Joy passes along word that the ACC plan is now to just take Miami and, in a bizarre reversal, just Virginia Tech, to create an eleven-team conference. Presumably they’re still looking for a twelfth so they can have a championship game, although maybe they’re just hoping that some of that “11-team cachet” will accrue to them from the Grande Onze (a.k.a. Big Ten), which seems most unlikely. (It’s also a possiblity that the Virginia Tech offer is being made for show, so Virginia’s A.D. can save face with the local politicos, but with no expectation that Tech will accept it.)

If they’re still looking for a #12, my guess is that the contenders are: Central Florida, South Carolina (highly unlikely to leave the SEC), Southern Florida, and East Carolina—schools that fit geographically with either legit second-tier football credibility (as is the case for all but USF) or a good shot at credibility due to recruiting ties in talent-rich Florida (UCF and USF—not every high school standout can go to one of the Big Three). With Virginia Tech in the mix, they don’t have to worry about getting anyone else at the top tier, so a later invite for B.C. or Syracuse seems highly unlikely.

Meanwhile, losing both VT and Miami would effectively strip the rump Big East of what few shreds of BCS credibility it would have had with Tech still on-board; they’ll be lucky if they get to keep the guaranteed slot long enough to lure anyone else into the conference with it—and, in any event, the only top-tier team that the rump Big East could attract is Notre Dame, and it doesn’t need the slot (having made its own sweetheart deal with the four BCS bowls). While the Big East may survive in some form, Big East football will almost certainly be history.

One of the things I’m wrestling with in my dissertation is how best to measure political sophistication or political expertise: roughly speaking, the degree to which a citizen is capable of making informed voting decisions. To do that, I’ve been using (in some places) an item-response theory model, borrowed from the psychometric and educational testing literature. These models assume that there’s a latent trait (or “ability“) that we can’t directly observe, but we can get at that ability by looking at how people answer a bunch of questions. Political expertise is a fairly straightforward application of this approach, but others have applied it to other political problems, most notably the “ideal-point estimation” problem (the most famous example of this is Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal’s work on Congress using NOMINATE, but Simon Jackman and others have been doing important work in this area too), and the much of the field of structural equation models (or LISREL models) works on generalized versions of this problem.

What does this have to do with public opinion, per se? Well, I was thinking about the abortion issue, where each side wants to coopt as many “reasonable” people into its coalition as possible. The pro-life crowd uses slogans like “choose life” (surely nobody would “choose death,” as a recent correspondent suggested) while the pro-choice crowd tries to promote itself as “supporting family planning” (again, who would oppose that?).

Now, let’s transform this into a public opinion example. If we ask people whether or not they agree with just one of these statements, we’ll get very uninformative results; a few “die-hard” pro-choicers will recognize “choose life” as a pro-life codephrase and disagree, while a few “hardcore” pro-lifers would see “family planning” as a euphemism for abortion rights and oppose that. But most people (including myself) would agree with either statement, which would make them appear to be simultaneously “pro-choice” and “pro-life.” Is the public really this schizophrenic? Probably not; the question wording creates bias (systematic error).

Now, assume we solicit agreement or disagreement with both statements. That gives us two data points, which reflect—to some degree—the underlying attitude of the voter on abortion rights (our “latent trait” of interest). Every additional question (so long as it’s reflecting the same attitude!) gives us more leverage on the latent trait; we might, for example, ask voters whether or not they agree with abortion under particular sets of circumstances (e.g. if the mother’s life is in danger; if the child will have a birth defect; if the conception was due to rape; if the conception was incestuous; if the conception was due to the failure of other birth control; if the parent is a minor; etc.). But even using those two, very biased, questions together will give us a much better picture of the latent attitude toward abortion than just taking one of them alone. And even if the questions aren’t that biased, multiple questions beat a single question any day.

So, the moral of the story is: don’t rely on the marginals from a single survey question unless you just can’t possibly avoid it. And by “can’t possibly avoid it,” I mean “you’re stuck using data collected by people who didn’t (or couldn’t, if it was done before the 1970s) read Converse.”

If this part of public opinion is of interest to you, I strongly recommend reading The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion, which is probably the definitive modern work in the field.

Considering that not too long ago I said I wasn’t going to post a blogroll, and now I have one, I guess I should post my formal blogrolling policy. There are two ways to get a slot:

1. Link me. If I visit your site and don’t projectile vomit after reading it, you’ll probably get a link, and if you have an RSS feed, I’ll probably subscribe to it.

2. I randomly stumble across your blog and feel like I’d probably read it on a semi-regular basis. (I’ll read your content more often if you have a full-content RSS feed. Movable Type should be able to produce one of those.)

Also, you will percolate up to the top of the blogroll when you update your weblog if you do friendly things like pinging weblogs.com or blo.gs (preferably both, because I query them and blogger.com hourly at different offsets from the hour). I don’t use Blogrolling; it’s all homegrown code (the semi-mythical LSblog). And since things like Technorati use those pings to do their special magic behind the scenes, I’ll probably only find out if you link me if you ping somewhat regularly. Check out Laurence Simon’s guide to pinging for all the details you’d ever want. Otherwise, you’ll permanently hang out in Den Beste Land at the bottom.

Finally, if for some reason you think my blogroll is useful, you can grab its contents as an OPML file for your favorite RSS aggregator. And if you read this blog often, and don’t like how it looks or the timezone, set your prefs to change the settings to your liking.

It is perhaps ironic that presidential candidates Dick Gephardt and Dennis Kuchinich decided to celebrate the 200th anniversary year of Marbury v. Madison by endorsing the idea of a presidential override of Supreme Court decisions by executive order. Not only is this a constitutionally stupid idea, anyone with even an inkling of the concept of “separation of powers” (much less anyone who’s read Federalist 10) would recognize that it’s a recipe for demagoguery and disaster.

Such an incredibly stupid policy is not entirely unprecedented. Andrew Jackson, institutionalizer (if not founder) of the modern Democratic Party, infamously overrode the Marshall court when it sided with the Cherokee Nation over the federal government, leading to the Trail of Tears. Of course, Jackson also had some redeeming qualities, which does not appear to be the case for either Gephardt or Kuchinich, particularly the latter (who combines populism with sheer idiocy in one convenient package).

Now, I’m not going to pretend that the Supreme Court has a great deal of democratic legitimacy. It is, by its nature, a political institution, by the very definition of politics: they decide, at least in the cases brought before them, how resources (money, liberty, legal protections, etc.) are allocated in our society. But I’m pretty sure I’d rather have nine people who are don’t have to appeal to popular passions to make sure they get their next paycheck deciding those things than some two-bit politician (or, more likely, his political appointees) whose every decision is a result of focus groups, opinion polls, and political calculations in the pure, Mayhewian sense—in other words, because presidents (at least in their first terms), like members of Congress, are “single-minded seekers of reelection.”

I haven’t digested either of the Michigan decisions yet, and probably won’t have time to think about either in any detail soon. So rather than spout off an opinion based on the clear-as-mud descriptions of the decision I read in today’s Daily Mississippian, I’ll just say “go elsewhere for insight.”

The only interesting thing I noted was a quote from Sandra Day O‘Connor that indicated that she thought AA would outlive its usefulness within the next 25 years. I guess I’ll be around to determine empirically whether or not she was right…

Orin Kerr brings my attention to a survey that shows that most Americans don’t know the names of any members of the Supreme Court. Of the 35% who could name one or more, Sandra Day O‘Connor and Clarence Thomas are the most well-known. Here’s the money quote from the press release:

“The results of the survey are disappointing, but not surprising,” said Professor Stephen Presser of Northwestern University School of Law. “I suspect that the American public generally believes that it doesn’t really matter much who serves on the Supreme Court, because they believe the Court is objectively applying the Constitution and laws when it makes a decision.

“The truth of the matter is,” said Presser, “it makes an enormous amount of difference who serves on the Court. Our political parties are very much divided over whether judges should passively follow the law or legislate from the bench, with President Bush committed to appointing judges who will promise not to legislate from the bench, and Senate Democrats committed to opposing his nominees. This is an issue that ought to be of great concern to the public, but really hasn’t attracted much attention.”

Let me get this straight. You’ve got the money to do a good probability sample of the U.S. population, and you ask them a trivia question. How about finding out empirically whether or not the “American public generally believes that it doesn’t really matter much who serves on the Supreme Court”—that seems like a pretty important public policy question, no? How about telling me if there are any systematic variations in who knows which members of the Court—do blacks disproportionately know Clarence Thomas is? Do women know the female members at a higher rate? Do they know anything about particular cases? Do they know some important precedents, even in impressionistic terms? (I suspect more people know they have the “right to remain silent” than the fact the warning was established in Miranda v. Arizona. But both show some familiarity with the work of the Court.)

Ah well, at least the law professor concedes the validity of the attitudinal model. It turns out that the entire judicial behavior field isn’t excreting into a headwind after all…

I think that Jeff Licquia has hit the nail on the head about the “whiteness studies” story that’s been going around the web the last couple of days. No excerpts, go RTWT™.

Via Quare, I learn that the Federal Reserve may be planning to produce new $2 bills for the first time since 1996. For some odd reason, Ann Arbor (Mich.) seems to be awash in the bills. Like the dollar coin, they’re one of the useful things that seem to have dropped through the cracks.

Tim Blair links to an Observer article that claims Saddam and either Uday or Qusay was killed in an airstrike on a convoy in western Iraq. Here’s to hoping, but I’d like to see confirmation from a U.S. newspaper not based on 43rd Street in Manhattan.

Scholar, blogger, and all-around great guy (see what a beer and some good career advice will buy you in praise) Dan Drezner has moved to drezner2.blogspot.com due to certain unspecified Blog*Spot problems at the old site, as an interim move before ditching Blogger completely. Update your blogrolls accordingly.

Bizarrely enough, “new” posts seem to be appearing on a somewhat random basis at the old site. There’s a ghost in the machine somewhere, methinks.

Now he's back at the original site…

Thanks to the folks at OxBlog for their shout out! Hopefully, however, my days as a graduate student are drawing fairly rapidly toward a close…

James Joyner at OTB indulges in a little POL 101 lecture on what James Madison was talking about in Federalist 10. I’ll have to remember to pilfer some of it when I next update my Federalist handout.

Bill Hobbs argues that Tennessee’s “Choose Life” license plate isn’t a political statement in and of itself, but rather that “pro-abortion” politicians are “racing to politicize it anyway.” Bill argues:

Of course, the lawsuit would fail—as it has in other states—because the two-word phrase “Choose Life” is neither political nor religious. In fact, the phrase is objectively pro-choice: it acknowledges that people have a choice and simply urges them to choose life over death. Courts across the nation have already shot down the kind of legal arguments the Tennessee ACLU is threatening to make.

Bill may be right about the legalities (although in the comments at PolState.com, Wyeth points out that South Carolina’s courts have accepted the ACLU’s argument), but he’s being highly disingenous here—at least at the level of Glenn Reynolds’ “objectively pro-Saddam,” and James Taranto’s “Y is raising questions about X’s patriotism.”

Furthermore, the “Choose Life” plate places the state in the position of advocating a particular choice by its citizens, and, worse than the activities of the odious Office of National Drug Control Policy (but on a par with the CDC’s anti-tobacco efforts), it advocates that choice over other legal choices. Just because the message is on a individual license plate rather than a billboard doesn’t make it less offensive.

As expected, today’s Daily Mississippian was full of the controversy: the editorial (laying on the “the administration lied” meme very thick, as is the wont of DM editorials), the cartoon, two staff columns (proish and conish), a reactions piece, and two letters (one picking up the “they lied” meme and the other, er, picking up the “they lied” meme).

Also, from the blogosphere (via Feedster): Mason Wilson at Unlearned Hand, an Ole Miss alum, approves of the plan, while Big Jim doesn’t.

Thanks to the fine folks at blo.gs, the LSblog blogroll module now is monitoring their updates list as well. Since they receive an hourly feed of updates from Blogger, this means that a bunch of Blog*Spot-hosted blogs are now showing up as being updated regularly, and so they’ll also percolate up to the top of the blogroll (unless you’ve chosen the alphabetical sort in your preferences).

Can I just hide for the next few months while the furor over this proceeds without my involvement? Please?

More details are in this Daily Mississippian story. And if you think this was done without the “high sign” from U of M Chancellor Robert Khayat, you haven't been paying much attention to how Ole Miss works.

Patrick Carver is displeased (along with the rest of the Alumni Association, no doubt). For the record, I've always thought the Colonel was a pretty dumb mascot, but in a league where Auburn can’t even figure out what its mascot is, Vanderbilt has a “commodore,” Georgia has a succession of ugly-ass dogs, and Alabama has the inexplicable “crimson tide,” it’s pretty clear that Ole Miss isn't exactly out-of-place in that regard.

Apparently, the Big East isn’t content with whining about the ACC raiding its membership; they’re planning to raid Conference USA and the A-10 in an impressive show of hypocrisy apparently calculated to undermine their teams’ lawsuit against the ACC, Miami and Boston College. Meanwhile, perennial Big East also-ran (and g33k alma mater) The State University of New Jersey (perhaps better known as Rutgers) is now officially on NCAA probation, so at least they’re doing their part to show the conference is still upholding the fine competitive traditions of top-tier college football, even without Miami’s efforts in that area.

Dan Drezner links to a University of Chicago Magazine piece that does as good a job as any I’ve seen in trying to explain the fracture in The Discipline™ spearheaded by the Perestroika movement. One thing it points out rather well is that many of them don’t have any clue what the term “rational choice” means, since surely they’d call me at a “rat choicer” yet my entire dissertation is an assault on the idea of rationality under limited information. Not to mention that I enjoy formal models about as much as I like receiving a sharp kick to the groin.

However, I will agree with their point that the APSR was rapidly becoming a wasteland; Lee Sigelman has his work cut out for him to bring its standards back up to where the AJPS and JOP are at today.

James Joyner (Outside the Beltway) has a good discussion going about the politics and mechanisms for sorting out the D.C. voting mess. The possibilities, in ascending order of seriousness:

1. A buyout. Bribe every single citizen of the District to leave, bulldoze the privately-held land, and move the rest of the federal government in. Fill up the rest with parkland (if there’s any rest left once you’ve moved half of West Virginia into the District). Oh, and finish I-95 while you’re at it.

2. Put it on eBay. Like the buyout plan, but more fun. Whoever wins has to finish I-95.

3. Trade it to Canada for Alberta. As a sweetener, we’ll give them any part of the Lower 48 where 50% or more of the population uses the word “eh” as a comma.

4. Give ‘em the “Puerto Rico” deal: no federal taxes if they (a) stop taking federal money and (b) shut up about the “no taxation without representation” thing. If they want to vote, they can declare residency in a state of their choice, pay their state and federal taxes, and vote absentee. Oh, and they’re getting I-95 like it or not.

5. Give the damn place back to Maryland. Except they don’t want another Baltimore. Especially one without either Camden Yards or a nice aquarium. And they’re not gonna like having to build the missing part of I-95. (Detecting a pattern here?)

6. Give the damn place back to Maryland, and guarantee them an extra representative or two for being kind enough to take D.C. off the rest of our hands. (Screw Baker v. Carr.) We’ll even pay for I-95.

Ok, so none of them are serious. Ah, well.

OxBlog’s Patrick Belton links to an interesting Weekly Standard piece on how the newspaper of the future should be designed—primarily, that it should be online, and take advantage of the medium.

It’s a somewhat novel approach, but I think people are always going to want tactile feedback when reading large amounts of text. “Digital paper” will probably be the closest we ever get to being truly paperless. This is one thing I think Babylon 5 got right about the future; even in the 23rd century, people will still want a newspaper: it may be custom-built for them, but otherwise it won’t look much different from the newspaper of 2001 or 1801.

James Joyner has a link to an article that basically sums up my position on the whole Big East/ACC thing.

By the way, my guess is that the Big East schools that are suing Miami and B.C. will settle for token monetary damages and a conditional guarantee the rump Big East won’t lose their guaranteed BCS slot. That would be an excellent carrot for the rump league to dangle in front of potential C-USA defectors like Louisville and Southern Miss. Who knows—we might actually get a sane I-A conference alignment and the end of the whining from the “mid majors” out of this. (Not that I’m holding my breath.)

The graph illustrates how Dutch voters interviewed in 1998 with varying levels of political sophistication used their attitudes toward the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) to evaluate the performance of Wim Kok’s 1994-98 coalition government, which included three other parties: PvdA (Labour), VVD (the Liberals, in the European sense of the word), and Democrats 66 (who maybe Pieter can explain, since I haven’t figured them out yet), but not the CDA.

The least sophisticated members of the electorate show a positive relationship, which indicates that they evaluated the performance of the coalition based in part on their attitudes toward a political party that hadn’t been in office in four years. In American terms, it would be essentially the same thing as a voter thinking George W. Bush was doing a good job because he likes Democrats (which, before you laugh, I’m sure I could find evidence of among a fair portion of the U.S. electorate). You can also see an exaggerated negative relationship among the most sophisticated voters, suggesting that there’s some sort of cognitive balancing going on (“I dislike the CDA so I must like the coalition’s performance”) independent of the feelings toward the other three parties, which are also controlled for in the model (and held constant in the graphs).

The point isn’t so much that they’re wrong, but rather that they’re relying on an outdated view of how Dutch politics works to make voting decisions. In terms of my dissertation topic, their heuristic (cognitive shortcut) for evaluating coalition performance is flawed—and this leads them to make incorrect decisions compared to their “fully-informed preferences” (how they’d behave if they knew everything that a highly sophisticated voter did about Dutch politics).

Honorable mention to Dad, who guessed it had something to do with magnets. I think he’s been watching too much Stargate SG-1…

The AP reports (via ESPN.com) that Archie Manning has softened his stance against an “Eli for Heisman” campaign. Now let’s hope it doesn’t turn out to be the colossal flop that “Deuce for Heisman” was.

Neo-conspirator Randy Barnett has a couple of interesting posts on the privileges or immunities clause of the 14th Amendment, probably my favorite dusty corner of the Constitution (ahead of the contracts clause). One of the small perks of teaching is that you get to do a little bit of agenda setting, and so I typically spend a few minutes on it in my POL 101 lecture.

I promise to get back to vaguely substantive posts later this week, now that I’m out of the woods on this dissertation stuff for a few days. But my brain’s kinda mushy at the moment, so no good posts today. Instead, you can look at a pretty Trellis graph produced in GNU R. Bonus points if you can figure out what it demonstrates.

89 final-format pages including front and back matter, not including the rather skeletal introductory chapter and a couple of weird graduate-school-required pages I haven’t decided how to generate in LaTeX yet. Unlikely to increase short-term since one chapter needs some substantial revisions and I’m still waiting on comments on another one.