I somehow managed to end up with a bastardized Debian unstable/Ubuntu hybrid on my laptop that seems to be working fairly nicely; oddly enough, my original intent was to get Evolution Exchange working again with the Millsaps mail system, but that doesn’t seem to have happened. Except for some minor annoyances, mostly having to do with Ubuntu’s decision to make Python 2.4 its “default” Python, I think it’s pretty nice… particularly the ability to run the GNOME 2.10 prerelease and the X.org X server and xcompmgr for nifty drop-shadows on my windows (the fade effect was too annoyingly slow on my laptop, so I ditched it).

So, basically, Ubuntu is Debian without the FUBAR release process and without me as a maintainer, which I see as two mostly-positive changes.

Continuing my roundabout theme, today’s Clarion-Ledger reports on construction of a roundabout on the Ole Miss campus in Oxford as part of the North-South Parkway (a.k.a. Gertrude Ford Boulevard) project.

Sebastian Holdsclaw has extracted a rather interesting comment from a long thread at Left2Right about judicial interpretation of the Constitution. However, I don’t know if it will get me to abandon my long-held opinion (only reinforced by attempting to teach two entire constitutional law textbooks) that every judicial mode of reasoning is just an excuse for attitudinalism run rampant.

The Times today also has a piece on the trend of more students taking both the ACT and SAT, due in part to recent changes to the SAT. I found this passage in the article somewhat disturbing, however:

“There’s almost no reason not to take ACT,” said Lisa Jacobson, chief executive of Inspirica, a tutoring and test preparation company in New York. “The only significant reason not to is if a kid is totally stressed out, and doesn’t want to spend another Saturday taking tests.”

Students have nothing to lose by taking the ACT, she and others say, because they can take the test as many times as they want and choose which scores, if any, to send to colleges—a calming option for students with severe test anxieties. In contrast, all SAT scores are sent to all colleges a student applies to. [emphasis mine]

Doesn’t this fact shoot any meaningful comparability between the two tests straight to hell, despite the well-known “equivalency tables” between the two exams?

Today’s New York Times has a piece in the business section looking at the effects of the Canadian beef import ban on both sides of the border—few of which are good unless you’re an American cattle rancher. It seems fairly clear (to me, at least) that the motivation behind those seeking to extend the ban is naked protectionism rather than concern about Americans’ health.

The small bit of silver lining in this is that, unlike on the steel tariffs, the president is on the right side of the issue, although there are many in Congress who aren’t.

I am a lousy 15% metrosexual. (þ: ChicagoBoyz)

Tim Sandefur and Ed at Dispatches from the Culture Wars are blogging about their favorite pens. Mr. Sandefur’s preferred Pilot V-Ball Extra Fine Point was my favorite for the longest time as well, and I still have a few floating around the apartment, but recently I’ve become more enamored of the Sanford uniball Vision Elite, particularly in the super-fine blue-black and red inks, the latter of which I use for grading.

Colby Cosh talks about a guy in Canada who’s eating nothing but McDonald’s food and still losing weight. Colby asks:

Is it some kind of heresy to suggest that McDonald’s may not necessarily be a temple of doom for people who want to eat right, and are prepared to go about it armed with common sense?

Clearly, yes.

Incidentally, the diet is going reasonably well; I lost about four pounds last week, with four days of 30–40 minutes of aerobic exercise, about 15 minutes a session on various pieces of weight-training equipment, with limited changes in diet that mostly add up to “don’t eat all the time.”

Tonight I went to see an interesting slide show of installation art and sculpture by Renee Una.* The more I think about it, the more I realize that the only adjective I can apply to it is interesting; I’ve seen art by friends that I can say is “good” or qualitatively “better” than their other art, but I was unable to provide any sort of evaluative statement about Ms. Una’s art. Does art have to be good or bad, or can it just be interesting?

Unlike my co-blogger, I tend to think that the Supreme Court’s decision in Roper v. Simmons was the morally correct one—in general, I am suspicious of the death penalty not for legal or practical reasons, but philosophical ones; namely, that the state should not have the power to kill its own citizens, whether or not they are of some arbitrary age. Having said that, like Will Baude, Steven Taylor, and James Joyner I am deeply skeptical of any form of legal reasoning that relies on state legislatures to decide the constitutionality of various actions. I may have more coherent thoughts once I’ve actually sat down with the opinion… which comes at a fortuitous time, as we will cover the 8th amendment on March 16th in my con law class.

In other judicial news, I tend to think the Padilla case was correctly decided (both on the legal merits and the moral ones), following most generally from Hamdi (particularly Scalia’s partial dissent, which I think articulated the correct standard) and Ex parte Milligan.

Seeing the juvenile death penalty overturned today was good in a number of ways—the reading of the constitution that says the 8th amendment is malleable is plausible to me—but the 5th amendment reading other people are putting forward is not. Already there are calls to overturn the death penalty altogether on constitutional grounds. These, however, are not plausible.

I should be happy with today’s ruling, but I’m not. Most of the people calling for a complete overturn of the death penalty have apparently not read the constitution:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

The references to international law are a bit galling as well. I looked at the opinion and Kennedy did limit those references and stated that they had no legal weight. If so, why mention them? I'm with Scalia: if the Justices want to indulge their curiosity, fine. Just keep it out of their opinions.

Thanks to Jon Henke of QandO for their plug this morning; I know Robert and I appreciate it.

Alex Knapp points out a flaw in Intelligent Design theory—namely, that the universe is actually rather poorly designed.

Congrats to James of The Dead Parrot Society for getting tenure and to James of Outside the Beltway for getting their 3 millionth hit.

Via Karen at Dark Bilious Vapors, there’s this item from David Brooks on how the U.S. uses soft power:

But if there is one soft-power gift America does possess, it is this tendency to imagine new worlds. As Malzahn goes on to note, “In a country of immigrants like the United States, one actually pushes for change. ... We Europeans always want to have the world from yesterday, whereas the Americans strive for the world of tomorrow.”

Stephen Sestanovich of the Council on Foreign Relations wrote an important essay for this page a few weeks ago, arguing that American diplomacy is often most effective when it pursues not an incrementalist but a “maximalist” agenda, leaping over allies and making the crude, bold, vantage-shifting proposal – like pushing for the reunification of Germany when most everyone else was trying to preserve the so-called stability of the Warsaw Pact.

As Sestanovich notes, and as we’ve seen in spades over the past two years in Iraq, this rashness – this tendency to leap before we look – has its downside. Things don’t come out wonderfully just because some fine person asks, Why not here?

But this is clearly the question the United States is destined to provoke. For the final thing that we’ve learned from the papers this week is how thoroughly the Bush agenda is dominating the globe. When Bush meets with Putin, democratization is the center of discussion. When politicians gather in Ramallah, democratization is a central theme. When there’s an atrocity in Beirut, the possibility of freedom leaps to people’s minds.

Not all weeks will be as happy as this one. Despite the suicide bombings in Israel and Iraq, the thought contagion is spreading. Why not here?

Victor Davis Hanson does a good job of describing how we should respond to the EU in the future: dial down the rhetoric, wish them well, all the while severing our ties to them. On every major issue in recent years—going back decades, really—we’ve differed with them. We’ve also been subsidizing their defense and providing them a perch from which to snipe at us.

Rather than wishing them ill, we should disentangle ourselves from them and allow them to stand on their own two feet, and live with the consequences of their decisions:

The United States should ignore all this ankle-biting, praise the EU to the skies, but not take very seriously their views on the world until we learn exactly what is going on inside Europe during these years of its uncertainty. America is watching enormous historical forces being unleashed on the continent from its own depopulation, new anti-Semitism, and rising Islamicism to Turkish demands for EU membership and further expansion of the EU into the backwaters of Eastern Europe that will bring it to the doorstep of Russia. Whether its politics and economy will evolve to embrace more personal freedom, its popular culture will integrate its minorities, and its military will step up to protect Western values and visions is unclear. But what is certain is that the U.S. cannot remain a true ally of a militarily weak but shrill Europe should its politics grow even more resentful and neutralist, always nursing old wounds and new conspiracies, amoral in its inability to act, quite ready to preach to those who do.

We keep assuming that Europeans are like Britain and Japan when in fact long ago they devolved more into a Switzerland and Sweden—friendly neutrals but no longer real allies. In the meantime, let us Americans keep much more quiet, wait, and watch—even as we carry a far bigger stick.

Book four in the Fifty Book Challenge is Give Me a Break, by 20/20 co-anchor John Stossel, who’s arguably the most well-known libertarian in America. As you’d probably expect from a book by a TV journalist, it’s not a hard read and largely autobiographical in nature. If you’re looking for a book to gently introduce someone to libertarian ideas, Stossel’s book may be ideal: less doctrinaire than Boaz’s Libertarianism: A Primer and lacking the serious liability of What It Means to be a Libertarian—Charles Murray’s public reputation. If you’re already familiar with libertarian ideas and Stossel’s journalistic career, there’ll be little new for you here, but it’s an entertaining read nonetheless.

Spent Saturday afternoon helping my friend and colleague Kamilla move from her apartment to a nice house she’s sharing a few blocks away. Except for me being an idiot and jamming my right middle fingers in a drawer, and the aches and pains inherent in moving around large objects, things went well. Afterward, Kamilla was generous enough to buy us all dinner at La Cazuela, which was most kind of her. Then we watched Anything Else (featuring an overly slimmed-down Christina Ricci) and The Goonies on her roommate’s digital cable.

Mainly it was fun spending the day with my friends Kamilla and Kelly, as well as meeting new friends Andy, Allison and Chris Bruce, especially after a week in which I was becoming increasingly and excessively surly (read Friday’s posts if you don’t believe me…). As a special bonus, all the physical activity got me out of a Saturday visit to the HAC and being attacked by various forms of exercise equipment.

Jacqueline has some rather utilitarian relationship advice for her readers, with emphasis on the value of self-confidence. Contrary to the commercials on TV, apparently you don’t need Enzyte to become more confident—go figure.

I think the title for this job ad is what should be on this one.

There are several good posts at Opinio Juris about the “legality” of the Iraqi war. For me the issue is rather simple: our constitution has an enumerated power that allows Congress to declare war for whatever reason they choose, and no treaty would change that (it would amount to amending the constitution via treaty).

Being international lawyers, the people at Opinio Juris take a more nuanced view. Julian Ku has a couple of posts (here and here). Chris Borgen responds here.

One point they touch on is the legality of the war in Kosovo. This strikes me as a good point to raise: the Kosovo war was popular among many people that oppose the current war in Iraq and they justify it through a fig leaf of multilateralism via Nato. This seems very dishonest to me, since we’ve heard all of the garbage from the transnationalists that the UN is the only body that can “authorize” war, though they never authorized the actions in Kosovo.

(I figure if Eric Muller can do it, so can I…)

Howard Dean’s upcoming whirlwind tour of flyover country attracts some pub from the AP’s Emily Wagster Pettus, last seen here at Signifying Nothing looking for state legislators dumb enough to show at a Council of Conservative Citizens function (in the end, none were). Let’s play “spot the inconsistency in Howard’s message”:

Dean said today Democrats need to appeal to working-class whites and blacks in the South.

He will speak at a $75-a-ticket Democratic dinner at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Clarion Hotel in Jackson.

Way to broaden the party’s base, Howie!

I’m not unsympathetic to Dean’s arguments, although I have to say that on the issues the Mississippi Democrats are “right” on—things like civil liberties, abortion rights, and even (gasp) raising taxes to fix this state’s massively clusterf-cked budget*—their legislative caucus doesn’t have the cojones to stand up and be counted. Instead, they waste everyone’s time with idiotic Republican-lite shit like cracking down on sales of cold medicine, and slather on a good helping of smoke-filled room politics† just to make it more embarrassing. Not to mention that back in 2001 you couldn’t find a white Mississippi Democrat without a foot in the grave—William Winter doesn’t count, so you don’t get to trot him out—who lifted a finger to get rid of the Southern Cross on the flag.

In short: wanna sell me on the Mississippi Democratic Party? Start acting like Democrats who have gerrymandered yourselves into safe seats for life, instead of Republicans who have gerrymandered yourselves into safe seats for life, because in a contest between real Republicans and fake ones I’ll take the real ones (see Musgrove, Ronnie). I’ll even let you keep Bennie Thompson, just so long as you promise to never put me in his district.

This is my entry in today’s OTB Traffic Jam.

David Bernstein has moved up from shilling his books to a post that can essentially be summed up as “please help pay my salary.” I kid you not.

Considering George Mason Law School? Are you considering attending George Mason, academic home of me and co-conspirator Todd Zywicki? People telling you that it’s crazy to consider Mason over a “superior” (i.e., higher-ranked in U.S. News) school? Well, I’m meeting an increasing number of GMU law students who have turned down, among other schools, local and regional competitors William and Mary, George Washington, and Georgetown (in fact, I’ve run into several students who turned down G’town but not G.W.; I didn’t think to ask, so I’m not sure if they didn’t get in or didn’t apply to G.W.). Several years ago, such students were few and far between, but not anymore. I don’t have exact numbers, but I’d say it’s pretty common (given that G.W. and G’town have way bigger entering class sizes than Mason, it wouldn’t take, from their perspective, many students who turned them down to make up a significant proportion of a GMU class—20 each, and you have a quarter of a GMU entering class!). Your mileage may vary of course, and one’s choice of law school is a highly individual decision. But if your heart is with GMU, and you want to reject a higher-ranked school, go for it, you will not be alone.

Why not include a referral code while he’s at it? If he doesn’t already have one, I suggest ”?exclude=davidb.”

Look, I get the institutional pride thing. If some kid with the grades and SATs asked me if he should go to Millsaps or one of the other alma maters, unless he was hard-core into engineering or really into math I’d tell him or her to come here—the hard-core engineer or mathematician I’d send to Rose-Hulman, and I’d only include math because they have a much bigger department. I’d even say the best undergraduate education you can buy in the Deep South (Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina) is right here. But the idea I’d whore out my blog to plug my employer is patently ridiculous.

Will Baude explains the problem with the Court’s pseudo-jurisprudence on race and the Bill of Rights more generally:

Yesterday, the Supreme Court decided that separating prisoners on the basis of race, even for 60 days, ought to be subject to strict scrutiny (although it is as yet unclear whether they mean Adarand-strict or Grutter-strict). [emphasis mine]

This isn’t particularly surprising, since the Court rarely (never?) says racial classifications are subject to anything other than strict scrutiny—whatever the heck that means.

More in line with my pet peeves, readers are invited to comment on whether or not any standard of review other than “rational basis” (i.e. “we’re not going to do anything about it so long as the legislature or executive goes through the motions of justifying its action”)—heightened scrutiny, strict scrutiny, imminent lawless action, Lemon, whatever—is functionally equivalent to “we’ll strike it down if five of us are in the mood on that particular day.” For added Bonus Cool Points, pick any five cases where the court applied “strict scrutiny,” apply “heightened scrutiny,” and tell me if you get a different outcome in any of the cases.

Good ole Howard Dean is working his way up the “red state” ladder with a visit to Kansas before coming to Jackson on Tuesday.

Free advice for the Deanster: I know you wanna be the candidate for guys with Rebel flags and gun racks in their monster trucks, but Jackson’s a bit more of a pistol-in-the-waistband, low-rider and gold chains kinda town. But if you wanna get down with your Nascar-lovin’ homeys, there’s always the possibility of a side-trip to Brandon. Just don’t expect any of the Rankin County folks to pay $75 for the pleasure of your company.