As some may already know, I was one of three participants in a panel entitled “Can academics be bloggers? Can bloggers be academics?” at the Public Choice Society conference in New Orleans, organized by Mike Munger and co-starring Mike and Dan Drezner. I think we had a really good and interesting discussion with the audience, although I’m uncertain how much my participation really enhanced things.

I also had the serendipitous opportunity to catch up with the lovely Leslie Johns from NYU, a friend and fellow TA from ICPSR this past summer; Dan, Leslie, and I ended up having a nice dinner at Arnaud’s (which Dan kindly paid for), followed by some sort of alcoholic slurpee concoction from a Bourbon Street vendor and beignets at Café du Monde.

After a pretty up-and-down week, it was nice to have a low-stress conference and a day with some good company.

A few odds and ends:

• Had a nice time Friday night hanging out with my friend Kamilla and some of her fellow Baha’i at their mid-fast feast. Plus I got to show my massive dominance at Scrabble at the Video Café afterwards, although I don’t think anyone was really impressed.
• My friend Kelly (who also hung out with the Baha’i) is exhibiting some recent work as part of a show at Lemuria starting on Tuesday. Buy some of her stuff; it’s helping a good cause.
• I’ve got three tests to write and an honors committee progress meeting between now and Wednesday afternoon. Don’t expect lots of blogging in the meantime.
• There might be some really great job news I can share in a few days. Or there might not be, I’m not entirely sure yet. You’ll know it when you see it.

Every time I log on to MyAPSA, I have to scroll past this stupid message:

Thank you for submitting your proposal to the 2005 Annual Meeting program. We received a large number of excellent proposals—too many, unfortunately, to be able to incorporate all of them into the program. Your proposal has not been accepted to the program.

We appreciate your interest in the upcoming APSA Annual Meeting and hope that you have the opportunity to attend.

Now, if I were just someone who had submitted a proposal and been rejected, I’d be annoyed by the reminder every time I log in that I got dinged—on the first login, I could see it being valuable, but by the 30th or so I think I’d be pissed off. But I didn’t even submit a proposal, so it’s just insulting me for no good reason. Jackasses.

Just another reminder that, as Mr. Pravda says, “it’s always a good idea to underreport your professional income when paying dues to the APSA.”

Edgar Ray Killen, accused of involvement in the 1964 “Philadelphia Three” murders, had both of his femurs broken when a tree fell on him yesterday. He’s apparently been in surgery all day at UMC. According to the AP:

The accident happened when one tree Killen had cut fell onto another one, [Killen’s attorney, Mitch] Moran said. As Killen cut the supporting tree, the top tree fell onto his head and drove him into the ground, causing the leg injuries. People nearby called for help, Moran said.

“It kind of drove him in the ground like a pile driver,” Moran said.

I believe this is pretty much what the Old Testament was talking about when people were “smited.”

Tonight’s episode of Battlestar Galactica is the thoroughly awesome “Hand of God,” which is probably the best single episode of the first season (“Kobol’s Last Gleaming,” the season-ending two-parter, is equally as good, but spread out over two episodes). And don’t miss the podcast commentary by Ron Moore while you’re at it. (þ: UBSGB).

Also tonight: Stargate SG-1’s “Threads,” a 90-minute episode which promises to wrap up quite a few plotlines in time for the season finale.

An amusing story from the AP today: a town alderwoman in Ecru (a small town in north Mississippi near Oxford) was accused of attempting to bribe voters with baked goods. I’m familiar with the concept of women getting to your heart via your stomach, but this is the first time I’ve heard of one getting you to dimple your chads.

Do any of my readers need a guy pushing 30 with a Ph.D. in political science for anything? Statistical analysis of data, teaching undergraduate students, lawn mowing, assistant fry cook, you name it. He’s available end of July; maybe sooner.

Just curious.

Mike Munger took the purity test that I took exactly a year ago and got a 54 out of 160 (my score was a 50 at the time, and has subsequently declined to 41). He makes a pretty good point too:

I agree that government is evil, but like most social scientists (even economists) I think it is a necessary evil.

Indeed, I don’t even think most classical liberals argued there should be no government. And, for what it’s worth, I don’t even think institutions are inherently evil, although I’ll grant that governments that only do non-evil things are rare and even governments we retrospectively idealize for some things (for example, libertarians who look fondly on the substantive due process era) had major faults in other areas (because substantive due process was generally only applied to economic rights; if you were a black in the South, substantive due process did bupkiss for you). The Great Libertarian Paradise, like the Great Socialist Workers’ Paradise, has never come to fruition and probably never will.

Apropos of this point, the folks over at Questions and Observations are setting up a Neolibertarian Network of likeminded weblogs; go take a peek if you’re interested.

About 18 months ago, I wrote:

If the Rebel coaches want students to be interested in coming to practice and supporting the team, they should have a regularly-scheduled, free “open practice” session at the stadium, open up the concessions, and maybe even let manageable groups come down to the sidelines or end zone so they can take a look at that fancy new artificial turf we have. They could learn something here from the basketball program, which goes to much greater lengths to drum up fan support.

Let’s read today’s Clarion-Ledger:

Ole Miss fans curious about what changes new football coach Ed Orgeron has in store for the program experienced a significant one Monday when they showed up to get a peek at practice.

They were actually welcomed to stick around.

Orgeron told a room full of fans when he was hired on Dec. 16 that Ole Miss football was going to be a family affair with him at the helm. Helen Carraway said Orgeron took a huge step toward fulfilling that promise.

Carraway was one of an estimated 250 fans who lined up around the track inside Ole Miss’ indoor practice facility to watch the Rebels kick off spring practice.

Now if we could just understand a word Coach O said, we’d be set.

Mike Hollihan recommends Quick Note for Firefox, a “post-it note” tool that works from the right-click menu and includes the URL of the page you’re visiting, and it does look very nifty… particularly when trying to compose a post that references more than web page.

Meanwhile, those of you who can’t remember whether or not Godfather actor Abe Vigoda is still alive may find this extension helpful (þ: Ryan at the DPS). Quick Note seems more useful, though.

The lead editorial in today’s Clarion-Ledger calls on Mississippi to adopt a non-partisan redistricting panel to set congressional and state legislative districts, noting the mess resulting from the last redistricting round in 2001. As noted before, a initiative to place a constitutional amendment on the ballot would be a long-shot, but perhaps the prospect of another fight over congressional districts will get the legislature to consider adopting a non-partisan districting proposal.

The Clarion-Ledger also carries an article today looking at the wrangling over judicial redistricting and the defeat of Ed Blackmon’s “single-shot” districting bill.

Stephen Bainbridge has dug up a law review article that includes evidence that Robert Byrd, in fact, endorsed the Senate’s ability to amend the Senate rules to limit the filibuster by a simple majority vote in 1979; it’s not exactly the equivalent of the “nuclear option,” which would be a (possibly suspect) ruling from the chair, but it’s pretty damning evidence nonetheless (þ: Steven Taylor; more here).

Meanwhile, everyone’s favorite syphilocon/national securty threat Robert Novak is reduced to complaining about the order in which Arlen Specter plans to send judicial nominees to the Senate floor, which is doubly amusing since at the end of the article he concedes it won’t matter anyway (þ: memeorandum).

Sunday’s New York Times has an unsigned editorial noting the opportunity to fix America’s cotton farming subsidies as the result of an adverse World Trade Organization ruling on Thursday. As in the case of the Canadian beef case, President Bush appears to be on the right side of the issue, marking a welcome change of pace from his election-driven protectionist behavior on steel imports.

There are few things more distracting than, while killing yourself on an exercise bike, hearing the 20-ish young woman behind you on a treadmill either (a) grunting like tennis player Monica Seles or (b) having a really loud orgasm. Since I have no delusions about my physical attractiveness, I am forced to assume that (a) is the correct explanation.

For those of you who like to keep up with the discussions on our posts, a few minutes of hacking led to an experimental Atom feed of comments. It’s not playing nicely with If-Modified-Since yet, so be gentle.

I cobbled together an op-ed on judicial nominations and the filibuster for the Clarion-Ledger. Let’s see if it makes print; maybe they’re looking for a Mary Matalin (or at least a George Stephanapolous) to Bob McElvaine’s James Carville.

Steven Taylor points out that in addition to eliding his own role in the anti-Civil Rights Act filibusters of the 1960s, perennial Signifying Nothing foil Robert Byrd seems to be forgetting that he was Senate Majority Whip (the second most senior leadership position in the Senate, behind only the Majority Leader—the Vice President and president pro tempore are essentially powerless) when the cloture rule on ending filibusters went from two-thirds to three-fifths back in 1975.

Update: Hugh Hewitt, writing for the Weekly Standard, finds Byrd singing a different tune about rules changes in 1979 too (þ: Prof. Bainbridge).

Jeff Harrell is proposing a T-shirt design to help you join the new McCarthyism.

Incidentally, I initially considered this week’s episode (“Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down”) the weakest outing of the first season, but on second viewing it’s grown on me a bit. And those of you who just tune in to sci-fi shows for cool explosions won’t want to miss next week’s episode, “Hand of God,” also featuring the coolest bit of misdirection I’ve seen in a long time.

Another thing: don’t miss the Unofficial Battlestar Galactica Blog.

A couple of interesting things I noticed today are being discussed at Begging to Differ:

• Today’s New York Times carried a story on unisex bathrooms; I tend to think the solution to this issue (discussed today by Will Baude and Hei Lun, among others) is the spread of unisex, handicapped-accessible/baby changing restrooms, which would seem to be the solution for the gender-confused or gender-transitioning, rather than “desegregation” of bathrooms in general. Incidentally, every story I’ve heard about womens’ restrooms has echoed Amber Taylor’s indication that they tend to be worse than mens’ rooms (initially, I was surprised too); I should ask the custodial staff for an objective evaluation.
• I learned a new word today: heteronormative, which apparently doesn’t mean that you think diversity is a good thing (i.e. what the word would mean if it were constructed from the actual meaning of the stem “hetero”; more properly, the word should be “heterosexualnormative”). Greg has more if you care. Given my epistemological leanings and the likely composition of the audience, I suspect Ms. Pinkett Smith’s comments were probably more heteropositive or heteroempirical. Or something.

When it rains, it pours. Thanks to Steven Taylor of PoliBlog for naming Signifying Nothing as one of his three favorite blogs in his interview with Norm Geras.

In honor of Martha Stewart’s release from the big house, Jeff Goldstein has helpfully compiled all of his screencaps of Ms. Stewart’s prison diary (probably NSFW, but it’s Friday night so who cares?).

I haven’t had anything to say about the CNet interview with FEC commissioner Brad Smith, so I’m a bit late to the party, but apparently the controversy has a former McCain aide and FEC commissioner trying to respin the story. (þ: InstaPundit).

I somehow managed to end up with a bastardized Debian unstable/Ubuntu hybrid on my laptop that seems to be working fairly nicely; oddly enough, my original intent was to get Evolution Exchange working again with the Millsaps mail system, but that doesn’t seem to have happened. Except for some minor annoyances, mostly having to do with Ubuntu’s decision to make Python 2.4 its “default” Python, I think it’s pretty nice… particularly the ability to run the GNOME 2.10 prerelease and the X.org X server and xcompmgr for nifty drop-shadows on my windows (the fade effect was too annoyingly slow on my laptop, so I ditched it).

So, basically, Ubuntu is Debian without the FUBAR release process and without me as a maintainer, which I see as two mostly-positive changes.

Continuing my roundabout theme, today’s Clarion-Ledger reports on construction of a roundabout on the Ole Miss campus in Oxford as part of the North-South Parkway (a.k.a. Gertrude Ford Boulevard) project.

Sebastian Holdsclaw has extracted a rather interesting comment from a long thread at Left2Right about judicial interpretation of the Constitution. However, I don’t know if it will get me to abandon my long-held opinion (only reinforced by attempting to teach two entire constitutional law textbooks) that every judicial mode of reasoning is just an excuse for attitudinalism run rampant.