While I’m not a huge fan of the canard that “the only acceptable form of bigotry these days is against so-and-so,” largely because there are enough values of so-and-so that it’s invalid—fat people, Southerners, whites, straight people, smokers, short people, ugly people, ad nauseum. Nonetheless Matt Stinson has a point:

A sizable number of those who relentlessly mock Southern speech and culture do so because they enjoy the thrill of “superiority” which comes from being bigoted without the stain of seeming prejudiced against a racial or ethnic minority.

Following up on yesterday’s post, David Bernstein of the Volokh Conspiracy reports:

The head of the New Orleans convention bureau told NPR today that he is canceling all conventions scheduled to be held in New Orleans through March 2006.

The CVB site claims that this cancellation only applies to large conventions or those using the convention center space, but realistically if the Crescent City won’t be in good enough condition to host a large convention in April it probably won’t in good enough condition for any convention in January.