James at OTB reports that Uday and Qusay Hussein are history. Good riddance to the both of them.

Will Baude at Crescat Sententia notes a spat between Ward Connerly and U.S. Rep. John Dingell, apparently prompted by this statement of Dingell’s:

The people of Michigan have a simple message to you: go home and stay there. We do not need you stirring up trouble where none exists. Michiganders do not take kindly to your ignorant meddling in our affairs.

I seem to remember a lot of Southern politicians complaining about the role of “outside agitators” back in the civil rights movement during the 1960s (a fact I wouldn’t have expected to be lost on anyone who wasn’t completely ignorant of Southern history), as Connerly points out rather dramatically in his response.

As for the substance of Dingell’s statement, I wasn’t checking any driver’s licenses but it sure seemed like a sizeable proportion of the Michiganders at Dean’s place Saturday night were planning on supporting Connerly’s initiative drive.

Daniel Drezner has a challenge to those have criticized his take on the whole “sixteen words” theme that the left has been trying to make fly for the last week:

The power of the critique against Bush would be strengthened if it could be shown that a significant fraction of the American public—as well as the legislative branch—supported action against Iraq only because of the claim that Hussein’s regime had an active nuclear weapons program.

Ok, since I’m likely to be terribly bored at some point in the next day or two, and considering I’m sitting not-very-far from the computers the data is housed on, I’ll look at the February 2003 CBS/New York Times Poll, along with several others from the period after the State of the Union, and see what I can find. I can’t give any evidence on the behavior of legislators, but I can at least examine whether the public’s opinion was conditional on WMD, and nukes in particular—assuming the right questions were asked.

Warning for the faint of heart: I may present regression results in addition to the marginals.

One common refrain, particularly from the left of late*, is that our press isn’t adversarial enough when dealing with politicians; they look to the British press, and in particular the BBC (as that is the only example sizeable numbers of Americans have been exposed to), as an exemplar of the adversarial style they want to see emulated.

Those who advocate this style, however, may want to consider Jeff Jarvis’s damning collection of links that suggest that the Beeb’s quest for sensationalism and ratings—if not an ideological bias—led it to claim that the Blair government had “sexed up” reports on Iraq’s weapons capabilities before the war. At the center of the controversy is a dead weapons inspector, David Kelly, and one of the BBC’s wartime correspondents in Baghdad, Andrew Gilligan, whose performance in a pathetic cloak-and-dagger display I belittled during the war. Now, some portions of the American media are hardly better—the reliance on barely-sourced, anonymous information from deep background has become a staple of reporting in “flagship” newspapers like the Washington Post and New York Times, perhaps due to every reporter thinking he’s going to become a star like Bob Woodward—but outside the most partisan papers (the occasional crusades of the Raines-era NYT, the Washington Times and the New York Post spring to mind), no American outlets have matched the Beeb’s propensity for grinding its ideological axe.

Moreover, as Peter Mandelson (no stranger to the harsh spotlight of Fleet Street and the Beeb) points out, the British media have contributed to a decline in public discourse in that country:

The viciousness that characterises the relationship between the media and politicians is turning people off politics and corroding our democracy. Everything in Britain is conducted in an overly adversarial way, from our courts to our Parliament, our industrial relations and our select committees. It is good theatre, but does it produce good outcomes? In this case, patently not.

The pervasive cynicism of the BBC and its fellow British media almost certainly have an effect on public perceptions of democracy. As a professional cynic myself, I can’t help but believe part of that attitude was formed as a result of my political socialization at the hands of the Beeb and ITN (the only other television news provider in pre-satellite-TV Britain). A healthy skepticism about the veracity of a government’s claims is good for democracy, but the consistent and corrosive cynicism embodied in the reporting on the motives of everyone and anyone in government or the public eye by the British media seems detrimental to that country’s long-term future.

Matthew at A Fearful Symmetry has more on the blame game surrounding Kelly’s death.

James Joyner helpfully points out that the U.S. case for war in Iraq, as made in the State of the Union address—including the famous “sixteen words,” which until recently I thought was a mid-eighties Molly Ringwald vehicle—had very little to do with whether Saddam Hussein had obtained fissible materials from Africa.

In other news, the case for American secession from the British Empire really wasn’t about the fact that King George III had imposed a French-style civil code on the people of Upper Canada (the place now known as Québec). Nevertheless, that shocking claim made it into the Declaration of Independence:

FOR abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an arbitrary Government, and enlarging its Boundaries, so as to render it at once an Example and fit Instrument for introducing the same absolute Rules into these Colonies:

I guess that means we should start heaping dirt on Thomas Jefferson’s reputation. Oh, wait… never mind.

By some miracle, I’ve made it safe and sound to Ann Arbor. I spent Friday night with my friend Eric Taylor and some other wild and crazy guys in Bloomington, Ind., and most of Saturday night over at Dean’s blog party with all sorts of interesting folks in the western Detroit suburbs. I think I can safely report that a good time was had by all involved in both occassions.

I’m also relieved to see that Brock has been picking up the slack for me while I’ve been away (what timing!). More posting from me will appear in a little while…

By the way, if you are reading this in Ann Arbor, and you have a line on a room that’s available for the next four weeks, drop me an email at chris+aa@lordsutch.com. And, if you’ve replied to my email about the Bazaar, I’ll try to get back to you in the next day or so.

In the next few days, Signifying Nothing will be gaining a new co-blogger: Brock Sides. Brock met more than enough of the desired criteria to qualify; I’ll leave it to him to decide whether he wants to specify which ones.

Brock, like me, has led a relatively interesting life; he started out as a philosophy grad student, and is currently working as a computer administrator in Memphis, Tenn. He’s currently the president of GOLUM (pronounced like “Golem” from Lord of the Rings), the Linux user’s group in Memphis. Brock’s somewhat to the left of me ideologically, but he shares my (perhaps-not-always-met) goal of keeping the tone relatively sober.

I hope you’ll give him a warm welcome and I think he’ll be a great addition to the blog!

Bill Hobbs reports that flouting one’s own constitution is becoming increasingly popular out west; the latest convert to the cause is none other than Gray “My Ass Is Grass” Davis, who is apparently conducting a bizarre experiment to see how much lower he can drive his own poll ratings.

Here’s the photos I took at my 10th high school reunion. I’ll see if I can collect some others from Wayne and maybe some other people too.

Erica, one of those who have RSVP’d for Dean’s blog party on Saturday (hence explaining how I discovered her blog), has apparently produced a reasonable facsimile of the sangria produced at Casa Dominick’s in Ann Arbor. Not only is the sangria there good, they also give change with $2 bills.

Regina Ip, Hong Kong’s odious secretary for security, is gone, and finance minister Antony Leung has been booted as well, according to the Financial Times. The Tung Chee-hwa deathwatch is now officially on. Money quote from the FT:

On Tuesday, a poll by the University of Hong Kong found that Ms Ip and Mr Leung were among the territory’s three least popular ministers. Mr Tung himself was the third member of that trio.

Anyone want to go for the trifecta?

Apologies for the downtime earlier today; I upgraded Apache on the server and it apparently didn’t like something in the configuration files. Things should now be back to normal…

Daniel Drezner has a post on the perils of being a political scientist in Arafatland. If my work annoys someone, at worst I might get blackballed at a journal; in the West Bank, you might get attacked by Fatah’s goons.

Not that this incident will make many of my more liberally-inclined colleagues in The Discipline™ to revise their views of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, of course…

Conrad is quite gleeful at the latest idiocies of China’s puppet regime in Hong Kong and its cheering section in the business community. Say what you will about the content of his message, but at least this guy has mastered the art of non-verbal communication.

Due to time constraints, the “generating new content” side of Signifying Nothing doesn’t seem to be as productive as it used to be. I’m also interested in seeing how capable LSblog is for use by non-techies (or at least users who don’t have the access to tinker with the innards of the database). So, I’m looking for one or two people interested in joining the party here at SN (either exclusively or non-exclusively).

I’m fairly open-minded about political perspectives; my guess is that most of the audience is in the “economic right-socially liberal” quartile of a two-dimensional issue space. I prefer the tone sober (less Atrios or LGF; more CalPundit or Tacitus), and I’m not interested in proselytizing—religious or political. Bonus points if (a) I know you personally, (b) I probably should know you but for some odd reason I don’t, (c) I’ve consumed alcohol in your presence, or (d) you “do” mass political behavior, political psychology, or political sociology. A tolerance for minor teething problems with the software is a must (I haven’t lost a post since this blog started, but there are still a few small quirks here and there). Drop me an email if you’re interested.

I’ll also be seeking contributors for a separate, more serious blog venture I’m planning to launch in the next week or two (again, powered by LSblog). More details on that soon…

Doug took the presidential candidate selector (fun for the whole family!), and somehow managed to get Lyndon LaRouche to come out as a zero. Either they’ve fixed the algorithm to properly clip the continuum to the 0-100 range, or Doug was just “lucky.” However, I still haven’t given up looking for people who match LaRouche, mainly so I can seek restraining orders against them.

The short version: We came, we ate, we drank, we danced, we left.

The long version: A journalistic account of our tenth high school reunion would probably focus on its unrepresentativeness. Even accounting for the otherwise-disposed (due to imprisonment, disability, or death), the attendance was quite skewed. Most attendees appeared to still reside in Ocala or its environs. African-Americans and Latinos made up a goodly portion of our graduating class, but few of either were to be seen. Some cliques were far better represented than others; among the nerds, attendance was sparse, while the former “in-crowd” was abundant. But that account would be incomplete.

Of all the people I knew well and particularly wanted to catch up with, I only saw two. I wish more of those people had come. But I also got to see other people—the vaguely-remembered, the long-since-forgotten, and the wouldn’t-have-known-them-from-Adam—some of whom I got to know better. And I got to demonstrate the all-purpose white guy dance, always a plus for any social occasion.

Now, maybe some of the other attendees were stuck in the past, trying to recapture the glory days when they were the unchallenged Titans of the social pecking order. But for the rest of us, it was an opportunity to restore old connections and make new ones—and who could miss out on a chance like that? So, here’s to hoping I’ll see a few more of us in 2008.

Thanks to Alex Knapp at Heretical Ideas for selecting my sidebar quote as his Quote of the Day.

Kate links to news that “decisive proof of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs” has been located, according to The Australian. And it appears that Iraq had an ambassador to Al-Qaeda working out of its embassy in Pakistan (the latter story via Kate as well).

Alex Knapp links to an excellent Randy Barnett piece at NRO explaining how Justice Kennedy’s decision in Lawrence v. Texas departs from the court’s post-New Deal attitude toward civil liberties. The teaser:

The more one ponders the Supreme Court’s decision in Lawrence v. Texas, the more revolutionary it seems. Not because it recognizes the rights of gays and lesbians to sexual activity free of the stigmatization of the criminal law — though this is of utmost importance. No, the case is revolutionary because Justice Kennedy (and at least four justices who signed on to his opinion without separate concurrences) have finally broken free of the post-New Deal constitutional tension between a “presumption of constitutionality” on the one hand and “fundamental rights” on the other. Contrary to what has been reported repeatedly in the press, the Court in Lawrence did not protect a “right of privacy.” Rather, it protected “liberty” — and without showing that the particular liberty in question is somehow “fundamental.” Appreciation of the significance of this major development in constitutional law requires some historical background.

If you’re as big a fan of the Institute for Justice as I am, you’ll know that this is a Big Deal for liberty—on par with their efforts to get the Court to revive the privileges or immunities clause.

Eugene Volokh reports on what may be the most disgusting appellate court decision since Plessy v. Ferguson. Apparently the Nevada state supreme court has decided it can elide parts of the Nevada Constitution it finds inconvenient when promoting its activist agenda. I’ve seen some absolutely contortionist legal reasoning in state supreme court decisions before (most notably, the Tennessee supreme court’s behavior in deciding the so-called “tiny towns” cases in the mid-1990s), but never in modern times have I seen a decision so absolutely horrible I thought impeachment was warranted. Until today.

You can read more on the story in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, and at Rick Henderson’s blog. Glenn Reynolds is rather unimpressed as well.

If there’s a common thread in the various “Bush lied” stories about the war, it is that the initial, wildly overoptimistic reports were generally based on interviews with anonymous sources. For example, in last month’s Washington Post semi-retraction of its reporting on the events that lead to Pfc. Jessica Lynch’s capture, the paper describes its initial reports as follows:

Initial news reports, including those in The Washington Post, which cited unnamed U.S. officials with access to intelligence reports, described Lynch emptying her M-16 into Iraqi soldiers. The intelligence reports from intercepts and Iraqi informants said that Lynch fought fiercely, was stabbed and shot multiple times, and that she killed several of her assailants.

“She was fighting to the death,” one of the officials was quoted as saying. “She did not want to be taken alive.”

Now, assuming the initial reports weren’t written by Jayson Blair or someone seeking to emulate his behavior at the New York Times, these “unnamed U.S. officials” must exist. More importantly, the reporters who quoted them know who they are. A full and honest accounting of events, whether in the Post and elsewhere, ought to identify who these officials are.

The practice of the media taking information on background in important stories has become disturbingly widespread. If newspapers want their reports that rely on anonymous sources to be trusted, there must be some clear sanction for dishonesty by people speaking on background—just as there is when the source is not anonymous (namely, damage to the credibility of the source). A journalist’s responsibility to the truth, and to her readers, must outweigh any obligation of anonymity to a source who has clearly lied or deceived the public.

The latest Chicago School piece in The New Republic by Daniel Drezner argues that Howard Dean is about as credible as his fellow Democratic candidates on national defense, although Dean does share Dick Gephardt’s isolationist views on trade. (A number of relevant links are at Dan’s blog.)

Meanwhile, James Joyner thinks the combination of frontloading and proportional delegate allocation may lead to a brokered convention. Since nobody’s going to completely run out of money before the primaries are effectively over, there is a fair chance that no candidate will get a majority of the delegates; if any candidates are going to drop out, they’re probably going to do it before Iowa. And given that the presidential primaries often are both standalone (with no other races on the ballot) and open, there’s a reasonable chance there will be significant cross-over voting among Republicans, which may help fringe candidates and those who may be perceived as too liberal to win the general election—Sharpton and Dean could quite possibly pick up a large chunk of delegates in the South with a combination of black votes and Republican crossover voters acting as “spoilers.”

Since the last “mystery graph” was such a success (not), and because I have nothing else to write, here’s another from the “Dutch chapter.” Enjoy!

Actually, I do have another Dean post poking around in the back of my head, but I’ll save that for when I get home.

Apologies for the relative silence here at Signifying Nothing; I’m trying to finish the revisions on what I call the “Dutch chapter” (because it uses data from the 1998 elections in the Netherlands; there’s nothing particularly “Dutch” about it beyond that) of my dissertation. I have a few quick calculations to do, and about a page or two to write summarizing the results of two more regression models, and then it can be shipped off to my committee for further review (I may add more pretty graphs later).

Next up on the cavalcade: revisions on the “Nader chapter.” Then we get to go back to revise the “Hillary chapter,” the “sophistication chapter,” and the “heuristics chapter.” And, once that’s all done, I have to write the intro and conclusion. And then it will be done. Sounds so simple, doesn’t it?