Firstly, there’s this little piece from NRO about pre-9/11 intelligence. Guess who’s policies were the biggest hurdle for our intelligence community? Rhymes with “Shrill Fenton.”

Secondly, also courtesy of The Blog Father, there’s this interesting piece from Tom Maguire on Kerry’s tax return. Strange that he and his wife file separately, also strange that the media haven’t bothered digging up her return, should be easy enough to get someplace.

Lastly, that Steve Verdon Guy [Drink!] takes a look at college education as a signalling mechanism versus a way to invest in human capital. Money Quote:

There is also the possibility that a college education is both for aquiring human capital to some extent as well as being a signal. My intuition on this point is that the signalling will tend to trump the human capital accumulation aspect. That is, the policy of lowering the cost of college would tend to lower pay.

I think he’s probably right on this one, and I’m also pretty sure that our student government kids, and politicians in general, don’t think about the basic demand side effects that are driving up the prices of college. More Kids Wanting Degrees + Relatively Small Increase In Teaching Capacity = Price Goes Up. I could teach that to my dog, I guess my dog must be some sort of genius.

Phrase of the week: hindsight bias. (Closely followed by “behavioural finance”.)

This sums up – better than I could myself – a lot of the low-level annoyance I’ve been feeling about the 9/11 commission, or at least its manifestation in the media. Obviously, yes, there are procedural things we can learn from (hopefully in time for the next horrific event, whatever it may be) but I don’t think holding Bush/Clinton to be directly culpable is going to get us anywhere. Except symbolically, perhaps.

Can you smell that, people? Thats politics in the air. Or maybe its just the stale stench of patchouli mixed with B.O. Well, in any case, today is the last day to cast your votes in the ASUO election.

And I know that everyone is very excited to finally find out the results of this truncated, anti-climatic simulacrum of the democratic process when they are announced, but before we do, we are going to have to wade through another Election Board fiasco.

This time, according to a press release issued by Nathan Strauss, ASUO Elections Publicity Coordinator, [I]t came to the Election Boards attention that certain majors are not being correctly correlated to academic senate seats on DuckWeb. The use of passive voice is a sad attempt to belie the culpability of Stephanie Day and her Suite Four Super Friends.

This mistake means that certain majors will not be able to vote for the senate seats that represent them academically.

Way to go, Stephanie Day! Not only did you manage to push elections back to a point where law students were reluctant to run, but now, thanks to another oversight, you are forcing students to invalidate their votes until some future, hitherto unknown date.

According to the press release, senate seats 10, 12 and 14 are being affected. The Election Board will have an emergency meeting tomorrow with the campaign managers of the senate candidates affected in order hash out solutions to the problem. Then, if needed, the Election Board will hold an additional General Election between April 21st and April 23rd.

Its a sad day when a no-pants-wearing drunkard is less of a joke than the person running the election. And to think, this will probably be the cornerstone of Days resume. Blech!

I have a feeling that the return of Travis Willse to the editorial board has something to do with the tone of this editorial, which is – credit where it’s due – a good one. In fact, it’s disturbingly like something we’d run.

And they endorsed the same candidate for Exec as we did, for the first time in… anyone?

This is getting spooky, people. We’re straying into the Twilight Zone.

Apologies for my lengthy absence. (Or, according to your disposition, apologies for my return.) The place sure does look nice. Blogging will resume shortly, while I continue to grapple with various other things.

The kids at MoveOn.org have probably lost all hope if bake sales are all they have left.

In other Democracy related news, we have the first and most exclusive images from the ASUO executive debates, as well as a small amount of video footage. Sadly, TGraf was not allowed to participate because he had “failed to respond to an email message” or something equally moronic. Just one more example of that fascist Stephanie Day trying to keep the Pantsless Revolution down. Click the link below for pictures.

The candidates prepare for a long night of dodging questions.

Adam looks scared and Mena looks confused.

Adam, obviously worn out from all the running around questions he’s been doing, takes a short nap as Mena dodges a question in his stead.

Adam gets all whiny about being asked to justify his existence by a pantsless man.

Adrian Gilmore, the only decent candidate and therefore the least likely to win, actually answers a question. Ben Strawn looks on and wishes that one day he, too, might be cool and smart like Adrian.

Diana cuts Ben off to “answer” a question. She goes on to talk about APASU one hell of a lot.

For a fellow Econ major, Ben sure doesn’t think about incentives or budget constraints much. He must be one of those “normative” guys we’re always hearing so much about

Dr. Skipper (TM) the official beverage of the ASUO Debates. This message brought to you by Dr. Skipper.

Ben says something, it doesn’t even matter what.

Nick and Joe, who would be good candidates if they knew anything about laws and rules pertaining to the Incidental Fee, say a few words about what it’s like to be a losing ticket. Guy in hat blocks my shot.

The OC’s very own Ben Brown uses his manly physique to intimidate the other candidates. Click Picture For Video of Ben Laying The Smack Down

Ben drives home the point about a shirts optional campus.

Ben looks like a man possessed, thanks Photoshop!

As the evening went on, the moderator became less and less friendly. Bitch.

Also, she really hated Ben. A lot.

Look at him in his trucker hat and numbered shirt. I’ll bet he even drinks PBR. That fucking hipster. Message to Eddy: DASHBOARD CONFESSIONAL FUCKING SUCKS AND SO DO THE STROKES, HIPSTER!

And, lastly:

Having been denied his rightful spot at the table with the other candidates, Tyler “The Crusher” Graf still manages to make a complete mockery of the debates. VIVA LA REVOLUCION SIN PANTALONES!

Scenes from Tuesday’s ASUO exec candidates debate:

Tyler “The Crusher” Graf, arriving on the scene with only a Gadsden flag to cover his manly bits. Next to him is OC Editor-in-Chief Timothy Dreier.

Tyler after learning he’d been barred from the debates for not responding to some e-mail or something.

All of the Exec candidates.

From left to right: candidates Adam Petkun, Mena Ravassipour, Ben Strawn, and Diana Aguilar.

Candidate, and OC/ODE endorsed Adrian T. Gilmore.

The OC’s own Ben Brown who is running on a “shirtless campus” platform (just to inform those of you who haven’t been keeping up with this whole election thing, meaning 95 percent of you).

I was actually considering voting for the guy, but when you start bumping The Kiefer Show to make your silly, bumbling speeches, you are really asking for trouble.

ASUO Executive Candidate debates are tonight at 7pm in the EMU Fir Room. Y’all should come and help us make a complete and total mockery of the event. Also, VOTE GILMORE!

Yes, we already knew beers like Corona, Heineken and Budweiser totally blew. But actual science has recently proven Guiness to be good for you.

Now I’m looking for the definitive proof that Bombay & tonics cure cancer. Anybody?

(Link via Instapundit, of course.)

Baseball, is one of the few things I truly love. And, you should too. Seriously, how can you hate a game where one of the reasons to like it is:

3. You like fun names and nicknames. No sport is ever going to beat golf in the weird-name department. Fuzzy Zoellerenough said. On the other handAlbert Pujols. Albert Pujols is an excellent player, so it saddens me to report that his last name is pronounced “poo holes.”

Oh, wait. My mistake. It does not sadden me one bit, because”poo holes.”

As we and The ODE have endorsed the same candidate for ASUO Executive. I knew that Schmidt certainly couldn’t be worse than Kleckner when the year started, and I’ve actually been pleasantly surprised at how sensible a lot of the ODE editorial positions have been this year. Not that I’m going soft on them, just take a look at their idiot columnists, but it’s good to see the ODE do more than just endorse the Suite Four candidate.

In other elections news, I think I’ve discovered exactly why nobody votes: The candidates are really goddamn annoying during the election. The last thing people want is a poorly painted, foam-core house accosting them with leaflets. And what’s with that damn dollar sign ($) and pill? Also, why were Ben and Diana arrhythmically tromping past Johnson Hall with looks of consternation upon their furrowed brows? The music to which they were doing this was also quite bad. Kids, if you want elections turnout to be higher, don’t try so hard to bother the hell out of the electorate as it tries to make its way to Elementary Analysis at 10am.

Kinja, from the minds that brought you Gawker, Wonkette, Fleshbot, et al is a weblog digest that collects the latest entries from your favorite blogs. It is basically a simplified RSS feed reader, but much less complicated and aimed at a more mainstream audience. For an example, take a look at my digest.

The only problem I have with it is that Kinja doesn’t collect posts every time there is a new post on a favorite blog. This means that it might collect posts from Instapundit every two hours thus leading to a flood of posts from Glenn Reynolds on your digest if he has posted a lot of things in those two hours. However, this is nice for Tennessee professor’s bandwidth costs as explained here:

Inclusion in Kinja can introduce a weblog author to new readers, and alert existing readers to fresh posts. Most blog reader applications grabs content each time a user requests an update, which increases a weblog owner’s bandwidth bills. By contrast, Kinja operates a central index. The system analyses a weblog once, and then distributes updates to many Kinja readers simultaneously. This method is technically more efficient, and spares weblog owners unnecessary cost.

So everyone wins, right? For more info, take a look at Gawker President Nick Denton’s post on the project.

My thoughts on John Kerry as a Presidential candidate have been previously documented. Still, Steve Antler over at Econopundit links to this WSJ piece about Kerry’s spending proposals and thoughts on the budget. Now, I am personally of the opinion that a Republican controlled congress would not let that sort of jive slide. I’m also of the opinion that the Dems aren’t going to be taking over congress in ’04. Between this and the weakness on defense/terror, well, Kerry makes me pretty nervous. But, Bush’s horrible, horrible Attorney General is making me wish for, hell, two good candidates. Nixon’s preserved head, anyone?

I guess I’ll have to settle for Master Bandit. Get your Wu Name here. Anyone who gets Lazy-assed prophet is welcome at my house.