It is hard to believe there could be an election this week with greater importance than that in the United States, but the election in Ukraine could be. The current president, Leonid Kuchma, is terribly corrupt but faces a term limit and must leave office. He is trying to pick a successor akin to the selection of Putin in Russia. That man would be Viktor Yanukovych. The government has engaged in a dirty campaign against the popular opposition led by Viktor Yushchenko. Yushchenko was reportedly poisioned earlier this fall, his rallies have been disrupted, and voter fraud is already expected.

Bruce Bartlett wrote earlier this week about Yushchenko's wife Kateryna. When she left the U.S. to work for KPMG in Ukraine, she was country manager when I worked for the same firm as an advisor to Yushchenko's central bank. Bartlett's memory of Kathy is the same as mine. I worked as well with Yushchenko and his deputies at the National Bank of Ukraine, having the privilege on three separate occasions of dining with him, Kathy and a group of excellent banking advisors. I still have friends there, Ukrainian and ex-pats.

The most likely outcome for today's election is that there will be a run-off on Nov. 21 between Yanukovych and Yushchenko. The country is about the size of France in population and land mass. It suffered a hyperinflation in 1993 (ended in large part by Yushchenko's central banking) and a decade of misgoverning by the kleptocratic Kuchma. The people deserve a clean election, and the race deserves America's attention.

Apparently our friend of the STrib editorial staff are doubly busy. Cheri Pierson Yecke reports that her piece in tomorrow's op-ed page on Kerry's education policy had its final paragraph edited (deleted sentences and word in italics).

During his 19 years in the Senate only three percent of the legislation sponsored by Kerry was education related, perhaps because he could not find positions he could consistently hold for any length of time.It is no wonder that his record on education has been called “a desert of ambiguity.” The American people deserve better.

That's relatively mild in comparison to the hatchet job done to Rudy Boschwitz. (The edited version is here.)

This morning I received a phone call from Lisa Foss, director of marketing and communications on this campus, with a request from President Saigo on behalf of the student who won as homecoming queen (stories here, here and here). In two of the stories I reproduced photos that had appeared either in the print or web editions of the St. Cloud Times (whom, I am told, will also be asked to take the photos down -- they are still on their website as of right now). I was asked to take these pictures down from the site for the safety of the student. This follows a public letter signed by the Saigo and all the vice presidents that included this statement:

Of greatest concern to all of us, however, is that the student himself has received threatening messages. This is alarming and unconscionable. His well-being and safety are our first concern in this situation.

As it would be mine as well. I had a comment last night on the last post I did on this story suggesting the man's sexuality. I don't consider it alarming or unconscionable, but it is beyond ignorant.

I've taken the pictures off this page (replaced with the text "PICTURE DELETED BY REQUEST 10-29-04"}. I will delete them from the site as soon as I have them backed up on a local server at home. I am doing this voluntarily -- the university realizes my compliance is not mandated, and at no time did I feel it was. I am tenured, and I sincerely doubt this was something for which the university could take action.

But I am also a member of this community, and a father of someone about the same age as this student. I believe it quite possible this student was used by the diversity warriors of this campus to make a statement, without taking to account that something might happen to this student. And it might. While I think our embrace of diversity on this campus has been dangerous, I certainly also understand the possibility of physical attacks against perceived homosexuals (even when the perception may be ridiculous).

Having done so, I predict, however, that this action will not likely cause any change in the student's situation. The student senate chose to make a statement, which our president and his VPs chose to support while he asked for the student's safety. Here's what President Saigo had to say:

At SCSU we value diversity and all voices, including marginalized ones. With regard to Homecoming 2004, we support the process by which the Homecoming Court was selected. The same process has been used for many years. We also support the students who were selected. Our Homecoming Court is beautiful in its diversity and strength of purpose. We stand behind the efforts of student government, faculty, staff, and students as we all work together to develop character, good citizenship, and the ability to consider issues and make decisions.

College campuses have long been social catalysts in the work of opening up and creating a fair society. They play a key role in supporting social justice, equality, and educational opportunity, even when traditions are challenged. This university will and should continue to stand behind change that will allow everyone to feel safe,
comfortable, welcome, and encouraged to achieve their potential.

Compare this to the student government's letter, and you can see they sing from the same hymnal. They believe in taking a stand for things, but not to be criticized for that stand. They expect that people will simply bow before their greater good. As Thomas Sowell called it, cosmic justice.

I do not apologize for the postings, as they were part of the news even in the queer community (who don't seem to have minded using the coronation for their purposes.) It would have been fine, I think, if the information had stayed there, but appearing on Fark and Colin Quinn turned up the heat to where they had put the student up to ridicule and perhaps worse. If the kid has been duped by the rest of the student government, I think that justifies removing the pictures. If he is a willing part of this I will have made a mistake, but I can live with that.

My regret is that this also lets off the hook the rest of the student senate, who have put a student in harm's way so that they could stand on their soapbox and proclaim to be breaking gender stereotypes. These scoundrels continue to pontificate that they are somehow brave without paying any price greater than the words I or someone else types. They get up in the face of alumni to show how enlightened they are (and how benighted the alums are), and then when criticism arises they hide behind the queen's evening gown. And President Saigo, who could have written a request for people to assure the student's safety without those two gratuitous paragraphs, once again has shown he cares more about being seen a champion of diversity education than of free speech.

My colleague and frequent reader/commenter Roger Lewis sends me this story which he reports happened yesterday. Roger lives in the St. Cloud area:

Yesterday my daughter-in-law was praising dear granddaughter on the pictures she
drew in class. Evidently, the pictures were in response to her second grade teacher’s question of “What should the government give us money for?”. The pictures included books, food, a house, a car, and a horse.

In as kind a grandfatherly voice as possible, I asked my granddaughter, “Annika, do you think the government should give us all money for houses, cars and horses?”

“Yes”, came the response.

I replied, “I think people should pay for their own things”.

“Well, maybe for the poor people” she wisely hedged. (Never said she was a dummy!)

“So, poor people should have houses, cars, and horses? Where do you think the government gets the money for the things they give the poor? That’s the money they take out of daddy’s paycheck, mommy’s paycheck, papa and nana’s paychecks. If the government didn’t take so much from us, maybe we could afford a house, another car, or a motorcycle”. (Forget the horse, too much upkeep for papa)

At this point my wife and daughter-in-law both stopped the economics lesson.
“She’s too young to understand this” they said.

Well, obviously someone thinks she’s smart enough to learn that the government is the source of all things grade school children need and want in life!

I haven't had to do this as much with the Littlest Scholar, who at the age of six had a snow fort and simulated a war between those who wanted to raise taxes and those who did not in the fort. And then mused, "Those people outside the fort? They're the French."

I swear I had nothing to do with it!

The local SCSU Survey, run by three political science professors here including one regular reader of the Scholars, has issued its fall statewide survey. The headlines of the local paper and the campus paper trumpet the good (for them) news that Kerry is leading the poll 49-42. But looking at the survey itself indicates something a little curious. According to table 4, the sample was coded as 41% Democrat and 32% Republican with 12% considering themselves in the Independence Party. A Humphrey Institute poll released on the same day has 44%R and 42%D ... and shows Bush leading 47-44.

Steve Frank, one of the SCSU pollsters (and the regular reader, he says), says his poll "is not one of those quickie, overnight polls," and indeed they took the poll over a 7 day period 10/19-26(skipping Fridays and Saturdays.) Somehow that is supposed to be a better measure, yet Rasmussen's poll over 10/20-26, also has Bush up 3 here.

This poll is causing the RealClearPolitics number to show an average of Kerry 1.0%. Were the poll removed and the other three averaged, it would be Bush up 1%. I don't know what to think of the SCSU Survey, but I do have to wonder about a survey that has such a heavy weight of Democrats (and in a survey where the independent/Independence vote was 38-36 Kerry.)

UPDATE: You're welcome, Chumley. And this just in: Zogby now says Bush +1.

FIRE is supporting Timothy Garneau, who's living in his car near the University of New Hampshire after being tossed out of his dorm. What did he do? "Frustrated by students who would take the elevator rather than the stairs for short distances, he posted fliers in his dormitory joking that women could lose the “Freshman 15” and shorten elevator wait times by using the stairs," says FIRE's president David French. The flier is here. Students were offended and the flyers taken down in less than two hours.

When Garneau was approached by the Stoke Hall Director and accused of hanging the fliers, he initially denied responsibility, fearing that he would be punished harshly and embarrassed in front of his peers. However, Garneau soon admitted to posting the flier and was charged with offenses including: “acts of dishonesty”; violation of “affirmative action” policies; “harassment”; and “conduct which is disorderly, lewd.”

Within a week of the incident, and prior to his hearing, Garneau posted a written public apology for unintentionally offending others in his residential hall and apologized in person to students that he knew had complained.

At an October 8 hearing, the university found Garneau guilty of all charges. Despite
Garneau’s offers to voluntarily atone for his actions through community service, social awareness projects, and other activities, the university sentenced him to immediate expulsion from student housing and disciplinary probation extended through May 30, 2006. He was also required to meet with a counselor to discuss his “decisions, actions, and reflections” about the incident, to write a 3000-word reflection paper about the counseling session, and to submit an apology letter to the residents of Stoke Hall to be published in the hall’s newspaper.

Durham's a nice place with good housing near campus, so Garneau will have a home soon. But the outsized reaction to what could be no more than a minor infraction is noteworthy. If Garneau had only dressed up like a freshman with 15 extra pounds...

Scott Johnson (better known as The Big Trunk to you NARNers) notes that the Taxpayers League has made an impact in the national race by swaying voters in northern Minnesota.

As of October 21, the Rasmussen daily tracking poll showed the presidential race tied 47-47 in Minnesota. On that date the Taxpayers League began running a single radio advertisement on six stations in Duluth, three stations in Hibbing, two stations in Eveleth, two stations in Grand Rapids, one station in International Falls and one station in Ely — all in the Eighth District. The advertisement hammers Kerry on mining, logging, hunting and snowmobiles. The Taxpayers League plans to run the spot over 500 times on those stations by election day.

Tuesday's Star Tribune column by Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman on the snowmobile issue reflects the leverage the issue is providing the Bush campaign in northern Minnesota. Yesterday the Rasmussen tracking poll shows that President Bush has moved into a small lead in Minnesota, 48-45. Taxpayers League president David Strom tells me that the calls he has received from northern Minnesota television and radio stations in response to the organization's ad show that it has struck a nerve, as does the press conference called by the Democratic party to take issue with it. For want of a snowmobile, could the Democrats lose Minnesota? Stay tuned.

David notes on Our House blog notes that he's struck a nerve here in St. Cloud as well.

The St Cloud radio ad is having its intended effect--driving conversation in St Cloud
about the abusive tactics mayor John Ellenbecker is using to push his agenda. He
is trying to get over $100 million in new sales taxes passed, and is doing some
pretty slimy things to do so.

In particular, he threatened the St Cloud chamber with losing a $500,000 contract with the city unless they backed his tax increase.

Anyway, Ellenbecker is royally p****d off, and is making it known to just about everyone.

I'll say! The local paper carries a story where Ellenbecker and various and sundry petite poobahs call David bad names.

Mayor John Ellenbecker said Wednesday he believes the Taxpayers League of Minnesota ad defamed him. He wouldn't rule out seeking a criminal investigation.

"The implication there is that we're engaging in some sort of criminal activity," he said of the ad, which began airing Tuesday. "I find that to be very offensive."

The Taxpayers League ad asks voters to turn down a proposed extension of a half-cent local sales tax. If approved by voters and the Legislature, the tax would be in place for up to 17 years to pay for up to $111 million in building projects.

The ad claims Ellenbecker abused his authority and questions the legality of the proposal.

St. Cloud City Council members, St. Cloud Area Chamber of Commerce President Teresa Bohnen and St. Joseph Mayor Larry Hosch supported Ellenbecker Wednesday as he defended his actions and called the Taxpayers League "the single most destructive force in Minnesota politics today."

I've already noted the abusive side of Ellenbecker; we now find out he's a thin-skinned bully. Aside the merits of the tax proposal, which to readers outside of St. Cloud will be irrelevant (it's to fund a passel of public spending projects like roads, a new library and expanded civic center), the ferocity of attacks (and begrudging admiration) on the Taxpayers League indicates some real effectiveness. David, you can't buy advertising that good.

...and 86 years are washed away.


A ten year old boy watched Bob Gibson and Julian Javier defeat his beloved Jim Lonborg and the Red Sox. It was a coolish late afternoon -- Dad had let him stay home to watch Game 7 -- and the boy went outside, tears in his eyes. Grabbed his glove and ball, threw against the garage wall. Dad hated that, but did not complain that day. The boy threw, thinking he was Kemer Brett, and thought it would be him someday, and that the Sox would win. He had no idea of 1918, curses, or bambinos.

Eight years later. His best friend got married to provide his baby a father. Parents needed a night out, and the boy, now a young man of 18, agrees to watch their infant so they can have a night out. He turns on the game and watches Bernie Carbo with a pinch-hit three-run homer and a young catcher waving and jumping. The young man also jumps holding the baby. The best moment of his Red Sox life.

Through Buckyfuckindent and Yaz on third, Buckner and Mookie, and Aaron Boone and Grady No-Hook, he waited. He couldn't watch with others after '86. He waited.

Tonight he prepares a blog post, with the tears of the ten-year-old finally finishing their travel down the cheek, now into a beard. Though bursitis bites at the throwing shoulder, the man goes back outside, grabs his glove and ball, and throws against the garage door. His wife, trying to sleep, says nary a word. She knows.

Faith ... not restored.

Not rewarded.

Fulfilled.

And a smile...

...from God.


Thanks to everyone who's written me, who teased me about the silly article in the newspaper yesterday describing why I stopped watching with others, who linked to posts* about the ALCS comeback, and to you readers. I don't know if I will post much tomorrow.

To cousin Gary and Uncle Frank, who didn't live to see this, who watched with the boy in a den in Manchester or Dover, or listened on a transistor on a porch at the beach at Rye or Wallis Sands or York, year after year -- see you soon. Bring your gloves, and I'll tell you all about it.

* -- Especially Elder, though getting this song out of my head will require more brandy...and what's with the Gigl-ish footnoting here?

That is the slogan on buttons on backpacks that carry also peace signs, KEdwards buttons and the other qaqaa that graces the students and faculty who insist that others know of their highmindedness. A crown graces the top, and 2004 below.

"Wow, that was fast," I thought. Because you know what this is about.

Today we received in the campus email a "letter of support" from the student government, soliciting signatures for the following. I will discuss it below, but in fairness to these students I am printing all but the last sentence here first. (The last sentence names the four members of the Royalty and congratulates them.)

Letter of Support for the 2004 SCSU Homecoming Royalty

We, the undersigned concerned students, faculty, and staff of St. Cloud State University feel the imperative need to express our support for the individuals that were elected by the students as the university’s 2004 Homecoming royalty. While we recognize a break with tradition in this matter, we do not feel that any negative attention given these elections is in any way justified. No attempt was made by any of the candidates or royalty to belittle the process or the proud traditions of Homecoming at SCSU. The election of [name deleted] as Homecoming Queen merely shows that his supporters do not feel the need to fit themselves within the contemporary stereotypes of gender roles. In addition, the election of a Homecoming Court comprised entirely of people of color is another proud first for our University.

Homecoming is about celebrating who we are as a campus and a community. We believe that this year’s candidates and royalty do just that. Furthermore, we deplore the manner in which this event has been handled and addressed by certain members of the university community. Closed-minded hate speech is not viable journalism, nor is it approropriate in addressing concerns to any member of the university community or any entities thereof. Furthermore, we find the racism and homophobia directed towards our Homecoming royalty deplorable. This kind of terror can never be tolerated in an institution of higher education or its community. We find any act of malice, hate or aggression against any member of our community despicable and unacceptable.

To those that would decry the actions of any of our Homecoming candidates on the grounds that it breaks with tradition, a simple question can be asked. Have we not broken with many traditions in the last 200 years that oppressed humanity? Social progress often requires people to challenge their own assumptions and to step outside of what they are comfortable with. This is an institution of higher education. We can ask only that those that feel uncomfortable in this situation use that as a learning experience.

In summary, these events offer St. Cloud State and its communities many great opportunities. They offer the opportunity to learn and to grow as a community. They offer many the opportunities to assess their own beliefs in contemporary gender norms and gender stereotypes as well as the opportunity to discuss this with others. Finally, this offers the St. Cloud community the opportunity to show that it can turn even a Homecoming coronation ceremony into a learning opportunity.

Thankfully, Blogger's snafu today kept me away for a few hours from writing about this. In that time I spoke with one of our commenters who is a colleague, who said "If they had said simply 'Hey it was a lark, we were just having fun, we meant no harm,' wouldn't this all go away?" Yes it would. I woudn't have even bothered blogging this.

But no, they did not do this. Their blend of sanctimony, shaming and opportunism strike me as so over-the-top that I wonder why I should respond to it. But then that's why we write, yes?

While we recognize a break with tradition in this matter, we do not feel that any negative attention given these elections is in any way justified. No attempt was made by any of the candidates or royalty to belittle the process or the proud traditions of Homecoming at SCSU.

That is utterly laughable. You have chosen to take a tradition and use it for your own political purposes, to promulgate an agenda that accuses those who disagree with you of meanness, and worse.

Homecoming is about celebrating who we are as a campus and a community.

By your own admission, it's about breaking stereotypes. The only thing I break as part of a celebration is champagne glasses in the hearth. You weren't doing this as fun, you weren't doing this as a way to honor alumni who came home to our campus. Which, you might recall, is why we call it homecoming.

Closed-minded hate speech ...

...as opposed to open-minded hate speech like that your comrades practice...

...is not viable journalism, nor is it approropriate in addressing concerns to any member of the university community or any entities thereof.

Gosh, I don't know. I had lots of hits yesterday, which sort of meets the market test of viable. And since when is it hateful to note that our homecoming queen...

{PICTURE DELETED BY REQUEST 10-29-04}
...kinda looks like a guy?

(I suppose they could be talking about Fark. Well, Hal, welcome to the WORLDwide web, where some people have a different sense of humor than others. You put an evening gown on a man, some people are going to laugh. And probably will 200 years from now. Tough luck, pal, but nobody promised that breaking stereotypes was a free good.)

Furthermore, we find the racism and homophobia directed towards our Homecoming royalty deplorable. This kind of terror can never be tolerated in an institution of higher education or its community.

A rumor around campus is that the gentleman in question has received harrassing and threatening phone calls. If true, these indeed are deplorable. But the use of the word "terror" is more than over-the-top. Placed in context with the previous two sentences, it suggests that even this blog is an act of terror, placing on the same level as this.

It would be good if in your education, students, you would learn the differences.

To those that would decry the actions of any of our Homecoming candidates on the grounds that it breaks with tradition, a simple question can be asked. Have we not broken with many traditions in the last 200 years that oppressed humanity?

Utterly pompous. Think of the argument made here:

• The end of slavery
• Women's suffrage
• The end of Jim Crow
• A man named queen of Homecoming

Which of these does not fit?

Social progress often requires people to challenge their own assumptions and to step outside of what they are comfortable with. This is an institution of higher education. We can ask only that those that feel uncomfortable in this situation use that as a learning experience.

Again, it's homecoming. Coming home. Alumni coming to campus for dinner Friday night, the campus and boosters and friends watching a man as queen march onto Husky Stadium's field at halftime Saturday afternoon. You want to have a lark? Fine -- this has often been called a party school, so many people will appreciate your humor. But that's not what you did. This is the message you want them to get? "We students of St. Cloud State want you to come home and challenge your assumptions and step outside of what you're comfortable with. No whining, now! Think of this as a learning experience! If you don't you might be a terrorist!

"No disrespect intended, though."

Thankfully students grow up some day. People will forget most of this -- indeed, from the top of the stadium many will not have known that the person in the dress with a crown was male. But a university that not only allows this but seems to encourage it may not help those students grow.

Not much more to say,

Starting around midnight last night, we have had significant network problems that would have prevented some Blogger users from accessing the site. We continue to work on the problem and will update this blog with additional information.

If you're reading this, the problem has been temporarily solved. I've been trying to post items since 10am.

UPDATE: Posted 3:50pm. It was some major networking goof at Blogger. Hope it stays good the rest of the day, as it's time for a Queen update.

For Prof. Clifton Snider, it apparently is about teaching how to write about things he approves of. One of his students at Cal State-Long Beach describes her experience writing about moral issues in his class.

The last three class meetings have been spent watching Fahrenheit 9/11 and writing on the moral issues that Michael Moore rises in the film. This assignment consisted of each student writing a paragraph on a single moral issue in the film, and then listing all the evidence that Michael Moore uses to prove it.

The moral issue I chose to write my paragraph about was "the controversial decision made by President Bush to lead the United States into a pre-emptive war against Saddam Hussein." I stated that in the "documentary" Michael Moore argued that President Bush made this decision in great haste and failed to investigate the true threat that Iraq posed to the United States. I then went on to describe the "evidence" that Michael Moore uses to prove his point as " a single advisor saying that he overheard President Bush" and "inserting a series of clips of President Bush on his Texas ranch". I wrote my paragraph very tongue in cheek and purposely ridiculed the insufficient evidence that Michael Moore used in his film. However, when I received my paragraph back, I found it marked up in red ink by Dr. Snider with comments like, " You miss the point of the film", or that advisor "was Richard Clark… a terrorist expert!" I was blown away by these comments. I didn’t realize that I was being graded on the way I interpreted the film! From what I understood about our in class paragraphs, Dr. Snider was only supposed to grade grammar, spelling, and mechanics, of which I had no corrected errors. Funny though that I still
received the lowest grade in the class on this assignment (after receiving all A’s on past assignments), while papers with numerous spelling errors and mechanical corrections but with an anti-Bush perspective received A’s.

Is this just a student whining? Goodness knows she wouldn't be the first. But when I looked at Prof. Snider's syllabus, there are a number of places where you can see a tendency. He doesn't tell the students that F-9/11 will be the film. He doesn't state, as the student asserts, that he will grade only on "grammar, spelling, and mechanics" yet if the grades are as she says it does look fishy.

Seeing the description at the end of her article, I also looked at Prof. Snider's instructions for the argument paper. He has amended the page (while it says last update was 10/17, a check of the page properties indicates that it was edited today.) I would show you more about it, but Prof. Snider claims the replication of his material in the student's article is illegal. I remind Prof. Snider that he works at a state university, and material created therein is property of the university, not him. He states that "the special nature of universities protects professors from being question[ed] about their lectures", but he fails to tell you that this quote is from the lecture notes of another professor at CSULB. Nice sourcing there, professor. I wonder if it would pass his requirements for unbiased information in his argument paper. And he even lifts this quote wrongly: It applies to the government prosecution of a professor's statements (in Sweezey), not to a student's rights within that class.

Anyway, we link, you decide.

UPDATE: As noted by a commenter, Mike Adams has been on the case. I should have guessed.

Wow, that's cool! Thanks Scott and welcome to NRO readers. The homecoming story is here. Hope you look around and see more of what you like.

Ouch!

I’m standing in the middle of the used CD store the other day. The clerk is playing “Yes,” a band whose name I always preferred to answer in the negative. “Roundabout” comes on. Haven’t heard this one in years, actually. Jon Anderson sings the famous line: “In around the lake / Mountains come out of the sky and they stand there.” As opposed to what? Doing the fargin' Macarena? Standing there is pretty much the job description for mountains.

{slinks off to post Close to the Edge t-shirt on eBay.* Suckers!}

*proceeds to Hummel Fund.

After discussing the libertarian dilemma here and deciding to vote for Bush, I am gratified that a founder of the Libertarian Party agrees with me. John Hospers was the candidate for president from the LP in 1972.

The American electorate is not yet psychologically prepared for a completely libertarian society. A transition to such a society takes time and effort, and involves altering the mind-set of most Americans, who labor under a plethora of economic fallacies and political misconceptions. It will involve a near-total restructuring of the educational system, which today serves the liberal-left education bureaucracy and Democratic Party, not the student or parent. It will require a merciless and continuous expose of the bias in the mainstream media (the Internet, blogs, and talk radio have been extremely successful in this regard over the past few years). And it will require understanding the influence and importance of the Teresa Kerry-like Foundations who work in the shadows to undermine our constitutional system of checks and balances.

Most of all, it will require the American people -- including many libertarians – to realize the overwhelming dangerousness of the American Left – a Fifth Column comprised of the elements mentioned above, dedicated to achieving their goal of a totally internationally dominated America, and a true world-wide Fascism.

Thus far their long-term plans have been quite successful. A Kerry presidency will fully open their pipeline to infusions of taxpayer-funded cash and political pull. At least a continued Bush presidency would help to stem this tide, and along the way it might well succeed in preserving Western civilization against the fanatic Islamo-fascists who have the will, and may shortly have the weapons capability, to bring it to an end.

Other libertarians are also getting the idea, but some guys are getting pretty steamed.

Sometimes I have too many friends...

I posted a few weeks ago about the stick-up performed by our mayor John Ellenbecker on the Chamber of Commerce. Sunday the local Chamber president published a letter in support of the sales tax her group was bullied to support. (Both articles with Tuesday linkage.) Two notes: As I noted, there is probably only 1/3 who actively opposed the 17-year extension of the sales tax, as opposed to 40% who supported it. Also, in the interest of full disclosure I should reveal that I know the Chamber president and her husband, who is a colleague at SCSU, and I don't think of them as liberals.

Now it turns out my friend David Strom of the Taxpayers' League has decided to run an ad in the local radio market to suggest that voters reject the extension of the sales tax. Here's the ad (in .mp3) It is tough on Mayor Ellenbecker's role. But as I noted in the earlier post on this topic, the mayor is pretty well known for what I will call charitably a "forceful nature". He frequently posts in the local newspaper's chat areas (at least under his own name) and is quite blunt therein. He does not deny the threat made on the Chamber:

I understand their position of wanting to serve the desires of their membership, but at some point you have to serve in a leadership role.

My way or the highway. And the City has decided to run a set of six proposals, passage of any one of which will trigger the City to make a request to the Legislature to extend their sales tax. The local "no" campaign is running against the Chamber's $10,000 of tribute paid to Ellenbecker (which will be paid back when the City extends the Chamber's contract to run the Convention and Visitors Center) as well as a city payment of $25,000 for "informational materials". As a local opponent of the sales tax, I want to personally thank David and the League for trying to level the playing field.

Regarding our post on the male homecoming queen, Powerline adds a note from their correspondent in St. Cloud (they could correspond with me, couldn't they?)

By now, you've heard about the guy elected homecoming queen at St. Cloud State. My best friend's wife was quoted in the St. Cloud Times' Friday edition. This morning, the New York Times called and talked with her. The uproar over this event is huge and one can sense the uproar over this is changing votes daily. The bottom line to all this is that, based on this information, there isn't a snowball's prayer in hell that Kerry wins Minnesota.

The correspondent reports 20,000 Bush/Cheney signs have gone out of the Waite Park office, busting the record, and that they need more volunteers.

I have no idea if this will be true -- it strikes me as far-fetched that this thing is that big that it changes votes appreciably -- but there's little doubt that it's created an uproar.

And to heck with the New York Times. We made Fark!

If you're from St. Cloud, chances are the candidates you saw debating on KMSP last night are known quantities. I have met Kennedy a few times, and while I am not personally familiar with Wetterling I have seen her speak a couple of times over the last year. What I saw were the two people I know.

Jo's Attic notes that "speaking is not his thing" regarding Kennedy. We know that up here. If you had known Kennedy four years ago when he first ran for Congress, you would have noted that he sounds remarkably improved. Mark Kennedy four years ago probably would have been better off not appearing on television at all. I don't know if it's a speech impediment he had, but whatever it was you can barely notice it now. His closing statement was great; Kennedy has managed to practice well several talks he can give at the drop of a hat. But I've also sat in on Q&As with him, and he sounded there like he sounded last night. I have truly wondered if he can do this in a statewide race for the Senate against Dayton: Can he get up and give Dayton the dickens in a debate and win that election? Given the strides he's made up to now, I think it's possible, but what you saw last night was about as good as I think Mark Kennedy can be at least for now. Against Dayton, I think he'd be fine. Against someone with more spit-and-polish, he may suffer for the comparison. (I would demand someone identify for me who that someone else would be before starting any dismissal of Kennedy's possible Senate candidacy.)

As to Wetterling, she's been in front of cameras for years for her foundation. She didn't look at all rattled (certainly not like this poor lady did), and she stayed within her talking points pretty well. But when specific policies came up -- and I thought the questioners did a fine job -- she was at a loss. Kennedy is much better on specifics, and in a town-hall debate setting he would eat her lunch, as he did at FarmFest in August. But with two reporters and someone from the League of Women Voters covering more general areas, she was bound to appear better.

Still, Kennedy softened her up with shots on her tax cut rollback ("reducing tax benefits is the same as a tax increase" and "I won't raise taxes".) She's got a way to finesse the "fight 'em over here" comment to make Kennedy sound softer on terrorism than she does. She actually manages to sound to the right of Kerry on the GWOT, which says more about Kerry than her. I thought her closing statement was poorer than Kennedy's but that on debating points she did as well as Kennedy.

Given the poll results I posted earlier today, this probably doesn't matter much. I would be very surprised if Wetterling gets within ten points of Kennedy next week. But I think she's gotten enough exposure that her next run -- probably a state Senate seat -- will have a good chance of success. I more wonder if this is what she really wants to do with her life.

Meanwhile, has the campaign burnished Kennedy for a move-up run for the Senate? I think that's the bigger question here, and why the margin of victory matters. He needs this win to be as convincing as his 57-35 win over Janet Roberts in 2002. There's an incentive to run up the score: Anything under a 10% victory, and there will be questions whether he would stand up to scrutiny in the statewide race. And I think that's why they advertised so much, went negative, and called so much attention to Wetterling's PAC money.

And why the money and the candidate were recruited against him.

Regarding my post earlier on an Elo rating for colleges, Douglas Bass has some additional notes. He concludes:

The amount of significant knowledge (as measured by patents, research grants, cited publications, awards, etc.) generated by a school only has a minor impact on these rankings. It also doesn't take into account that mediocre students want a college to go to as well. But this ranking might give a more accurate reflection as to the word on the street.

Do high school seniors -- even very talented ones -- care about the number of patents obtained by their professors, or the number of grants or refereed publications? Most of these students make visits and are sold enough to apply to the schools. If these things mattered, would this not be reflected in the choices students make?

And just as patzers like me can still carry a chess rating, so too could you extend the Elo rating scheme to schools for mediocre students.

Time to Get On the Bus:

The presidential election is still two weeks away, but for University of Wisconsin senior Casey Welch it is all over, save for the shouting and campaigning.

Welch was one of many UW students to board a van bound for City Hall Monday to cast an early vote for the November election. For Welch, the decision to vote early came down to a desire to avoid potentially hours-long lines at the polls on Election Day.

Or is it all over but the shouting and campaigning? Instapundit's son reports from Madison

No one ever asked for my ID, and in fact, I asked two different people if they wanted to see my ID, and they said no. So, anyone who wanted to could go in and write down somebody else's name if they knew their address, and vote for them.

It's not just to avoid lines, I guess.

Sanger said she would like to have at least 1,000 students vote before the election. That way, she said, more students will be available on Election Day to help with get-out-the-vote activities in support of Kerry.

Question: Are there election judges for these early ballots?

On Thursday of Homecoming Week here at SCSU we were sent a note congratulating our Homecoming Royalty, crowned before " full house in Ritsche Auditorium" with 58 candidate who "went through interviews, participated in candidate games and received votes from the student body." We got names and nothing more; the name of the Homecoming Queen was Fue Khang of Minneapolis, representing the student senate.

It never dawned on me, or anyone else who read the article that did not have prior knowledge, that Khang is a man.

{PICTURE DELETED BY REQUEST 10-29-04}

According to the Times report (Monday linkage)

About 750 of the university's 15,500 students voted, she said. Candidates are judged equally on how they do in interviews with university staff and in the student vote. Candidates also receive points for participating in games.

The judging formula that combines points from the interviews, vote and games is designed to make sure a candidate is serious and will represent the school well, said Jessica Ostman, director of university programming.

Ostman said it is uncommon for student groups to nominate a man.

Well, we certainly would hope so. So let's ask our student government why it would propose a man for queen.

His nomination was sincere, student government President Hal Kimball said.

Kimball said the student government does not support gender stereotypes.

"We don't like putting people in a box," Kimball said. "We don't discriminate. It's a beautiful world."

Yeah, man, beautiful. Just ask this mother of another candidate:

"It was such a disappointment," said Kim Ferber of St. Cloud, whose daughter Annie was a queen candidate. "I don't even want her going to the school if this is how it's going to be."

But Ms. Ferber, it's a beautiful world. And because nobody has filed a complaint with the University Programming Board, the decision stands.

I have no idea what Mr. Khang thought was to be proven by this. We already have a drag event on campus. Unless Khang is a transvestite, which you think someone would tell you in one of these stories, we don't know that this is anything more than a stunt, perhaps to mock the idea of a homecoming queen. At no point does anyone make this statement.

But more to the point: note the scoring of this. "The judging formula that combines points from the interviews, vote and games is designed to make sure a candidate is serious and will represent the school well" Could Khang have won this without the consent of the judges? Of course not. So how does one say Khang did anything wrong, if the judges of this event have allowed his participation and graded him ahead?

Given how student government -- and the university itself-- wishes to portray itself as progressive social justice warriors, you might as well suspect, as I do, that the school will be most pleased by this. A cross-dressing homecoming queen probably does "represent the school well". And so we'll advertise it here as well.

Come to SCSU: A school where anybody can be queen.

UPDATE: The University Chronicle story has a couple more choice quotes:

Khang said that this year, student government decided to run opposite with a
female nominated for king and a male nominated for queen.

"This is history in the making because this is the first time a guy was queen. I am very happy to represent student government," he said.

Some students were accepting of the turn of events."Well, there is no rule that said he couldn't run," said homecoming candidate Jennifer Gill, "So, do what you gotta do."

Other students were not so sure about it.Shelly Gerwing, a third-year student, thought it was sexist that three men and only one woman were crowned royalty. "I thought it was absolutely ridiculous that they let a man run," she said.

Not because a man was crowned queen, mind you, but that we didn't achieve gender balance. But that depends on the meaning of balance, perhaps?

Absera Abraham won the princess title. Abraham is also a member of the African
Student Association.

"It feels good (to be crowned princess) and it's a nice surprise," she said. "This is history in the making because all people of color won and we are only 4 percent of the student population."

Mysterious Spitbull demands an explanation for an article by Ron Bailey at Reason describing a study which shows that conservatives have some real problems with authority. As John Ray points out, it's rather silly leftist projection. (He also has a review of one of the author's work here. Fisking before Fisk was fisked, as it were.) He also recalls an earlier bout of this stupidity that we blogged here as well.

But lefties can at least project something well. Calling Meg Ryan!

Two big pieces of good news for the 6th District incumbent Mark Kennedy in his race with Patty Wetterling. First, WCCO released about 30 minutes ago a poll showing him ahead of Wetterling by 52-34, with 14% undecided. It's a relatively small poll of 351 likely 6CD voters, a district which typically identifies as 4-3 Republican. The margin of error is 5.3%. The margin of the poll is quite close to the margin with which Kennedy defeated Janet Robert in 2002.

Second, in a relative surprise (to me), the St. Cloud Times endorses Kennedy. (I'll set up the link for Monday here.)

There are two ways to look at the race for the U.S. 6th District House seat between incumbent Mark Kennedy and challenger Patty Wetterling.

One is through partisan glasses. If you do that, you need only know that Kennedy is the Republican and Wetterling the Democrat.

The other way is by looking at who has more experience and knows the issues more thoroughly. Using those lenses, ask yourself which candidate will most effectively serve Central Minnesotans the next two years.

The answer is Mark Kennedy.

I didn't expect this, and I am pretty sure the Kennedy campaign didn't either. The Times has been big supporters of Wetterling and the Jacob's Hope Foundation over the years, and ran a big page one story marking the 15th anniversary of Jacob's abduction last Friday. But to their credit, they understood the difference between an advocate for a single issue (no matter how important an issue it is) and an effective legislator.

Wetterling clearly believes her strength rests in her ability to work across party and bureaucratic lines to get the job done. Indeed, her work on behalf of missing children and public safety is impressive and shows great potential.

But she's running against an incumbent who has compiled a strong record in serving Central Minnesota. Plus he can point to votes supporting more special-education funding, against oil drilling in sensitive areas, and even against Bush's No Child Left Behind Act.

Such actions, coupled with a social-issues platform that (sadly) better matches the majority of area voters, make Kennedy a strong incumbent.

That 'sadly' is a note to the editorial board's own preferences, but give them credit for recognizing that the market they sell into is socially more conservative than they are, and remembering whose paying for government. I suspect it pains them no more serious politician has come forward to challenge Kennedy, but none has emerged. The two Cities newspapers (and our silly student newspaper), of course, couldn't resist running to the Democrat (she crows for all three endorsements on her site), and yet the people who know Patty best have decided to back Kennedy.

The commenters in the Times chat area were pretty darn disappointed too.

The editorial board could also be working on the assumption that you don't fire the incumbent without cause. That's certainly reasonable, though a disappointment for me personally as someone who believes we desperately need an advocate for missing, exploited, and murdered children in Congress.

I'll update the Times link and kick this ahead to Monday in the morning. DONE (7am Monday)

I will have little here today as I am getting ready for the Hugh Hewitt Show tonight with the rest of the NARN gang, as well as dealing with some administrative deadlines here at the university. If I can get an economics post up early this PM I will, but if not I will do it tomorrow. (See, Hugh, I do work on weekends!)

Be sure to catch us 5-8pm CT on Hugh's show (streaming options here). And tomorrow, we're having a very special guest, John O'Neill of the SwiftVets, on the Northern Alliance's own show (12-3pm, AM1280 the Patriot, streams from here.) We're supposed to be on the Patriot II station on Sundays but I do not know the time (I'll fix this if I can find that out today.)

I was a jerk probably to about twenty people last night. I had several people call during the game; Elder and I were chatting in the comment box from my Game 7 mojo offering; Mrs and Littlest Scholar were keeping a respectful distance after I had had to watch the second and third innings from my church between running through Sunday's service with the worship and praise band. Why? Once again from the BSG:

We were doing our own celebrating at The Office, reacting like college kids in Cancun who just found out that Lindsay Lohan was entering a wet T-shirt contest that night. Exchanging high-fives and heterosexual man-hugs, I couldn't stop glancing at the TV. It's official, right? We definitely beat them, right?

"What's wrong with you?" Sully asked.

"Honestly? I keep waiting for them to announce that there's a Game 8." ...

To recap: Greatest comeback in sports history. First trip to the World Series in 18 years. First meaningful victory over the Yankees. All at the same time.

You have to be from here to understand. You just do. It wasn't just that the Yankees always win. It was everything else that came with it -- the petty barbs, the condescending remarks, the general sense of superiority from a fan base that derives a disproportionate amount of self-esteem from the success of their baseball team. I didn't care that they kept winning as much as they were a-holes about it. Not all of them. Most of them. In 96 hours, everything was erased. Everything. It was like pressing the re-start button on a video game.

And yeah, I know. We need to win the World Series to complete the dream. But you can win the World Series every year. You only have one chance to destroy the Yanks. As my friend Mike (a Tigers fan) wrote me last night, "Everyone outside of Yankee brats are celebrating quietly with you guys. It's like you killed Michael Myers, Jason, Freddie Kreueger and Hannibal Lecter in one night."

It was the choke of chokes, an unprecedented gag job. For once, finally, the Yankees have some baggage. Just like every other baseball team.

It's not Schadenfreude. It's a cosmic convergence. "1918? 2004!" is now the STFU every Sox fan can drop on a Yankee drone. And it's our gift to Twins fans, Tiger fans, and everyone else that roots for baseball.

So Elder, Atomizer? You want to ride the bus, or not?

David Post thinks John Kerry should have been at the Red Sox game.

...this is the most important thing going on at the moment; he's lived and worked in Massachusetts all his life; is he the only person in that category who wouldn't take free tickets to see these games? I honestly don't get it, and it does make me wonder about the guy. I know he's off rallying the faithful somewhere -- but if Kerry thinks (or his advisors think) that rallies in swing states, at which he outlines yet again his plans for social security reform or health care or whatever, win over more voters than having half of the country seeing him doing something that everyone can identify with -- i.e. rooting for the home team, engaged in an epic battle for its very soul -- I think they're very, very wrong.

Maybe he was upset that Manny Ortez was in a slump. BTW, in the Peter Gammons note (it's about a third of the way down the page) commenting on the gaffe, he tries to forecast:

No, that was Dave (Baby) Cortez and "The Happy Organ." A few years back Kerry went on a Boston station with Eddie Andelman and said "my favorite Red Sox player of all time is The Walking Man, Eddie Yost," who never played for the Red Sox. Kerry is going to sweep New England. He's going to get 70 percent of the vote in Massachusetts. He doesn't have to be a Red Sox fan, all he has to do is not be John Ashcroft.

Pee-tah, read the polls.

It's not too hard to get someone to give money to a school to name a building, or even a room in a building (like a computer lab). But what if you're short on office supplies but have many buildings? Some students at Northern Illinois have an idea:

If this university’s budget doesn’t have room to expand the funds it spends on paper, perhaps NIU administrators should be encouraging NIU alumni ... to make donations for paper - an education must - rather than $2.5 million toward an alumni center that students won’t step foot in until years down the line, when they are alumni.

Stephen notes, "The problem is that there are no naming opportunities for paper bins." We've been thinking that it would be cool to raise money for computer labs by having the computers come up with a screen thanking the sponsor every time a student walked in. But student labs are paid for out of student activity fees, a tax that few see as such and that goes unrecognized.

Some departments here are requiring students to purchase the "bubble sheets" for their exams in the first week of class in large lecture classes and turning them in to the department. The number required, we're told, exceeds the number of exams.

Mitch notes something that I've thought for some time.

...genuine conservatism is more progressive than the movements that have co-opted the term "progressive" in recent years.

Part of NARN's appeal is that there's substantial diversity of opinion within us, even though none of us would call ourselves "progressive" in the current use of the word. Mitch and I both supported Forbes in 2000, and I admit to not lifting a finger to help Bush in 2000. (I did vote for him, but it was more an anti-Gore vote in a state where I knew the outcome to be in some doubt -- were it not, I would have done what I had often done in the past and voted Libertarian.)

Mitch runs through Doug Bandow and by implication the Cato Institute, a libertarian think-tank, with dispatch.

Bush has a record in Iraq - imperfect, but at least an empirical record. Bush's detractors are still operating from the purely hypothetical - and mostly doing it badly.

My readers here know I occasionally post at Liberty and Power, but will note I haven't in a while. That's for a reason: The discussion of the war there and on most other libertarian sites has been really, really bad -- though for the last couple of days they've been having a good discussion of the wage gap to which I might contribute. But I simply did not wish to get in the way of their complaining about Bush. There were days I simply deleted the entries in my sitefeed.

Bandow, Cato, and the other libertarians are all drawn, I believe, to a thought expressed well by Leonard Read when he said "never vote for a trimmer!" A trimmer "is one who changes his opinions and policies to suit the occasion." In other words, John Kerry. I accept that, but my question is, on what basis does one call GWB a trimmer? Indeed, the criticism of Bush as "arrogant", "stubborn", "a man of conviction, but the wrong ones", is exactly the criticism that you can't work with GWB because he isn't a trimmer. As if trimming is a character desirable of presidents. And yet the very libertarians who would praise Read can't seem to support Bush (though at least one is understanding the moral contradictions of the Kerry campaign.)

As I've quoted before from Milton Friedman, there is no midpoint between right and wrong. I will have no truck with candidates who "embody the spirit of compromise."

Read's point is that voting for the lesser of two evils will encourage only bad candidates to run. If libertarians believe Bush does not represent their values, what is their responsibility? To Read, it's to abstain, but that is a strategy with long-run benefits -- better candidates more consistent in support of liberty would come forward only over time as the size of the disaffected, principled group grew larger. As Mitch points out, we have a short-run problem:

A gridlocked government is a good thing when there are no more pressing concerns. But we have those concerns today. The sooner we deal with them, the sooner we can return to a time and place where noodling about with abstractions like induced gridlock are tenable again.

We may believe, as many libertarians do, and with some merit, that U.S. foreign policy in the past has created useful recruiting propaganda for terrorists. But the antidote to that, when others are trying to kill you, is not to put the safety on your own weapon.

If they believe that the purpose of my life is to serve them, let them try to enforce their creed. If they believe that my mind is their property -- let them come and get it. -- Ragnar Danneskjold, in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.

UPDATE: Jon Henke has similar thoughts and decides to vote for None of the Above. I disagree, but it's a principled choice.

and you see where you are?

Why, it's us!



Impossible?



Possible!

Turn up your speakers!



Thanks to Elder and everyone for babysitting my neuroses tonight.

Four to go.

Weather forecast: check

Are they nervous?

They should be.

First meditation

Interlude: Those of us who follow the Sawx, the C's and the B's, and the Pats (though I confess to being a Giants fan from the Y.A. Tittle days) have long known of a guy called BSG, or Boston Sports Guy. He now has left Boston, taken his real name -- Bill Simmons -- and made a career for himself as a writer. But he is a true Sox fan, and his last two posts on ESPN's Page 2 are absolutely wonderful. About Schilling and last night's game:

Over the next few days, everyone will make a big deal about Schilling's Game 6, only some for the right reasons. We live in a sports world where every good moment gets beaten into the ground. It isn't enough for something to happen anymore. You have to vote. You have to watch two guys screaming on a split-screen. You have to read 400 columns, then columns by people reviewing those columns. You have to hear sports radio hosts screaming, and once the subject becomes exhausted, one of them takes a crazy angle on the topic just to keep the phone lines ringing for another hour. It keeps going and going, a vicious little snowball. When it runs out of steam, something else replaces it, and the whole cycle starts all over again.

I don't want the Schilling Game to fall into that. I don't want to hear someone claiming that he "wasn't that hurt," or that it "doesn't matter if they don't win Game 7," or even that Schilling was "milking the moment." You're not taking this away from me.

Someone asked me today if it would be better to lose tonight than to go to the World Series and lose there. I looked at that person dumbly. Lose? Lose?

The classic move would be for the Sox to come back, win three games in a row, then lose the climactic 7th game. But this isn't a classic Red Sox team. The old Red Sox would have blown Game 4 or Game 5, and they definitely would have choked in Game 6. With the old Red Sox, Bellhorn's homer gets ruled a double, A-Rod definitely gets called safe at first base, and Miguel Cairo clears the bases for the game-winner in the ninth.

Here's the point: Those things haven't been happening. Sometimes you pass a point where history becomes a factor -- like with the Patriots three years ago, when the diehards kept waiting for the Other Shoe to drop, and we were waiting and waiting, and suddenly Vinatieri's final kick split the uprights, the most liberating feeling you can imagine. That's the thing about baggage as a sports fan -- you can shed this stuff. You just need a few breaks. This Boston team is getting them.

OK. Meditation two.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Andelieve

Oscar Chamberlain observes this article in the New York Times (free registration required) about how Curt Schilling got his shoe for Game 6 (which he ended up not wearing) and comments:

Is this Globalization or what? A company founded in Great Britain that does much of its marketing with American stars, has its shoe experts in Hong Kong redesign a shoe, which is then assembled in Canton.

Wonder where they bought the sutures holding his ankle together?

Douglas from Belief Seeking Understanding dropped a note to me this morning recommending I look at an article in the StarTribune on the possibility of Macalester College dropping its needs-blind admissions policy. Macalester wants to move from a model wherein financial aid is an entitlement to a model where the amount of financial aid for the college as a whole is capped. Douglas has dug around the college's Form 990 to consider how Macalester was in such dire financial straits. He wonders if any school can afford to do this? A quote from the STrib article would suggest not.

Lucie Lapovsky, the ex-president of Mercy College in New York and a specialist in the economics of higher education, said Macalester is among the "very, very few" schools that admit students without regard to finances and then make sure they can pay for college.

"It's incredibly costly," she said. "Only the very wealthy schools have the money to support this ... I think Mac is being very honest about this."

The number Douglas shows for the university's endowment is about $537 million. That's not necessarily that small -- Claremont McKenna, for example, has an endowment of about $325 million -- but it is supporting a rather substantial amount of expenditures, and the amount is being drawn down by the deficits Douglas cites. I suspect, more to the point, the school is following its peers in ending the practice, so as to have funds to buy better facilities and faculty.

Study: College cost rises at slower rate (Newsday)

A College Education Gets Harder: Rising costs, fewer grants and loans add up to painful fiscal reality (Houston Chronicle)

Here's the press release they both used, with a link to the study itself.

I'm not surprised by the terrible experience Craig Westover had trying to get school officials to understand tuition tax credits on Monday. With a room full of teachers and administrators, systemic change was no on the menu. But this comment did surprise me.

This is the second time I’ve seen Commissioner Seagren speak, and both times I sensed she was working harder at not being former Commissioner Yecke than she was at setting any kind of an education agenda.

Despite the fact that "not being Yecke" is probably the only qualification for confirmation by the state Senate, this is a sign that Pawlenty administration may be trying too much for consensus and not enough for leadership.

Where are people going to go to get good ideas of what should be done in higher education? For starters, Yecke's still around.

In a letter from our union's government relations guy (read: lobbyist), we get some unsolicited advice and a little revision of history. First, the history:

Following the plane crash that killed Sen. Paul Wellstone, Minnesota went into a political convulsion. When the dust settled 10 days later, the political makeup of the legislature had shifted dramatically to the right. The newly elected conservatives stuck to their pledge to the Taxpayers League to not raise taxes. They would not even entertain proposals to raise the tobacco tax to the same level as Wisconsin’s rate.

Get that? We had a "convulsion". It was involuntary. Well, if you heard Rick Kahn's memorial/pep rally, your reaction probably was involuntary, though the convulsion was more akin to retching.

And isn't the whole purpose of federalism to allow states to determine their own tax levels? Since when does a legislature have an obligation to match the taxation levels of its neighbors?

So, we get this advice:

During my 32 years in and around state government, I have never met a candidate that didn’t say he/she supported higher education. The key test is whether the candidate will have the courage, like previous generations of legislators did, to raise the revenue necessary to support higher education. And don’t buy the line by a candidate that he/she will just cut somewhere else to fund higher education—the legislature is not going to throw patients out of nursing homes or cut special education funds so faculty can get pay increases, and the state is not going to save enough money by denying prisoners dessert (one of the bills last biennium) to prevent tuition increases to students and their parents.

At least he's honest -- he wants us to only vote for candidates who are willing to raise taxes. And they wonder why conservatives think this union doesn't represent them?

... and you see where you are.





I mean, if it had ended tonight, wouldn't you have felt cheated?

Believe

The Elder sent me this comment this morning:

They live to fight another day. Like cockroaches those Sox are.

Another poster from a bulletin board:

Hey, so a team has never come back from a 3-0 deficit. Big deal? The Red Sox haven't won in 86 years, we're trying to accomplish the "impossible" anyways.

You win one, and you see where you are. Go 38! Go Sox!

I wrote last month that someone was "running the tape" on Kerry contracts during the RNC. Don Luskin now reports that a single trader is shorting large lots of Bush futures. He suggests the tactic is reminiscent of George Soros' speculative attacks on the British pound.

Jonathan Dresner shows us the Ph.D. completion rates and time-to-degree measures for many Ph.D. history programs. Question: Wouldn't a lack of jobs in history increase the time-to-degree and completion rates, regardless of program quality? If I don't find a tenure-track job, what is the incentive for completing the degree?

My colleague and survey analyst Professor Steve Frank sent me this prediction that, using the historical patterns of undecideds breaking against the incumbent, Kerry will win the race. Now before you get your shorts in a bunch, read what this professor has to say.

It is known to poll analysts that voters who are undecided usually end up voting against the incumbent. In particular, compared with their final poll numbers, incumbents get between 2% less and 1% more. In contrast, challengers do better on average by 3%. These figures are consistent with Cook's estimate that undecideds split at least 75% for the challenger. In today's summary of national polls, the average Bush-Kerry split is 48.5-45.5, which sums to 94%. Assuming 2% for Nader and other candidates, the remaining undecideds are 4%. Splitting these by Cook's rule gives 1% to Bush and 3% to Kerry, reducing the margin by 2%.

Therefore, for the main calculation I will assume that the undecided-voter shift is +2.0% towards Kerry, shift state polls by this amount (using the variable already provided in the script), and proceed with the calculation. Based on state polls in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, I estimate that the proportion of undecided voters in these states is similar to the national figures. Because national polls come more frequently, I will use them to calculate the shift. The size of this shift may change in the final days, and I will be monitoring this.

This new estimate is likely to be more accurate. However, it is also the first change to the calculation that is not neutral, it goes beyond the polling numbers themselves, and it is in a direction that is favorable to my candidate. For example, Florida, Iowa, Ohio and Wisconsin are still toss-ups, but they are now above the 50% probability threshold for Kerry.

So what he's done has taken this 2% break-towards-the-challenger rule (assuming each state has a background level of undecideds of at least 4%), taken every poll that has Bush up by 1% or less, and assumed the undecideds will move that state into Kerry's side of the ledger. I've oversimplified this; Prof. Wang has a more detailed explanation, but I think my oversimplification gets to the logic of his exercise.

Unlike Prof. Wang, the adjustment moves in a direction unfavorable to my candidate, but I think it's an important point nevertheless: Those working towards a Bush victory have to create some reason for undecided voters not to break according to historical trends. Hooting and hollering over the latest polls should be guarded, and the sense of urgency towards getting your own voters out should not in any way diminish. It's kind of like managing against the Yankees -- going to the ninth with a one-run lead in Yankee Stadium may put you right where your opponent wants you. If you've got runners on in the top of the inning, score them.

Hugh may be right that polling in a post-9/11 world is entirely different, but if I'm Karl Rove I'm not moving all-in on that bet.

And if that won't sober you up, read Jim Lindgren.

Most readers know that I've long had libertarian tendencies. For some time I was the advisor to the College Libertarians group, which is currently defunct as best I can tell. But I must still be on some lists, because I received this delightful email today.

Dear Cultural/Activist/Political Student Orgs

I am not used to this kind of salutation. Indeed, any salutation containing a slash will usually get me to delete or throw away the letter at once. But this...

Including:African Student Association, All Tribes Council, Amnesty International, Arab Students for Peace, Asian Students in Action, Bangladesh Student Association, Bill of Rights Club, Campus Advocates Against Sexual Assault, Campus Green Party, China Club, Chinese Student Association, College Democrats, College Independents, College Libertarians, Council of African American Students, Democracy Matters, Earth Action Coalition, European Student Association, GLBT Alliance, Global Soc. For Advancement of Leadership, Habitat for Humanity, Peer Educators, Hmong Student Organization, Hong Kong Student Association, Indian Heritage Club, Indonesian Student Organization, International Students Association, Japan Club, Jewish Student Association, Jugglers Against Oppression, National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, Non-Violent Alternatives, Organization for the Prevention of AIDS in African, Outloud!, People Uniting for Peace, Residence Hall Association, Student Coalition Against Racism, Vegan/Vegitarian Club:

Now, how could one not find such a list interesting? We have all these clubs here, on a campus at which only 3000 students are resident, over 2000 of which are first-year students too busy finding out how late they can stay out with friends playing their XBoxes, and yet we have all these Cultural/Activist/Political Student orgs! Quite amazing. What would bring all these people together?

I am writing you to ask if your group would be interested in tabling at the “Rock the Vote 2004” Benefit Concert.

For those unfamiliar with the language, "tabling" = "set up an information table" rather than a tabling motion or hitting a guy with a table on your interactive XBox game.

We will have amazing folk/rock/punk musical acts...

...followed by a list of bands I never heard of. They must be amazing, and they haven't sold out to the man, either.

We will also have tabling student orgs, ...

Again with the tabling.

vendors and a silent auction.

Selling what? Voter recruitment items?

We all know that this election is crucial to the protection of civil rights for many oppressed communities.

They found us out; Bush fully intends to lock away everyone in a wheelchair after the election so that none of this Chistopher Reeve stuff happens again. Someone must have snuck out with the memo.

Our hope is to encourage voter turnout, promote education on the issues that affect marginalized communities, and foster coalition building between progressive student activist/political/cultural organizations.

Which is of course utter crap. If it was to just encourage voter turnout, why was one particular cultural/activist/student org left off the list? One that would have a serious interest in getting out the vote? (Three guess which one.*) And this activity is paid for by student activity fees, better known as a tax.

Again, this kind of crap is happening on every American campus; while students should most certainly be encouraged to vote, these GOTV events are thinly-disguised rallies for the leftists and Bolsheviks in our midst.

*--Its initials are "CR".

Honest Reporting discusses (third item) an article in Academe (gray boxed insert) on the difficulties of academia in the Palestinian state. One wonders how students study in a university where student government elections "featured exploding models of Israeli buses". (Hat tip: Jo's Attic.)

The American Association of University Women has announced a new study on the disposition of lawsuits for female faculty who are denied tenure and decide to fight the decision. Its press release carries the title, "Sex D