I was slightly bemused to read in one of my American government essays that one of the distinctions between federal systems and the unitary system used in the United Kingdom is that the U.K. parliament can alter or abolish the Irish legislature at will. (In fairness, I think they tried...

(Posted by Chris Lawrence @ 10:49 pm CDT)

I am all for students dropping by my office hours, scheduling appointments at other times, or asking questions via email or IM. However, if you ever pull a stunt like showing up in my office to conduct a three-hour debate over my grading policy you can rest assured that the...

(Posted by Chris Lawrence @ 10:05 pm CDT)

The good news: one of my student loans is paid off, and it's the one that had the highest interest rate (5%). The bad news: it wasn't a very big loan to begin with, and most of my student loan debt is still outstanding--granted, at about the same interest rate...

(Posted by Chris Lawrence @ 2:48 pm CDT)

In an apparent continuation of my recent movie-going kick, I went to see Smart People Thursday evening. Most of the reviews I've seen have rightly praised Dennis Quaid's performance as a stereotypical "bitter prof" who, for added measure, also bags a former student, just in case we hadn't wandered too...

(Posted by Chris Lawrence @ 3:36 am CDT)

I just added two new developers to the reportbug project on Alioth, Sandro Tosi and Y Giridhar Appaji Nag, who seem to be enthusiastic about working through the big backlog of bug reports and wishlist requests associated with the package. Since my Debian-related interests are largely elsewhere these days, mostly...

(Posted by Chris Lawrence @ 10:38 am CDT)

Sully on Obama's conversion to speaking truth to power douchebags: It's extremely depressing that the first major national black politician who takes on the victimology of Sharpton and Jackson is greeted by the right with the kind of cynicism you see at Malkin or the Corner or Reynolds. It reveals,...

(Posted by Chris Lawrence @ 5:26 pm CDT)

Current MS-1 resident Marvin King and I have been taking note of the surprisingly successful campaign of Prentiss county chancery court clerk Travis Childers, running as a Democrat, against Southaven mayor Greg Davis; the surprise is that this has been a reliably Republican district since 1994, and likely would have...

(Posted by Chris Lawrence @ 3:37 pm CDT)

As noted previously on these shores, Barack Obama has--contrary to his reputation as the "most liberal senator" ginned up by the National Journal--generally made proposals that make economic sense. His opposition to the hare-brained "gas tax holiday" scheme is another point in his--or at least his economic advisors'--favor. That said,...

(Posted by Chris Lawrence @ 1:18 pm CDT)

Kim Kardashian on doing a PSA about Burma (via Kerry Howley): It's an incredible story and I'm honored to have helped raise awareness about Burma's plight. Over all it was a really fun and eye-opening experience! As Joel McHale would say, she's famous for having a big ass and a...

(Posted by Chris Lawrence @ 12:59 pm CDT)

Ezra Klein reinvents government accounting today: McCain's tax cuts--which include the extension of the Bush tax cut and the repeal of the Alternative Minimum Tax, neither of which are included on CAP's cool McCain thermometer--dwarf the spending plans of the Democrats before you even look into his programs (or his...

(Posted by Chris Lawrence @ 11:03 am CDT)

Here's a hint: it involves speaking at a lectern in front of a portrait of Adolf Hitler and with a skinhead wearing a black shirt and red armband to your right (via Megan McArdle). Incidentally, the guy is trying the "I didn't know who these people were" defense on for...

(Posted by Chris Lawrence @ 6:08 pm CDT)

An email subject header this afternoon from my inbox: REMINDER: 2008 Ole Miss Football Renewal Deadline Alas, I'm not one of those rich alumni who can afford to jet in from Laredo to Oxford seven or eight times a year. Or even once for that matter.

(Posted by Chris Lawrence @ 3:49 pm CDT)

There's nothing like that late-April feeling of ennui to put a final punctuation mark on the semester. I'm not sure exactly why I'm making this post two weeks earlier than I did last year, but surely that's not a good sign.

(Posted by Chris Lawrence @ 1:20 pm CDT)

Apropos the discussion Tuesday, there are further thoughts on this topic from Ilya Somin (also here; I think the parallels between being a law professor and a professor in most non-professional fields are very weak, however) and Thoreau, while Dan Drezner, Ingrid Robeyns, and Laura McKenna consider whether there's such...

(Posted by Chris Lawrence @ 9:21 am CDT)

Marc Ambinder on the uncommitted Democratic superdelegates: So if Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC), who comes close to calling former President Clinton a racist, who believes that African Americans think that the Clintons "are committed to doing everything they possibly can to damage Obama to a point that he could never...

(Posted by Chris Lawrence @ 9:11 am CDT)

Arnold Kling and Megan McArdle have generated some discussion concerning, in Margaret Soltan's words, "why American university professors are bitterly jealous status-obsessives." I tend to think the following reasons identified by Megan are the most important: It's so hard to switch jobs. Job mobility is so low that you can't...

(Posted by Chris Lawrence @ 4:55 pm CDT)

I went to see Forgetting Sarah Marshall this afternoon; I think I found it funnier than the dozen-or-so people I shared the auditorium with, but it was somewhat hard to tell. Jason Segel doesn't range too far away from the ground tread by Marshall Erickson, his character on the sitcom...

(Posted by Chris Lawrence @ 12:28 am CDT)

If you can't drive anywhere in New Orleans for the next two days, blame the convergence of presidents Bush and Calder?n and Prime Minister Harper on New Orleans. Not that the traffic report websites have bothered warning people that you're not going anywhere fast near I-10 or the central business...

(Posted by Chris Lawrence @ 10:54 am CDT)

I lost my Bluetooth headset in my apartment last week and trying to find it is driving me crazy. I know exactly where I lost it and exactly when, and the odds of it being more than 10 feet from where I lost it are about zero, but still I...

(Posted by Chris Lawrence @ 11:09 am CDT)

I've noted in the past that Debian has deliberately enshrined in its constitution some rather serious principal-agent problems. By and large this isn't a bad thing, since there isn't the consensus within the Debian community to support the "benevolent dictator for life" model of decision-making--if you want that, well that's...

(Posted by Chris Lawrence @ 8:54 pm CDT)

Alex Tabarrok on the open letter being sent to ABC about the debate that no sane person lots of people watched earlier this week on their network: The only thing the signatories got wrong was where to send the letter. The letter should have been addressed to the American public....

(Posted by Chris Lawrence @ 1:38 pm CDT)

$20 says if Jefferson Parish compares the grade distribution now with the grade distribution two years after this change they'll find no significant difference. And since when is a 69 a failing grade? Are these idiots on crack? (And by "idiots" I mean the school board; I already can guess...

(Posted by Chris Lawrence @ 10:30 am CDT)

Robert Lawson writes in passing: Memphis's Interstate BBQ is the best airport joint in America btw. It's near gate B14--look for the long line of NWA pilots! The real reason to fly through Memphis is the Lenny's in the main part of the B concourse (near gate B3 I think)....

(Posted by Chris Lawrence @ 9:06 am CDT)

Taylor Owen of OxBlog, on an unfortunate recent reading choice: I just finished listening to an abridged version of Clinton's autobiography (I just couldn't commit to the full thing). There are two things that are glaringly clear. First, it's all the evil "far right's" fault. Everything. It is never Clinton's...

(Posted by Chris Lawrence @ 7:50 am CDT)

The Hornets are stuck in their lease another year, suckers! The Hornets on Tuesday night reached a goal that seemed impossible just three short months ago: pushing the team's average attendance past the magic 14,735 opt-out number in the franchise's lease agreement. It came after the Hornets registered their sixth...

(Posted by Chris Lawrence @ 12:02 am CDT)