Apropos of the U.K. election, Stephen Bainbridge plays ‘predict the election’ and notes Labour’s massive (predicted) lead in seats isn’t matched by its lead in vote share:

It’s an interesting example, by the way, of just how skewed the British electoral system is against the Tories. If I’m right, a 3 point difference in the national polls leaves them almost 200 seats behind Labour.

The British electoral system isn’t skewed against the Tories—at least, not any more, as Scotland’s overrepresentation in Parliament has finally been done away with; it’s skewed in favor of whoever wins the plurality of the national vote. It’s almost (but not exactly) the exact same effect as we see in the U.S. electoral college: “landslides” in the electoral college are easily manufactured by relatively small differences in the popular vote.

The effect is also a partial consequence of Britain’s nonpartisan redistricting system; gerrymandering in the U.S. depresses the number of districts that are likely to “swing” from one party to the other, while the British process tends to produce a larger number of districts close to parity. (However, unlike post-Wesberry America, there is no requirement of strict population equality for constituencies in Britain.)

Shugart and Taagepera’s Seats and Votes explains things far better than I can, if you can find a copy.

There was a time when I was enough of a politics junkie to watch election returns live. These days I’ll settle for reading the BBC results on the laptop while I watch the NBA playoffs on TV.

At the moment, it looks like Labour is running slightly behind its 2001 seat total (a net loss of 21 seats), with the Tories benefitting the most (+14), but there’s real no risk of Labour losing its majority unless the polls are really wrong—the current 3.2% swing to the Conservatives would have to become a 6.5% swing for Labour to lose its majority, according to the awesome Swingometer. (þ: Raffi Melkonian for the Swingometer link.)

Jacqueline is seeing Serenity tomorrow. I’m stuck at home watching Enterprise.* Life isn’t fair.

My students are apparently laboring under the delusion that I am “hot.” Oy vey. I could buy that rating for Ms. Mueller or Dr. Galicki, to say nothing of the legendary Dr. Tegtmeier-Oertel, but not for me.

Elsewhere: Dr. Huffmon’s students love him (except the student who fails to properly recognize that he is the Messiah), but inexplicably fail to award the coveted chili pepper. Mass delusion, I tell you. (þ sorta-kinda: Mungowitz End)

Yesterday, a few of the first-year faculty (Suzanne, Kamilla, and Peter) and I went to see The Interpreter with Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn; most thought it was a very good film. Although I don’t specialize in African politics, it seemed to be fairly faithful to the themes of sub-Saharan Africa—the semi-obvious inspiration for the film’s fake country of Mobutu is Zimbabwe, where Robert Mugabe was once viewed as the savior of his people but has spent much of the past three decades terrorizing his own population, but aspects of other central and southern African countries are present as well.

The broader point raised by some in the war party of the blogosphere (e.g. ☣ Little Green Footballs), that the choice to set the story in Africa instead of the Middle East somehow is a denial of the existence of Islamic-inspired terrorism, strikes me as rather stupid. For one, the terrorist attack in the story is a political assassination—not the preferred tactic of most Middle Eastern terror groups. More importantly, I think it’s easier to think seriously about the issues raised in the film if they’re not tied up in the 9/11 framework, especially since the film doesn’t want to make it as easy as “people with guns and bombs bad.”

Good news for Debian fans: the archive freeze in preparation for release has taken place. If all goes according to plan, Debian 3.1 will be out by the end of the month.

The sales of David Bernstein’s oft-plugged tome You Can’t Say That! are apparently flagging. It certainly doesn’t reflect a lack of marketing effort by the author…

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)

The new version of Walking Tall says it’s 86 minutes long. Well, it is if you count the closing credits. The movie ends at the 73 minute mark and there are an additional 13 minutes of credits on a black background. I could have probably gotten a credit if I asked. I had to watch the movie twice to make it feel like a real movie.

Not necessarily a bad movie, just too little of it.

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).

It takes a lot to get me to blog these days, with finals and qualifiers approaching, but this article at The Guardian has done it.

They begin by declaring Tony Blair a “war criminal” and say he’s the worst British PM since Chamberlain. You can see where this is going, right? Chamberlain appeased Germany and Blair “appeased” the U.S. by supporting the Iraq War. Hence, the U.S. is Germany of the 1930s. Well, minus the territorial ambitions, a dictator running the country and a million other things. No socialism either.

I’ll quote a good bit from the article, but you really should read it all for yourself:

Blair has followed in his footsteps, and is destined for the same place in history's hall of infamy. Like Chamberlain, he is an arrogant and God-fuelled appeaser, the unseemly ally of an unbridled country that presents a global threat similar to Germany in the 1930s.

Tony Blair has been the worst prime minister since Neville Chamberlain, a figure with whom he shares a number of significant characteristics. Chamberlain was a supremely confident and arrogant politician, an excellent speaker and a deeply religious man with a hotline to God. He had an unassailable majority in parliament, was popular in the country and presided over a cabinet stuffed with nonentities.

Unfamiliar with the outside world, he conducted his own disastrous foreign policy with the help of backroom advisers as ignorant as himself. By seeking to appease the German government, the principal threat to world peace at the time, he onlysucceeded in encouraging that country's appetite for aggression and expansionism. His egregious errors played a not insignificant role in the outbreak of the second world war, the principal tragedy of the 20th century.

Blair has followed in his footsteps, and is destined for the same place in history’s hall of infamy. Like Chamberlain, he is an arrogant and God-fuelled appeaser, the unseemly ally of an unbridled country that presents a global threat similar to Germany in the 1930s.

Instead of seeking a grand alliance to confront this new danger – “a coalition of the unwilling” that would include the Europeans, the Russians and the Chinese – Blair has sided with the evil empire. He has taken up a role as its principal cheerleader, obliging Britain to become a participant in its wars of aggression. Today’s Labour party has been a supine collaborator in this policy of appeasement, just like the Tory party in the 1930s. Blair’s war party must be defeated at the polls.

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.