrated, I have enjoyed The Bends more.

Last, but not least, one of my students this past semester in American government is in a band called Enursha with a spiffy new website. (I have some other musician students but I don’t know if they want me plugging their stuff!)

Somehow I managed to lose eight pounds since the last time I visited the HAC (which I’ve narrowed down to “sometime after the time change”), and I don’t have the faintest clue how I did it—indeed, all I’ve done lately is misbehave on the diet and exercise front. I guess that’s good.

The president is coming to the Nissan plant on Tuesday as part of his “reform social security” bandwagon tour. Anyone under the delusion that Mississippi is important in presidential politics should note that this is only Bush’s third visit to the state since being taking office in 2001.

The polls have gone from bad to worse for incumbent mayor Harvey Johnson in Tuesday’s primary: WJTV’s poll of registered voters shows a stunning 64–30 edge for Frank Melton on the question “Who would make a better mayor?”—which isn’t exactly “Who do you plan to vote for on Tuesday?” but pretty damn close.

More coverage at the Jackson’s Next Mayor blog; I could try to dig through the comments at the JFP to find something but Donna Ladd doesn’t seem to get the whole “new topic needs a new post” concept behind blogging (and I came up dry on anything except a Clarion-Ledger link anyway).

Yeah, this is pretty much right, although the high ranking of Philly was a bit of a surprise, since Scott and I thought it was kind of a cesspool when we visited for APSA in 2003:

þ: PoliBlog.

My generally-nonexistent social life had a brief blip Thursday night: Kelly and I saw Hedwig and the Angry Inch at Hal and Mal’s (muy excellente), and followed up by meeting Kamilla and Andy at George Street where a couple of acts were playing and a fair share of the Millsaps political science majors were partying. Fun and merriment were had by all, I do believe.

No doubt frequent commenter Scott will chime in to provide his review of George Street. For my part, I thought it was a pretty nice place, though the $5 Bass on tap seemed a tad steep (maybe I'm too fond of Oxford prices).

If I didn’t know better, I’d say Glenn was the political scientist and Andrew the lawyer.

Of course, I might also express some skepticism about this phrase from Sullivan:

Gay couples who have had basic rights taken away from them since November

I’d like to meet these gay couples who have been deprived of a right they actually had on November 1, 2004. Indeed, I tend to think the scorecard over the past few months is +2 for gay couples, as Oregon and Connecticut have civil union bills either passed or well on their way to passage. You could argue that in the states that passed anti-same-sex marriage amendments (including Oregon), gay couples lost constitutional recognition of rights that weren’t recognized by any of those states in practice anyway—and could only be recognized in the future by judicial fiat, since none of those states had ever intentionally created a right to same-sex marriage—but that’s something of a stretch.

Update: Daniel Drezner is underwhelmed by Sullivan’s political theory credentials based on the TNR piece that had something to do with the Sullivan-Reynolds debate.

Another Update: I probably should correct the score to +1, as I forgot about Texas passing its (ill-advised, though probably constitutionally valid) law forbidding adoptions by gay couples.

I walked around Belhaven with my camera today and took a few photos. This was by far the most amusing photo I took:

I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation why a French flag would be flying outside a house in Belhaven, but I found this juxtaposition incredibly funny nonetheless.

The gals at Go Fug Yourself are right: Bermuda shorts just aren’t appropriate for any event at which you might be photographed, unless it’s a beach party. What’s semi-frightening, though, is that Kristen Bell (q.v.) almost pulls it off through sheer force of cuteness.

Oh, yeah, and that Logan Echolls is a real bastard. Unless he didn’t really do it (and I suspect he didn’t, but what do I know?), in which case he’s cool.

Today’s Clarion-Ledger reports on a poll showing Frank Melton with a double-digit lead in the Democratic primary (scheduled for Tuesday) of the Jackson mayoral race.

Predicting these things is always messy, especially with Mississippi’s open primary laws and low turnout rates in primary elections, but a 13-point lead (well outside the 4.5 point margin of error) is quite impressive. Mind you, there’s a surprisingly big undecided pool out there—hence why Johnson’s camp is trying to hang the DINO label on Melton to solidify support among Democratic identifiers, not to mention the use of the “northeast Jackson” codeword for “whitey.”

Update: More commentary here and here. For what it's worth, the Mason-Dixon poll shows a somewhat wider margin than the exit poll we conducted in November (712 respondents who were actual voters from five precincts), but we didn't give an "undecided" option (or list any other potential candidates).

James Joyner has lots of linkage today on the filibuster, including a link to Steven Taylor’s civics lesson on the origins of the practice (and the meaning of “checks and balances”). It’s good stuff: go forth and read it.

Now is as good a time as any to relink the filibuster op-ed, including (for the first time on this blog) the unedited version of the piece. As the op-ed indicates, I’m more ambivalent than both James and Steven on abolishing the filibuster outright—and, as Jacqueline Passey points out, obstructionism has its uses.

A friend passed along the Ron Mexico name generator. My alter ego is apparently “Bruno Jamaica.”

Incidentally, at least none of my students in intro last night thought the Supreme Court case that applied the exclusionary rule to the states was People v. Ron Mexico. (On the downside, I did have one student who thought the Shakira-Aguillera test had something to do with the free exercise clause.)

This is my entry in today's DIY OTB Traffic Jam.

As the web’s resident critic of pop song lyrics, I appreciate the sentiment behind Jesse McCartney’s Beautiful Soul, but I’m not sure the chorus is exactly what your object-of-smittenness wants to hear:

I don’t want another pretty face
I don’t want just anyone to hold
I don’t want my love to go to waste
I want you and your beautiful soul

In other words, McCartney wants to have a homely girl who doesn’t believe in the use of birth control. Then again, maybe I’m just reading too much into his use of the phrase “I don’t want my love to go to waste”...

Dan Drezner wonders aloud about the implications of French voters deciding to reject the proposed E.U. constitution; he certainly doesn’t buy the doomsday scenario advanced by former Italian prime minister Romano Prodi.

Since the referendum is likely to fail for reasons other than policy grounds* (French voters being as ignorant of policy as any other democratic public’s citizens), reworking parts of the treaty, as suggested in this Economist piece, seems to be an unlikely solution. Rather, I tend to think (as some of Dan’s commenters suggest) that France may say “no” today, but will say “yes” later; the French electorate will have its protest vote, then get back onboard in a few months, probably without any substantive concessions. Ditto for the Netherlands.

Of course, the longer-term issue is that the iterated game is much less likely to work in Britain, where the public has never really been sold on the E.U. since joining in 1973. But again it’s unlikely that any proposed constitution would pass muster with the British electorate—again, because voters’ ratification decisions on the constitution won’t be made on policy grounds.

Robert Tagorda has a link to a really interesting Christian Science Monitor piece that notes a massive collapse in voter turnout in the United Kingdom over the last decade:

With less than two weeks to the May 5 vote, the big question facing British politicians is not who votes for them, but who votes at all. Experts predict the lowest participation in a century.

Turnout that persisted above 70 percent for decades after World War II is expected to plunge to 53 percent this cycle, according to Professor Paul Whiteley of England’s Essex University. Turnout in the 2004 US presidential vote was 61 percent.

Turnout is expected to be especially dire among young people – and worse still in inner-city districts like Vauxhall. “People of my generation do feel guilty if we don’t vote, but 18— to 20-year-olds don’t,” says Mr. Whiteley. “They don’t see party politics as interesting.”

Bizarre theories are raised for this turnout collapse by some:

Some critics charge that the increasingly presidential nature of British politics is a turn-off. Martin Bell, a former independent member of Parliament, says Parliament is too subservient to the prime minister. Mr. Bell, who is now managing a campaign for a candidate running against Mr. Blair in his Sedgefield constituency, also cites the erosion of trust in politicians.

“The problem of trust is at the bottom of the distaste for public life,” he says. “The prime minister hardly ever appears in Parliament. He hardly ever votes himself” in parliament, he adds. The inference is clear: Why should the electorate vote, when the country’s leading politician doesn’t?

The imperial prime minister (or, at least, the imperial cabinet) is nothing new in British politics (Walter Bagehot wrote about it in 1867 in The English Constitution), so Bell’s explanation seems rather unlikely. Another theory seems slightly more plausible:

Then there is the dramatic shift in British political geography. A generation ago, Britain’s electoral map looked like a Piet Mondrian painting: red slab in the north for Labour, blue block in the south for Conservative – a split evoking the contrast between coast and hinterland in the last US presidential vote.

Today, the map is pixellated like a faulty computer screen.

Ms. Giddy says it’s part of a cultural shift. “You don’t have strong allegiances to communities and parties in the way you did, say, when living in a mining town meant you voted Labour as an extension of your community,” she says.

This theory—essentially, dealignment of the British electorate—makes some degree of sense; indeed, dealignment of the electorate is a common explanation for turnout decline (despite increased ideological polarization of the major parties) in the United States. Of course, dealignment would suggest a substantial reduction in the importance of social class in British politics—something I’d hesitate to argue has happened, absent a lot more evidence. Either way, it will be interesting to see if the turnout rate is as low as the 53% figure posited by some of the experts; my gut feeling is that it will be higher, but what do I know?

Brian J. Noggle on Bennifer redux:

Nothing says “I love you” like giving the second Jennifer a ring that’s 73% of the one given to Jennifer I.

The only thing I suppose Jennifer Garner might possibly see in Ben Affleck is a better script than Elektra.