Last night my wife and I watched Epsiode 9 of Serial Experiment: Lain. Over the course of the episode viewers are given a synopsis of UFOlogist claims about Roswell and Majestik 12, Vannevar Bush and his concept of the memex, John Lilly’s psychedelic experiments and his ‘contact’ with ECCO, the Schumann resonance, theories about human beings as synapses in a vast neural network of collective consciousness, Ted Nelson's invention of hypertext, and so on.My wife soon opened her laptop and went to the wikipedia in a quest for information about the facts, fictions, and theories flying by on the...

The Congressional Research Service has recently (October 3) estimated that the Iraq war is costing about $6 billion per month. DOD’s current monthly average spending rate is about $6 billion for Iraq, $1 billion for Afghanistan and $170 million for enhanced base security for the first nine months of FY2005. Compared to FY2004, those averages are 19% higher for Iraq, 8% lower for Afghanistan, and 47% lower for base security.That works out to about $197.3 million per day, fighting in Iraq.According to CNN, the US has offered $50 million to aid reconstruction and relief in Pakistan, after the...

The ripples on Dan's tenure decision continue to spread. Today the New York Sun published an article entitled "Blogging Prof Fails To Heed His Own Advice" (hat tip: David M.). Key quotations:On Friday, Mr. Drezner's first blog entry came back to haunt him: He was informed by his department that he was denied tenure and would have to look elsewhere for a job.Under normal circumstances, a scholar who is denied tenure assumes that the decision was simply a reflection of a department's assessment of scholarship. In this case, Mr. Drezner and others are wondering whether the blog may have had an...

Here's a friendly hint to David Brooks: it probably isn't such a good idea to write "I believe in the lost tradition of American politics, the tradition of Alexander Hamilton, Abraham Lincoln, and the Bull Moose" if most of the policies you're about to advocate are exactly the opposite of their "lost" traditions.Otherwise, people might think you're chronically disingenuous. Or historically ignorant. Or an idiot.After a while, you get sick of the DeLays of the right and the Deans of the left. After a while, you tire of the current Republicans, who lack a coherent governing philosophy, and the...

[I wasn't happy with the earlier version of this post, so I've revised it substantially]I've talked about the role of multivocal signaling in American politics before, particularly in terms of "dog-whistle politics": the art of sending different signals to different audiences. Henry Farrell's review of Jacob Hacker's and Paul Pierson's Off Center: The Republican Revolution and the Erosion of American Democracy shows that I'm not the only academic who has been "connecting the dots" between John Padgett and Christopher Ansell's seminal article and the way that politicians increasingly tackle...

Dan let us know today that the Political Science Department of the University of Chicago decided not to extend him tenure. Given how upsetting this is for Dan, I thought his announcement on his blog displayed a great deal of class and wit.There's been some discussion of the matter on Crooked Timber, and many condolences (and displays of outrage) in the comments section of Dan's blog.A few comments.1. As hard as this is for Dan, keep in mind that he'll land on his feet. He has a very impressive list of publications and his credentials are rock solid.In fact, I imagine a lot of people in...

Readers of some of my other posts expressing a certain skepticism about the value of statistical analysis might be surprised to learn that when it comes to baseball, I'm a devoted "seamhead" -- one of those technically inclined fans who thinks that quantitative analysis is the best way to figure out what works and what doesn't in the game. In particular, I am of the opinion that one can only evaluate truly impressive performances through quantitative analysis; while I might disagree with Bill's claim that Pedro Martinez is the best pitcher ever, I certainly can't fault his logic…although I...

I get mad about Alaska's "Bridge to Nowhere" and its ilk for a whole host of reasons, but chief among them is how they represent a perversion of national priorities and needs. The US has compelling reasons to spend money improving and expanding its transportation infrastructure, much of which is out of date, not in the best of shape, and inadequate for future economic needs.But we all know that, for the US government, transportation appropriations are the equivalent of trips to Billy Bob''s Pork-O-Rama BBQ and Ribs.The solution seems obvious to me (so obvious that I'm sure it has occurred to...