Extra Ordinary Ideas

Terrified of Bad PR

Friend and economist Kyle Hampton explains why the now-scrapped terrorism futures market would've worked.

Update: Megan McArdle raises an interesting point that a monetary investment in a predicted terrorist outcome might discourage bettors from providing high-quality tips to law enforcement agencies. The idea is that tipping off the feds could cause the tipper to lose money in the futures market if the authorities effectively prevent the attack. Hmmm. On the other hand, couldn't the tipper just sell short while placing the phone call?

91 Today

Happy Birthday Milton Friedman!

The Economics of Basketball

No, not the salaries. The NYT's David Leonhardt has interviewed academics who study sports. Interestingly, some conclude that players and coaches are more risk averse than they should be:

"'Teams are averse to going for all or none,' said Steven J. Sherman, a psychology professor at Indiana University, who came up with the idea for the conference with [economist] Thaler when they were having dinner in an Afghan restaurant in Chicago last year. 'Teams don't want to do something that puts the game on the line right now.'

Behind by 2 at the end of a basketball game and playing a superior team, coaches generally do not attempt a 3-point shot. Yet that shot often offers a better chance of winning than the combined odds of making a 2-pointer at the buzzer, then winning in overtime."

Of course, winning is great, but sport is fundamentally entertainment. Could this reluctance to risk the game before the very end actually be a rational response to consumer demand that the game be as interesting as possible throughout?

Judicial Activism

Voters are often accused of making decisions based on their pocketbooks, but now Illinois judges are arguably doing the same. The state's supreme court recently ordered the Governor to pay it more, holding that the Governor's decision not to fund judicial pay hikes this year could not contravene a legislative promise to do so. Quick professional responsibility question: don't they all need to recuse themselves?

Obscene Litigation

F***ing hilarious.

Via Hit & Run.

The Democratization of Cool

In "Web Allows People Just Like You And Me To Spot Trends. Uh-oh," the WSJ’s Lee Gomes predicts that the web – with its unparalleled ability to spread information widely quickly – will allow the rest of us to catch onto new cultural trends so fast that the cool kids will lose their cachet. Or does he?

Actually, he suggests that the “trend-anointing caste” will be “disintermediated” by technology. An intermediator is by definition between two parties – in this case the trend originators and the trend followers. So Gomes’ target may not be the hipsters themselves, but the people who do what Malcolm Gladwell would call “translating” subcultural phenomena for more general audiences. Thus, the endangered species according to Gomes may not be the kid tripping over his frayed pants cuffs in 1998 so much as MTV and Urban Outfitters.

This doesn’t seem right. Translation involves more than proclamation. It’s not just a top 10 list, but a careful watering down of music and fashion to strengths tolerable to most consumers: the light beer version of cutting edge. Net synchronicity alone can’t do this much.

Perhaps Gomes merely wants to remark on the pace of the translation and post-translation proliferation of fads. If so, then perhaps the cool kids are the big losers after all, bereft of the aesthetic jet lag that traditionally provides them a window of exclusivity.

Debate Recap

My debate against Tanya Clay of People for the American Way on the issue of school choice is the subject (or at least the jumping off place) of this column on Tech Central Station today.

Total Recall

The California recall election is sliding rapidly from sublime to ridiculous. No sooner had Michael Huffington, the "recently gay" (think Buffy's Willow) multimillionaire and former GOP Congressman, filed to run for governor than his ex-wife, socialite-turned-pundit Ariana Huffington, announced her bid as an independant candidate. Coyly refusing to comment on the brewing internecine struggle, Ariana declared, "I don't have anything to say about any candidate in the race -- whether I was once married to him or not."

Ariana is reportedly meeting with Green Party representatives to consolidate support behind a single independant candidate. She says she will "take the next week to meet with a lot of the activists, the environmentalists . . . and make a decision." Didn't this woman reportedly send boxes and boxes of little Evian bottles to firefighters who complained of a drinking water shortage during the state's forest fire crisis?

As if the foregoing were not entertainment enough for one race, Gary Condit is reportedly considering running as a Democrat.

Link courtesy of the Yale Diva, who has an adorably fussy pink website.

Sixteen Candles

I watched it on TNT last night. I love this scene at the end where Sam and Jake share their first kiss over the birthday cake:

Digital Whispers

Passing notes is so passé. Students in connected classrooms can now maintain a steady patter of commentary on the lectures they attend using IM clients. Observing such chats would no doubt be useful to profs, who’d encounter more withering critiques than students venture in real space. Can the virtual spitball be far behind?

Hasta la Vista, Baby

The NYT reports that California's Secretary of State yesterday certified the 1.3 signatures submitted by the campaign to recall Governor Gray Davis. Thus, barring irregularities, voters will decide this fall whether the Governor will keep his job.

Critics are complaining that a successful recall effort would trigger a state of "permanent election" in California, crippling government with constant, debilitating recall campaigns. But I've always thought there was something to be said for a little chaos in politics. For example, without the Monica Lewinsky scandal, we might easily have universal "kiddie care" by now.

As I understand the California system, the recall election will take the form of two questions. The first is a thumbs up or down on the current chief. The second part asks voters who they want to replace the Governor. Apparently, it's fairly easy to qualify for a spot in part two, and the candidate with a plurality carries the day. Arnold Schwarzenegger is reportedly considering a run. I wonder whether he could terminate enough California bureaucrats to balance the state's off-kilter budget?

Conservativism as a Psychological Disorder

Conservatives aren’t paranoid. The leftist academic establishment really is after them. A team of Berkley scientists recently released a new study (press release here) suggesting that conservative political views are explained by an underlying psychological condition characterized by the following:

- Fear and aggression
- Dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity
- Uncertainty avoidance
- Need for cognitive closure
- Terror management

When asked the obvious question of whether this study might be seen as, well, just a tad partisian, the Berkley academics replied that they chose to focus on conservatives because of a substantial existing body of work that had already been done in an effort to determine the causes of their wacky worldview. Apparently, few if any such assessments have been performed to explain leftist ideology.

The National Review’s Jonah Goldberg observes that the likely reason psychologists like to study conservatives is that there are so few conservatives in the profession. But what does it say about the left that free-market types tend to eschew psychology in favor of the cool-headed analytical discipline of economics?

Berkley psychobabble experts who insist that conservatives are driven by irrational biases protest too much. Perhaps they'd benefit from reading F.A. Hayek's essay on Intellectuals and Socialism.

In any event, a study like this can only harm an elite academic establishment already clinging tenuously to its public credibility.

Thanks Julian.

Big Think Remembered

Tim Cavanaugh’s thoughtful and well-rendered book review in the WaPo drew my attention to the release of Wired: A Romance, by Gary Wolf. Though I can barely install software and have never worked in the tech industry, I’ve always been fascinated by the subculture. Thus, Wired is perfect. Tech as sociology. Tech as politics. Tech as fashion. Don’t bore me with the details. Let me enjoy the big picture.

And that was great – really great – when the picture was big. Wired was emblematic of a social movement. One with large, large dreams about using technology to remake the world. More than that, one that affirmed our ability to improve the human condition.

This hubris has been painfully shrink-wrapped, of course, and the magazine hasn’t really been the same either. It’s a bit lower key. More cautious. Smarter. Wiser. But it’s also keeping the flame. Wired knows it’s a vision thing. And that’ll be back.

Link courtesy of Reason.

Alpha Male Secrets

The shrewd Halley Suitt has a wonderful 18-part series on those men we love to hate to love. Insightful and sweet at the same time.

Oliver North's Nightmare

The NYT reports that new scanning and software technologies are making it practical to reconstruct shredded documents right in time for the Enron cases.

Persons determined to destroy documents must now look into "pulping, pulverizing and chemically decomposing" them, processes that probably require more expertise than the faithful Fawn Hall could've provided.

Rough Justice

Somebody at the WaPo has a vigilante streak! Yesterday’s paper featured a snarky piece about an over privileged yet tragically under civilized Washington intern named Paul Kelly Tripplehorn, Jr. Tripplehorn reportedly sent a crestfallen, erstwhile summer paramour an extraordinarily vicious email, creatively titled “you suck” and including the following illustrative excerpt:

"I was planning on ruining your career by making phone calls to all of my parents’ friends and have you blackballed from the workplace as well as every prestigious law school in the country, but then (lucky for you) I decided not to do that because you are a sad sad person and I will just let your life self destruct right before my eyes…. I am sorry, I don't care how big of [a] sadistic [expletive] crush you have on me but people like me simple [sic] don't date people like you."

And he was going to ruin her reputation! The Post, while chivalrously declining to name the wronged damsel, features the hurtful screed’s author prominently. Between Lexis-Nexis and Google, Mr. Paul Kelly Tripplehorn, Jr. will be explaining this one for the rest of his life. And in case you want to wait outside the Hart Senate Office Building with rotten fruit, the paper obligingly included his picture.

Courtesy of Hit & Run.

Update: Oh dear, this is rather funny.

Ah, to be European

The Italians are all a flutter about two competing controversial plans to restore Michaelangelo’s “David,” which stands gracefully in a surprisingly modest room in the Galleria dell’Accademea in Florence. Art restoration is something of a national sport in Italy, a country where half the population apparently cares for priceless works of Renaissance art while the other half sells tickets to tourists who want to see them.

Geek Test

Upon taking the definitive quiz, I was informed that I am not a geek after all, but only have "geekish tendencies." But what does it say about me that I am faintly disappointed?

14.20118% - Geekish Tendencies

Thanks Amy.

Happy Birthday Zelman

The last week of June marked the first anniversary of Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, the historic Supreme Court decision upholding Cleveland’s school choice program. The occasion was little noted in the press, obscured as it was by a flurry of shiny new rulings on issues ranging from affirmative action to internet filtering software. But the date is notable, both because of how far the school choice movement has come and how far it has yet to go.

On one hand, the court’s decision upholding school choice has motivated legislators across the country to propose new choice programs. Colorado has already passed a new law authorizing vouchers for some low-income students in that state. The Heritage Foundation notes that in the past year more than 40 new voucher, tax credit, or charter school proposals were introduced in state legislatures. School choice plans are now under serious consideration in Texas and in the District of Columbia, where Congress may authorize a choice program directly.

States that already have school choice laws are likewise considering significant expansions of those programs. Florida is poised to double its corporate scholarship tax credit, while Ohio has recently expanded its voucher program to include Cleveland high school students.

However, school choice programs remain tiny and restrictive. Plagued by limited scholarship funds and enrollment caps, most school choice programs are oversubscribed. Families in Milwaukee and Cleveland must compete in annual lotteries for scholarships, with the losers relegated to waiting lists. Legislation proposed for the District of Columbia may similarly fund only a few thousand scholarships for students now enrolled in its disastrous public schools.

Moreover, many programs offer scholarships in amounts too low to provide students with the widest array of options. In Ohio, lottery winners may spend only $2,500. While it is a miracle of American generosity and thrift that over 50 Cleveland private schools have agreed to educate children for this amount, lawmakers must make a larger portion of education funding portable if these programs are to realize their potential.

Some choice programs, such as Florida’s Opportunity Scholarship program, apply only to children in “failing schools,” as determined by overall performance measures. No provision exists in Florida for an otherwise marginal school that is failing a particular child. As a result, many Florida children in need of choices do not qualify.

Finally, most school choice programs are geographically hobbled, applying only to urban centers. The Ohio program, for example, applies to any school district operating under federal judicial supervision. But Cleveland is the only district that qualifies for choice under this definition. The proposed District of Columbia program not only restricts the location of its beneficiaries, it restricts the location of their educational options. Participants will have to choose schools located inside the District itself, a nonsensical move that will bar students from excellent, cost-effective schools in its Virginia and Maryland suburbs.

Supporters of school choice hailed the Supreme Court’s Zelman decision as a victory. But it marked the beginning, not the end of an education reform saga. Although the teachers’ unions failed to eradicate school choice programs, they have leveraged ambivalent suburban attitudes toward choice and their formidable political clout to keep choice programs tiny, isolated and starved for funds.

Too many American families are still compelled to send their children to dangerous and dysfunctional public schools. Millions more are unhappily stuck with an otherwise passable school that has failed their particular child.

The Zelman decision capped 12 years of litigation over the constitutionality of school choice. But if the wheels of justice grind slowly, the pace of real social change is often slower still. Educational options have always been a prerogative of middle class families, who have resources to move or pay for alternative schooling in after-tax dollars.

But lower-income families also deserve the liberty to choose. Existing programs in Florida, Cleveland, Arizona, and elsewhere have proven false opponents’ poisoned suggestions that lower-income parents are too foolish or inattentive to make good choices for their children. The success of these programs has bolstered a growing consensus that all families deserve educational freedom.

If the Supreme Court did not give American families the choices they are seeking, it did at least clear the way for those families to win their options in the political arena. School choice supporters should congratulate themselves on Zelman’s first anniversary, and then turn quickly to the struggles ahead.

Lazy, Hazy, Crazy

Will Wilkinson is right. It's summer now, and things are just too fine in DC to stay home and blog. Much nicer to sit around sipping beverages with Will, Amy, Julian and our Californian visitors Paul Feine and Abe Sutherland. Good conversation is one of the central joys of my life.

So if you are missing me on this page, go find some interesting people to talk to in real space. Or better yet, move to DC.

More Michigan

I'm on Foxnews.com today analysing the Michigan affirmative action decisions.