A nice round up of the Massachusettes election over at Hub Blog.

His quote from Howie Carr about classroom elections reminded me of my first political experience. As a kindergardener in Texas, I had no idea that my parent's Jewish, liberal, Democratic views weren't shared by everyone until we held a mock 1988 Presidential election and I think I was one of 3 student to vote for Dukakis. As forshadowing for my later attitude in poltical discussions, however, I was completely convinced that I was right and everyone else was wrong.

After an hour and a half reading election coverage, it was a nice break to read today's Lileks. It's a rather long one today, but totally worth it. I laughed out loud at least three separate times.

I just got back from my first ever time voting. It was quite exciting. Though I was surprised to see such old technology used. Still, it felt good to actually be able to do something to add to the political process besides rant in my own little world no matter how little it actually counts.

Quite a fun reminder of how amazing a world we live in.

This article is quite pessimistic about today's college students and their interest in international policy. Apparently because there aren't as many protests against the war as there were during Vietnam, students don't care what happens. Maybe they would have found something different if they'd gone beyond Lehigh University. My favorite part, though, is this quote:

''We keep our students desperate just trying to keep up with what they're asked to do,'' [Dave Amidon, director of Lehigh's Urban Studies program] said. ''My students are too wise to waste time on something they can't do much about. They don't squander their time.''

Amen. If they want us to be more activist, maybe they should stop giving us so much work to do!

A little while ago Stephen Green said he was going to do less linking and more long, opinion posts. I, for one, am enjoying it immensely. Go. Read. Enjoy.

A Political-Type Meme

Which Founding Father Are You?

A long and thoughtful post by Radley Balko regarding war with Iraq.

Jehuda Reinharz, president of Brandeis University, co-authored an anti-intimidation pledge signed by other university presidents and published in the New York Times. It was written mainly in response to events at Concordia University and SFSU where Jewish students were harrassed and attacked by pro-Palestinian protestors. The student newspaper here published an interview with him on the subject this week.

It's really disappointing that what started out as being a wonderful opportunity to educate the student body about events happening across the country (how many people here really know what happened at Concordia? 2 our of 6 people I ate dinner with last night I can tell you) ended up with Reinharz backtracking and becoming defensive. The subject of some anti-Arab flyers put up around campus was brought up and Reinharz advocates throwing these students off campus? Putting up fliers around campus, however biased the opinions on them are, is nothing like having mobs of students yell anti-Semetic comments and vandalize school property. It encourages discussion, it doesn't stifle it. If Reinharz could make his position consistent I'd be a lot prouder to have him as my unveristy president.

As a hard-core Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan I really wanted to check out Joss Whedon's new creation Firefly. I've only been able to see 2 episodes due to the extremely bad time slot the show has (Friday nights at 8 on Fox), but what is really interesting is the official website for the show. Normally network websites are quite low on content and you have to go to fan-run sites for all the fun, juicey details like spoilers and epiosde recaps. But Firefly has the most in-depth network website I've ever seen. There's the obligatory message boards, but also a spoiler sections with pages from next week's script, interviews with the cast and crew, and even a blog by a production assistant on the set. Dig around and you can even find coveted footage of everyone's hero Joss Whedon. It's almost more fun than the show itself!

They've caught the guy who made the Bali bomb. This one's hitting a little too close to home as well. My roommate's friend from home is studying abroad in Australia this semester and was supposed to go to Bali at some point. My roommate e-mailed her after we heard the news about the bombing and she hasn't heard back in 4 days.

UPDATE: My roommate got an e-mail from her friend in Australia and all is well. Thanks for all your concern.

They've called in the military to help find the D.C. sniper. I really hope they find him soon. Especially because my Aunt lives about 20 minutes away from where most of the shootings take place. And also because I'm supposed to be in D.C. in two weeks to perform with my dance group. Nine killed, 2 injured, it's been almost 2 weeks and they still haven't found him. What is taking so long?

Wow. My Con Law professor reads blogs. He sent us an e-mail this morning about a case the Supreme Court heard (Eldred - about copyrights) and said
"Blog coverage at:
http://www.corante.com/copyfight/
http://allafrica.com/staff/kwindla/eldred.txt
http://research.yale.edu/lawmeme/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=392
Media coverage at:
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,55684,00.html
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-961467.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/10/business/10BIZC.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3508-2002Oct9.html
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/local/4251014.htm"

Blog coverage! I wonder how many other people in the class undertand what that means. And the third post on the first link is to the Volokhs. Maybe I can go impress my professor with my close family connection there. :-)

For once Instapundit is behind the curve! I posted news of Seventeen Magazine's coolest college rankings weeks ago.

Instapundit points us poor college students to this item on why not to buy used textbooks. This is what I've been saying for years! It's also why I was upset at the begining of the year when there weren't any new books in the bookstore for one of my courses. If there's anything we've learned today it's this: Never trust idiot with highlighters.

He's back! Yes, Stephen Green is back from a week-long vacation with his usual wonderful content. Seems he spent the week playing computer games and enjoying newly-married life. My lull in blogging, however, hasn't been for quite so fun reasons. Let's hear it for midterms!

Professor quote: "It's good to have people who follow things through to their logical conclusions. It's good to have these kinds of extremists. Like libertarians."

What? Libertarians are extremists? Oh yes, I keep forgetting.

Supreme Court won't intervene in New Jersey case. My constitutional law professor brought this case up in class this morning by asking, "Is anyone here from New Jersey?" As if the only people who would have heard about or cared about this issue were from the state. Well, I know a few people from Washington DC, New York, and Tennessee who know a thing or two about it.

My sister has a very interesting post about college students' views on the war with Iraq. Now Brandeis, as opposed to Bryn Mawr, is quite a politically active campus. Just say you're having a protest and you'll get loads of people showing up, probably without even having to tell them what it's about (though the wonderfully vauge topics like 'peace' and 'tolerance' will bring out the most). But I think that the last paragraph of her post sums up the ideas that all of these activist students have. 'If we could only get everyone to sit down and talk about what's bothering them we could easily come up with a solution.' They cannot imagine a situation when this strategy would not work. They can't believe that everyone can't just get along. You cannot convince them otherwise. That is why they are dangerous.

Supreme Court won't intervene in New Jersey case. My consitutional law professor brought this case up in class this morning. He asked if anyone knew anything about it by asking "Is anyone here from New Jersey?" As if the only people who would have heard about this or cared about it were those from the state. Well, I know of some people from New York,