Well, I’m now 26 days into the diet program, and I have to say it’s not getting easier. In fact, life events—a relationship setback of sorts (coupled nicely with the approach of my absolute least favorite day of the year, Feburary 14th), a week of icky weather, general school stress (exam writing, prep time, the typical bizarre student issues, trying in vain not to bore my students to death), and the parade through campus of people angling for “my” job that begins in two days—have conspired to make things thoroughly unpleasant. It doesn’t exactly help that my general strategy for dealing with stress is to eat large amounts of food, something that I can’t do on my diet.

On the “up” side, I’m sleeping a bit better, probably because I’ve sharply curtailed my caffeine intake. And I’m sticking to the diet, even though the only real effect I’ve noticed so far is that my watch is even looser than usual, to the point it’s too annoying to wear much of the time.

Glenn Reynolds notes a decline in class attendance at UT-Knoxville:

My classes are notably empty, and many of the students who are there are hacking, coughing and looking miserable.

I’ve noticed the same thing. Glenn blames the flu. I blame New Orleans.

Incidentally, the only tourist experience that I think possibly could be worse than Bourbon Street (in general) is Bourbon Street at Mardi Gras. But, if someone figures out a way to have Mardi Gras without the accompanying crowd of drunk teenagers I’m there.

More evidence that Mississippi has too many lawmakers and, apparently, too long a legislative session:

A practice of some teenage girls — getting birth control from neighborhood health clinics without their parents’ consent — would end under a bill pending in the Mississippi Senate.

Public Health and Welfare Chairman Alan Nunnelee, R-Tupelo, said he’s filed the bill for about eight years without the legislation ever getting out of committee. Nunnelee’s chairmanship guarantees that the bill will at least get a Senate vote this year.

A particular highlight of the piece is Nunnelee’s apparent belief that sexually active teenagers are “little girls.” And, since the AP can’t be bothered to include the bill number in the article (a pet peeve of mine), here’s a link to all the information.

Dan Drezner has the scoop on the hubaloo surrounding GoDaddy.com’s Super Bowl ad, which featured a pneumatic model in a tight top testifying before a bogus government committee. I thought it was a pretty funny ad and a spot-on parody of self-important lawmakers—which, no doubt, will be a major reason why you’ll hear whining from the usual suspects on Capitol Hill about the ad.

The rest of the ads were pretty so-so (though I liked the skydiving ad and the FedEx-Kinko’s ad with Burt Reynolds), I could take or leave Paul McCartney, and the game was entertaining but sloppy. Now the long off-season begins, just in time for me to start pretending to enjoy televised college basketball.

Former Star Trek producer Ron Moore has posted his thoughts on where Trek goes next in the post-Enterprise era to his SciFi.com blog.

Alex Tabarrok notes recent research suggesting that Georgia’s expensive HOPE scholarship program has done little to improve access for disadvantaged students to the state’s higher ed system, at the expense of producing rampant high school grade inflation and encouraging students to avoid challenging courses in college so they can keep their scholarships.

The best that can be said for the program is that it keeps talented students in-state, which may reduce the mobility of smart people away from Georgia; whether that’s sufficient to justify a massive middle class entitlement program (financed off the stupidity of the poor, in the form of lottery ticket sales) I leave as an exercise for the reader.

Today’s New York Times has a somewhat lengthy piece on efforts in various states to reform their redistricting processes. As far as I know, aside from various efforts to create majority-minority Supreme Court districts, there are no serious efforts to fix redistricting in Mississippi—an oversight that surely ought to be corrected.

And, Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters says plans for a redistricting initiative in California may potentially be hijacked by partisan interests, although Walters doesn’t do a very good job of explaining how—he just alleges that requiring the redistricting commission to create competitive districts might somehow favor Republicans. (þ: Rick Hasen).

Update: More on this theme from John Fund at OpinionJournal.com.

I’ve been futzing with some posting stuff to make Robert happy; the jumps in entryids are not because we have something to cover up… just test posts (and, in some cases, non-posts) that disappeared into the ether.

Today’s WaPo carries an interesting op-ed on social security from one of the paper’s junior writers, Laura Thomas. Here’s the meat of her discussion:

It seemed as though my family (a mixture of partisan extremes, from Rush Limbaugh fans to passionate antiwar protesters) saw Social Security’s troubles as a small matter—contrary to the president’s description last week. Whether the impending collapse of Social Security is a myth or not, I shouldn’t be relying on Social Security to take care of me when I retire anyway, they said. I was taken aback by their mistaken impression that I had a sense of entitlement to Social Security, just as I was amused during the State of the Union speech to hear that Bush thought I was expecting to receive it.

I didn’t want to stir up a Christmas Eve brawl, but I nonetheless felt compelled to explain that never in my life had I assumed that Social Security was coming to me. Every time I see that somewhat shocking Social Security dollar figure subtracted on my pay stub, I choose to look at it as giving back to my older family members who’ve been known to drop random checks in the mail to their poor, desperate niece or granddaughter.

By the time we finished the antipasto, we decided that we were all more or less on the same side: Start saving now, because Social Security, if it still exists when you’re older, will only be for people on welfare or those who didn’t have the foresight or willpower to save (which will not be you, Laura).

Todd Zywicki at the Volokh Conspiracy (who gets the hat-tip for the link) says none of his students “are counting on a dime from Social Security when they retire.” I haven’t polled my students on this question, but I suspect he’s right.

Meanwhile, all Kevin Drum can do is mock her stupidity for buying into Republican propaganda, although the truth—the fundamental truth—is that social security is—even today, while still “fully solvent” according to the government’s bogus accounting principles (which would land a company’s CFO and CEO in prison)—at best a safety net; anyone not on welfare who thinks they’re going to retire at the standard of living they’re accustomed to on social security alone is the “insane” one. Every penny that Drum has in his IRA, 401(k), and/or other retirement accounts puts the lie to his politically-expedient defense of the current system.

The beauty of social security is that the public was conned into having a welfare system for seniors the only way a pluralistic society can—by turning it into a handout for everyone. That social security, and its related pal Medicare (which is universal healthcare for poor seniors, packaged as a handout for everyone), are both in serious fiscal trouble is no unforseeable accident; it’s the unavoidable consequence of a system established by Democrats to ensure these two welfare schemes wouldn’t be taken away at the ballot box, like “welfare as we know it” was and Medicaid is almost certain to be.

Steven Taylor links a New York Times piece detailing plans by President Bush to ask Congress to cut farm subsidies, pitting Bush against many in Congress, including Mississippi senator Thad Cochran, the new Senate appropriations committee chairman (and former agriculture committee chairman). Those with longer memories—apparently not including the Times’ reporter—would recall that in the mid-90s, U.S. agricultural subsidies were reduced and the rules reformed but the 2002 farm bill rolled back many of those achievements.

Steven favors a gradual phase-out of farm subsidies, a position I wholeheartedly agree with, and starting with caps on the payments to the large conglomerates would be a great plan. Plus, this is an area where the U.S. could do a lot of good globally: both the United States and European Union have already committed to reducing farm subsidies as part of the WTO’s Doha round, but the devil (as always) is in the details.

ESPN.com reports that former Indiana running back BenJarvus Green-Ellis, who just transferred to Ole Miss, may now be heading back to Indiana. Bizarre.

Marc Cooper has some fighting words for his bretheren on the left who are giving Ward Churchill’s remarks a free pass:

Free speech and the first amendment should cover all professors, no matter how repugnant. I think it legitimate to defend Churchill’s right to be a vocal asshole (heaven knows most universities are densely populated with such types on both the Right and Left).

What I’m worried about is the way that some liberal groups are hemming and hawing on what he actually said. I’ve seen that some Colorado peace groups are praising Churchill as some sort of font of wisdom and downgrading his remarks as merely “stupid.” Other similar groups are actually supporting him—like this statement from the Rocky Mountain Center for Peace and Justice who in lauding Churchill characterize his remarks as only “ill-chosen.”

No. Not ill-chosen. They were carefully selected, hateful, unforgivable and demented, frankly. And having kept half-an-eye on Churchill since he emitted his execrable screed, I noticed that he has continued to be invited as a guest or panelist at numerous lefty events instead of being ostracized and ignored.

Mind you, Cooper wouldn’t have Churchill fired; neither Stephen Bainbridge nor Eugene Volokh would fire him either. Glenn Reynolds also has some linkage on Churchill’s connections (or lack thereof) to the American Indian Movement and native American ancestry in general; apparently being a “fake Indian” is even more popular than I thought previously.

Daniel Drezner received a gratis copy of a sex manual in the mail and is plugging it as one of his books of the month. I have two comments for Dan:

1. Given Jacqueline Passey’s thoughts on the matter, I suspect that if some of Dan’s under-18 readers (is that a null set?) got hold of the book, I doubt many of their future mates would disapprove.
2. Speaking of null sets, anyone considering throwing a copy my way should be aware that me having a copy of this book might possibly be even more useless than tits on a bull.

Our book of the month, however, is less likely to get you laid but may nonetheless be of interest to readers.

From /var/log/syslog on the laptop:

Feb 3 20:51:56 localhost smartd[6711]: Device: /dev/hda, 190 Currently unreadable (pending) sectors

Looks like it’s time to backup the laptop’s hard drive and drag it over to Best Buy for warranty service.

Henry Farrell and Orin Kerr both are somewhat optimistic about Inside Higher Ed, which is intended to be a web-based (and free) alternative to the venerable Chronicle of Higher Education.

I’m cautiously optimistic myself, but I wonder if its job service’s self-described mission of “transforming the tedious, time-consuming and expensive process of applying for academic jobs into something almost enjoyable” might be a tad inflated. (Indeed, transforming the job market in political science to something even vaguely resembling that mission statement would require replacing the APSA “meat market” with a proper hiring-only event that is scheduled to correspond with actual disciplinary hiring practices.)

Following up from yesterday, Steven Taylor links an E! Online piece on the demise of Star Trek: Enterprise.

I’m with John (not Juan) Cole, Kevin Drum, and Oliver Willis: the “opposition rebuttal” to the State of the Union address is a waste of time and energy that usually makes the people who deliver it look like complete idiots (in large part because the rebuttal is written before the content of the SotU is known).

Heidi Bond quotes from a rather petulant email received by Kevin Jon Haller taking issue with the latter’s use of “state time” to post to his weblog. Haller writes, in partial response:

… I think the author has a very narrow understanding of what my academic duties are. Blogging is an extension of my research and teaching, not a digression from them.

Stephen Karlson reports on another misconception of the role of the professor, while Mike Munger is highly annoyed with mid-level university functionaries telling professors what to do.

It seems to me that the job (nay, responsibility) of the professor is the dissemination and expansion of human knowledge, for the good of society at large; in other words, both teaching and research. Further, being a professor (as opposed to a teacher, instructor, or lecturer) necessarily transcends the status of “jobhood” into a (dare-I-say?) existential realm; the occupation defines one’s existence, in a way that being a secretary, janitor, lawyer, or medical doctor doesn’t.

As such, professors are never truly “off the clock,” nor are they ever truly “on the clock”—professors have professional responsibilities to teach, to counsel and advise students, and to participate in shared governance of the university or college, but the scheduling of classes and meetings are concessions to the temporal nature of the world at large rather than exercises in “clock punching.” Thus, contra the AAUP, I’m not sure there is a point at which the professor truly speaks as a “private citizen,” although there are certainly points at which the professor should make clear that he is speaking outside his field of expertise, and unless the professor is an administrator of the college or university his remarks should not be construed as to carry their endorsement.

To return to Haller’s point, the professor’s primary teaching responsibility is to his or her enrolled students, but—unlike the teacher’s responsibility—the job also entails the wider dissemination and expansion of human knowledge. Blogging—like earlier forms of professorial participation in public discourse—is thus not a “distraction,” or even an “extension,” of one’s teaching and research; it is, in fact, an essential part of it.

For our Memphis-area readers: Saturday will see another iteration of the always-popular Memphis Area Blogger’s Bash; see Dark Bilious Vapors for all the gory details.

Update: Mike has a writeup, and Abby has pictures.

I can’t say I have a huge amount of sympathy for the political views of Ward Churchill, the UC-Boulder professor who now won’t be speaking at Hamilton College. That said, he’s a tenured faculty member at Colorado—however ill-judged the decision to tenure him was—and even if he weren’t tenured, the facts that he’s an insensitive jackass with repellant views and a walking testimonial for the validity of Godwin’s Law wouldn’t rise to the level so as to justify his firing.

More at Protein Wisdom and Cold Spring Shops; another account of Churchill’s travails appears in today’s Chronicle of Higher Ed daily update ($).

Steven Taylor notes a lengthy piece in today’s Los Angeles Times looking at efforts to amend the Constitution to permit naturalized citizens to serve as president and vice-president.

The article also looks at the historical circumstances that gave rise to the prohibition on foreign-born citizens serving as president, although mention of Britain’s 1689 Glorious Revolution, in which the Stuart monarchy was displaced by the Dutch House of Orange is curiously omitted, and past efforts to eliminate that prohibition.

I previously discussed my support for such an amendment here.

The writing on the wall was there for some time, but now it’s official; Star Trek: Enterprise will come to an end after four seasons on UPN. Although I have to say that (at least creatively) Enterprise was on the rebound, hopefully this will give the powers that be behind Trek a few years to sit down and rethink their approach to telling stories; maybe they’ll even learn something from Ron Moore’s Battlestar Galactica, which is getting significantly better ratings in a less desirable timeslot and with a big chunk of the potential audience having already seen the episodes that have already aired in Britain. (þ: OTB)

You know, I don’t think referring to the state’s leading football prospects as the state’s “Ten Most Wanted” is really projecting the image wanted by Ole Miss, State, and Southern.

Steven Taylor notes that the Austin American-Statesman has started a weblog just covering the Texas state legislature. It seems to me that the Clarion-Ledger could easily do the same thing for the Mississippi Legislature and provide a much more useful service to its readers than its typical output of 2–3 articles a day during the session.

Just got back from seeing The Motorcycle Diaries with my friends Kamilla and Chad; overall, it’s quite an enjoyable film, although I think that knowing where Ernesto Guevera’s journey ends—or at least what that journey was eventually perverted into, depending on your perspective on communism—made it slightly hard for me to feel a great deal of sympathy for the lead. Still, it’s a good rental, and enjoyable for the “buddy film” aspect of the piece if nothing else.