Mark the Pundit advances a theory about David Cutcliffe’s hiring-and-firing that has at least a minor whiff of plausibility (þ James Joyner):

I wonder if Ole Miss hired Cutcliffe for the sole reason that they knew that it was a good chance he could land Eli Manning? After all, Cutcliffe recruited and coached brother Peyton at Tennessee, and Peyton does think highly of Cutcliffe. Now, when Peyton was recruited he signaled he would not sign with Ole Miss since his father Archie played there and Peyton did not want the extra pressure of playing where Pop did. However, if Eli had any such reservations, I did not hear about them. In fact, I think Eli was probably more reluctant to follow Peyton’s footsteps at Tennessee. So what does Ole Miss do? They lure away Cutcliffe from Tennessee as a way to show Eli that Ole Miss’s program was going to take a direction that could land him in the pros just like his brother. Ole Miss needed a coach at the time, so why not hire a man who could land one of the most sought after recruits in the country? Apparently it worked. Eli has a God-like stature at Ole Miss, and he is now a multimillionaire playing for the New York Giants. Coach Cutcliffe delivered the goods, but in the eyes of Ole Miss he outlived his usefullness.

I certainly think the Eli situation was a factor that helped Cutcliffe win the job, but I’m not sure it explains the firing so much as Pete Boone’s apparent antipathy toward Cutcliffe and his desire to get his “own guy” in the job. Plus, anyone who’s followed the last six years of Ole Miss football has to wonder about the annual November slump and inexplicable losses to middling teams over the past few years, like unidimensional Texas Tech, limited-talent Memphis, and whatever the hell happened to the team at Wyoming, not to mention the Music City Bowl fiasco against West Virginia. Inexplicably, my dubbing of Cutcliffe as the “master of the prevent offense” never seemed to catch on, but it certainly characterized much of the play under every QB.

(All that said, I still am not at all convinced the firing made a lot of sense, unless there’s stuff we don’t know coming down the pike, as Kornheiser mentioned yesterday as a possible caveat before he and Wilbon went on a tear insulting the decision by Boone and Robert Khayat.)

Mark also reminds me why I wasn’t all that broken up when the whole Petrino thing was going down at Auburn. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy… (The annoying part is that I think the AP will give Tubby half the national title just because the sportswriters like complaining about the BCS—and what better way to show it’s broken than to put their thumb on the scale a bit?)

U.S. Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) apparently added a rider ($) to the FY2005 appropriations bill requiring any educational institution receiving federal aid to have some sort of “instructional program on the U.S. Constitution” every September 17, according to today’s Chronicle of Higher Education daily update. (Here’s a link for people not blowing $85/year on the Chronicle.)

Perhaps we political scientists (who, doubtless, will be the individuals subject to this unfunded mandate) should also devote another day—say, December 3—to teaching about the practice of including non-germane provisions in conference reports, thus circumventing the committee system and the rest of the ordinary legislative process. I feel the need for a “teach-in” already.

The Clarion-Ledger and Commercial Appeal both report that Ole Miss AD Pete Boone is looking at ousted Florida coach Ron Zook and ex-Notre Dame coach Ty Willingham as candidates to replace fired head coach David Cutcliffe, while speculation north of the state line also has current Memphis coach Tommy West on the short list, the Biloxi Sun-Herald adds Darrell Dickey of North Texas and Butch Davis to the mix, and the Gainesville Sun has Bobby Petrino and Rick Neuheisel as candidates for the Ole Miss job. (In other words, most everyone is just blindly speculating who Boone is after at this point.)

In other Rebel football news, Boone had a rather heated meeting with about sixty players on the Ole Miss football team that sort of captures the whole week in a nutshell. And who says the Rebels don’t turn out smart kids?

“People are mad,” [junior defensive tackle McKinley] Boykin said. “For a coach to have a good year and be the coach of the year, and have a bad year and then fire him, that's pretty messed up. Whatever coach comes in, I hope he knows what he's getting into.”

I have no doubt about that, at least…

In what has to be about the most unsurprising other-shoe-drop since the Michael Jackson child abuse allegations, the San Francisco Chronicle reports (via ESPN.com) that San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds (unknowingly, he alleges) used performance-enhancing drugs supplied to him by his trainer, according to sealed grand jury testimony leaked by prosecutors obtained by the newspaper. Coupled with Jason and Jeremy Giambi’s admissions that they used steroids supplied by Bonds’ trainer, things aren’t looking good for baseball’s image.

A larger issue here, pointed out by David Pinto, is that these leaks are likely to undermine the grand jury system—not just in this case, but in a lot of other cases too. Given that the Justice Department is not only responsible for prosecuting this case, but investigating grand jury leaks (which, pretty much by definition, can only come from prosecutors, as no other parties have unrestricted access to the transcripts), the “fox guarding the henhouse” aspect of these leak investigations does not fill one with much confidence about the integrity of the grand jury system.

Update: Steven Taylor questions the sanity of Bonds’ reported decision to use unknown substances (steroids or not) obtained from a guy who lived in his car. No kidding. David Pinto recommends reading the whole thing for a glimpse into Bonds’ mindset, and asks the $64,000 question—what does Bud Selig do about these revelations?

Talk about the dollar has been all the rage these days. The Economist is leading with it as an issue this week. Seeing the dollar fall this much is bothersome—and may be very bad news, for all I know—but it still seems to be about forcing China to break that peg. As for The Economist’s suggestion that we focus on the budget deficit, as long as it’s confined to spending restraint, I agree. The tax cuts, though, need to stay in place to force the issue of entitlement reform. Future tax increases—and there will be future tax increases—should be implemented once that’s been accomplished. Here’s what The Economist had to say:

In a free market, without the massive support of Asian central banks, the dollar would be far weaker. In any case, such support has its limits, and the dollar now seems likely to fall further. How harmful will the economic consequences be? Will it really undermine the dollar’s reserve-currency status?

Periods of dollar decline have often been unhappy for the world economy. The breakdown of Bretton Woods that led to a weaker dollar in the early 1970s was painful for all, contributing to rising inflation and recession. In the late 1980s, the falling dollar had few ill-effects on America’s economy, but it played a big role in inflating a bubble in Japan by forcing Japanese authorities to slash interest rates.

This time round, it is a bad sign that everybody is trying to point the finger of blame at somebody else. America says its external deficit is mainly due to sluggish growth in Europe and Japan, and to the fact that China is pegging its exchange rate too low. Europe, alarmed at the “brutal” rise in the euro, says that America’s high public borrowing and low household saving are the real culprits.

There is something to both these claims. China and other Asian economies should indeed let their currencies rise, relieving pressure on the euro. It is also true that Asia is partly to blame for America’s consumer binge: its central banks’ large purchases of Treasury bonds have depressed bond yields, encouraging households in the United States to take out bigger mortgages and spend the cash. And Europe needs to accept, as it is unwilling to, that a weaker dollar will be a good thing if it helps to shrink America’s deficit and curb the risk of a future crisis. At the same time, Europe is also right: most of the blame for America’s deficit lies at home. America needs to cut its budget deficit. It is not a question of either do this or do that: a cheaper dollar and higher American saving are both needed if a crunch is to be avoided.

God willing, I will be out from under my house in Oxford (and its absurd $44.40/month water bill—thanks Bell Utilities of Mississippi!) by Christmas. Woo-hoo!

Summaries of last night’s Blogger Bash have been posted by Len, Abby, Eric, Mick, and Aaron. Topics of discussion included Japanese horror movies and Vietnamese restaurants.

Abby has pictures.

Mick says I look like Matt Drudge. You decide: me, Drudge.

As a guy who dislikes the UN intensely, this report provides some hope:

In this environment, the prospects for UN reform are clouded. Structural changes like those in the report require the backing of two-thirds of the delegates in the General Assembly, further ratification by two-thirds of the governments at home, and no veto by the Security Council’s permanent members. America is in a foul mood about the world body. Why bother reforming something hopelessly ineffective and even corrupt, many there ask? Despite universal agreement that the UN is in a bad way, the case for reform faces an uphill struggle.

BigJim passes on word that David Cutcliffe has been fired as coach at Ole Miss after his first losing season in 6 years with the Rebels. I’m not at all convinced it was the right decision, and the statements from AD Pete Boone and Chancellor Robert Khayat don’t make a lot of sense, in particular this bit from Khayat:

I’ll give you an example. When we hired a new Dean of the School of Education, the provost and I talked about expectations. It’s up to the Dean of School of Education to figure out how to meet those expectations. For me to say who they should hire and what kinds of programs they should implement is wrong. What I can say to him, is “there is a teacher shortage in Mississippi and there is a shortage of well-trained administrators. We need to meet the needs of this state. As Dean of the School of Education, Dean Burrow, we are expecting you to develop a way to do that and we want to see how you are going to do that. It’s not that different than athletics. Organizational rules are transferable from teams to corporations to families. What Pete was asking for was entirely reasonable. David’s response felt right to him and we respect that.

Nor, mind you, does this account square well with accounts I’ve heard of Khayat’s leadership style in other arenas.

BigJim suggests that the Rebels should go for Ty Willingham or Mike Price, both of whom would be great choices. In particular, my inner feelings of karmic justice would be fulfilled by having 2/3 of the black coaches in Division I-A at schools in Mississippi, a point in favor of Willingham. (I’ve also mentioned Memphis coach Tommy West as a strong candidate for the job.)

More at the SEC Fanblog and from Ron Higgins in the CA.

Well, that was a fun semester. Let’s just hope that I get to do a few more of these before I have to move elsewhere.

The Economist has a good article on the American school system that makes a number of good points on its failings:

ONE reason that America’s public schools do badly in international rankings, despite getting more money, is that nobody is really accountable for them. The schools are certainly not run by Washington: the federal government pays only 8% of their costs. Most of their money comes from state and local government, but often responsibility for them lies with school boards. And within the schools themselves, head teachers usually have little power either to sack bad teachers or to expel rowdy pupils.

Until recently, the main villains of the piece had seemed to be the teachers’ unions, who have opposed any sort of reform or accountability. Now they face competition from an unexpectedly pernicious force: the courts. Fifty years ago, it was the judges who forced the schools to desegregate through Brown v Board of Education (1954). Now the courts have moved from broad principles to micromanagement, telling schools how much money to spend and where—right down to the correct computer or textbook

Amazing how the blogosphere works. I started reading an interesting post on evolution at OTB and ended with a defense of comparative advantage by Paul Krugman that incorporates a prominent mention of natural selection. And I got there via a picture of Jane Galt (via Tyler Cowen), though it’s desperately unrevealing (it’s from behind, perverts).

The OTB post begins with a description of how “intelligent design” advocates are pushing that as an alternative to evolution. There’s no evidence for it—except for our lack of knowledge, or complete knowledge, on the universe’s origin—and it seems ridiculous to me when pushed as science. My own views are theistic, though there’s no evidence to support it other than our existence. It tells me nothing on how we got here. Evolution does.

Perhaps someone could explain why some people find evolution—and natural selection—so threatening? I don’t get it. Jesus taught us with parables; are opponents of evolution saying God couldn’t master allegory? Being a creator of the universe and all, I think He would have a handle on it, and His audience. Isn't it possible that God did know His audience and was explaining the origins of the universe in a way they could understand? It would have been more convenient if He had provided a seminar in physics and evolutionary biology, but I doubt His audience would have grasped it, lacking calculus and all. Evolution doesn’t preclude a creator, it only explains what we can observe. I’ll say it again: I don’t get it, there’s no threat here. I’ll leave it to Brock to argue with y’all over infinity.

As for Jane’s link to Krugman, it’s quite alarming, really. I’m so used to his hyperventilating over everything from Iraq to healthcare that I’m stunned when he seems reasonable. It’s a great article and worthy of a thorough read, which I’ll give it when exams are done.

The government of Bangladesh has stopped women from taking part in a swimming competition after a radical Islamic group threatened to bring the district around Chandpur to a halt with protests.

And in Pakistan, a man has been sentenced to life in prison for blasphemy.

Blogger triumpalism at it’s finest.We made it to the dictionary!!:

A four-letter term that came to symbolize the difference between old and new media during this year’s presidential campaign tops U.S. dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster’s list of the 10 words of the year. Merriam-Webster Inc. said on Tuesday that blog, defined as “a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments and often hyperlinks,” was one of the most looked-up words on its Internet sites this year. Eight entries on the publisher’s top-10 list related to major news events, from the presidential election—represented by words such as incumbent and partisan—to natural phenomena such as hurricane and cicada.

Mike Wilbon will be insufferable today… Notre Dame fired Ty Willingham (þ: Wizbang). I think most observers expected the Irish to retain Willingham through the duration of his contract, as was the case with previous hot-seat occupant Bob Davie.

The departure of Tom Ridge as Secretary of Homeland Security is imminent, according to various wire reports. At this rate, there may soon be nobody left in the administration for Democrats (or, for that matter, me) to complain about… (þ: OTB)

Update: It’s now official, according to the WaPo.

Clarion-Ledger columnist Rick Cleveland argues that people attempting to get Ole Miss Coach David Cutcliffe fired are detached from reality. No word yet if Cleveland will be joining ShrillBlog as a contributor.

Update: Daily Mississippian columnist Steven Godfrey has more on this theme, as does ESPN.com columnist Pat Forde (who forgets that Ole Miss tied for the SEC West title last year, although LSU represented the division in the SEC championship game due to the divisional tiebreaker).

I’ve come to the conclusion I really don’t enjoy writing up cross-tabs, even when it’s research I conducted myself. I’d kill to be writing for an audience that could deal with logistic regression results…

Nonetheless, despite distractions (MNF on TiVo and the need for sleep chief among them) I will press on. Maybe I’ll have a paper full of exit poll results to share soon…

Will Baude notes a lot of pessimism around the court-watching sphere regarding Ashcroft v. Raich—mind you, much of it seems to be coming from quarters that are skeptical of the whole Lopez line of jurisprudence, without which I suspect this case would have simply received the standard 9–0 Ninth Circuit Smackdown (for some of this, er, conflicted viewpoint, see today's NYT editorial). He does make a semi-interesting statement worth exploring further:

[T]he somewhat confused coverage of the case does not look good for any hope of establishing a political vindication instead of a judicial one.

It seems to me that relatively few people in the public—or, for that matter, within political elites—actually conceive of Congress as lacking the plenary power to legislate as it sees fit in any sphere of activity (economic or otherwise), subject only to the limitations of the Bill of Rights and subsequent amendments. The Lopez line is such a dramatic break from over fifty years of federal jurisprudence that I doubt many people can imagine that America got along, more-or-less fine (at least in the economic/police powers realm; I can’t say the same for the lack of enforcement of the 14th Amendment in terms of political rights), for 150 years without such a plenary congressional power, under the understanding that primary authority for such regulation rested in the states.

There are more thoughts on this topic from Brock, below, and James Joyner.

…so how could they be angry over losing it? Apparently some universities have taken humbrage at the thought of losing federal funding if they refuse to let military recruiters on their campuses. Given that the federal government’s primary mission is defending the country, and that these universities are feeding at the federal trough, it seems only natural that the feds would require access for recruiting as a condition of getting the money.

The free speech argument is the lamest thing I’ve ever heard. No one is stopping them from speaking; they’re simply saying it might cost them federal funds if they don’t give the military access. They can say whatever they want, just not on the federal nickel.

A 1995 law, known as the Solomon Amendment, bars the federal government from disbursing money to colleges and universities that obstruct campus recruiting by the military. As amended and interpreted over the years, the law prohibits disbursements to all parts of a university, including its physics department and medical school, if any of its units, like its law school, make military recruiting even a little more difficult. Billions of dollars are at stake, and no university has been willing to defy the government. Indeed, several of the law schools that are members of the Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights, the group that sued to block the new law, have not been publicly identified.

Among the institutions willing to be named are the law schools of New York University and George Washington University. The law faculties of Stanford, Georgetown and several other law schools are also members of the group. E. Joshua Rosencranz, who represents the plaintiffs in the suit, said the reluctance of several of his law school clients to be identified publicly was driven by fear. “They don’t want retribution that is exacted behind closed doors by faceless bureaucrats and vindictive politicians,” Mr. Rosencranz said.

George Will has yet another column, this one in Newsweek, on the merits of the filibuster, even against judicial nominees:

The president should renominate all 10 appellate-court nominees who have been filibustered, and he should vow, like General Grant, to “fight it out on this line, if it takes all summer.” Norman Ornstein, a student of these things, says Senate Republicans could force Democrats to conduct the kind of filibuster Southern Democrats conducted against civil-rights legislation in the 1950s—talking around the clock, the obstructionists and their opponents sleeping on cots in the Capitol, the Senate paralyzed. There has never been such a spectacle in the era of C-Span and saturation journalism on cable 24 hours a day. Do Democrats want to make 2005 the year of living dangerously? Seventeen of their 44 seats are at risk in 2006—five of them in states Bush just carried.

Even so, it’s something I could respect if the Republicans and President Bush would hold their feet to the fire and force an old-fashioned filibuster: make them sleep in the Senate chamber. Bring business to a halt and fight it out. I doubt the Republicans have the ‘nads to do so.

Eric Janssen of webraw is organizing a bloggers bash for Wednesday, December 1, downtown at Cafe Francisco. Cafe Francisco has a WAP, so if you want to, you can bring your laptop and liveblog it.

(þ Len Cleavelin.)

Maybe it's just me, but I find the logo over at New Donkey a little bit scary.

Couldn't they make the donkey look a little friendlier?

George Will has a good piece on the leftward tilt of academia:

Academics such as the next secretary of state still decorate Washington, but academia is less listened to than it was. It has marginalized itself, partly by political shrillness and silliness that have something to do with the parochialism produced by what George Orwell called “smelly little orthodoxies.”

Many campuses are intellectual versions of one-party nations—except such nations usually have the merit, such as it is, of candor about their ideological monopolies. In contrast, American campuses have more insistently proclaimed their commitment to diversity as they have become more intellectually monochrome.

They do indeed cultivate diversity—in race, skin color, ethnicity, sexual preference. In everything but thought.

I’m no big fan of Randy “Buy My Book” Barnett qua blogger, but after Lawrence Lessig, he’s my second favorite lawyer. I join Jim Lingren in wishing Mr. Barnett the best of luck Monday in oral argument before the Supreme Court in the case of Raich v. Ashcroft.

I’d love to see Raich win the case, but I’m not getting my hopes up.