Short Sports Rant: The NFL Overtime Rule

Is just fine. People whine that whoever wins the flip has a better chance of winning the game. Boo-frickin-hoo. It may be the case that one team never gets the ball in overtime. This happens almost a third of the time. Most of the time, both sides get the ball at least once in overtime, with the original winner of the flip winning the game 60% of the time. So, the team that starts first does have an advantage. To avoid this, try winning in regulation. No need for silly college football rules.

The only change I would possibly recommend is that the game cannot be won by a field goal. Make the first team to five points wins, so that the defending team can have some room for error and does not have to worry about the opponent just getting to the 30 yard line. If the one team gets two field goals before you get one touchdown, well, you deserve to lose.

Predispositions and Position-Taking

Again, back to the recurring theme of perceptions and reality. I had a fun conversation this afternoon with a reporter from the NY Times about the perceptions in Canada about how Canada's efforts in Afghanistan are perceived. It was funny that we got the real starting point of the recent upsurge in this debate at the end of the conversation--that the request by the new NATO Secretary General (Anders Rasmussen) for Canada to stick around in Afghanistan provoked a big backlash.

That is, Canadians seem to think that their contribution in Afghanistan, now at 130 soldiers lost, significantly more wounded and billions of Canadian dollars, is undervalued. But when someone outside of Canada says, we have really relied on you guys and want you folks to stick around, it seems outrageous?!! Yes, there is a huge burden-sharing problem in Afghanistan as my research agenda on caveats and other restrictions is exploring. But, to say that we gave at the office is kind of a strange response.

Canada is definitely punching above its weight class in Afghanistan, doing a lot of the heavy lifting and doing much of it better than other countries. Yes, this is unfair, but, this disproportionate burden is being recognized.

A personal irony in this is that the idea that the reliable get asked to do more is not just a NATO story, but an academic reality. The question one has to ask every step of the way as reliable collective action sucker (as opposed to a free rider) is: are the benefits-costs now for saying no less than or greater than the benefits-costs of saying yes? Is there a long-term benefit for being a good departmental citizen and helping the community? Are there tradeoffs or kickbacks that are rewarding?

Umm. Not right now.

For Canada, yes, there are, I think, as Canada is worried about Russia and that is a problem with NATO's name written all over it.

Curiosity as Sin or Virtue

Stanley Fish has an interesting post on curiosity in the NYT.

In short, curiosity — sometimes called research, sometimes called unfettered inquiry, sometimes called progress, sometimes called academic freedom — is their God. The question, posed by thinkers from Aquinas to Augustine to Newman to Griffiths, is whether this is the God — the God, ultimately, of self — we want to worship. Given the evidence, including Chairman Leach’s address, the answer would seem to be yes.

Interesting that in the entire post, Fish does not mention the opposite of curiosity might be ignorance or something like that (apathy?).

It is obvious where I stand on this as one of my key strengths/weaknesses is a deep curiosity about a great many things. That is why my choice of profession is ideal.

Canadian Pre-Campaign Ads

Since I am laptopping while watching the Patriots-Bills, I am once again frustrated by the limited variety of ads on the Canadian feed.

So, I have seen the same negative ad, where the Conservatives blast Ignatieff, focusing on a few key sins:

• possibility of "reckless" coalition (tying Iggy to last winter's possibility of a coalition with the NDP (left/greenish party) and Bloc Quebecois (separatist party);
• tying Iggy to his American past--playing upon anti-Americanism;
• blaming Iggy for another election (we have had a bunch the past few years here).

There has not been an election called yet, but all sides are preparing for it. The supposed virtue of parliamentary systems is that the election season is supposed to be short. Not anymore. Sigh.

Cheering for Canada

Pepsi has the strangest competition I have seen in some time. They are seeking submissions for a cheer for Canada for the next major hockey competition.

The ad starts with Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi. U-S-A, U-S-A!!

Canada has been around since 1867, more or less. It has been competing for years and years at international competitions, including many, many hockey tourneys. You would think that a cheer would have emerged by now. And Pepsi, an American multinational corporation is going to be the one to find it???

If I was not already confused by events closer to home, I would be now.

Costs of Afghanistan

This article does a great job of identifying the costs of the US effort in Afghanistan. This does not count the Canadian dollars, the British pounds, the Euros, but is still instructive.

I do hate the "well, we could have spent it on x in the US." This is true of lots of stuff, including the Bush tax cuts and deals made with the drug companies. I think we can figure out that the magnitudes here are quite significant.

Of course, the real question is costs down the road--as the costs already paid are just that. Can't change them now without a time machine.

Return of Osama

Bin Laden has a new tape out, and Marc Lynch provides an excellent analysis. Well, it looks good, but I have no clue since I do not understand Arabic and this message apparently has no subtitles, something that Marc notes.

I am sure Marc has made more sense of it than the coverage in the usual media outlets.

Phenomenal!

I always use the same word to describe McGill's undergrads: phenomenal. And they proved it again just a few minutes ago. I was teaching Classical Realism to my class of 600 students, mostly new to McGill and new to political science. And towards the end, a bunch of them started asking really smart questions that showed that they had done the reading, had thought about it, and had developed some good critiques and questions about the stuff thus far.

I may have to revise my lectures since they seem to be way ahead of me.

A good problem to have, I think.

Considering Co-Authorship

When I was just a young, callow, immature lad at Texas Tech, we were considering hiring someone who had an extensive publishing record but almost entirely of co-authored work. I raised questions about this individual, but lost the battle (as usual). And that was a good thing because this person turned out to be a phenomenal colleague--was perfect for the department's needs. And, of course, TTU failed to keep him.

His co-authorship was a concern because it was mostly with more senior people (including his advisors), and I was worried that this potential hire might not be making a significant contribution and that his productivity might decline if he lost his relationship with those co-authors.

When considering hiring, tenure, and promotion, the considerations should be centered on whether the candidate has/is likely to make a significant (original/insightful) contribution to the body of knowledge in his or her chosen area of study.

Co-authorship comes into the equation when considering how much of a contribution an individual makes. If all of the publications are with senior scholars (especially the same one or two), then one could be suspicious that the candidate might not be adding that much. On the other hand, if all or most of the pubs are with junior scholars, then one can be a bit more certain that the candidate is bringing something to the table.

What is the best way to figure this out? Besides considering how the candidate has actually indicated how much of each pub is their own work (percentages are often included in the candidate's application--this book is x% mine, y% my co-authors), one could actually read the person's body of work to detect the ideas and methods that are consistent even as the co-authors vary (that is, those making the decision might actually practice some social science of their own and engage in comparative analysis). Or one could depend on outside reviewers who read the body of work and evaluate. One could also consider where the person's pubs are--in top ranked and highly selective presses and journals?

Of course, this issue is most important for hiring, a bit less for tenure and not so much at all for beyond that, as the question really revolves around whether the candidate is going to be a productive scholar. This is a big concern early when the record is pretty thin and at tenure since you are making a decision about someone's trajectory. Beyond that, the record is pretty clear about what someone is going to do because they have already established a post-tenure pattern that is likely to endure. Indeed, at that point, there are other measures of whether a person has made a contribution and has an international reputation--citations, membership on editorial boards, reviews of the existing work, etc.

With the possible danger that folks with limited vision might misunderestimate one's co-publications, why co-author?

• To bring different skill sets together. For instance, I have co-authored with other people so that I can add cases to my study without becoming an expert myself in Eritrean politics.
• To bring together different research resources. For instance, I am working with a pal from grad school who works at the National Defense University, and thus has connections to the US military. He is working with me, in part, because of my connections to the Canadian Forces.
• To tackle very difficult projects, more minds at work might be of assistance. I am currently applying for a grant to do a very difficult project on diasporas, collecting much data and trying to figure out some pretty complicated questions.
• To bring contrasting perspectives together so that the final product is the result of some intellectual wrestling.
• To ease one's workload. I could have written my second book by myself, but it got done faster and the work itself was better through the efforts of Bill Ayres the non-terrorist. Bill's work allowed me to work on other projects as well as lead the department in phd supervision.

Co-authorship does vary by field (hard science often has articles with dozens of co-authors), but has become increasingly common in Political Science. Again, the question is less of statistics, and more of considering the question when engaged in hiring, tenuring or promoting: is this person making a significant contribution? If the answer is yes, then hire, tenure, promote. If the answer is no, well then, don't.

Why I Root for Tiger Woods and Against the Yankees?

I root for Tiger Woods--the most dominant player in a sport that I don't play and didn't really watch before his arrival. I root against the Yankees, in part because I am a Mets fan, and in part because I don't want to just be a bandwagon-jumping front-runner. But isn't that what I am doing as I cheer on Tiger?

I don't think so. I follow Tiger because he is a phenom. He does things on the course that no one has done. He is always capable of a moment that is simply stunning. I have started watching NBA playoffs to watch Lebron James do the same thing. I regret not watching Michael Jordon much during his peak. I do remember watching Dr. J swoop around the Lakers and the basket in one of the most amazing feats of all time.

On the other hand, I have been rooting for the New England Patriots for the past seven years or so, which is a classic case of front-running. Is it because they are a once in a lifetime collection of athletes? Well, two years ago, they were on offense. But no, the reason why is the same as one of the reasons why I want Obama to succeed--I enjoy watching intelligent, strategic folks operating at a high level. What makes the Patriots so very good is their ability to adapt and adjust to the strengths, weaknesses and tendencies of their opponents. Of course, they cheated and I find that problematic.

But I justify it in my own mind through a variety of tricks of cognitive consistency (an old running theme at this blog).

Mything Afghanistan

Colin Kenny, the leading Canadian senator on Defense matters, called for a retreat from Afghanistan in today's paper. Obviously, there can be merit in such an argument. Last month, I blogged about why NATO should stick around and I wrote an op-ed in the Globe and Mail that received heaps of attention (critical, that is) for arguing that the mission in Afghanistan actually matched Canadian values and interests.

What drives me crazy about Kenny's argument is not the conclusion but how he got there--by repeating the same myths that everyone else does. So, let me focus some attention on these (I already blogged about the myth about how long we have been doing COIN):

• No one has ever won in Afghanistan. The British were initially defeated, yes. The Soviet Union was defeated. But the British came back and did serve as the colonial power for quite some time. And then there was a government in Afghanistan for decades. This is very similar to the ancient hatreds argument to justify non-intervention in the Balkans. Violence always varies, and there are always periods of peace. We would be better off understanding this and trying to figure out what conditions were associated with the peaceful periods than ignoring those eras entirely.
• Afghanistan is the "Graveyard of Empires." That is, not only do great powers lose in Afghanistan, but it hurts them so badly that the empire falls apart. Well, it is pretty hard to trace the end of the British Empire in the early 1900s to a lost battle in the first half of the 1800s. Indeed, after the British were defeated in 1842, the empire expanded significantly in between India and England--the Middle East and Africa. While the Soviet Union was damaged by the war in Afghanistan, it is fallacious to think that the war caused the USSR to disintegrate (but join Bin Laden in that club). The Soviet Union faced a variety of stresses and strains due to its economy (which began to fail in the 1970s), the costs of subsidizing similarly failing economies in Eastern Europe, a bankrupt ideology, and a geriatric political strata.
• Perhaps most importantly, that war is a process by which victories steadily accumulate. The advanced democracies are incredibly impatient, expecting victory within hours (like the Kosovo bombing campaign), when even conventional wars last years and when victories are followed by defeats which are followed by victories. Lincoln had to wait for Gettysburg to emancipate the slaves since he wanted to do it after a victory. The Allies lost their first real battle with the Germans in North Africa at Kasserine in 1942. The Italian campaign was really a series of defeats for the Allies throughout 1943 and 1944. If the invasion of Normandy happened today, I wonder what the media and the politicians would make of being stuck for more than a month on the beachhead.
• One last myth or, more accurately, false logic: the price paid thus far in lives and money should neither be a justification for continuing (sunk costs) or a reason to depart, as they costs have already been paid. To make decisions about tomorrow, we should use the best information we have about the costs and benefits going forward.
  

My previous posts revealed my doubts about the mission, but progress in a counter-insurgency campaign is not going to be steady. The opponents do get a vote in how things progress, and violence was expected to increase as the US increased its troops on the ground.

Progress on the governance side of the effort is the key, and we are right to be disappointed by recent events. We can be skeptical about the effort, but let's do so in an informed way, rather than just repeating the false myths.

I Think Love Thy Neighbor Does Not Mean Loving the Lobbyists

What is it about family values Republicans? Hat tip to Steve Greene and his blog for the following clip.



The clip is as amusing for the local TV coverage (he won't respond to me, waaah) as it is for the idiocy of this horny, lobbyist-shagging politico. Incroyable!

Author Recommendation: Chris Moore--More Foolish than Full?

I just started reading Christopher Moore's Fool, which takes King Lear from the perspective of the Fool. Moore has a knack for writing incredibly humorous novels that are "sick in the best sense of the word" as Carl Hiaassen has noted. My current favorite is Lamb, The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal. But Fool may surpass that one, as Fool is wonderfully profane. Sure, no Zombies or Vampires here (at least, not yet), but Ghosts aplenty--that interact with the Fool rather than just utter their rhymes and take off.

And the timing is great (we had the book tied to another order at Amazon--the first year of Wiseguys DVD for about $10!!!) since I could use the humor as I suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Yes, I am mixing my Shakespeare, but I do not have any handy Lear quotes to use .... yet.

Frustrating Safety Valves in Canadian Politics

Jacob Levy, my erudite and articulate colleague, has a blog post about a piece in the Globe and Mail (not mine) on the Bloc Quebecois, which is the national-level (meaning it sits in the Parliament in Ottawa and not at the Provincial level in Quebec City) separatist party (yes, they call it sovereigntist--I thought I had blogged about it but have not--so coming soon). The basic idea is that the BQ may make a real separatist campaign harder by providing Quebecers with enough influence and ego-stroking to provide a release for separatist passions.

This does not surprise Jacob since he has written about this in the past, nor does it surprise me since I have written about how governments play a dual role in any civil conflict--as a deterrent against violence but also assuring folks that they can block abuses of the state. With the BQ as a major actor in the system (and because parties need enough support in Quebec to win a majority at the national level), folks can feel assured that the government will not abuse them and may actually favor them.

From the op-ed piece, a very apt conclusion:

Heaven never came. The Bloquistes scored at the polls and won concessions in Ottawa, but in so doing moved further from realizing their cardinal ambition. As such, we should salute them as builders of Canadian unity and wish them continued success. They are one of the great backfiring stories of our time.

Financing Civil War

Over the past ten years or so, much of the focus of the study of civil war has been on financing. The starting point was essentially that the present of easily lootable resources such as diamonds or drugs facilitating the development of insurgencies and helped to prolong civil wars. In part, the idea was that other forms of money were taking the place of the superpowers in the aftermath of the Cold War. In part, the World Bank (Paul Collier et al), amongst others, noticed that poverty and civil war go together.

Quickly, the debate matured from whether grievances, such as discrimination, or greed (resources) drive civil war to the different impacts of various financing mechanisms. Jeremy Weinstein wrote a great book a couple of years ago about how the abundance or absence of resources shapes the destiny of the insurgency by shaping its organizational structure.

There is much work to do in this area, and I was struck that financing of an insurgency is less problematic than the first works in this area suggested. All you need is some smart people to figure out a comparative advantage, whether that is conflict diamonds (Congo and other African locales), location (the Balkans), poppies (the Taliban), the ability to hold oil pipelines hostage (Columbia, Nigeria), taxation/protection rackets (more than a few), a good pr story/spokesman (one of the implications of Clifford Bob's book, Marketing Rebellion), etc.

And today, I learned of a new mechanism, although it was used by the government's side, which usually not seen as the side needing extra money: the selling of kids.

Guatemala has the world's highest per capita rate of adoption and is one of the leading providers of adoptive children for the United States. Nearly one in 100 babies born in Guatemala end up with adoptive parents in the United States, according to the U.S. consulate in Guatemala.

Adoptions can cost up to $30,000, providing a large financial incentive in a country where the World Bank says about 75 percent of the people live below the poverty level. Officials fear that often times mothers are paid -- or coerced -- into giving up their children.

This should not be surprising, but it is. Killing parents so that one can sell of the children is about as awful as it gets. It confirms what I had always believed--an imagination/entrepreneurial spirit is a key ingredient for prolonged civil war. So, the finding that wealth (Gross Domestic Product per capita) is highly but inversely correlated with civil war may mean that the folks who could be crafting ingenious ways to fund insurgencies choose not to do in rich societies because they have less risky, more profitable ways to earn a living.

Why No Big Attacks Since 9/11

For an interesting range of theories, see here.

On the extreme range of the "not much of a worry" to "yikes", one end is:

Dumb Terrorist Theory:

Nearly eight years after the attacks, it remains physically sickening to review these for-want-of-a-nail details about what the U.S. government knew prior to 9/11. The various intelligence agencies' failures to pool their knowledge about the plot should surprise no one familiar with Washington's bureaucratic culture. But it's equally true that to count on so extreme a degree of government dysfunction, as al-Qaida effectively did, was foolhardy in the extreme. The terrorists took an unacceptably high risk that they'd get caught, and, just barely, they beat the odds. That they succeeded does not prove they were smart to try.
Nor is it clear that they were smart to succeed.

Another theory is the Melting Pot:

Whatever the reason, American Muslims appear far less inclined to support the global jihad than their European counterparts. In the United Kingdom, 81 percent of Muslims consider themselves Muslims first, British second. In the United States, only 47 percent consider themselves Muslim first. After 9/11, 58 percent of American Muslims said they approved of President Bush's response to the attacks. In a 2007 Pew survey, 51 percent said they were very concerned about the rise of Islamist extremism, a proportion the report termed "much greater than the concern expressed by Muslims in most of Western Europe, the Middle East, and elsewhere."

Burden of Success Theory

According to this theory, the 9/11 attacks were so stunning a success that they left al-Qaida's leadership struggling to conceive and carry out an even more fearsome and destructive plan against the United States. In his 2006 book The One Percent Doctrine, journalist Ron Suskind attributes to the U.S. intelligence community the suspicion that "Al Qaeda wouldn't want to act unless it could top the World Trade Center and the Pentagon with something even more devastating, creating an upward arc of rising and terrible expectation as to what, then, would follow."

I always got the sense that AQ did not do minor stuff in the US because it is entirely about mass carnage. Even if they cannot exceed 9/11, the challenge of doing something very big might be prohibitive, whereas something much smaller would be possible but not suitable.


More interesting stuff in the piece. Read it.

How the NHL May Be Like A Committee of Full Professors

Just read this. The National Hockey League does not want to get Jim Basillie of Blackberry to by the Phoenix Coyote team, currently in bankruptcy court, because he wants to move the team from Arizona to Hamilton, Ontario--that is, from where no one plays hockey or watches it to where the people are positively rabid. And the NHL is opposed.

Restraint for a Change

No blogging today, or, at least, not until I get home. Too frustrated about circumstances but feel it is wrong to really unload on 9/11. Also awaiting more information about my status so that I can then rant about injustice, pride and stupidity.

Coming soon.

9/11 Eight Years Later

I probably should not mark the anniversary of 9/11, but it is hard to resist. Especially since my students overwhelmingly consider that event to be their first significant memory of an international event.

I was in the Pentagon at the time the planes hit in NYC, but on a bridge between the Pentagon and the State Department when the plane hit in DC. I told my tale a few years ago on radio. I think I would have as strong a reaction to conspiracy theories about 9/11 even I was not in DC that day. I don't have much tolerance for them or for stupidity in general. Unless you believe that Osama Bin Laden is not real and Al Qaeda does not exist, then you need to consider the real conspiracy--a bunch of folks boarded planes, held hostages and drove those planes into buildings--and those folks were from the Middle East, not the Bush Administration, CIA or Mossad. Give credit where credit is due--and doing otherwise is racist--that Arabs and Muslims are incapable of planning and implementing such a set of actions.

Thinking about that day and the waste of human lives then and the political capital since puts my own concerns and annoyances into perspective. It really does not matter what status one has, or how the combination of vanity and cowardice can lead to unjust outcomes over relatively small stakes.

Anyhow, perhaps the best way to capture the feelings of the time is to see Dave Letterman and his finest hour.

I am sooooooo sorry

Check out here for a good (humorous) take on Joe Wilson's apology.