Quinton and I have been going back and forth in e-mail for months over who the real USC is. As a Trojan alumni I resent any use of the term USC applied to the Gamecocks! Jeff now informs me that Mike McGee left the Trojans for the Gamecocks and has been Athletic Director both places. Is Mike McGee gay? No! What could be gay about a guy who is really into phallic symbols? Anyway, for all the latest on the Gamecock scandals check out Quinton.

PS-Will Collier gets in on the joke.

Posted by: Rusty at 08:20 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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My anger at this guy showing Fahrenheit 9/11 to his class is only eclipsed by my anger at his suspension by the powers that be. College campuses are supposed to be filled with ideas--even stupid ideas--not subject to review by those in administration. Its called academic freedom. Jeff Quinton has more.

Posted by: Rusty at 04:20 PM | Comments (16) | Add Comment
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I'm giving a test right now to my night class. So what do I do? Surf the blogosphere, of course! Via the Llamabutchers (who say they got it from Big Stupid Tommy, who got it from Missives Anonymous, who got it from Allison, who got it from Tyler Durden, etc....[somewhere in here there is a philosophy paper to be written, I'm thinking infinite regressions.....])

more...

Posted by: Rusty at 06:50 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Posted by: Rusty at 05:37 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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I'm giving a test right now. Shhhhh. Be very quiet.

Seriously, they should never have put this computer in this classroom. With me it's blogging, but who knows what other profs are doing on this thing? Let's check the history cache and find out, shall we? more...

Posted by: Rusty at 11:52 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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by Demosophist

Back in 1996 I got a phone solicitation from the New York Times and on the spur of the moment decided it'd be a good idea to subscribe.  After about three weeks I noticed that I hadn't seen a paper, and wandered down to the front desk to see if someone might be leaving it in my box.  At the time I lived in a high rise just inside the beltway.  Well, it turned out that rather than deliver the paper to me, or even leave it for me at the desk, the Times delivery service was just driving up to the front of the building and dumping papers intended for the residents unceremoniously onto the sidewalk.

Posted by: Demosophist at 02:25 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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posted by Demosophist

Victor Davis Hanson's latest:

The Democrats now lament that America would prefer to be "wrong" with George Bush than "right" with them. They will no doubt adduce a number of other paradoxes, excuses, and sorrows. But the fact is that the Left was united, well-funded, and ran the most vitriolic campaign in the Democratic party's history — and still lost, taking all branches of power with it. The New York Times and the major networks have undone their legacy of a half-century, and in the desire for cheap partisan advantage have ruined the reputations of anchormen, the very notion of fair front-page reporting, and, indeed, the useful concept itself of an exit poll. 60 Minutes, Nightline, ABC News — these are now seen by millions as mere highbrow versions of Fahrenheit 9/11.

(Cross-posted by Demosophist to Demosophia and Anticipatory Retaliation)

Posted by: Demosophist at 11:28 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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It's not often that I get to respond directly to another blogger's post. But I just wanted to bitch slap some sense into the Smallholder (since the Maximum Leader seems to have so much restraint these days). His post reminds me of the old Maxim. No, not an old maxim, an old issue of Maxim which I am reminded of every time I make it over to his site. Now where was I? Oh, the notion that it was the courts that desegregated our nation. I can't blame the Smallholder for holding this clearly erroneous view of history. No, wait, sure I can. I blame the Smallholder for holding this clearly erroneous view of history. But I also blame our educational elite for promoting the myth of the court. more...

Posted by: Rusty at 03:15 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Ok, call it a political-scientist's wet dream, but I just calls it likes I sees it. The Electoral Vote will be a tie!! Something that has not happened since the election of 1800, and in that election the tie was a mistake that resulted from a Constitutional flaw. This could get interesting....am I the only one out there who now thinks this has gone from a possible scenario to a likely scenario?

UPDATE: In case of a tie, the decision goes to the House of Representatives. The interesting catch is that each state gets a single vote in choosing the President in this case. The Republicans have a 12 seat majority in the House, but that would not automatically translate into a victory for Bush. Why? Again, each state gets one vote. Here's a question for my readers, which I don't know the answer to: How many state delegations to the US House of Representatives have more Republicans than Democrats? The Constitution does not clarify how the state delegations would decide which person to vote for, but presumably each delegation would meet by themselves and vote amongst themselves.

The Senate would then get to choose the VP, and since the Republicans have an advantage, you have a Cheney victory.

Steve over at Poli-blog makes some good observations in his last Toast-o-Meter. Looking around at the predictions, I'd say I'm the only one that really thinks the 269-269 scenario is likely. This roundup of roundups has no one else predicting it this way.

Megapundit will be upudating their Unofficial Poll Results all day (via Discarded Lies)

Shout out to Bill for dropping the Sith Lord Cheney reference. Vote or Lord Vader will crush your windpipe!! And from Bill's post a link to one of Dean's which shows the Dark-Side must be powerful in the military.

Note to Dean: I get uncomfortable with all this talk of the 'back door' on the same day I do a Wonkette post. Anyway, even with so many military votes going Bush, I still think Florida goes Kerry and we end up with the 269-269 scenario.

Note from Demosophist: One of the W. Virginia electors has said that he won't vote for Bush under any conditions. He's a maverick. Have you figured that into your predicition?

No, hadn't thought of that. But I also hadn't factored in the fact that one of Maine's electors might go Bush (Maine splits their electors by House District). So, it's a wash!

Ok, Pixy Misa, the god of the munuvians, drops this in the comments: There are 30 Republican-majority state delegations in the House, 16 Democrat, and 4 deadlocked. So an Electoral College tie is a Republican win.

Ouch, are the early numbers really saying "Please Rusty, don't hurt em?" I mean, is this looking like vindication or what?

Linked with today's Jimmy beltway fest.

Posted by: Rusty at 02:54 PM | Comments (22) | Add Comment
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by Demosophist

Well, I've voted. It's now up to history. But the circumstances of my experience led me to pontificate a bit on the accusations of voter intimidation that have been eminating from the mainstream Democratic activists. (I posted a comment about this on my home blog, but decided to turn the comment into a longer post because the topic seems to have acquired gravitas that I would not have expected a week ago.)

I don't know where the idea came from that poll watching was invented by Republicans to intimidate Democrats, but the accusation manifests a lot more heat than light. I worked for a number of years as a Democratic Party campaign organizer, and it was always pretty standard practice to do a stint as a poll watcher on election day. As soon as you finished a few tedious hours at the polling place, you went to the "after" party and waited with your fellow activists for the returns to come in. The idea was simply to challenge voters whose bonafides looked suspicious (wrong address, name change, etc.) and the government poll worker would then check the name, or ask for further identification. Normally a check was done on the spot, but nowadays the person who is challenged just fills out a provisional ballot and, if necessary, the check is done later. A very good idea. more...

Posted by: Demosophist at 01:56 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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1 Yes, we're a nation of pussies--and I'm afraid the F.A.G.s are in charge.

Posted by: Rusty Shackleford at November 02, 2004 02:00 PM (JQjhA)

2 What do you all think of those voting booths that were supposedly "rigged" to have contained votes in them already? I hear the Bush campaign is gonna sue em!!!! Doesn't sound like Kerry's people are that confident, does it? ;-)

Posted by: Laura at November 02, 2004 02:27 PM (ptOpl)

3 If Kerry does win election through fraud, I don't expect the repubs to put up much of a fight. And if Kerry really lives in a world where he can thinks he can 'heal' the divide in this country, he is truly delusional. Go and read this posted over at http://beldar.blogs.com/beldarblog/2004/10/beldar_asks_his.html#c25068 "For John Kerry to fulfill your vision for his presidency — for him to run a "smarter, more effective" fight against the terrorists — he's not only going to have to fade the heat from the Howard Dean wing of the Democratic Party, he's going to have to line up and make effective use of Republican allies." You really need to go and read this whole thing. The man is in real deep doo doo if he wins. He's going to be like the dog who rabidly chases the car biting AT the tires, what's he gonna do when he finally catches that rotating monster? If it weren't for the fact that we're at war, it might be some fun to watch the headless chickens who'll be running the white house for the next four years.

Posted by: mshyde at November 02, 2004 03:38 PM (dVnlf)

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I asked every single full-time faculty member of my department who they voted for. Here are the shocking results.

Kerry=9

Bush=2

No vote or declined to state=2

Among the nine Kerry voters, seven say they would have preferred to vote for Ralph Nader. Of the two Bush supporters, one is an untenured political-scientist (wink-wink) and the other is a Full Professor of History with a specialty in military history. One Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice did not vote on prinicple, he is a Libertarian--although I openly speculated to him that he was a convicted felon. One Full Professor of History declined the invitation to state who he had voted for.

Posted by: Rusty at 12:29 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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by Demosophist

A great deal has been made of the Democrats' GOTV (get out the vote) program. I was a Democratic organizer and activist for years, and I'm pretty familiar with some of the rigmarole. My thesis is that Kerry's ambiguity is pretty much a wash with Democrats, so their motivation to vote for the candidate is no stronger than in any other year, and probably weaker. In fact, the more hawkish he's compelled to be, in order to match Bush, the less attractive he appears to the Deaniacs. Their motivation comes almost exclusively from their aversion to George Bush. more...

Posted by: Demosophist at 07:50 PM | Comments (17) | Add Comment
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Since most of my intro classes are taught on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, today afforded me the last opportunity to give some advice to students who are about to get their election cherries popped. Here's what I told them: DON'T VOTE.

PS-Amen.

Posted by: Rusty at 01:09 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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by Demosophist

According to MEMRI the Osam speech delivered on Saturday threatens each individual state in thet US that votes in favor of Bush. So, I guess that means that New York is OK but Virginia is "in trouble" unless we can float the excuse that his message was garbled by the press. Boy, if Hawaii goes for Bush they're sure gonna kick themselves, huh? From MEMRI: more...

Posted by: Demosophist at 10:50 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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by Demosophist

It's a pretty gloomy Monday. The Redskins lost yesterday, the polls are ambiguous at best, a speech by Osama against Bush gets spun so that it helps Kerry, and logical fallacies repeated with mind-numbing frequency at a setting of 11 on the volume knob seem to count for valid argument. Beldar holds the theory that we're "creating terrorists" in about as much esteem as the theory that leaving the meat at room temperature will spontaneously generate maggots: more...

Posted by: Demosophist at 07:53 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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