I just found this one on Flickr. It’s pretty great.

Mike Harding is good this week. Around 45 minutes in you can hear an astonishing version of Ewan Macoll’s Moving On Song (by the internet-unfriendlily named Pbs 6 — go on, try googling them); then, at 56 minutes, a song I’d never heard about Desperate Dan (that makes 3 songs I know that refer to DD, the others being by the Kinks and the Bonzos — any more?).

Have just finished writing two papers with hard deadlines – now in the throes of grading – so two quick points, which either sort-of-resonate-with or half-contradict each other in ways that I don’t have time to think or write about.

First: ungovernability. Or, rather, “ungovernability.” Chris got a lot of flak in comments for suggesting that centrists and center-right people in the media were going to come out with suggestions that a bit of dictatorship might not be a bad idea. As he pointed out, there used to be a lot of people on the right and center-right who made these arguments – and not just about countries in the developing world. Crouch and Pizzorno’s _The Resurgence of Class Conflict in Western Europe_ is particularly good on this, as I recall. That said, unlike Chris, I don’t have strong expectations that this set of rhetorical tropes is going to emerge in the very near future (although it may in the medium term). The old crop of center-right dictator-fanciers were fans of dictatorships not because they were opposed to democracy _tout court_, but because they were opposed to certain parts of the economy being subject to political control. This is not so much of an issue these days. From a certain point of view, the European Central Bank is a more-than-acceptable functional substitute for General Augusto Pinochet. Indeed, being less publicly embarrassing, it is arguably superior. One of these days soon, by the way, I’m going to write my post on the editorial policy of the _Economist_ during the Irish Famine – it wasn’t one of its finer moments.
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So how will the new Tory-Lib Dem coalition work out? Here’s my prediction. The Tories are supremely political, and they will be looking for an opportunity to go to the country again and secure an overall majority for themselves before they have to implement voting reform. Easier said than done, of course, if you are in the middle of implementing unpopular spending cuts. But Europe could provide an issue: pick a fight with Brussels over “British sovereignty” and force the Lib Dems to take a pro-European stand and bring the coalition down. Then have the election on the single issue of Britain versus Europe. Result. The Lib Dem vote collapses as those who oppose the coalition’s record vote Labour and (Labour supporters, burned by Clegg this time, refuse to vote tactically again).

Via Yglesias, Dave Weigel takes a look at the new Maine GOP platform, which ain’t exactly Olympia Snowe all over. But neither of them mentions how the authors of this document take the text of the Preamble to the Constitution and wrench it around in ways contrary to an originalist reading of the text. Example: in order “to insure Domestic tranquility”, the Maine GOP prescribes “a. Promote family values. i. marriage is an institution between a man and a woman. ii. Parents, not government, are responsible for making decisions in the best interest of their children, whether disciplinary, educational, or medical. iii. We recognize the sanctity of life, which includes the unborn.”

Here I was, thinking the Framers were worried about Shays’ Rebellion-type stuff.

Igor Volsky rounded up some conservative muttering. This bit seems to me a bit off, however:

But the GOP can’t ask Kagan to be both a constitutional originalist and an opponent of the new health care law. In fact, given the long-standing Supreme Court precedent surrounding the federal government’s ability to regulate interstate commerce, should Kagan agree with Republicans’ claims that the lawsuits violate the 10th amendment, she would be seen as a judicial activist.

The point, rather, should be that conservatives can’t ask Kagan to be a constitutional originalist – and decide the health care case in the negative on that basis – without highlighting the fact that originalism gives no weight to precedent and is not an attitude of deference to the legislative branch. There’s no guarantee the original meaning was what precedent has long said it is. It would not exactly be a surprise if legislators today are doing things the framers didn’t have in mind.

‘Let justice be done, though the heavens fall’ is supposed to be the motto of the judicial activist advocate of a ‘living constitution’; but the more usual sort of ‘living constitution’ attitude is slightly backwards-looking Burkeanism: respect precedent. Rule out the former, you rule out the latter. ‘Let a 200-year old conception of justice be done, though the heavens fall’ is not a better way to keep the heavens from falling and is, in fact, plausibly more likely to let them fall. (It isn’t all that preposterous that strict originalism would rule out paper money, after all. There are a lot of words you might use to describe the court unilaterally ruling that all US dollars are not legal tender, but ‘restrained’ is not high on that list.) If what you want most is judicial restraint, and no activist judges, originalism is near to the worst of all possible judicial philosophies.

This is not to say that originalists can’t find ingenious ways to square the circle, making space for precedent by adding sophisticated additional premises and superfine epicycles to their philosophies. Scalia has done so: “I’m a conservative, I’m a textualist, I’m an originalist, but I’m not a nut.”

Originalism is a philosophy of fiery revolution, wrapped in a rhetorical shell of keeping everything the same. (That’s what American conservatism is, too, in a nutshell. That’s why Americans are philosophical conservatives but operational liberals, come to think of it. But maybe that’s too much for one post.)

Some of the British papers are giving publicity to an analysis by the Electoral Reform Society purporting to show that the Alternative Vote system (which Labour is offering to the Lib Dems now, and the Tories are offering a referendum on) would have made little difference. Specifically, the claim is that actual result of 307/258/57/28 (C/L/LD/Oth) would translate as 281/262/79/28 (with STV giving you 246/207/162/35). But this is a completely static analysis, since it presupposes that matters like candidate selection would stay the same under both systems. This is surely wrong: under AV, the main parties would have an incentive to select candidates who would appeal as the second choice of the eliminated parties. This would often mean a convergence to the centre (on the assumption that the Lib Dems stay third, which they might not) but it might mean the selection of Tory candidates who would get the votes of eliminated UKIPers.

Continuum has just published Educational Equality (UK) which is composed of a lead essay written by yours truly, with commentary by James Tooley and Ken Howe, and really nice clear bookends in the form of an informative introduction and a concluding analysis by my excellent former colleague Graham Haydon. The main essay is a revision of a pamphlet I wrote more than 10 years ago for the IMPACT series put out by the PESGB. The original was focused on criticizing the then-still-newish system of parental choice in the UK, and the selection that it resulted in, within the context of a philosophical argument in favour of a particular principle of educational equality. The new book is in a series which reprint the IMPACT pamphlets with commentaries, but when I was approached to do that I felt that my philosophical views had changed quite a bit (largely in the context of the long collaboration with Swift), that the policy context had changed quite a bit, and that I could say something useful about the US as well — so the revised essay is quite a bit different from the original. Tooley criticises sort of from the right, Howe from the left (that package gives the not-entirely-accurate impression that somehow what I have to say belongs to the centre); I like both their essays (which I have only just seen). It is short (maybe 30k words) and accessible to students and the general public (it is being marketed as a textbook): and I, at least, think that there is enough about both the US and the UK that parochial readers in each country should not feel shortchanged, while cosmopolitan readers can learn something new. This is the second book I’ve been involved in publishing this year (see this announcement) — and the last, I promise.

While we wait for the dust to settle following the 2010 election, I thought I’d repost this piece from the aftermath of 2005, suggesting that Labour should introduce electoral reform. My predictive record is a mixed one, but this piece looks pretty good, I think.
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And, apparently, Labour enters talks with the Lib Dems. Telling that his resignation takes effect only on the election of a new leader, and not immediately. Presumably, no caretaker was forthcoming. So much for Alan Johnson having no ambition.

My wife announced that she wants a GPS system for her birthday (its ok, she studiously avoids reading CT). Well, which GPS system should I get for her? Are there any differences? Looking around I am bewildered. (Ideally I’d like to avoid having one with a posh female English accent, both because it irritates me and because it induces my wife to mock mercilessly).

I’m rushing to prepare to go into a lockup to write reports on Australia’s government budget, brought down tomorrow, so this post is a bit scatty, but it might raise some points for discussion regarding the European debt crisis.

* First, a general observation. In a typical bailout, the biggest beneficiaries are not debtors, but creditors. So creditors ought to be “bailed-in” and made to bear some part of the cost

* The Greek case is misleading, in implying that government profligacy is the primary cause of the crisis. In most cases, the problem is the same as in earlier rounds of the crisis, most obviously in Iceland – bad loans by private banks which their national governments feel impelled to rescue, but can’t afford to

* The idea that the euro precludes devaluation as a way out is a relatively minor part of the story. Given that debts are denominated in euros, devaluation to improve the trade balance would be only marginally effective. The real effect of the eurozone so far, has been to raise the stakes regarding default.

* Resolving the crisis requires a couple of measures at the European level
– monetary expansion by the ECB
– co-ordinated action to strengthen government revenue, both by an acceleration of the attack on tax evasion and by discouragement of tax competition within the eurozone

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About eight weeks ago I left my MacBook on the DC Metro. Not a wonderful experience, as you can imagine – especially as repeated calls to the Metro’s Lost & Found, advertisements on Craigslist with reward promised and other such measures failed to produce any results. But then, last week, I got a call from Ross Sirbaugh at “Computer Warehouse”:http://www.compwarehouse.webs.com/ in Falls Church. Someone had brought in the computer and asked them to reinstall the operating system. Ross smelled a rat, took a look at the machine, figured out my name and other details, then tracked me down and called me. And then, to put the icing on the cake, refused to accept any reward whatsoever for his pretty considerable efforts. So I figure the least I can do is to give a WWW shout-out to Ross and his colleagues at Computer Warehouse, for their willingness to go that extra mile and then a couple of miles again (please – don’t anyone tell the “Heritage Foundation”:http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2010/05/heritage-foundation-breaks-major-abuse-of-power-story.php though). I think it is a pretty safe surmise that if this is the level of due diligence that they exercise when they don’t have _any economic incentive whatsoever_ to do it, the level that they’ll exercise when they do have such incentive (because you’re paying ’em for something) must be super-duper awesome. So, go to Computer Warehouse for all your needs (it looked like they had some pretty good value in laptops – and clearly, their tech people are strongly recommended). Did I mention their name? “Computer Warehouse”:http://www.compwarehouse.webs.com/ – right on Leesburg Pike.

Also – in the spirit of locking the barn door after the horse has gone but to your very great surprise been returned later through the benevolence of strangers – recommendations for minimizing the pain of stolen machines.

(1) _Back Up Everything Important_ somewhere external. This is the one measure I did take – and the pain would have been far, _far_ greater had I lost my work along with the machine. I use “Sugarsync”:https://www.sugarsync.com/referral?rf=dvbii96jagjv0 which keeps the work documents on my various machines in sync with each other as well as giving me an online back up – others swear by DropBox, SpiderOak and other services.

(2) Make sure that your account is password protected. I didn’t do this – remarkably stupidly – but appear to have gotten away without loss of personal information. You shouldn’t take this risk. I won’t again.

(3) Set up a “firmware password”:http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1352 if you have a recently made Mac. Makes it much harder to wipe the OS.

(4) Consider buying anti-theftware like “Undercover”:http://www.orbicule.com/undercover/. Depending on your tolerance for risk, this may be too expensive for the benefits provided (me: my risk tolerance has decreased substantially since this happened to me).

Other suggestions or recommendations welcome in comments.

This piece by Paul Campos makes the point, not for the first time, that Elena Kagan’s public record is so thin as to make it impossible to guess how she might decide as a Supreme Court judge. While this question is important, another strikes me.

How does someone whose vita contains “three scholarly articles, two shorter essays, two brief book reviews, and two other minor pieces”, and who had apparently never appeared in a courtroom before last year, get to be Dean of Harvard Law School and then US Solicitor-General[1]? Even confining myself to law journals and popular pieces on legal topics, I could match that track record. I once even exercised a quasi-judicial function in my career as a regulator, which is more than Kagan has done.

In view of Kagan’s apparently inevitable promotion, can I put myself forward as her replacement? I guess the Harvard gig is already taken, but I’m sure I’d be a great Solicitor-General. All my friends say I”m “brilliant”, and have “many remarkable qualities”. Some will even go as far as “scrupulously fair-minded” .

fn1. For comparison, here’s the publication list for Kathleen Sullivan, reputedly the runner-up for the S-G job.