Texas Governor Rick Perry Is Being A Hypocrite

Governor Perry opposes the expansion of gambling in Texas, ostensibly because many Texans are against it.

Perhaps, then, he should explain why he took over three-quarters of a million dollars from Native American gambling interests based in Oklahoma. (Source: here) If you're against gambling, Governor, why do you accept money from gambling interests, especially out-of-state ones?

Aggies do not lie, cheat or steal; nor do they tolerate those who do. But lucky for him, hypocrisy is in that gray area, so he can wear his Ring with pride. (I'm c/o '90, Governor, and if you want to sit there and tell me that you and your Yell Leader buddies never once played cards in the dorms, you go right ahead.)

On Donald Trump

1) Given The Trump's predilection for obnoxious blondes (Ivana, Marla), is it any surprise why Joan Rivers beat Annie Duke? Annie, I have total respect for your graduate work and playing abilities, and you of all people should know it's OK to bluff. A blonde rinse would've been a semi-bluff in this case.

2) And on that note, I predict that Carrie Prejean will get to keep her title tomorrow.

A Gratifying Moment

"I was going to drop your class after the first exam, because I always thought history was boring and I didn't do real well on the test. But you made everything so interesting and it quit being dull, so I stayed. And I'm glad I did."

--spoken today by the student who ended up with the highest grade in my Texas History class this semester. You're welcome.

(Yes I have a witness, you haters!)

UPDATE: I got another unsolicited recommendation, in the email today, from a student whose grade is not in question (i.e., no suck-up factor at work):

Also I know we don't show it often enough but at least I, really appreciate you as a teacher because unlike many of my other professors you show love for your subject and are always willing to teach it. As a student it motivates me and it is really refreshing that a teacher works as hard for his students. Your classes are very interesting so don't worry if we are quiet, at least you know that one student is paying attention and enjoys your class. I have recommended you to many of my friends I hope they take you. I tell them that your class isn't for slackers but that the work really pays off, that they will really learn a lot from your lectures and that the class will provide an education and learning experience that they certainly will not have if they take another professor.

You're welcome, too.

Caesar Has Left The Palace

Dom DeLuise dies at 75 - CNN.com

Yet Another Reason To Bring Global Climate Change Debate Back To Reality

What happens if one country decides to start geoengineering on its own?

Getting nations to agree to cut their greenhouse pollution has proved to be the ultimate free-rider problem, as the biggest nations must all cooperate or the planet will keep getting warmer. The Pinatubo option creates the opposite dilemma: As the discussions in Lisbon made clear, any of a dozen nations could change the global temperature all by itself.

I'm huge on the idea of Unintended Consequences. It's a key feature of many of my lectures. This one's a whopper. Instead of nuclear blackmail, we could face climatological blackmail over global warming which may prove ultimately to have been Not Entirely Our Fault.

Test Your Marriage: Have A Garage Sale!

Review: last year Mrs. Mojo and I attempted to sell the homestead. In preparation we put most of our effects into storage and cleaned out the house. Then the housing market collapsed and we refused to take a bath just to sell a house. After six months or so we took the For Sale sign down and brought everything back from storage. (PODS can be mighty useful sometimes.) After another six months I pitched Yet Another Tantrum about wanting my garage back, so we finally began unpacking things. And we made a realization: we have Too Much Stuff.

We've been here before. Before the Wee One was born we had a garage sale to thin out our stuff. But since then, more stuff has arrived. And lots of the old stuff that ought to have been gone the first time was now In The Way. So I got to be the [Expletive Deleted] and suggested demanded that many things be thrown out or else sold.

Note to self: when Mrs. uses multiple expletives to describe you, you are pushing too hard. (But it has to be done.)

We did get a lot done. I can actually start the long process of converting all the CDs to files, since they are now out of storage. But it's probably good we don't do this more than once every other year or so.

Welcome To My World

The National Association of Scholars :: The Classroom Without Reason: wherein the author discusses politics and rhetoric on campus. All i could do was nod in the affirmative. Critical thought is replaced by sloganeering. Four legs good, two legs bad -or better, as they are taught to say at the end (cf. Animal Farm).

Rough Recipe: Macaroni Mishmosh Casserole

Generic mac/cheese mix; ground beef; fresh squash and zucchini (I picked the first of the season today!), eggs; grated cheese; seasonings.

Brown beef and squash together. Make mac/cheese and combine into squash/beef mix. Season. Add tempered eggs and grated cheese and bake until it's a casserole. Onions wouldn't be bad in here, either.

(It was raining too hard to go out for Date Night, so I used what I had on hand and made dinner. I'm at my best when forced to improvise.)

Why Jeremy Lott Is Wrong (and so is the Instapundit!)

Jeremy Lott -- Why We Should Get Rid of the Vice Presidency: makes the case that the office of Vice President is superfluous and ought to be eliminated. His argument is specious. He quotes Federalist 68 to bolster his case, to wit, " '[the office] has been objected to as superfluous, if not mischievous' but... was needed to break tie votes in the Senate. But some state legislatures have a clear alternative rule: if it ties, it fails."

He conveniently omits Hamilton's response to this argument, also in 68: "[T]o secure at all times the possibility of a definite resolution of the body, it is necessary that the [Vice] President should have only a casting vote. And to take the senator of any State from his seat as senator, to place him in that of President of the Senate, would be to exchange, in regard to the State from which he came, a constant for a contingent vote."

There's another important reason to preserve the Bucket of Warm Spit that Hamilton did not properly foresee. Factional politics and the rise of political parties, contra Washington, came into being in the Age of Jackson with the result that we had to endure our first impeachment hearings in the early 1840s, when the House actually debated the removal of President John Tyler --his only real crime being to have offended the Whigs who put him on the 1840 ticket as VP under Wm. Harrison (and the Democrats, whom he angered because he used to be one). As it is the legislature that defines the order of succession beyond that prescribed within the Constitution (as modified by the 25th Amendment, naturally), there is a very clear conflict of interest in eliminating a President via impeachment when his replacement would come from the legislature. To me this is a implicit violation of the principle underlying the whole "separation of powers" doctrine. And we've seen where this could lead: Andrew Johnson's non-removal from office by the Senate was in no small part contingent on the knowledge that he would be succeeded by the President pro tempore of the Senate, a Radical Republican whom certain of the dissenting Republicans believed would abuse the Presidency. (Recall that at the time there was no provision for replacing a Vice President who became President; Johnson inherited the #1 position when Lincoln was assassinated.)

Like it or not, the Vice Presidency now stands as insurance against politically motivated impeachment and removal. Without it, a partisan Congress could be more able to seize control of the country. Given their absolutely stellar record of late, I'm happy to let them cool their heels, even if this means putting up with Joe Biden (or Dick Cheney or Al Gore or Dan Quayle).

Tweet tweet

I am on Twitter. MojoBison. For those times when RSS just isn't enough!

Where's MY Money!?

America's Newest Profession - WSJ.com: damn, I must be seriously under-paid...

An Update

In re this post, the class in question is now down to four. One of the students, as it turns out, had failed to take a single exam the entire semester. Now this should have been very apparent immediately after the first exam, when none of the rest of the course quizzes or exams could be accessed. But this individual only chose to say something to me at the end of last week.

No, it is too late to drop the class.

No, you may not make up any of the missing work, it's not fair to those students who did the work when it was due, and it's certainly not fair to those students who dropped the class because of borderline grades.

So you're going to fail the course. Why are you angry with me for following my syllabus? (NB all students are warned in the syllabus that anyone not taking the first exam is automatically locked out of the course shell and must drop the course to avoid earning a grade of "F", as I am not paid to do students' data-entry work for them.)

The Great Outdoors In Spring

After a weekend of torrential rain the local forecast calls for sunny and warm the whole week. The sloughs and creeks are all full-up and the catfish are hitting. The grass is really greening up and the maters are looking to put on a bumper crop in the coming weeks. My Wee One discovered the flying disc in the guest bedroom and I began to wonder if she was old enough to play Catch. I found my light-duty elbow brace and thoughts of frisbee golf arose unbidden.

Damn you, Chores List!

My Thoughts On Student Loans

In Grim Job Market, Student Loans Are a Costly Burden --wherein the New York Times considers the students who borrow above their own eyeballs to pay for a degree that doesn't pay enough for them to get out of debt. I'm not a huge fan of the Financial Aid Game; institutions high and low have zero incentive to discourage students from borrowing money; frequently, their own federal subsidies are tied not just to enrollment but to disbursements and so their incentive is actually negative. The students I see most often falling into this trap are lower-income students who don't understand that loans aren't free money (despite what they may have heard). Meantime the cost of higher education continues to climb over and above the rate of inflation. I suspect the two things are at least somewhat related.

Ya know, I had a hunch the moment I saw the lede on FoxNews.com...

A teenage star of the Harry Potter films is arrested after cops find cannabis farm in his bedroom | The Sun |News: link to the original Sun article. The lede on Fox indicated that one of "Harry Potter's Foes" got busted for drugs, and that very instant I thought, "I bet it's one of Draco Malfoy's goons, I have a hunch their real-life actors are bringing more to the role than one might think..." And dang if I wasn't spot-on! Crabbe, you moron!!!

But at least they got the filming done OH NOEZ! THEY'RE STILL FILMING PART I OF THE LAST BOOK! At least they can quickly insert a new Crabbe into the shooting... assuming, that is, that they don't take the "well, the characters are getting edgier and edgier, it can't hurt PR that badly to subtly acknowledge that this sort of thing goes on" route.

[Update: Dear Rocboy, do refrain from being "witty", as I try not to fight unarmed opponents.]