A day in the life of the repressive hypothesis:

Scorpio, Aquarius.

Rah Rah Reagan

From Slate (and shout-out to BoifromTroy): One more reason why Ronald Reagan was way cool. (And is often underestimated, as if he ever made W-class stupid mistakes):

Rehnquist is not at all creepily Machiavellian, like Burger. In fact, while he's known for making the case conferences extremely brief and businesslike, he's also acknowledged as more than evenhanded when it comes to handing out opinions—occasionally even assigning himself a crappy one, just to be fair.

Also, Rehnquist let Sen. Tom Harkin's objection stand during the impeachment trial.

Now they know....

....how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall!

RELATED ITEM

Purge of the Day

Link. OK, again, I ask: What is going on in Andover?

Possibly related red state item. (Thanks to Wonkette!)

On the other side...

Breaking News: Victor Davis Hanson is now officially a hack:

There was no new youth landside vote, much less a novel dynamic 18-to-24-year-old Kerry surge.

(BTW, that statement is not true.) Always a shame when it happens to a classicist.

155K or 136.4K?

David Bernstein in this week's Boston Phoenix analyzes Ohio election returns, speculates on problems that affected Democratic counties and precincts.

According to Bernstein, Ohio election officials tried to do more with less--that is, have more voters come to fewer polling places. Ostensibly this was due to budget considerations. Bernstein crunches the numbers (p.2):

Of Ohio’s 88 counties, 20 suffered a significant reduction — shutting at least 20 percent (or at least 30) of their precincts. Most of those counties have Republicans serving as Board of Elections director, including the four biggest: Cuyahoga, Montgomery, Summit, and Lucas.

Those 20 counties went heavily to Gore in 2000, 53 to 42 percent. The other 68 counties, which underwent little-to-no precinct consolidation, went exactly the opposite way in 2000: 53 to 42 percent to Bush.

Of course, none of this, even if true and rather Floridian, affects the larger problem that Kerry lost the national popular vote by 3.5 million. But Long Live the Electoral College!

"I read the news today, oh boy...

Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire.
And though the holes were rather small,
They had to count them all..."

Rubble in the aftermath

If there is a smart attitude to take in the wake of these election results, it would be (a) don't rush to believe the conventional wisdom, especially if it comes out of New York; and (b) don't rely on your emotions for analysis, either. We know this is difficult, people. Just work at it.

On that score, the online edition of the Phoenix has some good, empirically sound and on-the-ground discussion of it: both positive and negative in terms of prospects going forward. Check it out.

Also, for those who are looking for data that's just more real than the exit polls (which are henceforth subject to hyperbolic doubt), check out todays' buzz log on Yahoo. And ask yourself why it seems the red types were clicking more than blue types. (Because we're too depressed to get out of bed, is why! Because when things don't go our way, we get sad rather than angry.)

P.S. Yes, we do heart NY. We're just not sure the mainstream of the popular vote runs in the Hudson River.

The Worst Election Week Ever.

So, this is what it feels like to suddenly wake up in a Dark Age. I'd always wondered. (Or, at least I'd wondered for a long time, since taking a college course on Dark Ages.) Which is much different from saying that I actually wished for it to happen.

* * * * *

One thing particularly irritating about it: last November, my brother who happens to have recently lived in a Red State called me to argue, to inform me, to attempt to convince me that the Masschusetts Supreme Court had probably just thrown the election the Republicans. Nonsense, I said; besides, they were only interpreting our Constitution, and it was a good decision, and after all, Republicans most of all recognize that states have rights. My brother and I ended up wondering whether we were living on the same planet.

So the irritating thing is that it looks like he was correct: so far the exit poll results make it seem that despite the fact that the country is involved in a senseless war where people are dying, this wedge issue, which is not even a federal matter, pushed the Presidential election.