In which two time-honored nemeses meet, face to face (math vs. political science - Tonight! One Time Only!)

Today I'm giving a presentation in Law and Regulation. The article I am presenting is called "Political Control Versus Expertise: Congressional Choices About Administrative Procedures." The primary point is this: "the degree of agency independence on any particular policy reflects the legislature's willingness to trade uncertainty about policy consequences for uncertainty about agency behavior." So, a legislative coalition has a policy to formulate and it can choose to either form the policy by itself or to delegate the policy to an agency in a bureaucracy. If it delegates, it then has to decide how much power it will give up. If the policy is quite technical, it will probably give up a lot of power so that the agency is free to flex its technical know-how. If the technical aspect of the policy is not that difficult or important, the legislators will have no need to give up much power. That's the gist anyway. The author used formal modelling to make her point. Formal modelling is where you take inherently unmathematical properties and turn them into mathematical proofs, such that you end up in a political science course trying to figure out what the utility of a(x)=-(z-c*)(squared) means. I still have no idea.

Anyhow, to make up for torturing you with that, I'm going to now torture you with this. It's long, I admit, but if you look at it in a few sittings, you'll be glad you did. It's really fascinating. And, of course, I'd like to read the guy's book.

Aside from legislative decision-making, this week has been all about food. Food security, the history of food, what makes good food, and, finally, my having given up dairy. Nobody knows how long this could last (especially not me) but I'm a few days in, and it's been alright. Positives: it forces me to eat way more vegetables, I'm ingesting far less cholesterol, I'm getting creative with cooking, I can't buy much crap anymore (no more candy bars or pizzas from school for me!) and my fiber intake is practically off the charts (which makes me fun at parties). Negatives: no more buying fun stuff at school (like candy bars or pizza) it takes a lot more effort, no more ice cream, and people think I'm insane. Giving up meat was very easy. Taking milk, cheese, and eggs out of the picture changes things considerably. But I really do like the challenge. It was what made being a vegetarian fun. I had to start being way more creative with my cooking. Now I just need to step that up a bit. Less cheese, more brown rice. I've been enjoying avocadoes a lot lately. Have you had one recently?