I’ve been posting too much from Krugman and IP lately. So, today, something slightly different. It’s still from the NY Times, but I’m doing the best I can while still accomplishing real work. There are two nice guest columns in this mornings NY Times.

The first, from Philip Bobbitt, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin, is about our system of terror alerts. Bobbitt proposes doing away with the color coded alert system, and replacing it by making careful distinctions between informing, alerting, and warning.

The second, from Robert Bennett, a professor at the Northwestern University School of Law, is about reforming the electoral college. Bennett’s concern is not typical: He fears that the electoral college, with an even number of votes, will tie and that the resulting selection of a president by the House of Representatives will be disasterous. (His concern is not the 2004 election, but the abstract problem.) He says that the easiest way to fix this is to add one seat to the House of Representatives. Granted, this concern is very, very low on my priority list (and that of most folks, I think). It’s an interesting thought exercise, though.