The Free Exchange blog at The Economist considers the conditions under which unions might increase productivity. Given the conditions identified, this is not the article you want to take to your dean to defend your efforts to start a faculty union (or, even worse, a grad student union).

This has been making the rounds… so if you need a laugh, here you go (context, if necessary).

Yay, Lent. Or something. Bah humbug.

There’s something vaguely Soviet about trying to come up with a written plan of what one hopes to achieve over the next n years as an academic. Particularly when said plan is contingent on a hypothetical (like, say, being hired) that, while not of negligible likelihood, is certainly not a Sure Thing™.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m certain there is value to the exercise, if only because it’s useful to be able to rattle something off in response to a question on an interview.

Moral of this story: buy the cheapest HDMI cable you can find, because it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference over the length of a normal cable run.

I’ve gotten some reasonable deals on closeout cables at Radio Shack and Wal-Mart in the past, but normally a trip online or to somewhere like Fry’s Electronics (alas, not in St. Louis) is the best option.

All of the snow around here is disappearing at a shockingly rapid rate. Not that I’m complaining, mind you; it’s just really freaky to see it all disappear in a matter of a few hours in what I’d hardly call balmy weather (although, I suppose by St. Louis standards 56 is balmy for mid-February).

The NCAA has killed rule 3–2-5-e in college football, to the delight of gridiron fans everywhere, while recommending new rules changes that should both speed up the game and satisfy fans without reducing plays. A particular highlight is the NCAA following the NFL‘s lead by moving kickoffs back five yards to the 30, which should lead to more kickoff returns.

Last night in a hotel room in an undisclosed location, I was lying in bed and my inner ear was telling me I was still on an airplane.

In related news, I’ve got two more invitations for interviews, just in case my equilibrium wasn’t shot to hell already. Already, I think I’ve taught more sessions of other professors’ classes than some of my own this semester.

I should be in bed since I have an 8:45 flight tomorrow to Charlotte for the APSA Teaching and Learning Conference. In addition to seeing Michelle and a fellow Ole Miss grad at the conference, I’m being put up (with?) by Frequent Commenter Scott and his family during my stay, so I’m only out my airfare, the absurd $190 conference registration fee, and my rental car.

I’m particularly looking forward to hobnobbing with all the people who got the jobs I wanted this year. That’s going to be great fun.

Rick Hasen and Jonathan Adler note the passing of prominent American politics scholar Nelson W. Polsby, probably best known for his study of American political institutions such as Congress and the presidency.

Jetlag and dehydration. Ugh. And it gets worse before it gets better.

The highlight of my day today, by far, was waiting 10+ minutes for someone to wait on me at a Mexican restaurant at BWI. Finally I walked out and got some pizza elsewhere. At least the flight attendants on Southwest were nice.

BigJim says I have to do this, so I guess I will. So here are five things you may or may not know about me.

1. I watch professional wrestling on TV and have been to two wrestling shows in my life.
2. Like Jim, I have a pen fetish. Unlike Jim, I have never shoplifted any pens.
3. I have smoked one cigar in my life: on the day Frequent Commenter Scott got his PhD.
4. I didn’t drink alcohol until the day after the 2000 presidential election (by coincidence; at that point, all I knew for certain is Harry Browne didn’t win).
5. I have never voted for a Republican presidential candidate.

By the way, a bonus: in my copious free time, I will be contributing to a new Rebel sports blog organized by Jim. If you’re a real hardcore Rebel sports fan, you’ll be able to identify the section and row the header graphic was taken from at Vaught-Hemingway. (Incidentally the UMAA is trying to get me to donate $100 to keep my crappy seat in Section L. Pass.)

I won’t tag anyone with this meme, since I think I’m about the last person to get it, but if you want to play along let me know and I’ll link your post.

From this Ars Journals post on compressing PDFs in OS X (advice that only works in limited circumstances, I might add) comes a description of pdftk, which of course turns out to already be in Debian even though I was completely unaware of it before. I’ve been using pdfjam for similar functionality—I’ll have to find out if pdftk does better.

I’m moderately in favor of the idea of the residential college model and having faculty advisors have apartments in student housing—but some of the drawbacks are mighty big whoppers.

þ: Steven Taylor who, like me, probably won’t be signing up for such a job anytime soon.

Global warming (or typical Florida weather, depending on your ideological preferences) went after a bunch of people in Lake County, Florida today, just a few miles to the south of where my dad lives in Ocala; as is the typical pattern of such things, most who died were in mobile homes and trailer parks.

Ars Technica gives an overview of much of the neat technology that CBS will be using to bring Super Bowl XLI into our homes on Sunday—in some of our homes, in glorious high definition to boot.

As expected, Texas (at least this little corner of it) is a bit warmer than St. Louis today—and tomorrow looks to be positively nice. Now I’m waiting on the second attempt to get dinner tonight—the pizza place somehow managed to get completely the wrong room number for their initial delivery, and I’ve been starving in my hotel room for nearly three hours now.

In retrospect, I should have taken the search committee member up on his offer to take me somewhere after his previous engagement—even though I would have missed seeing Earl and The Office. Live and learn.

A few sci-fi items worth a look:

• Steven Taylor has links to video and stills comparing the “old” and “new” special effects in the newly remastered Star Trek episodes. I’ve gotten to see some of the new episodes in syndication and they look very good; it’s a shame we’re not getting them in true HD, at least in St. Louis, but I suppose that will follow in due time. (I hold out no hope at getting them unedited except on DVD.)
• Ilya Somin further chronicles the massive plot holes in the six Star Wars films, while the Baseball Crank looks at the problems of the second trilogy (Episodes I-III) in greater detail.
• The “original, unbelievably crappy trailer for Star Wars.” Certainly it sucks by today’s standards… then again, most 1970s trailers suck by today’s standards.

All that’s keeping me going today is knowing it will be nearly 70 degrees on Friday, at least for me.

I need to complete the following tasks today (now that I’ve recovered from my early morning Monday):

1. Apply for four new jobs that just appeared on various and sundry job sites.
2. Prepare for my Congress class Wednesday morning. (I can prepare for intro before class in the morning and methods between classes, since those are classes I taught last semester and not a lot has changed in either, but I haven’t taught Congress since July 2005, when I was using different books, so it’s essentially a new prep.)
3. Prepare for a teaching demonstration in a methods course Friday at a university in Texas. (I have something canned for this, so it won’t be too much additional work.)
4. Finish revisions to the strategic voting paper so I can send it out.

Now, if you had to guess, which one of those do you think won’t get done today?

If you’re a celebrity (say, Paris Hilton) and want to use an alias, knock yourself out, but some victims of name misappropriation would rather you follow the example of Michael Vick and choose a name that few, if any, other people are likely to share.

Incidentally, the Ron Mexico name generator suggests “Sarah Venezuela” for Ms. Hilton’s future alias needs.

Even with this new chest of drawers, I'm still not sure I have storage space for all of my clothes.

Frequent Commenter Scott made me aware of this $2000 scholarship contest available to political bloggers of any stripe who are currently attending any postsecondary institution of higher learning. All you need is a political blog and the ability to write 300 words to have a shot.

Newmark’s Door links federal income tax liability data by county and congressional district. A map would be nice too… perhaps I can dig out the code I used for the census maps I made in R a few years back and use that.

I am truly speechless.

þ: EDSBS.