Nothing like finding out your 1.1GHz laptop actually is speed-capped at 550 MHz. Apparently Toshiba is giving full refunds, so we'll see how that goes...

I've added a couple of extra default font names to the stylesheet and also provided an alternate stylesheet that uses serif fonts instead; hopefully this will fix the issues some have had with fonts. Also, I've added mod_gzip to this Apache installation to reduce the bandwidth requirement of the page (all the markup makes it clock in pretty big) and added a few tweaks to the generated HTML — the most important is that the last modified time of an entry is a now tooltip for the original posting time (the page is full of tooltips, in case you haven't noticed).

At some point, I should add some media stylesheets to remove the sidebar when printing. Not that you'd actually want to print this crap...

A few interesting things in the next stable release, to whet your appetite:

for (i, x) in enumerate(['Zero', 'One', 'Two']):
   print i, x

from sets import Set
set1 = Set([2,4,6,8,10,12])
set2 = Set([3,6,9,12])
print set1 & set2 # S1 intersection S2
print set1 | set2 # S1 union S2
print set1 ^ set2 # Symmetric difference of S1 and S2

Also, some links for those of you interested in nested scopes (added as a 2.1 extension), long integer/integer unification (added in 2.2), and some new 2.3 features: the logging module (basically, a Pythonic syslog) and the integrated advanced option parser (formerly known as Optik).

Via Chip Taylor: Brian Doherty tells the GOP, it's your policies, stupid!.

Chip has an update, with quotes from an article from the Weekly Standard.

Not that it matters much in Mississippi, where we haven't had a competitive election since, oh, Reconstruction.

According to the Commercial Appeal, some Shelby Farms people want a 45 mph speed limit on the new, realigned Walnut Grove. The current speed limit is 55, and the new route would be free of traffic signals, suggesting that a limit of 45 is highly unlikely to be obeyed or, given Memphians' general level of respect for speed limits, even enforceable.

Furthermore, it's exactly the wrong plan for Walnut Grove. What's really needed is a full freeway between I-240 and the future Collierville-Arlington Parkway (TN 385), to relieve traffic on Germantown Parkway and keep the Cordova area from becoming one giant traffic jam.

More of this rant appears in misc.transport.road.

Colby Cosh discusses a UPI article by James C. Bennett; apparently, secessionist sentiment is running high in "Canada's Texas." Alberta (unlike Quebec) is a huge net contributor to Canada's federal budget; due to the nature of Canada's power-sharing, most services are provided by the provinces through funds redistributed by the national government via block grants.

One of the ironies of Canada is that its constitution, the British North America Act of 1867, was specifically designed to forestall the secessionist problems embodied in the United States (who, after all, had just come out of a bloody civil war that at least in part was over the relative powers of the state and national governments). However, the division of responsibility embodied in the BNA Act has led to a political environment where the provinces have much more sway over Canada's national policies than states do in the United States.

Radley Balko gives John J. Miller a bit of a Fisking. My feeling on the Republicans: it's not just "what have you done for me lately," it's "what have you done for me since 1994?" The notion, expressed in some of the responses, that Republicans deserve libertarians' votes because at least they're not as bad as the Democrats doesn't hold a lot of water for me.

Slashdot, everyone's favorite paragon of journalism, is claiming that the 85% profit margin that Microsoft makes on Windows is a "monopoly rent."

I'm not entirely sure I buy that, although my fuzzily-remembered economics isn't helping me figure this out. My recollection is that being a monopoly allows you to shift the supply curve to the right, thus increasing the market-clearing price where S and D intersect. However, calling the difference in price levels a "monopoly rent" assumes that this supply curve shift has actually taken place (obviously we can't determine this empirically). My gut feeling is that it hasn't; Microsoft's OS pricing is comparable to, or lower than, that of other proprietary operating systems (Linux doesn't really count, as R&D costs are lower).

Apparently, Germantown's cops are on a ticket quota. I'm shocked, simply shocked that such a thing would go on.

At least, that's what John J. Miller claims in today's New York Times. John, who doesn't seem to be a libertarian in either sense, thinks that's bad for libertarians, mainly because we won't get the Bush tax cut permanently (me, I'd prefer a cleaned up tax code to yet another layer of gobbledygook; between all the capital gains rates and normal income rates, we're now up to about a dozen real tax brackets). Glenn Reynolds makes the reasonable point that libertarians are sensibly reacting to Republicans' policies that they disagree with, even if they are "closer" to being Republican.

I don't necessarily disagree with the "Libertarians are closer to Republicans" thesis; a former Libertarian presidential candidate, Ron Paul, is now a Republican House member from Texas, and Republicans' national rhetoric is somewhat more "libertarian" than Democrats'. At a more practical level, it's harder to advance a socially-conservative agenda in Washington than a fiscally-liberal one, so voting Republican is probably less of a risk to freedom than voting for Democrats — particularly since most Dems run for the hills when it comes to actually sticking up for fundamental freedoms or ending the War on Drugs, lest they appear "too liberal." Then again, a fellow libertarian (and political scientist to boot) tends to vote Democratic (but that's only because he thinks South Carolina's Republicans are fascists).

It seems to me that Democrats and Republicans have two realistic choices to deal with their third party problems: they can either try to get stricter ballot-access laws (which could be hard — the most stringent are being thrown out by the courts fairly regularly, even with the bogus "state interest in promoting a two-party system" argument that seems to pop up from time to time; my recollection is that our Founding Fathers would think our system already has two parties too many), or they can promote some sort of ballot reform like approval voting or Condorcet vote counting that would preserve their duopoly in the short-to-medium term but still let voters blow off steam by voting Green or Libertarian.

On the other hand, such reform could conceivably lead to the full-scale disintegration of the Democrats into various client-group parties (probably a rump comprised of union voters plus a few racial-interest parties concentrated in gerrymandered districts, with the rest defecting to the Greens) and the loss of the socially-agnostic wing of the Republicans to the Libertarians.

More likely it would end up in a situation where Republicans and Democrats would have the bulk of the seats but third parties would be coalition power-brokers; the big question is whether there would be permanent parliamentary-style coalitions in Congress or a more ad-hoc arrangement with no "majority" like we know it today, just floating coalitions assembled by the White House to get its preferred legislation passed.

Yes, according to the Memphis Regional Chamber, the City on the Bluffs is not only Cosmopolitan, Comfortable, Vibrant, and Convenient; it's also Funky.

I'm more reminded of the old Northwest Airlines joke: Northwest has three hubs: Motown, Snow Town, and No-Town. But then again, I'm a cynic.

Virginia Postrel also writes about the Georgia elections and what they may have had to do with the flag change there; she links to an article in Metropolis magazine talking about how the flags' design could have been an issue in their success or failure.

At least in Mississippi, that didn't make a difference. A former colleague, D'Andra Orey, took a look at the issue and found racial attitudes were the prime factor on how people viewed the flag issue. The fact that the proposed banner was butt-ugly and had no historical significance to the state was beside the point. (The Metropolis piece also talks about this to some extent.)

The reality is that the Mississippi Legislature — particularly the white Democrats who run the place, despite the fact that the Republicans and black Democrats could easily make a power-play if they felt like it — made a shrewd political calculation: they punted on the issue to save their jobs (a reasonable thing to do; realignment hasn't reached the state legislature here yet, but voting for a new flag was one sure-fire way to make sure it did), and they counted on having the popular mandate to not change the flag to insulate them from any backlash from the NAACP and other groups pressuring for change. The only possible downside for the legislature's white Democrats, who really didn't want a new flag anyway, was that if Mississippi's black population had decided to turn out disproportionately in the election, they could have gotten the new flag. In the end, only 30% of the electorate showed up, and the "old" flag won in a number of majority-black counties. Realignment was forestalled, the NAACP went away, and nobody in the state really seemed to care all that much.

Of course, virtually nobody in the state cared much about what anyone outside of the state thought either, which is probably why Mississippi is viewed as little more than a collection of backwater hicks and a source of occasional "local color" for Robert Altman films.

Another great episode, although my current fave is still "Shindig" from two weeks ago (though that's probably just my Kaylee thang talking). The weekly discussion is underway at TiVoCommunity. The past few weeks have filled in some backstory, although we still have the reworked pilot and a couple of other episodes to look forward to next month (an early Christmas present).

Now hopefully Fox will have the sense to renew it, and put Andy Richter on year-round while they're at it.

The EPA's new "hybrid" route proposal apparently is unpopular with both Evansville officials and environmentalists. In other words, it's the very definition of a compromise. (Most of the sniffing seems to be from people on both sides who feel "left out of the loop." I feel their pain.)

I'm personally not all that sold on a route that meanders drunkenly through Southwest Indiana, but I'm sure something reasonably direct can be worked out that avoids the Patoka National Wildlife Refuge, which seems to be EPA's biggest concern.

Regular I-69 updates are at I69Info.com; this site is just for meaningless blather. :-)

Virginia Postrel comments on the relative efficiency and competence of the TSA.

At some level, it's too early to judge them (the initial "startup effect" makes everything seem competent the first six months or so; go to a McDonald's or Best Buy the month it opens then come back a year later, and compare the difference), but I agree they did seem a bit more together than the old-style crews when I flew to Savannah last weekend. They also had big signs telling everyone what to do ("take your laptop out of your bag, put your coat on the conveyor, don't brandish weapons and/or start shouting in Arabic"), which helped the process somewhat. And, so long as these people can be fired on the spot if they can't figure out the difference between silly putty and Semtex, I'm cautiously optimistic.

But I'm still not flying again anytime soon, so nyah!

Well, UPI reports that the Iraqis have already violated the most recent UN Security Council resolution. Maybe Saddam is bored with running Iraq and needs an exit strategy...

A bit of retrospective on the socialist worker's paradise that was Bulgaria under Communism. (Seen at Instapundit.)

Sounds like drinking with some of my professors... :-)

So says The Commercial Appeal, at least. I don't know that he can make money at this, but I guess it's better than just sitting empty like Mud Island and the rest of Memphis' boondoggles.

Rachel Lucas has discovered a memory hole at Michael Moore's website.

I have to say I used to enjoy Michael's work, but I think he's lost his critical edge over the years; you might say he peaked early. Not to mention his tireless efforts to make every American tithe to the AFL-CIO for the privilege of having a job. Still, Roger & Me was a great film, and "TV Nation" was entertaining enough, paving the way for "The Daily Show"'s similar (but more equal-opportunity) mix.

Incidentally, I guess I should find some lefty bloggers to quote lest anyone think I'm some sort of conservative. :-)

Ars Technica reports on perishable DVDs. To paraphrase David Spade, it sucked the first time, when it was called Divx.

On the upside, at least all six people who don't own CD burners can now enjoy free coasters like the rest of us.

XM's 90s on 9 is starting to grow on me, even though I could live without the rap that's about 10% of the playlist. Then again, that's why there's 100 other channels to choose from. :)

Incidentally, they're doing a bit of housecleaning. Now if they can just replace KIIS with something a bit edgier than MIX but without the rap from 90s on 9, I'll be in music heaven.

Tacitus has some thoughts on state legislatures vis à vis political parties and the liberalism-conservatism scale. It's an interesting piece as far as it goes, but it begs a couple of empirical questions:

1. Why do Republicans fail to compete effectively for the median voter in "liberal" states? Democrats in the South seem able to separate themselves from the national party, yet this eludes Republicans. Is it simply a matter of gerrymandering or incumbent advantage? (Some political scientists would argue that on the "local" issues Dems have the advantage of the right issue positions, though; no state legislator is ever going to have to vote on defense or national security, two Republican-"owned" issues, to borrow from John Petrocik.)

2. Why does Democratic control of state legislatures persist in states that elect Republicans regularly to national office?

Some people have gotten at corners of these questions (and I'd cite them if I could remember them offhand; the realignment literature is an interesting place to start), but I don't think there's been a good answer yet. And a good answer might actually be relevant to the real world, something us PoliSci people are rarely good at providing.

Seen on Instapundit: the logo for the Information Awareness Program. Does the government really want all the New World Order/Trilateral Commission loonies to feel justified at night?

On the other hand, it might make a cool logo for Area 52.

The following message just arrived in my email:

At approximately 1:35 pm today, a contractor, working at a campus construction site, pulled down a utility pole and surrounding power lines. This caused a fire and a transformer to fail. Subsequently, many buildings on campus were without power. Power should be restored to most buildings on campus by close of business today. Please forward any ongoing problems related to this outage to the Physical Plant so that we may assist you. Thanks for your patience. We apologize for any inconvenience.

I think it pretty much speaks for itself.

One of the great mysteries of the universe: why didn't the Sacajawea dollar coin take off? I've always found them eminently useful and preferable to digging around in my wallet for small purchases.