Just got back from an enjoyable evening downtown at the Buffalo Nickel album release party; the band’s style is an interesting blend of country and rock-and-roll, fitting in either “urban country” or “southern rock” depending on your preferred nomenclature, and I got to meet a few new people and unwind a bit with good company.

I echo BigJim’s magnanimity on the occasion of A&M’s win over Florida… but, if all you Bulldog fans think this means you’re not still due for your annual whoopin’ in the Egg Bowl, you’re sorely mistaken.

In other news, the Millsaps Majors just got pummelled 38–7 by DePauw at Homecoming; somehow, the unseasonal 80+ degree heat didn’t even seem to bother the visitors from Indiana. Nonetheless, a good time was had by all, and one of my con law students was crowned Homecoming Queen, so that was cool too.

Since when have Methodists decided to take up the mantle of papal excommunication? The mind boggles.

I had to reinstall Windows XP on my laptop this morning after nothing else would work. And I still haven’t reinstalled GRUB on the boot sector yet, so it’s “all XP, all the time” until I bother to fix that. Grr…

In re this post:

For Brad DeLong (who frankly should know better) and the other dipshits operating ShrillBlog: disagreeing with George W. Bush does not make one “shrill.” Going five years without criticizing someone in one’s own party, however, might well do so.

Brian Leiter posts an interesting email exchange between himself and philosopher Jerry Fodor.

Leiter asks “So what in the world is ‘analytic’ philosophy these days?” Fodor replies that analytic philosophers share a thesis, “semantic pragmatism,” and a methodological presumption, “semantic ascent.” Fodor claims to reject both the thesis and the methodological presumtion, and so by his own lights, is not an analytic philosopher!

Fodor may be right about analytic philosophers sharing this thesis and methodological presumption, but he is wrong to look at analytic philosophy as being defined by this thesis or presumption.

Analytic philosophy is best understood historically. Analytic philosophers are the intellectual descendants of Frege, Russell, Moore, and Wittgenstein (FRMW). They are those who work on the same set of problems as FRMW, or work on problems that arose while working on the first set of problems, or problems that arose while working on the second set of problems, and so on. They are those (such as Quine and Carnap) who read and drew inspiration from FRMW, or those (such as Davidson and Lewis) who read and drew inspiration from Quine and Carnap, or those who read and drew inspiration from Davidson and Lewis, and so on.

By this understanding, Fodor is certainly an analytic philosopher.

(þ Crooked Timber.)

Stuart Benjamin has the goods. Interestingly, Kull et al. omit one very plausible explanation why Kerry supporters are more “correct” than Bush supporters: Kerry simply, by sheer coincidence (or deliberate plotting—nobody fields am opinion poll in which they don’t have some expectation of the marginals), shares the perceived positions of the poll majorities, and there really isn’t much between-group variance on those points.

One might also point out that the question selection seems deliberately designed to elicit “known false” perceptions by Bush supporters and that some of the definitions—for example, “a major WMD program”—are in the eye of the beholder. Indeed, Iraq did have a major WMD program in the 1980s and 1990s, all credible intelligence information suggested that program continued underground in some capacity after UN inspectors left in 1998, there is at least some evidence that elements of that WMD program were transferred to Syria during the 2003 conflict, and it is crystal-clear that Saddam Hussein’s ambitions to have “a major WMD program” were just on hold until the Franco-Russian alliance was able to dismantle the remaining sanctions on Iraq.

Finally, it’s entirely possible the whole exercise captures non-attitudes galore. My 2004 MPSA paper suggests (admittedly, using a model that needs some additional work, once I learn how to do latent class analysis) that perceptions of threat from the Saddam Hussein regime were largely the product of partisan attitudes, rather than having an independent origin.

Pieter Dorsman returns to the theme of US-Canadian relations and counterterrorism, and—as always—makes some very good points worth reading.

Dan Drezner and that terrorist group that keeps beheading people in Iraq have both come out for John Kerry. Meanwhile, Scipio voted for “moonbat lunatic” Michael Badnarik.

Eric Muller is speechless. I think it could be worse: “One Nation Not Under The U.N.”

Incidentally, photoshops welcome...

Taegan Goddard wonders if voters are stupid; Andrew Cline replies:

I do not believe that citizens are lazy or stupid. The problems of the electorate are multiple and complex. But let me suggest one possibility among many why Americans appear to know so little about their own government and fail to participate in its running: We are fat and happy.

There are a number of different perspectives on the importance of political knowledge; in particular, the “rational public” perspective of Samuel Popkin and the “affective intelligence” perspective advanced by a number of scholars suggest that political knowledge is relatively unimportant, although there are many scholars who challenge both theses. That said, I reach a roughly similar conclusion to Andrew’s on the last page of my dissertation:

[T]he desirability of a society in which political issues are so critically important that they require the attentiveness of large segments of the public seems relatively low; consider highly polarized societies like contemporary Israel and Venezuela, where it is unlikely there are any voters without opinions on the Palestinian peace process or on the soft-authoritarian Chávez regime, respectively, where the outcome of elections is literally a question of life or death in many voters’ minds. Perhaps we should count our blessings that the most salient mainstream debates in the United States today are over the future of entitlement programs for the elderly, the level of restriction that will be placed on abortion, and where and under what conditions same-sex relationships will be acknowledged by the government—and that our pluralist system permits voters to focus their interests on particular policies that directly interest them. This suggests that rather than creating institutions that might lead to a more conflicted or polarized society, the interest of democracy would be best served by giving citizens the tools to participate in public debate, but leaving it up to them whether their participation is strictly necessary. (132)

This also is another excellent opportunity to pimp the Signifying Nothing book of the month.

Today’s Clarion-Ledger drops some quotes from Republican ex-presidents on us compiled by Richard W. Dortch. Identifying the glaring problem with his article is left as an exercise for the reader.

If you dropped by in the past 30 minutes or so, you may have noticed a brief flashback to July. I just brought back up the old box that the blog was hosted on, and it decided to take over the IP address for the blog. Things should be back to (near) normal now…

Messrs. Baude and Dilts seem to have the better of their argument with Josh Chafetz over whether or not voting for non-viable candidates in plurality elections is, in fact, voting; that behavior may not be rational qua Downs, but it is nonetheless casting a vote—albeit, perhaps, not a decisive one in the two-party contest. I also tend to think that expressive ballots may, nonetheless, have instrumental effects; one suspects Bill Clinton and Congress might have cared quite a bit less about balancing the budget in the mid-90s had not Ross Perot received approximately 20% of the vote in the 1992 presidential election.

And, for those who are missing it, there’s a lively debate over same-sex marriage going on in comments below.

Matt Stinson kindly gives a detailed exegesis of the Democratic corrollary to Lawrence’s Cardinal Rule of Evaluation of the Bush Administration, which begins thusly:

If there is a single phenomenon that links together political rhetoric from Bush critics this election, it’s their willingness—dare I say obsession—to find in any and all events disadvantageous to Democratic fortunes the hand of Karl Rove.

Read, as they say, the whole thing.

David Adesnik asks:

Why not give one electoral vote to the candidate with the most votes in each congressional district (plus two electoral votes for the state-wide front-runner)?

Because I don’t think America needs yet another incentive for state legislatures and courts to engage in partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts.

For what it’s worth, I favor (if there needs to be anything at all, a point I’m somewhat dubious on) “proportional-lite”; allocate the representative-based electors based on proportional representation, and give the two Senate-based electors to the plurality winner. This has the nice bonus of retaining the psychological effect of Duverger’s Law, as winning the plurality is guaranteed to gain a big bonus.

Of course, I think it’d be fun to run unpledged electors and get back to the system the Framers intended, just to see everyone whine about it. (There seem to be provisions permitting separate slates of unpledged electors in Mississippi law, at least, but it’s unclear how you’d qualify such a slate.)

Stephen Green has seen the light; I officially welcome him to the dark side of the force, in which the spectre of Larry Sabato is exorcised from our dreams and we content ourselves with the knowledge that we don’t know the unknowable (þ: OTB).

But, if you absolutely insist on your electoral college wargaming ways, Andrea Moro’s site is at least fun to look at, plus it uses Monte Carlos for the satiation of your inner gambling jones.

Heh (þ: TigerHawk).

Pat Robertson talked to Paula Zahn today, and boy did he let loose a doozy:

“And I warned him about this war. I had deep misgivings about this war, deep misgivings. And I was trying to say, ‘Mr. President, you had better prepare the American people for casualties.’ ”

Robertson said the president then told him, “Oh, no, we’re not going to have any casualties.”

Now, I suppose Robertson could be completely and totally demented by this point (I mean, he is the guy that blamed 9/11 on gay people, and I doubt his mental faculties are on the rebound); either way, it’s fairly clear that at least half of the people participating in this alleged conversation had no grip on reality.

I have to say, my initial reaction to this Patrick Belton OxBlog post was a determination to go and vote against the Perestroika slate of candidates for the APSA council.

Then I read the bios and found out that my good friend Jim Johnson had nominated both of these candidates. So I committed heresy and only voted for three candidates: the two Perestroikans and the only nominee not at a top-25 institution—even though I found the identity politics paragraph in his bio both tedious and pretentious, he saved himself with the statement “I fear that the proposals of some in the [Perestroika] movement could result in less diversity in the APSA leadership.” Gotta have some balance in the end.

I have to admit that, even though I think the shots at Kerry for being “French-looking” are a bit cheap, this is incredibly amusing, at least at the “boneheaded strategy” level if nothing else.

My wife found an eleven-year-old mix tape that I made for her when we were first dating.

Side A:
The Beatles, Revolution
The Rolling Stones, Ruby Tuesday
David Bowie, Candidate
King Crimson, Matte Kudasai
The Who, Odorono
John Lennon, Imagine
Bob Mould, Sunspots/Wishing Well
Ween, Don’t Laugh (I Love You)
Pixies, Here Comes Your Man
The Who, Bargain
Frank Zappa, Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance
David Bowie, All Saints

Side B:
Peter Gabriel, The Feeling Begins
The Who, Squeeze Box
The Rolling Stones, Brown Sugar
David Bowie, Big Brother
Butthole Surfers, Hurdy Gurdy Man
Brian Eno and John Cale, Spinning Away
Velvet Underground, Sweet Jane
Ween, Marble Tulip Juicy Tree
The Who, Behind Blue Eyes
Frank Zappa, In France
King Crimson, The Sheltering Sky

Looking back, I’d say my musical tastes have remained fairly consistent. I don’t listen to music as much as I used to, but The Beatles, The Who, Bowie, and Zappa are still frequently in my CD player. And I still think that the Eno/Cale album, Wrong Way Up, is the best album of the 90s.

The only group on the list that really didn’t age well for me is Ween. I threw in The Pod about a month ago, and all I could think was "I used to listen to this noise?"

Do kids these days, with their MP3s and their iPods, still make mix tapes for their girlfriends/boyfriends?

Tim Sandefur writes:

[Robert] Bork is contemporary conservatism. This is the great tragedy of conservatism. ...

The cure, you see, for the misery of homosexuals in a society which condemns homosexuality, is to ratchet up the persecution. This is the logic of Torquemada, for Christsake! How can this man be taken seriously? And yet he is not only taken seriously; he is the intellectual leader of today’s conservatives.

I don’t personally have a great handle on the whole “nature versus nurture” argument myself (either way, I’m wired up to be attracted to women who invariably treat me like a doormat, but that’s neither here nor there), but if there’s even the possibility that homosexuality is an innate trait, I find the Borkian conviction that being homosexual is legitimate grounds for persecution to be loathsome. And, even if homosexuality is a chosen behavior, I think notions of individual autonomy in consensual activity far outweigh any aggregate community interest in discouraging that activity.

Today’s New York Times provides more evidence that the Selective Service Administration has way too much time on its hands. Choice quote from the article:

In 1987, Congress enacted a law requiring the Selective Service to develop a plan for “registration and classification” of health care professionals essential to the armed forces.

One wonders what Senator Kerry’s vote on this piece of legislation was… I’ve tracked it down to Senate roll call #384 in the first session of the 100th Congress (on what became P.L. 100–180), but I don’t have the roll calls for that Congress at my fingertips at home (where I am today, since it’s fall break).