Last-minute paperwork snafus aside (grr), you can now call me Dr. Chris Lawrence, after a dissertation defense that—among other wide-ranging topics—wrestled with the eternal questions of whether or not Paul Krugman and Ann Coulter are politically “sophisticated,” left unanswered who would survive a cage match between John Zaller and Robert Luskin, questioned whether or not Arthur “Skip” Lupia knows any psychologists, and pondered whether or not a heuristic can be perfect.

Yes, there’s more pre-defense jitters here in OxVegas. A brainteaser:

Q: How do you make your dissertation ten pages longer without writing a single word?
A: Realize that your page numbers are supposed to be 1″ from the bottom of the page, instead of the body text being 1″ from the bottom of the page. Grrr. (The scary thing: solving that problem in LaTeX took less time than figuring out how to get the right page number to show up on the copyright page in OpenOffice when I put together the signature page, title page, and copyright page. So much for WYSIWYG…)

Anyway, enough about me (12:45 and counting). Matt Stinson is getting medieval on Howard Dean’s latest foreign policy pronouncements. Rather than campaign contributions, I think Democrats should all chip in to make Dr. Dean sit through a few IR seminars, rather than getting his foreign policy advice from Jimmy Carter (whose latest accomplishment seems to have been to lend a hand to efforts to dismantle the state of Israel).

Apropos of nothing (except the Long John Silver’s opening soon in Oxford), I have to wonder why I have the irresistable urge to eat ice cream after I’ve eaten fish. I kid you not—every time I eat fish, in any form, I want to go eat ice cream. Last Saturday night, after we lost to LSU: I went to Burger King, bought and ate the sandwich I still fondly remember as the “Whaler” but since renamed as the “BK Big Fish” since people who were whales in past lives were offended, then had the compulsion to go to the new Baskin-Robbins at the Shell on Highway 6—open 24/7 no less, according to the cute girl behind the counter who I couldn’t figure out whether or not was flirting with me by giving me this extra infrormation—and buy two scoops of Oreo Cookies 'n' Cream ice cream (for not much less money than I would have paid to get a half-gallon at Kroger or Wal-Mart and bring it home, but that's a side story on my spendthrift ways). This bothers me to no end.

What I can’t figure out is if this is conditioned behavior—did my family go to Long John Silver’s or Arthur Treacher’s when I was little, and then afterwards go for ice cream on a regular basis—or if it is something inherent in my psychology that has nothing to do with that. I guess theory #3 is that I’m pregnant and have weird cravings, but that would require me to both (a) be female and (b) have a romantic life that is orders of magnitude more interesting than the one I have (which would probably require me to figure out this whole flirting thing, no?).

Reading Stephen Green on the president’s 180 on the steel tariffs, I have to ask aloud if there’s actually anyone in Washington who’s a principled proponent of free trade—or even freer trade, like NAFTA or FTAA (I’m not a huge fan of regional free trade blocs myself, but they beat the hell out of the Son of Hawley-Smoot that many on both sides of the aisle seem to want enacted). I mean, there’s Ron Paul, who probably wouldn’t vote for anything except a unilateral cut to 0% on all import tariffs—meaning anything likely to happen during his lifetime is out—but is there anyone else?

More to the point, what idiot thought in the first place that this pandering exercise would actually work? Now Bush has (a) made a bigger ass of himself with the steelworkers than he would have if he’d simply said “not gonna do it” in the first place and (b) probably retarded the economic recovery by god-knows-how-many months. I realize the president’s detractors will attribute this all to Bush, and his fans will attribute it to Rove,* but surely someone on the political side at the White House must have known this was a disaster waiting to happen.

I’ve always wanted to use that as a title for a post.*

D-Day is in 37:45 and counting (I’d add a JavaScript counter, but it’d just make me nervous). I just finished yet another “final-but-not-really-final” draft. I still need to find a ream of 24# Cotton Bond paper and figure out the logistics of this whole “the signatures on your signature page can’t be a photocopy, but has to be on the same paper as your dissertation—which has to be a photocopy” thing. And I’ve got to figure out this whole page numbering of the frontmatter business, since I can’t cajole the pdflatex program that’s generating 140+ pages of my dissertation into making the right signature page or the right copyright page.

Yes, I’m totally stressing. Yes, everything will be fine.

Steven Taylor has two print columns today: one on the Democratic nomination horse-race in the Birmingham News, and another on gay marriage in the Mobile Register.

Both James Joyner and Dean Esmay note Deeds’ account of Hillary Clinton’s unpopularity with the troops in Baghdad (as noted here at Signifying Nothing on Saturday morning); James and Dean find Hillary’s snubbing justifiable, both due to her (and her husband’s) record in supporting the military and her party’s position on the conflict, while Howard Owens and Glenn Reynolds think she deserved better treatment from the troops, as she has been a relatively consistent supporter of the war in Iraq.

However, I think it’s instructive to look to what Deeds wrote:

Given Hillary’s constant trashing of the Administration’s policies and the work being done in Iraq, her advance people get a flunking grade on setting up a lunch to be with the “troops” and other Americans in the CPA mess hall. That was not the right thing for Hillary do to.

While Sen. Clinton may have supported the war, let’s take a look at what press accounts said about her visit to Baghdad. From Sunday’s Boston Globe:

Clinton and Reed arrived in Iraq on Friday, a day after President Bush made a surprise trip to Baghdad. Clinton, who represents New York, and Reed, of Rhode Island, spent Friday with military brass and troops, occupation officials, and aid workers.

They said Friday that the costs of rebuilding Iraq should be spread among more nations.

“I’m a big believer that we ought to internationalize this, but it will take a big change in our administration’s thinking,” Clinton said. “I don’t see that it’s forthcoming.”

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

Clinton and Reed said the expense and political burden in administering Iraq would be made easier with the U.N.’s stamp of legitimacy and help in transferring power to Iraqis.

From the BBC:

Both the senators said the governance of Iraq would be made easier with greater UN involvement.

In other words, the senator was in Iraq, criticizing the performance—and competence—of the Coalition Provisional Authority, and saying the UN would do a better job. No wonder her visit was as popular among CPA staffers as Deeds indicates.

One Fine Jay, in his trackback below, has some interesting thoughts on the larger meaning of Sen. Clinton’s visit for the Democrats. I still stand by my original belief that her visits to Afghanistan and Iraq are good things; however, I think she shouldn’t be surprised to get a cold shoulder from people working for the CPA after criticizing their competence from afar. That being said, she probably deserved a little better response than that documented at Deeds. Then again, senatorial visits have rarely met with great appreciation from the military; when former senator Jim Sasser, then the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, visited RAF Fairford in Britain once, I don’t recall anyone being particularly excited he was there. (If it sounds like I’m equivocating, it’s because I am; I really don’t know what to make of the Clinton visit at this point.)

Huzzah and kudos to The Commissar for adding Signifying Nothing to the blogosphere map. We’re lurking somewhere in the region of Chechnya, in southern Russia.

The Commissar of The Politburo Diktat has uncovered praised mass perfidity by members of the “League of Liberals” blog alliance that has resulted in inflating their traffic statistics measured by SiteMeter; N.Z. Bear is, shall we say, not amused. Don’t you just love this silly “alliance” business?

Upcoming in Monday’s Memphis Business Journal is this piece by Jane Aldinger on the current state of plans to designate the U.S. 78 corridor from Memphis to Birmingham as “Interstate 22.” My (slightly out-of-date) pages on the topic are here.

There is one minor mistake in the article: the Transportation/Treasury appropriations have been rolled into the planned “Omnibus” bill for final passage, due to some post-conference quibbling over some provisions relating to outsourcing provisions that were in the original conference report.

John Galt of Deeds ran into another VIP in Baghdad on Friday. Let’s just say that her visit didn’t quite go over as well as the president’s.

Kevin Aylward of Wizbang is still getting serious traffic from his three-week-old post with links to a clip from the now-notorious Paris Hilton sex tape—which, so I’ve been told, is sort of a cross between the Jessica Lynch rescue footage and the Pamela/Tommy Lee tape, and about as, er, effective as you would expect it to be given that lineage.

The Watcher of Weasels has more thoughts on the video; a sampling:

When you take her disgustingly thin “heroin chic” look combined with the poor quality of recording… it almost looks like Calvin Klein tried to remake Village of the Damned as some kind of porno.

Meanwhile, if you want to learn how to drive traffic to your blog in a respectable fashion, I recommend the Commissar’s advice on the topic.

I’ve updated this post on the basis of some commentary received from Perseus, who conducted the survey cited by John Dvorak in his “blogging is destined to be a miserable failure” piece.

Laura McK continues to ponder academic career patterns. In drawing the comparison between Ph.D.s and M.D.s, she notes:

The AMA has done a far better job protecting doctors from flooding the markets. Paul Starr’s book [The] Social Transformation of American Medicine relates how the AMA purposely regulates the numbers entering medical school in order to keep the demand for doctors high and thus guarenteeing them higher salaries. Academics should learn from their example.

Arguably, the bar exam has similar (but weaker) effects on the legal profession. However, I wonder about the morality of turning away someone who wants to earn a Ph.D. in the name of “protecting academics from flooding the markets.” Unlike law and medicine, an academic degree isn’t solely a gateway to a profession, and unlike those fields, there’s no overarching body that can be an effective gateway to discourage free riding. (Good luck trying to get accrediting boards to decertify Ph.D. programs that don’t limit intake.)

The central drawback is more that a lot of people earn Ph.D.s who’d probably be happy doing something else, but they’re 22 and not ready for the “real world,” for whatever reason. But the incentive structure is such that academic departments want to have students around—they help with recruiting and retaining faculty by improving departmental prestige, provide cheap labor for teaching and research, and attract resources from the university administration. On the other hand, it’s hard to make a case for turning away—or worse, failing out—students who are qualified, and I think good programs do, in fact, warn students coming in that they may not get a job. (One former faculty member at Ole Miss is famous for his “Bull Durham” speech, which has struck fear in the heart of many a grad student—including this one.) And that is laying aside the tenure issue, which I’ve seen chew up a number of promising scholars at varying institutions—due to the vagaries of publishing, departmental and administration politics, and other issues.

I don’t know that I have any good or easy answers here. After all, I’m just starting out (heck, I still have to defend on Tuesday—and I’ve got work to do before and after that). Maybe there’s something to be said for adding more value to the terminal master’s, reserving the Ph.D. for those who want to pursue a research-track career. I honestly don’t know.

Steven Taylor has the latest update on the Toast-O-Meter, with Howard Dean firmly in the lead. Says Steven:

Dean continues to race ahead, with none of the Other Eight seemingly able to catch up. As pollster Frank Luntz noted on Hardball this week, his status is so well established that when the Other Eight attack him, they are seen in a negative light, rather than the attacks bringing Dean back to earth.

I might also add a separate classification to the Toast-O-Meter: whether the candidate is achieving his or her goals—perhaps how “buttery” the toast is. For example, we all know that Al Sharpton doesn’t really want the nomination: he just wants to hog the spotlight at the convention. So being 2nd in South Carolina actually serves his interests, because he’ll rack up delegates. This, however, may only apply to the novelty candidates.

Mark of Southern Appeal links to the latest predictions by CQ analyst Craig Crawford, which correlate highly with those of the Toast-O-Meter.

Ole Miss goes 7-1 in the SEC for the first time in, well, forever (and the first time with only one loss since 1963), yet some morons still want to fire the coach because we lost by 3 points—a field goal—to what may be the best team in the country not named “Oklahoma.” What a bunch of Grade A, no account nitwits.

Alec Saunders notes that the Canadian Alliance has had a bit of a bigot eruption, courtesy of one of its members of Parliament, Larry Spencer, who wants to make homosexuality illegal. Priceless quote from the National Post account:

But Mr. Spencer said any MP, and especially someone from his party, risks being labelled “a redneck or a hate-monger or homophobic” if they even mention such views in Parliament.

Let me see: you want to make homosexuality illegal. That sounds, I dunno, pretty “homophobic” to me. But then we get to the Globe and Mail’s story on the aftermath, which contains this gem of a juxtaposition, discussing the implications on the merger between the Alliance and Progressive Conservatives:

One of [the Progressive Conservative] MPs, Scott Brison, is gay, and has expressed interest in running for the leadership of the new party.

Mr. Brison said Mr. Harper has a responsibility to remove Mr. Spencer outright from the party for his “outrageous” remarks. …

“… It is absolutely essential that we actually be inclusive by not tolerating bigotry, prejudice and hatred,” the MP said.

Left unsaid is exactly how “removing Mr. Spencer,” and presumably those who share his views, makes the party more inclusive. Wouldn’t that actually make it, by definition, less inclusive?

David Janes has the latest go-round on this story, featuring debate between Colby Cosh (also in the National Post) and Mark Wickens; David’s reaction seems spot-on:

Larry Spencer isn't some ol' codger holding court at the red-and-white pole barber shop, he's a member of Parliament. And whatever the mode of his internal dialogue, whether it be based the 1970's or the 1870's, he correspondingly should consider exercising his internal censor occasionally too. Everyone has nasty thoughts, but most realize that there are levels of frankness aren't particularly refreshing.

Alec Saunders sides with Janes and Wickens over Cosh, too. And, there's more from Damian Penny, who notes that the National Post has apparently unearthed the source of Spencer’s anti-gay rhetoric.

As many in the blogosphere have noted, George Bush visited Baghdad today, while Hillary Clinton was in Afghanistan. Both visits were admirable—our troops deserve the recognition—but let me focus on Bush’s visit to Iraq, and the political implications of it.

The “obvious” political implication is that it’s an example of using the office to look presidential, something none of the Democratic presidential candidates can accomplish. But there’s a second political implication: Bush is now committed. He’s gone to Baghdad, and said (paraphrasing) “we’re not going anywhere until the job is done.” It’s free ammunition for Democratic candidates who do want to stick it out with American troops in Iraq—admittedly, not all of the field—if Bush decides to cut and run. This makes it that much harder for the administration to give up in Iraq—which, to those of us who think Bush should stay the course and follow through on our commitment to a democratic Iraq, is a good thing.

Dean Esmay has the text of the President’s remarks in Baghdad. In related news, John Cole is keeping an eye on the reaction from the less sane quarters of the left.

Well, last week could have gone better. Nonetheless, I soldier on…

• 11/27: OLE MISS over Mississippi State. It’s the 100th edition of Ole Miss-Mississippi State, this year being held in the Friendly Confines of Scott Field in Starkville. Yes, it’s Jackie Sherill’s last game. Yes, State can be dangerous at times. Yes, the Rebels are coming off a heartbreaking loss. No, none of this matters. Key stat: “MSU has put up little fight since Sherrill announced on Oct. 17 he’d be stepping down at season’s end. State has been outscored 236-57 in the five games since that announcement, all lopsided SEC losses.” (From Thursday’s Clarion-Ledger.) Rebs win by 20+ in an offensive showcase.
• 11/28: LOUISIANA STATE over Arkansas. Arkansas has been impressive of late, against weak opposition, while LSU has pretty much cruised over its opposition, with only three competitive games all season (the loss against Florida, and wins over Georgia and Ole Miss). LSU should win easily, but, then again, that’s what people said last year, too. LSU by 3 in a slugfest.
• 11/29: Tennessee over KENTUCKY. UT just outmatches Kentucky in every phase of the game.
• Georgia over GEORGIA TECH. Despite their injury issues, Georgia should roll over Tech.
• FLORIDA over Florida State. As always, should be a very competitive game. Florida should win a close game.
• HAWAI'I over Alabama. The key question is whether Alabama will show up ready to play. They nearly lost last year to a Hawai'i team that was inferior to this one. I have to give Hawai'i the edge here.

Matthew Stinson observes that financier and newfound lefty darling George Soros only seems to have a problem with regime change when he isn’t instigating it personally, at least according to Wednesday’s edition of Canada’s Globe and Mail.

On the other hand, Mark A.R. Kleiman believes Putin orchestrated the whole business in Georgia, with an assist from Washington.

Memphis state senator John Ford is up to his usual shenanigans, this time billing taxpayers for $2200 of personal FedEx charges; Mike Hollihan has all the juicy details (permalink bloggered; scroll down).

Steven Taylor has some pretty comprehensive advice on whether or not to pursue the Ph.D. There’s some other advice I’d add:

• Pick up a copy of Getting What You Came For, by Robert L. Peters.
• Research grad schools before you apply. Make sure they offer what you want beforehand; there’s no point in coming to Ole Miss or FSU if you want to study political theory, for example.
• If you’re still an undergrad, try to bum your way into a conference or two. It will give you a flavor of what you’re going to spend the rest of your life doing; better to find out if you like it at 22, when you can still get a J.D. or M.D. instead, rather than once you’ve accumulated sunk costs.
• Don’t just go somewhere just because it’s close to home, or because they’re making you the best assistantship offer. It can be a consideration, but that shouldn’t be the determining one.
• The rankings (particularly in US News) are often outdated, as changes in reputation take time to filter through disciplines. Especially when you consider that #20-25 will be completely different when you’re done, which is when the reputation will really matter.
• Look for schools with faculty—particularly tenured faculty—who publish regularly. That’s a leading indicator of reputation improvement.
• Unless you’re going to a top-tier program, you probably won’t get the “ideal Research I job” straight out of grad school. On the other hand, it may be easier to get a liberal-arts (teaching-focused) job out of a less prominent institution, as they’re less likely to think you’ll jump ship once you have two or three years under your belt.
• If you do want to be in the “Research I” rat-race, look for a postdoc at a top-tier institution to help close the gap between you and the applicants with top-tier Ph.Ds when it comes time to get the “real job.”

All that being said, you can’t beat the job of an academic. Where else can you get paid for doing pretty much whatever you want, whenever you want?

Conrad sees ominous signs in the latest sabre-rattling exercise by the Chinese government toward Taiwan (also noted by InstaPundit). Quoth Conrad:

I do, however, sense a significant change in tone recently in China’s comments regarding Taiwan. China’s bungling of the one country, two systems policy in Hong Kong have virtually eliminated whatever slim chance there was of a peaceful reunification while the CCP remains in power. Taiwan is now taking steps it believes will ensure its permanant independance and Beijing, having deceided to prop up its corrupt and despotic rule with juvenile patriotic appeals, realizes that the loss of Taiwan means the fall of the government.

A year ago, I’d have said that the chances of armed conflict between Taiwan and China were negligable. All the parties have too much to lose. Today, I’d rate the likelyhood at something approaching 50-50. If that happens, US involvement is all but a certainty. The US needs to make that final point crystal clear to Beijing.

Thursday’s China Post has the latest news on the story.

“Hey baby, would you like to help me commit spiritual suicide?”

Just think of it: if she gets it, she’s probably a New York Times reader. Smart and liberal.

Inspired by David Adesnik of OxBlog.

African-American culture has provided a way to greet my black friends: “fo’ shizzle, my nizzle!” But what if I want to get down with my white homeys? Kelley of suburban blight suggests fo’ shizzle, my crizzle!, while Michele recommends alrighty, my whitey!

In related news, Snoop Dogg has a blog (not work-safe). Maybe Dvorak is right?