Dorkboy Land

See-Through Bailouts

2008-12-13T10:29:00.000-06:00

The president of the UAL was just pictured on CNN saying that the reason that Southeastern senators voted against the bailout bill is that they are favoring foreign automakers. This brings up two interesting facts:

Foreign automakers are somehow able to do well (or at least adequately) producing cars inside the U.S. It's apparently possible to make cars in this country without billions of dollars of subsidies from the federal government.
The UAW believes that favoring is not giving money to two car companies based in the United States. It's kind of like a spoiled child who doesn't get a toy and blames his parents for favoring his sibling, who never asked for a toy in the first place.

The Pendulum Has Swung the Other Way

2008-09-10T19:14:00.000-05:00

Three years ago I blogged about the mass hysteria that had hit Houston over Hurricane Rita and the subsequent destruction it caused to Champaign.

Now Hurricane Ike is in the Gulf of Mexico with just about the same forecast as Rita had. Is the Woodlands being evacuated again? Thankfully, no. Is Galveston being evacuated? Just part, and it's a voluntary evacuation. That's not very good news.

This is a big hurricane, with winds that extend way out. If it follows its current forecast track, I would not want to be on any island, nor would I want to be anywhere in SE Houston near Galveston Bay or the ship channel. I don't think the Woodlands needs to evacuate, but somebody should be telling people to get off the islands so that they aren't stuck in a traffic jam on a bridge tomorrow when the hurricane first strikes.

I would say that we should hope that the forecast for Ike is bad, but that could bring it closer to Houston, which would put even more people in danger. Or it could go south of Corpus, which has apparently decided that Ike is not a danger.

He's Back

2008-09-08T19:03:00.000-05:00

According to VeloNews, Lance Armstrong is coming out of retirement and will be joining Astana. Astana is the team that held its winter training camp in Albuquerque this year. Perhaps Lance will be riding up my road come January.

Bye, bye sun

2008-07-20T20:47:00.000-05:00

Tonight the sun sets at 8:18pm in both Champaign and Albuquerque. The next time the sun will set at the same time in both cities is the end of May. Until then, Albuquerque will have more sun at night.

Benefits of the Old Days

2008-07-15T15:30:00.000-05:00

I have been calling to schedule services at our new home. Most of the places require social security numbers, previous addresses, etc. and involve a lot of waiting while somebody types into a computer. I just called for water and trash. There was no computer... the operator was obviously writing things down... and no personalized information other than my name and address. It took all of three minutes.

The only downside is that they aren't sending me "special offers" via an email address. Darn.

Man under arrest thought to have posed as a con-man

2008-07-11T00:14:00.000-05:00

I didn't realize you need a license to be a quack.

But they're famous!

2008-06-16T10:56:00.000-05:00

Honda has come out with a new "zero emissions" car. As part of the introduction ceremony:

villainness Marie Warner on the hit TV show "24" and was flown over by Honda for the ceremony

Driving a Prius for 12k miles produces 4,995 lbs of CO2 per year, on average. Flying nonstop from LAX to Tokyo in UAL first class produces 4,532 lbs. So just suppose that this actress actually drives that much. She's just about blown her carbon savings on a single flight.

Now, if you figure in the fact that "zero emissions" doesn't necessarily mean "zero emissions." Where does the electricity come from? How is the hydrogen made? It has the potential of being "zero emissions," but it's obviously not.

New Lending Tree Offers

2008-06-06T10:51:00.000-05:00

I got a few more offers from lending tree today. The first offer was for a 30 year mortgage at 8.25%. The new offers are for a 30 year for 8.5%, a 7 year ARM for 9.125%, and a 10 year ARM for 9.125%.

Maybe those offers will look decent in five years.

Lending Tree Sucks

2008-06-05T10:51:00.000-05:00

I decided to try Lending Tree so that banks can compete for my mortgage. Although Lending Tree thinks that I'm such an awesome dude that they are inviting me to their Winners Circle, they managed to come up with only one offer (not much competition there). The interest rate on the mortgage is 8.25%, or about 2% higher than I can get from my bank. Come on!

Don't worry, we don't have a housing bubble here

2008-05-22T15:16:00.000-05:00

Champaign has consistently been touted as one of the few places where housing prices are too low compared to rents. It makes sense: I'm paying about $550 a month on a mortgage for a three bedroom house while friends in two bedroom apartments are paying $1200 a month.

The newspapers first assured us that houses in Champaign were going to take off like they did in the rest of the country. Then they assured us that prices would be stable, unlike the rest of the country, since we didn't see appreciation.

So what's happening now? The most recent statistics show that prices in Champaign fell 1.2%. Champaign is 175th out of 292 MSAs, which might actually be a bit of an improvement. Still, the MSAs at the bottom of the list were sitting at the top for several years. They are still up two to three times what Champaign has averaged.

The current statistics are for the end of the last year. It will be interesting to see, six months from now, what the prices are doing in the second quarter. We sold our house at a price similar to our neighbor from two years ago, and well below where houses were priced last year. It looks like it might be a bloodbath. (Doesn't stop our assessment from increasing every year.)

A Decision Has Finally Been Made

2008-05-16T23:58:00.000-05:00

Graduation went by, and I hadn't yet accepted a job. Nor had I graduated (one of my committee members stopped reading my dissertation, evidently because of a confusing name I used for a variable.)

At least we had sold our house. And we had rented a sublet for the summer so that we'd have a place to live after we close on the house in a month.

Thursday was the big deadline for the job offers in Washington, D.C. The job I was offered there seemed very interesting, but not as interesting as another job I interviewed for at the same company. Furthermore, I was not very enthused about the possibility of 3 hours of commuting every day and living in a city full of rats; not only are there lots of politicians there, but now there are lots of rodents as well.

While our possible jobs in DC were dragging their feet in giving us offers, I was invited to another job interview. The job seemed better than the job in DC, and was in a place where any rats would be devoured by rattlesnakes. They wanted me, but they had to get funding together.

Finally, on Thursday, they got their funding. We now have a plan, and it seems like a solid plan.

I still don't know what my salary will be, since all of the paperwork still needs to be done. In order to break even with the quality of life that our salaries would have provided us in DC, I would need to make $7.21. In other words, we are about to be what President Obama considers to be filthy rich.

This does present several problems. First of all, what type of house do we buy? In DC we had few options. Now, we have too many options. Do we want a resort-like retreat? A llama farm? A horse farm? Our own mountain? A house at a trailhead? A gigantic McMansion overlooking the city? A McMansion overlooking the city on a golf course? So many choices...

There are many other problems as well. How exactly do you play golf and go skiing in the same day? I don't want to pay for a full day of skiing when I'm spending half the day golfing. What am I going to do with the extra two hours each day that I won't be commuting? What am I going to do with the extra 2.5 hours each day that I won't be commuting if we live close to our jobs? How much more do we have to budget for sunscreen?

My Unhealthy Month

2008-04-30T14:47:00.001-05:00

This month started off crappy and is ended just about as bad. We still don't have jobs. We don't know where were going. I had my dissertation killed at the last second twice, despite doing the approved revisions. At least we got the house sold, although now this means more headaches, like what happens when we fail the radon test (the average level of radon in Champaign is supposedly a 6, while 4 or above is considered---as of January 1---unacceptable in Illinois). Also is the problem of now that my advisor is willfully trying to prevent me from depositing my dissertation, he wants me to do his work this summer (surprise surprise... can you say abusive relationship?). So what am I going to do when I'm homeless?

Through all of this I have been eating very poorly, pigging out on Easter candy. I've been exercising a lot less. This behavior has caused me to have a 12lb swing in weight in only a month. I now weigh less than I have weighed at any time since middle school.

At least this gives me a good diet to promote. I'll call it, the "Let Everyone F%#$ Around With You Diet." Eat all the candy, fried ice cream, milkshakes, and fatty food you want, and still lose a ton of weight!

My weight typically cycles throughout the year, dropping in the summer and then going up around the holidays and staying fairly steady until it gets warm again. That means that I'm near the top of my weight cycle. It's a little scary.

What Recession?

2008-04-30T13:02:00.000-05:00

The economy grew by 0.6% in the first quarter of the year. That means that there is no recession (or at least not as of last quarter). Recessions typically require two quarters of contraction.

I do wonder if that figure might be revised down after inflation is more fully analyzed. I'm not expert at the calculation of inflation and the GDP, but I'm pretty sure that if food and energy were included in the inflation percentages (I'm pretty sure they're included in the GDP numbers!) the economy would appear to be contracting.

Another point to look at is that GDP itself doesn't matter too much. The real measuring stick is GDP per capita. U.S. population growth is about 0.9%, so per capita GDP is declining. Another measure that might be useful to examine, particularly in light of the retirement of the Baby Boomers, is GDP per member of the labor force.

Good, the cat's not that fat

2008-04-25T12:43:00.000-05:00

I've been feeling a lot of earthquakes lately, most of the time when there are none. My only accurate call since the Big One was on Saturday night when I was standing up and felt a little, tiny shake.

A few minutes ago I felt another shake, and was pretty sure that it was another earthquake. One of the cats went running again, but I wasn't sure if he was running from an earthquake or running from some imagined visitor. If it was a visitor, he might have jumped off something, thus causing the whole house to shake. He's a big cat. The other cat was sitting peacefully in a kitty tree, which suggested that the scardy cat was going nuts.

I checked all of the USGS websites and found nothing, just like the Big One, even though it claimed to have updated after the time of the rumbling. I started checking "real time" seisometers, which really aren't that real time. But I eventually came upon one in Indiana that was only a few minutes back, and it had some nice big squiggly lines on it.

The USGS now is reporting that the earthquake was a 4.2. That is the biggest aftershock, and once again one of the largest earthquakes in Illinois history.

2008-04-18T11:54:00.000-05:00

Whoa... just as I types this things are making noise in the house... wonder if it's another earthquake? It's also windy today, but probably not windy enough to make the interior walls shake slightly.

On to my post... I was driving in the car today and thinking that there could be an earthquake, but I would never know due to the poor condition of our roads. I come back home, pull up the USGS website, and see that the fifth biggest earthquake in Illinois recorded history was happening while I was driving.

This is crazy!

Am I in California?

2008-04-18T04:59:00.000-05:00

My wife and I woke up tonight from some sort of shaking. I was fast asleep, so I didn't really know what was happening. I got out of bed, went to the bathroom, and then turned on the computer and went to the USGS website. There was nothing reported on their real time map. So I went to the radar, and there was nothing. For a few minutes I was convinced that there must have been a sonic boom, but eventually the USGS website came up with this.

A 5.4 earthquake. I've never felt an earthquake before, so this is a first. All of the Chicago stations are reporting it, and Chicago is twice as far away.

So, we've now got tornadoes and earthquakes. That's what we call amenities around here...

Six years ago today...

2008-04-14T21:11:00.000-05:00

Six years ago today I was accepted into a graduate school. Little did I know that this was a very unfortunate event. But I learned it quickly, and with each passing day that acceptance becomes a little more tragic (or a lot more given the events of the last couple weeks).

At about 1am I accepted the offer. And the rest is history.

Who would have thought that six years later I would have no idea where I am headed. I guess I don't like to do things the easy way. Nope... I can't do things the easy way.

Speaking of In God We Trust

2008-04-10T12:56:00.000-05:00

The Illinois House, which must be full of Republicans pretending to be Democrats, recently passed a bill that would give Illinois an In God We Trust License plate. The bill passed 105-3. (Luckily this plate will cost extra, so it won't become the new license plate like it did in the State East of Us where DMVs apparently no longer stock the regular plates.)

Here's the article that I read describing this, and here are the three representatives that are quoted:

Rep. John Bradley, D-Marion, sponsor of the legislation, said the plates would give Illinoisans the opportunity to recognize the national motto and provide needed resources to military families.

Rep. Mike Boland, D-East Moline, said the Illinois Military Relief Fund provides grants of as much as $600 per family to help ease financial troubles.

Rep. Sandra Pihos, R-Glen Ellyn, said she voted against the bill on principle, not because of its message.

Democrats apparently no longer have anything to offer on social issues. They are just the same as Republicans, or worse. On top of that, they are big fat liars. At least the Republicans admit that they want to run our lives.

Republican Prudes Strike Again

2008-04-10T12:47:00.000-05:00

The State to the East of Us Which Cannot Be Named has passed a law to make any business that sells sexually explicit materials materials pay protection money to the State government. (Apparently now that the entire state trusts God they can work on less pressing issues.) Of course, every business that sells just about anything that used to be covered under the first amendment can be said to be sexually explicit.

When reading these sorts of articles, it seems like I always find this buried within:

Democratic state Rep. Terry Goodin said he wrote the bill as a way to identify potentially objectionable businesses before they open.

American Airlines Screwing Others for a Change

2008-04-09T12:47:00.000-05:00

If you are flying American Airlines today and are scheduled on an MD-80, chances are that your flight is canceled. They've pulled most of them out to do inspections. Because American loves MD-80s, they are really screwed.

A full 17% of flights out of O'Hare were canceled this morning. When I was flying to DC two weeks ago today, I woke up and checked the flights and saw that about 10% of O'Hare's, including the previous flight to DC. Apparently this was the result of some previous MD-80 issue. Luckily for me, I had scheduled the American Eagle flight from ORD to DCA, so I had no problems. Every other flight to/from DC on American has been on an MD-80, so I picked the right day to fly in a commuter jet. (I did have one cancellation a few weeks ago, but I don't think it was related to the MD-80 issue. I got put on United, so it was a much more pleasant trip than I had expected.)

But this means that I was risking my life flying in American's MD-80s. Wouldn't it have been better had American canceled all my flights and stranded me in DC or Dallas for days? Ummm... no. These planes have been flying for years and years and haven't had a serious incident due to the problem. It is likely that they could fly longer without the problems. The chances of this causing an accident in the next few days are small. But it's going to cost a lot of people and companies plenty of time and money to fix the problem right away. The costs greatly outweigh the benefits. I'm not saying that American shouldn't fix the problem--they should--but they should do it in a way that minimizes the disturbances to their customers.

Rice's New Coach

2008-04-08T01:16:00.000-05:00

Rice has a new coach in basketball.

Some posters on Owlzone have been complaining about his accent. I just don't get it... he has no accent whatsoever. I'm not sure what they're talking about.

Pet Insurance

2008-04-08T00:49:00.000-05:00

I haven't posted in a while since I want to avoid putting people's names on my blog preceded by "f-you." It just wouldn't be professional.

In any case, if you want to know what's been going on in the past couple of weeks, here's a good metaphor. (Ph.D's are just not worth it.)

Anyway, the most successful part of my life is probably the job search. Yes, I'm fairly unsuccessful. But I do have an offer, and I also have interviewed at a place that offers pet insurance. I'm not exactly sure what that means, but I do know that I want pet insurance.

Another benefit of the place I interviewed at (as if pet insurance weren't enough) is that its credit union charges less interest on car loans than my current credit union pays for savings. Did I mention unlimited sick leave. Cough.

Job Update

2008-03-25T10:50:00.000-05:00

My first flyout was last week. Since that time I've had offers for two more flyouts, but they still haven't been scheduled. They are all in the same metro area (the one that has a huge concentration of the biggest growth "industry" in America) so the geographic diversity doesn't help any.

As of this morning, I thought I had about a 95% chance of being offered a job. I just had a message left on my phone to call them, so that has now jumped to 99.99%. But, I'm such a pessimistic person that the percentage might actually be lower.

Does low pay make up for the fact that I would be doing a job that should not exist? I would be stealing a lot less...

When is a 9.5% increase a 3.7% increase?

2008-03-22T11:11:00.000-05:00

When you are dealing with the University of Illinois!

Tuition is going up 9.5% per year for next year's freshmen. But the University claims that because it's a fixed rate, tuition is really going up only 3.7% a year. Huh?

Neither the Tribune nor the Sun Times asks how they did that math. I mean, the media is usually really lazy, but most reputable newspapers would usually ask how 9.5% gets changed to 3.7% (unless, of course, St. Obama is involved).

I can't find any justification on any Illinois websites, so I've been trying to wrap my head around this one. One way that you could look at this is that the Class of 2012 (dear lord) is paying 9.5% more each year than the class of 2011. This averages out to 9.5% a year (duh). Another way to look at it is to compare it with what would have happened had all classes been subject to the same tuition. For three years the Class of 2012 and the Class of 2011 would be paying the same (rising) tuition. The only difference would be that the Class of 2012 would pay a year of tuition in 2011-2012, whereas the Class of 2011 pays an extra year of tuition in 2007-2008. If tuition is increasing at 3.7% as the University claims, that means about 16% more tuition for one year. But doing some calculations on the numbers that the article does provide, the total tuition paid by the Class of 2012 in the 3.7% case only falls about a third of the way to the difference they are paying in the fixed rate case. This is because 3.7% is only about a third of 9.5% (perhaps you shouldn't be going to Illinois if you want to major in math)

I think I may have figured out how this calculation came about. Be prepared: it's stupid:

The article says new students are paying $9242 a year. This implies that the Class of 2011 is paying $8440 a year. If you take $8440 and increase it by 3.7% each year, the sum is about equal to $9242 each year for four years.

The University's calculation makes sense if the Class of 2011 didn't have a fixed rate of tuition. If that were the case, the Class of 2012's fixed rate would not be comparable to the Class of 2011'a increasing rate -- by 2011 the Class of 2011 would likely be paying more in tuition then the Class of 2012, which is how the 9.5% increase could turn into a 3.7% increase. But the Class of 2011 is a fixed rate, thus a 9.5% increase in the fixed rate is really a 9.5% increase.

The University's calculations only make sense in the year you transition from varied rates to fixed rates. The morons who run this university are so incredibly STUPID that they probably thought the calculation was just dandy and kept using it even as the rate structure stayed fixed. Of course, I am probably being a bit generous to the University. When they see that their revenue has increased by 9.5% next year (which would be the case if all classes have the same 9.5% increases in fixed rate tuition) it will look a lot different than an increase of 3.7% in the variable rate of tuition.

Gosh, where's all that money coming from?

It's just me

2008-03-15T12:29:00.000-05:00

An article in the Chicago Tribune talks about how great this year's job market is for college grads. They focus on the University of Illinois and all of the wonderful job offers that its soon to be grads are getting.

The article mentions that the strong job market during a poor economy is a contrast to 2002 and 2003 (when I was first looking for jobs) when the market for college grads tanked.

Lest you think this is good news for me: I didn't have multiple job offers in November. It also doesn't seem to apply to the economics job market. From the reported job offers I have seen, starting salaries at private employers are down. In 2002 the average salary was reported to be about $110,000, but more than half of the reported job offers this year are under $100,000. While Research I universities were about $70,000 in 2002, they are almost all over $100,000 this year. In other words, it now pays more to work nine months in academia than twelve months in the private sector. (Yes, academics usually work 12 months. But they can get funded for two months in the summer, which means that they're actual salaries are about 25% higher than reported.)

As for my current job situation... I am actually going to have my first flyout next week. I'm going to think of this as practice for future flyouts (hoping that they come). I mean, it would be tough to spend the rest of my life in a field that I have ABSOLUTELY NOT WANTED TO BE IN ever since I started grad school and learned that I'd be spending a year on an RA project in this field. It would also be difficult working for an employer that is at the top of my list of Things to Get Rid of When I Become President. I mean, I've avoided applying for jobs with the IRS at all costs, but somebody has to bring in revenue to the government. If the government weren't spending tons of money on corporate welfare and political handouts (like I'd be doing at this job), the IRS would be significantly less evil.

At least I can be nearly 100% confident that I'll get this job since I want it so little.

Latest Job Update

2008-03-11T17:25:00.000-05:00

I finally got two phone interviews. One of them is allegedly going to turn into a flyout; therefore I have finally shaved.

Interview #1 was with a guy who is trying to work with my adviser. That means that the work will probably be pretty similar to what my adviser does. In other words, rather than spending half my time working on topics I don't want to work on, I'll get to spend all of my time. But I will get paid a lot more for doing it. I've been invited for a flyout and have a date. The only problem is that I still haven't been sent a schedule, despite being promised one shortly for two weeks, and I still don't have plane tickets, even though these were supposedly going to be purchased last week. It is less than a week until I need to fly, which means that the tickets that were $300 last week are now $830. I'm starting to doubt that this will happen.

Interview #2 was with a consulting company in the city where the Dorkwife has a job offer (which is a mere 2,500 miles from my flyout). I'm not really sure how the phone interview went... it's not really my field. They're supposedly going to make flyout decisions in the next couple of weeks.

Other than that, nothing has happened. I did get a bite from a recruiter who I sent my resume to, but I haven't heard a thing from the company. That sounded like a good job that was also high paying. Interview #1 and #2 are unlikely to be great jobs, and #1 is likely to pay the least of anything I've applied for other than postdocs or non-research government positions.

All I have to show is for two days of work

2008-03-11T17:19:00.000-05:00

The only publication I have took two days to write, by myself. I have spent years working on other projects, yet I don't have a thing to show for it, other than some reports on a webpage and my dissertation.

So why do I have only one thing published? Let's look a couple of phrases from the first sentence of this post:

"two days": The paper was something that my advisor was supposed to write, but never got around to writing, so I wrote it at the last second. Since I only had two days, the paper did not become gigantic. Things that are not gigantic can be published in articles. Things that are 65 pages at 1.5 space and small margins (i.e. 100 pages when produced at submission guidelines) will not be published. The project I am currently working on is redoing a paper that is currently 65 pages by basically doing four times as much stuff as was done in the 65 page paper. They didn't accept the original paper, why would they accept something that will be larger than an issue of a journal?

"myself": When I work on things myself, things get done. When I work with other people, things don't get done. Period.

6-46

2008-03-10T12:26:00.000-05:00

The three universities I've attended have finished the basketball season with a combined conference record of 6-46. If you remove the games where two of the teams played each other (which is an automatic win and loss) the combined record is 4-44.

Ouch.

What inflation?

2008-02-27T18:24:00.000-06:00

My garbage bill, which was $15 a month two years ago, is now $20 a month. That's a 15% inflation rate.

Two years ago, a Euro cost about $1.18. Today it costs $1.51. Once again, about a 15% inflation rate.

Turn it up to 11

2008-02-27T12:22:00.000-06:00

Unofficial St. Patrick's Day wasn't very big when I first came to Champaign five years ago. Now it's huge. If you didn't know about it already, all you have to do is look at the newspaper or watch the evening news.

The increasing size of Unofficial has coincide with a ramping up of enforcements and regulations against it. When I first got here, people could go into the bar at 8am and buy whatever they'd like. Now drinking has been pushed off campus with 11am openings and restrictions on the types of alcohol that may be served over the weekend. Beer is being replaced by hard liquor as it becomes more and more difficult to get a keg. When students get drunk at 8am, in their apartments, on Everclear, they get a lot drunker than they would drinking green beer at a bar. It's much more dangerous since there are few responsible people around. Furthermore, it encourages the use of vehicles to drive between apartments and bars, which leads to drunk driving.

Now the university is banning visitors from staying in the residence halls over the weekend. The students who are getting drunk at Unofficial, along with their guests, will be forced to stay in apartments over the weekend. Officials have been concerned that Unofficial would last all weekend this year... now they've assured it.

A Left Winger Who is Mad About the Government Spying on Its Citizens

2008-02-25T12:20:00.000-06:00

I found a blog post regarding red light cameras that are being used to spy on people in Albuquerque.

Red light cameras are bad, not only because they perpetuate Big Brother government that takes away our rights, but also because they cause more accidents and cost a lot of money. Furthermore, they are a giant step in the direction of total surveillance by the government. Just look at the UK where there are an estimated 4.2 mil cameras for its 61 mil citizens. According to the linked article, the cameras are being equipped with speakers in an effort to prove George Orwell correct.

So this left wing blogger doesn't like red light cameras. But not because they are bringing 1984 to a street near you. Nope. It's because they are made by corporations. Ewwwwww... evil corporations!

I'm happy to see that another left-winger is on the side of civil liberties, I just wish that they had come here because they actually believed in civil liberties. Plenty of lefties will say that they are in favor of civil liberties, but in reality they are just in favor of abortion and maybe a couple of other pet causes.

This also brings up the issue of public-private partnerships. If left-wingers are only going to get upset over government abuses when private corporations are used to spy on citizens (or wage war), that's another Gold Star for these partnerships. Imagine if the partnerships didn't exist: cities like Albuquerque would be spending Lord Knows How Much to build and monitor their own cameras. The blogger brings up a problem with voting in New Mexico, blaming it on the corporations. But do we expect the government to make its own voting equipment? Holy crap, that would be scary. Just look at what happened in Florida when the government designed their own ballots.

Public-private partnerships require some amount of oversight to work... the government is, after all, handing over an enforced monopoly, which could be used to extract lots of money from citizens who are forced to deal with the monopoly. The partnerships are usually much more efficient than the government (despite the claims to the contrary; just ask the Democrats in Chicago how they felt when they were paid by a corporation to take a liability off their hands). Most importantly, while abuses by the government are usually overlooked by left-wingers, they will not overlook the abuses when the government is using corporations as its agents. After all, few Congressmen had a problem with the Patriot Act and similar legislation, but when it turned out that the government was using phone companies to spy, they became hysterical.

But the Left-Wing Comes to the Rescue

2008-02-24T18:45:00.000-06:00

Now that the evil Republican mayor is trying to prevent bars from advertising Unofficial St. Patrick's Day next year, the left winger are here to save us!

From ourselves.

Law school professor Francis Boyle is petitioning the state to revoke the liquor licenses of bars in Champaign. Here's what he has to say:

"I condemn, in the strongest terms possible, our elected public officials for going along with this. How dare these people allow this to go forward," Boyle said. "I don't want a riot to start here or have women raped or another 22-year-old killed. Let's stop this now and nip it in the bud so we don't have to worry about it."

I sort of missed the whole riot thing. I guess the key to preventing future riots is shutting down the bars. Here are some of the results from universities trying to curb drinking ten years ago.

Also nevermind that the woman who was killed happened the year that the City of Champaign pushed drinking out of the bars by making them open later.

Oh, and this Francis Boyle is most definitely a left winger. He quit as a board member of Amnesty International because he claimed that the organization was infiltrated by the CIA. He's been calling for Bush to be impeached well before it was fashionable. He also was a legal advisor to the PLO.

If you trust the left to protect your rights, you'll not only lose your rights, but you'll also become poor doing it.

Luckily, for the mayor, the First Amendment No Longer Covers Speech

2008-02-24T18:39:00.000-06:00

Here's the mayor saying what he's going to do next year if bars promote Unofficial St. Patrick's Day:

The mayor said if there are problems this year, he will let bar owners know they will be wasting their money to promote it next year because he will suspend the liquor licenses for a week.

"If you promote it, I will shut the bars down," he said. "We're done tolerating it. If you will schedule it, then we will close the bars."

Whenever I'm feeling down, I just have to Google "Kelvin Sampson"

2008-02-22T12:07:00.000-06:00

The news out of Bloomington gets better and better. Apparently Kelvin Sampson was asked to resign yesterday, and refused. Now, he's probably going to be fired, and it looks like he's going to take down his team with him.

The basketball players of the In God We Trust University (IU) are threatening to quit when Sampson is fired, no doubt a result of Sampson's encouragement.

Looks like one of the schools that I have a degree from will finally get a conference win tomorrow.

A Question

2008-02-14T23:50:00.001-06:00

I have a question for you: Name a city I will never have to set foot in for the rest of my life?*

*Starting this summer. (I reserve the right to set foot in the city again to visit friends, especially if they decide to stop living in sin and get married.)

My Tenth Anniversary: A Comparison

2008-02-14T18:28:00.000-06:00

Ten years ago I knew I had gotten into Rice. There were only threee schools that I applied to that I could possibly want to go to more, and both of them cost 50% more, so I was reasonably certain that I was headed to Houston for the next four years (as long as I wasn't assigned to Wiess). Best of all, I thought I would never have to set foot again in a certain city.

Here I am ten years later, still looking for my first job out of school, without any prospects.

Ten years ago I was 7.5 months away from packing up a couple of suitcases and going to Houston. Today I am 3, 4, 5, 20? months away from packing up my house, my cats, and the Dorkwife and moving to Who Knows Where doing Who Knows What.

My Tenth Anniversary: A Question

2008-02-14T18:19:00.000-06:00

Today is Valentine's Day, 2008, so I thought today was the tenth anniversary of a momentous day in my life.

I went back to my emails and checked to be sure. Turns out that February 13, 1998 was really the day, so today is the tenth anniversary plus a day.

If anybody else had looked at my emails, they would have thought that today was the tenth anniversary of receiving my acceptance to Rice. The first mention was on February 14, 1998. But one email that I wrote the previous day proves that I knew on February 13:

From: Dorkboy

To: XXXXXXXXX

Sent: Friday, February 13, 1998 3:14 PM

Subject: A Question

I have a question for you: Name a city that I will never have to set
foot in for the rest of my life?

Anybody care to guess what the answer to that question is? I'll give you a clue: I once again set foot there about three years later when I returned home for winter break. That was not the last time I was there.

Somebody's cell phone has run for the last time

2008-02-13T18:53:00.000-06:00

Kelvin Sampson, aka "Sanctions", aka "Broken Sanctions," is currently coaching his final basketball game. He wouldn't even be coaching this season if he weren't at a school with low ethical standards.

Sampson, and the Hostile-and-Abusively-Named-State University have been charged with five major violations by the NCAA. Some of these charges have been known for quite awhile, like how he talked on the phone to several recruits despite sanctions that banned him from doing so, in response to previous violations. He's also charged with lying to NCAA investigators.

There were rumors that the university was ready to can him before this season over the phone violations. They even docked him half a million dollars. He's surely done now. The only question is what penalties his university will have to pay. If this were SMU, they'd surely be done with basketball for a couple of years. But this is the university whose president took over as head of the NCAA and moved NCAA headquarters down the street. The hearing is apparently going to be in June, but the NCAA looks favorably at self-imposed sanctions, so Indiana will probably have to do something before then. Since the loss of a few more scholarships is probably not enough, it could mean skipping the postseason.

For all of those people who are so frightened that this poor man got called nasty names last week in Champaign: IN YOUR FACE.

Cheaters.

The Wonders of Sunlight

2008-02-13T12:02:00.000-06:00

It's 22 degrees, yet the thin layer of snow that had fallen on the ground has disappeared in spots. Interestingly, the pattern of disappearance nearly matches where the sun has been this morning.

I'm not sure if I've ever seen a "mild" 22 degrees, a little snow, and sun in Illinois at the same time. I thought this phenomenon (sublimation, I believe) was isolated to dry, mountainous areas like New Mexico.

Comments are enabled

2008-02-12T23:58:00.000-06:00

I have enabled comments on my blog. Yes, it's another lame attempt to drive up traffic.

Comments will be moderated (at least until the number of comments is so large that I cannot moderate them), so don't expect your comment to appear right away.

If you feel your comment is not being posted because I don't agree with you, you are probably right. You should probably complain in the comments of all the blogs you read. Make sure everybody sees what a jerk I am.

By the way, nobody has come to my blog via this post. But there are lots of people -- especially Canadians -- who are interested in this post about my job market beard, which I pretty much got rid of on Sunday night because it was annoying.

Another view on housing prices

2008-02-11T12:30:00.000-06:00

Prices of homes don't seem to be increasing as fast as some say, but the news isn't all bad.

The interest on our mortgage payment and the property taxes are equivalent to what we were paying in an apartment (and some of our friends are paying a whole lot more).

Based upon the money that we put down for the house, and the principal payment each month, if we sold at the lowest estimated appreciation we would have an average return of 70% on our investment. (Of course, some of that will get knocked down by closing costs on both sides of the sale). Compare that with our IRAs over the past three years: they've returned a total of 2.8%. If the money had been at our credit union it would have returned about 15% (before taxes).

Three Views of the Price of My House

2008-02-11T12:07:00.000-06:00

Pricing a house is difficult since it's unique. That doesn't stop the government from trying.

Based on the increases in assessments since we purchased the house, the price has gone up 26% in the four years since we purchased it.

If I go by the federal home price index the price has gone up 19% to 20% depending on which quarter I choose as the the quarter we bought (we bought right on the border). This is only to the third quarter of 2007, so it's probably not a bad estimate for prices now.

If I go by the current listing prices of comparable homes in my neighborhood, the price has gone up about 12%.

Bit of a difference, huh?

I think we'll try selling the house to the government.

Anyway, the good news is that if we had bought the house in the place where we're most likely to move and be able to buy a house, it would have gone up 44% to 48%. (The current map of indices across the country is very blue, but there's a nice, bright red spot (meaning large increases in price). I guess that means the prices there were undervalued, which might be why it's one of the few places we could afford to buy a decent house.)

Champaign is the Place for Real Estate

2008-02-09T14:14:00.000-06:00

While housing prices are falling throughout the country, they are going up in Champaign. The value of my house has increased by 3.5% over the last year.

How do I know?

The tax man told me so. And he would have no reason to overestimate increases in prices.

I wonder what a survey of assessors would say about housing prices in America? Still booming, I bet.

Job Application Systems are Ridiculous

2008-02-09T13:23:00.000-06:00

Most job application systems are ridiculous. They work like crap, and their logic is crappy.

Right now I'm applying for a job (one that basically read my dissertation abstract and put all the methods in the job description) that requires a CV to be uploaded, where it will be stored as a PDF file. You can upload in several file formats... but not PDF! So now I've got to convert my CV from PDF to some other format just so it can be converted back to PDF.

Job Update

2008-02-09T12:19:00.000-06:00

At the end of December I applied for a job that seemed a perfect fit for me since it combined both economics and air transportation: two things I have a lot of experience doing (well grad school experience). Basically, if I had to design a job for myself, it would have been pretty close to that.

I waited to get my phone interview. Nothing ever came, but the job posting remained. Today it finally disappeared. I guess I can pretty much assume by now that it's filled and I'm not going to be getting a phone interview, let alone a flyout, let alone a job.

I had said that if that application went nowhere I would be very distressed.

I am very distressed.

What more do I need to get a job? I have a feeling that the only thing I'm cut out for is academia, except I have no significant teaching experience (not that it matters at most places) and I've missed the academic job market. Oh, and I hate academia.

I also learned yesterday that a friend of mine is going to get a job at a place that I applied to for internships in college, for a job after I got my masters, and now a job after I get my PhD. I thought my skill set would fit in well, and their advertisement on the Economics jobs site (which came after I submitted my resume the first time) sounded like they had a couple of positions that were perfect for me. But no luck there either.

Welcome to my Blog

2008-02-08T22:53:00.001-06:00

You are probably reading this post because I'm talking about Ron Paul. Or maybe Lew Rockwell. Or maybe it's because one or both of them are racists, who practice racism.

Or maybe it's because you are worried about the Maryland criminal codes for attempted murder?

Anyway, those are apparently the only two reasons that anyone, searching on Google, comes to my blog.

With this in mind, I have decided that I'm going to act like Britney Spears and go insane... just kidding. I have been told that my beard makes me like Heath Ledger (who has lots of info on imdb and wiki pedia, and was apparently involved somehow with Michelle Williams and Mary Kate and Ashely Olsen of Full House). You know, the guy who died of the drug overdose. Not heroin, cocaine, or aerosol can drugs, but prescription drugs (with side effects). Not that he supported John McCain, who is either a communist who loves MoveOn or a wingnut like Ann Coulter who wants to be in Iraq (or Iran) for 100 years. Not that Barack Obama (my junior senator from Illinois -- Rezko!!!) or Hillary Clinton (who used to like the Chicago Cubs before she switched to the New York Yankees -- Vince Foster Murderer, Murder!!!) would be better (in a world of Enron and Global Warming.)

Anyway, welcome to my blog. Please explore, because I like the attention.

Playoff Beards

2008-02-08T22:35:00.000-06:00

Apparently NHL players stop shaving during the playoffs and grow "playoff beards." It must be my Canadian heritage (not to be confused with Texan Canadians) that has led me to grow a "job market beard."

I have been contemplating shaving it off because of the itchiness. Now that I've realized that I'm part of a North American phenomenon, I might reconsider.

The one thing that might prevent me from growing this beard is that I've discovered that I have very dark hair under my nose but very blond hair elsewhere above my lip. I don't want to start looking like this.

Anyway, this beard has brought me so much bad luck the past couple of weeks, since my announcement (the lack of job progress being the least of the problems), I'm absolutely positive that it has to bring me some good luck, just to bring it up within a couple of standard deviations of my average amount of bad luck.

Biggest Ripoffs of the Century

2008-02-08T09:15:00.000-06:00

My grandparents have been buying one or two $100 (which cost $50) savings bonds for me and my sister over the past 15 years. I will be receiving these bonds soon. The highest interest rate among the 16 is for 4.11%, which is less than the 4.27% I receive from my credit union. The bonds issued in the past couple years have rates of 3.2% and 3.4% -- a time when my credit union had 4.75% rates.

Not that I'm upset to get the money.

Icebergs

2008-02-05T20:22:00.000-06:00

There are icebergs floating down the middle of my street.

It was raining today like it rains in Houston when there's a tropical storm. Only it's 50 degrees colder.

There's a Place in Chile Where It's Never Rained

2008-02-05T00:31:00.000-06:00

On Thursday night/Friday morning we got about 8-10" of snow. Because of the snow, I was able to close the sorry gate to our backyard and keep it closed with the snow drift that formed behind it.

This upset the rabbit who tries commuting to our yard, so it decided to punish me on Friday night at about 10pm by chewing through the satellite cable to two of our three TVs, including the HD TV in the family room.

Bad timing is the story of my life. If you asked me when the rabbit was going to chew my cables IN HALF, I would have guessed that it would be immediately before some big event on TV where we were hosting a party -- you know, something like the Super Bowl...

Sunday I tried fixing it. I had to go through the crappy traffic of people getting ready for the Super Bowl, only to buy stuff that was not meant to be outside in the snow. Once I finally got my stuff, I went outside in the snow and started my work.

And then it started raining. Not just a little rain -- a downpour. I was soaked. And it wasn't only rain -- it was thunder and lightning that looked very close. When I'm standing outside, soaking wet, with my feet in an icy/snow mix while cutting and fixing wires that connect to a satellite dish and the electrical system via the converter box, the thing I like to see over my shoulder is bolts of lightning.

Luckily I didn't die. After fooling around for about an hour, I got one of the TVs to work, which was luckily the family room TV. The only play I missed was the kickoff.

Today was nice and warm... or at least it would have been had it not been for all the snow on the ground. It is currently 66 degrees in St. Louis. It was in the 40s here for most of the day, but now that most of the snow has finally melted off it is 53 here. The high temperature mixed with the snow cover means nice, thick, fog. Plus ice dams everywhere holding back flood waters from last night's rain.

Late tonight the snow finally disappeared (except for drifts and shoveled areas), the fog disappeared, and a thunderstorm came and parked itself over Champaign. It's been here for about 2 hours. The street -- and who knows what else -- is flooded. I'm waiting for a chance to take a shower -- I don't want to press my luck with the lightning for too many days in a row.

Tomorrow's forecast is rain. Then it's going to snow another 4", just when the last remnents of the recent snow have finally disappeared.

More Great Weather

2008-01-30T11:43:00.000-06:00

At one point last night the wind was blowing at 44mph with 59mph wind gusts. Chicago is impressed with their 30-40mph wind gusts. That's less than half the energy of our gusts.

I figure I averaged about 6mph on my trip. According to this calculator, my bike (with me on it) would take 23 watts of power to normally go 6mph. With a 40mph (like I had last night) headwind it's 420 watts. With a 54mph headwind (like my gusts were last night) it's 700 watts. Obviously I was slowing down in those wind gusts since I couldn't get into an easier gear. According to the calculator, on a road bike with no wind 700 watts is 32.3mph. Since 400 watts is more than Tour de France riders average in time trials, my guess is that the calculator doesn't work very well for extreme values.

Lucky for us, the wind has slowed down. The weather is supposed to be cold, but warm up tomorrow. Then it's supposed to snow. Most of the time we don't get forecasts about the amount of snow until right before it comes, but for Friday morning's snow they are predicting 6-9". Beautiful! At least I can have my Super Bowl snowman again this year.

The Worst Bicycle Ride Ever

2008-01-29T21:00:00.000-06:00

Earlier today when I was coming into school the temperature was 54. Because the roads were much colder than that and the humidity was near 100%, the roads were soaking... especially near school where it must have rained. I got very dirty. Luckily, the wind was with me during the short part of my trip where I go north. It was 19 gusting to 28. I thought I was going to be lucky today... most of the time the wind is better for going SW when I'm going NE and better for going NE when I'm going SW. I knew it was supposed to get colder (it was supposed to get down to 11 tonight) which would likely mean wind out of the north, which would help me riding south.

While at school, there was a big thunderstorm. Once it started raining I couldn't see anything outside. Our windows suck, plus they were fogging up. When I was finally ready to go home tonight I went into the hall and looked out the door... it looked like you'd imagine the South Pole to look on a bad night.

I went outside and tried to put my seat into the bike. This was made difficult by the ice encrusting the entire bicycle. I hit it with the seat post a couple of times, and I was able to get it in. Then I turned on the front light. I had to keep pressing on the solid ice that had formed, but eventually got it to start. Next, I had to take off the lock. Unfortunately, the key would not go in. I kicked it a few times, but it still wouldn't work. Eventually I could no longer feel my hands, so I went back to the office to find backup... an old stapler that hasn't worked in years but remains ready to be used. I finally found a use for it. I went outside, put the key in the lock, and pounded on it with the stapler. Eventually the key went all the way in and I was able to turn it and open the lock.

I was finally read to be on my way. Unfortunately, my gears were iced shut. I figured that after riding a little bit the friction would warm them up and they'd be usable. I was wrong. It's difficult to melt something like that when it's 12 degrees (the bank thermometer actually said 11). Lucky for me, I really didn't need the gears that much. The lowest one, which I never ride in except when starting from stop, was more than enough when going into the 40mph winds (gusting to 54) directly out of the west. Since my trip is about 80% due west, this would seem to be a crappy deal. But it really wasn't... going north/south was actually more treacherous because the wind would take me and blow me to the side... my bikes tires slipped on the snow that was on ice.

I had brought most of my cold weather gear with me, but I had my crappy heavy rain coat on because I was afraid the rain would make it dirty. I guess I overestimated the temperature by a bit. I also didn't have a scarf, which I found to be a problem after riding into the wind for about half a mile. My solution was to take my work shirt out of my backpack and wrap it around my head. It worked perfectly, although it was kind of thick so it trapped all the moisture I was breathing out... it was a big icicle by the time I got home.

My trip back lasted 45 minutes from the time I first left the office to the time I got inside my house (I had to go in the front door since the garage door opener panel was frozen shut). That's merely three times longer than I can make the trip if the wind is at my back, so I didn't do so badly after all.

Tonight I'm going to see if there are any jobs I can take in Hawaii.

Giuliani Gives up on Florida

2008-01-29T19:56:00.000-06:00

Looks like Giuiliani wasn't really contesting Florida, either.

But just you wait for the Nebraska primary in July! That's when Rudy's going to shine.

Job Update

2008-01-26T14:21:00.000-06:00

I don't look like Karl Marx yet. I'd be closer, but I had a delay in the beard growing process. My most recent shaving event was Monday 1/21.

The next shaving event doesn't look like it's coming anytime soon. There aren't really even many jobs being posted now. I don't know if there's supposed to a lull in January, or if the state of the economy is taking its toll.

At least I got to hear about the interviews of my friends. It was good to learn that at least one of my applications didn't go down a black hole; I was never contacted for one job I applied to, but my friend is being flown out for a job in the same organization. I should actually be glad that I'm not getting any interviews... who knows how I would deal with having to fly directly from city to city in order to get to all my interviews.

A few weeks ago I applied for a job in Switzerland that basically said "We want Dorkboy." Haven't heard a thing. If I had to come up with an industry job that used my skills and experience, it would look pretty much like that job. I probably won't see another job posting for which I'm that well qualified.

Anyway, the Dorkwife got rejected from the place she applied in DC, so that's out of the picture now. That's probably a good thing since I don't want to live there, yet about 90% of all jobs nowadays are there. Might make getting an interview a bit harder, though.

Michigan Tries to Kick Out all Foreigners

2008-01-22T20:43:00.000-06:00

Michigan is now requiring permanent residence in the United States in order to obtain a drivers license. This means that people working in Michigan on a visa are out of luck. That includes all kinds of highly skilled people with highly sought after H-1B visas as well as students/faculty of universities.

The economy in Michigan must be really great. There are way too many highly educated Americans coming into Michigan, so who needs the foreigners?

Giuliani Gives up on Michigan

2008-01-15T20:00:00.000-06:00

Another week of primaries... another primary that Giuliani says he isn't contesting. Two months ago Giuliani was leading in the Michigan polls with 28% of voters. So far tonight, Giuliani is in sixth place with 3% of the vote.

In other words, in two months Giuliani went from having about 14 times the support of Ron Paul to having less than half his support.

Doesn't sound like a guy who has much of a future. At least Giuliani's strategy has allowed him to save up his money. Oh, wait...

Waiting for my First Interview

2008-01-13T22:22:00.000-06:00

The talk show hosts who refused to shave during the writers' strike have convinced me that I too should not shave until I am back in the spotlight.

Being a grad student, I am hardly in the spotlight, so you might think that this could get pretty ugly given that the only conference I've presented at the last couple years is in November. But you would be wrong, since I am trying to get a job! It's the peak of the job season, and hundreds of little economists are flying around the country interviewing to see where they will be working next year while still trying to complete their dissertations, which are getting no attention due to their interviews.

My face gets pretty dry this time of year from all the shaving, so this will probably be good for my complexion -- my skin may fresh and ready to go just as soon as I have that elusive first interview, provided its not too soon.

Other economists in the past have tried this. Here's hoping my job search doesn't turn me into this:

Avoid O'Hare at All Costs

2008-01-13T22:12:00.000-06:00

This weekend we visited the Dorkparents out in California. Because the cheapest flight out there was on Delta, and we had money that we needed to spend on Delta from a cancelled trip last year, Dorkboy and the Dorkwife flew a two stop route to California and back. This morning we left California and flew to Salt Lake City, where it was snowing. Then we took a flight to Cincinnati, where it was snowing. Finally, we arrived in Indianapolis, where it was snowing. All of our flights were a little late because we had to be deiced in SLC and CVG and because we had weight issues out of California landing in the snow at SLC. However, all the flights left the gate on time. This made the connects harried -- there wasn't time to pick up food. But we got into Indianapolis only 40 minutes late. Best of all, our bags made it.

The Dorkparents, on the other hand, took the easy way out with a nonstop flight from California to O'Hare. The weather at O'Hare was supposedly better than all the airports we flew through. Nonetheless, their flight -- scheduled to leave six hours ago -- just left the gate.

Upon our arrival in Champaign, I was pretty frustrated about how long our trip was. Luckily, we didn't try flying into O'Hare on a Sunday night in the winter. (Note that the airline didn't matter: both United and American's flights were ridiculously late.)

The Dorkdad, unfortunately, is flying to Asia tomorrow. Out of O'Hare. Less than 12 hours after his flight arrives tonight/tomorrow morning.

Avoid O'Hare. In fact, avoid Chicago and Illinois altogether.

Lew Rockwell Sinks the Ron Paul Blimp

2008-01-08T20:34:00.000-06:00

Between his run for president in 1988 and his run for Congress in 1996, Ron Paul either sold or lent out his name to a newsletter baring his name. It has been known for a while (since 1996) that in one of those newsletters somebody said racist things, but Paul took "moral responsibility" and supposedly had the writer fired.

Today a bunch of the newsletters were released in the New Republic. Unfortunately, the newsletters have more than a few things that could be considered racist, and plenty more that come from the blue libertarian crowd:

The consensus seems to be that Lew Rockwell is the writer of these newsletters. I've commented about some of Rockwell's nutty, socialist libertarian racism here and here (and probably other places I can't find right now). Lew Rockwell, of course, won't admit to this and has a bunch of posts on his blog today trying to smear the New Republic.

Unfortunately, Ron Paul did not deal with this problem when he had the chance. It seems like he can explain this pretty well (he thought he was out of politics and needed some money?), but he never did and never denounced his ties with crazies like Lew Rockwell. The middle of a presidential campaign is not the time to deal with this problem. If this gets into the mainstream media, it could undo all of the good that the Ron Paul campaign has done for the cause of freedom.

In any case, it looks like it's over now. I think this is impossible to fix this late in the game. Plus Ron Paul is bombing in New Hampshire, which is supposed to be his strongest state.

Following my Prescription

2008-01-08T11:10:00.000-06:00

After the state of Illinois banned smoking inside of public buildings (i.e. private buildings that anybody is allowed to enter) I posted in the comments of a blog that bars were still not safe for children due to the profanity and drunks. I advocated that profanity and alcohol be banned inside of bars.

St. Charles, Missouri must have heard me because they are considering a ban on profanity in bars. I can't wait until Illinois takes this up.

They are also banning "profane or obscene language, songs, entertainment and literature at bars". You might think that this violates the first amendment, but you might also think that banning smoking in privately owned buildings violates the fifth amendment.

McCain is in the lead?

2008-01-03T14:43:00.000-06:00

I haven't checked the election market data in a couple of weeks. Today I checked and was shocked to see that McCain went from something like sub 5% to 28% to take the Republican lead. When did that happen, and why?

I was thinking that McCain might stand a chance to pull a Kerry in the election by going from nowhere to the top in the first couple primaries. I guess he's no longer coming out of nowhere.

Ron Paul is at 7.1%, which is a slight decrease from where he was before. Ron Paul's best chance is to have a tightly contested election since he would be unlikely to win against any single opponent. With no candidate above 30%, he's in a good position.

Huckabee is only at 13%. I think that's probably a pretty good buy since he's really the only acceptable candidate to all the no-teeth Republicans, which make up a pretty sizable share of the party's base. He's a little risky, though, since a poor performance in Iowa probably means he's done. If he disappeared, it would probably be good for Ron Paul. All of the other major candidates are considered liberal on social issues, so the Huckabee fans might be enticed to back Paul. Or, they may be smarter than I give them credit for and realize that formerly pro-choice guys like Romney will try to ban abortion, while pro-life Paul will fight against federal abortion bans.

Our Plane Made It!

2007-12-22T02:19:00.000-06:00

Our plane made it to Springfield, so there is a good possibility that we'll be able to get to O'Hare!

Other cities aren't so lucky. I checked the cancellations at O'Hare around the time that we're arriving, and there are plenty. They are all to nearby airports on small planes. Wondering why they were canceled, I took a look at the previous day's flights; all of the flights from O'Hare to these airports were canceled on Friday.

When O'Hare has been weather, it simply cannot handle the number of arrivals that the airlines schedule. Flights must be canceled... or fly in the middle of the night. Since flying in the middle of the night would probably wreck crew schedules, they cancel the flights. And they cancel the short flights. I wonder if they put the people on a bus or a rental car or just tell them that they're on their own? It's not like they can wait for the next flight.

Anyway, here's a list of the airports that I checked out with nearly all cancellations:

Madison 9 of 9
Moline 6 of 6
Bloomington 4 of 4
Cedar Rapids 8 of 8
Green Bay 5 of 6
Wausau 3 of 3

Peoria had 4 of 5 canceled, but the one that wasn't canceled was the last flight, which means that the first flight out tomorrow hasn't been canceled. Springfield is similar, although only 2 of 4 were canceled.

Operation Christmas Travel Nightmare 2007(-2008?)

2007-12-21T23:28:00.000-06:00

Last year Christmas travel was a nightmare. On our first leg of the trip, we made a long, unscheduled stop in Little Rock because our engine looked like it was going to blow up. On the leg home our flight was cancelled due to "weather". It's not that the weather was bad during our flight, or even in the 16 hours before our flight. It's just that it wouldn't be very fair to have canceled two days of flights and then let us fly, now would it? Interestingly, while our flight was canceled due to weather, American Airlines decided to fly extra flights out of Denver to get their delayed passengers out of there. Wonder where our plane was?

This year could be another nightmare. After three straight Saturdays of ice and snow, this Saturday looks like rain. Until the evening. Luckily, we've got flights in the morning, so we should miss it. The problem is that its warm, so the snow is melting. That means fog. Today half the flights out of SPI were canceled because they incoming planes flew circles around Springfield then returned to Chicago. Tonight its foggy here, but apparently not so much in Springfield. Our plane tomorrow is about three hours late, but it hasn't been canceled... yet. I'm keeping a close eye on the flight. Since all the flights on the next leg of the trip have been zeroed out for months, I wouldn't be too hopeful about making any flights if we missed the first segment.

Some of the best photos of all time

2007-12-21T14:14:00.000-06:00

Is the guy in the upper left this guy?

So I looked at some jobs

2007-12-19T19:31:00.000-06:00

I've seen a lot of finance jobs, but I usually don't click on them since I'm not really interested in them and I don't really want to live in places like New York City. Anyway, the Dorkwife has found a job in Philadelphia that she's interested in. I decided to click on one of the jobs. Looking for fresh PhDs. Paying...

$300 to $500k!

Holy crap!

I'm not really all that into finance... just enough to do a little investing myself, but if I was sitting there 12 hours a day programming trying to turn a couple cents of arbitrage into millions of dollars, I would go crazy.

But then I got thinking, what if I get a job that pays much less and does essentially the same thing? Then I'd hate myself. If I hated a $300-500k job, I could hate it for only a couple of years and save up enough money to do whatever I wanted in many nice parts of the country (i.e. not the East Coast).

Ron Paul's Cash

2007-12-16T14:10:00.000-06:00

Ron Paul is poised to top $15mil in contributions for the fourth quarter in the next hour. His original, seemingly ridiculous, goal was to get $12mil for the quarter. With a couple weeks to go, he's already 25% over and shooting up.

I'm not sure how the other campaigns have been doing this quarter, but the highest total last quarter was Giuliani at $11mil. Mike Huckabee's supporters have copied Ron Paul's supporters and have a lot of data for him. Despite his surge in the polls, Huckabee has just over $4mil for the quarter. If the other candidates have similar numbers then Ron Paul will obliterate them.

A tip for those of you thinking about writing a dissertation

2007-12-16T12:13:00.000-06:00

If you are getting a PhD in a field where most people write a dissertation with three essays rather than a single topic, it's probably best to write the dissertation with three essays.

I've been looking at a bunch of information about the economics job market, which I'm not participating in due to my two-body problem. I've found several compelling reasons why the three essays is a much better idea.

First of all, according to Siegfried and Stock in the AER, on average a three essays dissertation saves 6.5 months. In other words, about 50% of the economics PhDs with a single topic dissertation, picked at random took an extra year, likely because of the format of their dissertation.

Second, it's easier to go on the job market with three essays. Many of the job market guides I have read say that people going on the market need one of their essays completed as a job market paper, while the other two essays just need to be ideas. That means that you need to only be one third of the way through with your dissertation.

Third, if you are writing a single topic dissertation, where is your job market paper coming from? It's not as simple as taking out a chapter of your dissertation. Perhaps if you're lucky you can find a chapter or two to use. In any case, expect to have to do a lot of additional work to get a paper into shape since it's dependent on the other 300 pages of the dissertation.

Fourth, if you have three essays, it's really easy to submit them for publication. Just as a job market paper is easier to construct, publishable papers are easier to construct. It's already difficult enough to get published; you don't need to make it any harder. In my case, I had to paste together a paper for a conference. The entire thing continuously makes references to work in my dissertation that I had to leave out of the paper. I doubt that will fly in the publication world. I would have to publish at least one, and probably multiple papers, about new methods I created because I would be able to even begin citing them for use in my applied results. I'd be lucky to have my entire dissertation published by the time I was up for tenure.

Fifth, what happens if you get to the end of your single topic dissertation only to find that you've screwed up and all your work is useless? (Luckily this didn't happen to me.) If you have a similar situation with a three essays dissertation, you're only out a third of your dissertation rather than the whole thing.

Sixth, it's much easier to get feedback for separate papers. Nobody, including your advisor and committee members, has time to read a single topic dissertation (unless you're in a field where your dissertation is basically your advisor's research). If you have a problem near the end of your dissertation, there's going to be no one to turn to for help, since nobody can take the time to get up to speed on the 250 preceding pages of the dissertation.

So there it is kids. If you have already made the mistake of going to graduate school and sticking around long enough to get to the dissertation stage, don't compound your mistake by writing a single topic dissertation.

Where is my ice storm?

2007-12-15T11:38:00.000-06:00

It's Saturday. It's December. And we don't have an ice storm.

Yes, we do have snow. And the forecast of 1-2" has changed. I had a feeling it would change since the forecast yesterday north of us was 6-8" and south was 6-8". Now we too are 6-8", except there's a disclaimer that locally heavier amounts are possible along I-57. Oh, and there might be a period of freezing rain this afternoon, which would put the streak at 3 consecutive Saturdays.

I just hope the weather is better next Saturday since we're traveling.

The End of the Cubs

2007-12-13T11:15:00.000-06:00

The Tribune Company is looking at selling Wrigley Field to the State of Illinois.

Next year you'll get to walk into the ballpark under a sign that says "Welcome to Rod Blagojevich's Wrigley Field".

If you thought that it was difficult for the Cubs to get any construction approved by the city in the past, just wait until it's the city and state fighting each other.

Wrigley Field is one of the last professional sports facilities that is privately owned, and one of the last that doesn't have a rent-a-name. The end of that era is over, I guess. At least the State of Illinois gets another ballpark to screw up... we wouldn't want Illinois to be known only as the state that built the worst Major League ballpark of this generation.

Let there be no doubt that George Bush is a commie

2007-12-05T10:07:00.000-06:00

George Bush is going to dictate what interest rate people should be paying on their mortgages.

But since Bush believes in the "free market", I'd bet that the mortgage companies are going to get to dictate whatever interest rate they'd like, and the federal government will send them a check for the difference between Bush's number and their number. With some extra money thrown in, no doubt.

Ending Homecoming to Spit on the Chief

2007-12-04T10:31:00.000-06:00

Homecoming was supposedly first started at the University of Illinois. If the faculty senate gets its way, Illinois will be one of the first universities to end it.

The story goes like this: back in October the Chancellor banned all chief imagery from all floats, t-shirts, signs, etc. at the Homecoming parade. Since this is a gross violation of the first amendmend, he had to reverse himself (he wasn't able to find a stupid excuse like he did with the Daily Illini -- the DI is not actually owned by the University and therefore he can push out their editors for offending the people who want to execute a teacher over a Teddy Bear.) Faculty senate's solution? End homecoming.

Everything's Coming Up Roses

2007-12-02T12:40:00.000-06:00

Last week just about everything happened correctly to propel Illinois up into BCS eligibility. The only problem was that Tennessee jumped them after beating Kentucky in a bunch of overtimes, so Illinois was still one out.

This week just about everybody on the bubble in front of Illinois lost, including Tennessee, which means Illinois will be BCS eligible. In addition, BOTH of the top 2 teams lost, which means that Ohio State and some lucky 2-loss team is going to the national championship (Hawaii has no losses, but will not be going since the BCS is a farce). This opens the Rose Bowl for Illinois. Since the Rose Bowl is so concerned about having a Big Ten vs. Pac 10 matchup every year (how many times has that actually happened recently?) they will have to pick Illinois. Some people are saying that they will pick Georgia, but that's a little bit ridiculous -- why would the Rose Bowl want them? Also, the Sugar Bowl would surely be better off having Georgia if LSU ends up getting chosen to go to the championship.

We'll find out how everything shakes out tonight. But after this string of upsets the BCS has once again been exposed as a farce, giving them a nearly perfect record for all the years it has been in existence. And Illinois is most likely going to the Rose Bowl.

UPDATE: According to the BCS rules (at least some version of the rules... who knows if they've changed them) a bowl that loses its team to the national championship can't choose an at-large opponent from the other conference in the national championship without approval. For example, if LSU goes to the championship, the Rose Bowl couldn't pick Georgia (who is in the SEC with LSU). This is because the Sugar Bowl would probably want another SEC team to replace LSU. It seems very doubtful that the Sugar Bowl would allow the Rose Bowl to take Georgia, especially when the Sugar Bowl gets the last at-large pick this year. If they let Georgia go, they'd probably be looking at Illinois/Kansas/Arizona State playing Hawaii. They'd much rather have Georgia.

Another interesting possibility, that probably can't happen, if if USC becomes the number 2 team. Then you have the Big Ten and Pac 10, 1 and 2, and they are playing in... New Orleans? The Rose Bowl would love that. That would be a great way to further damage the BCS.

Champaign Weather

2007-12-01T11:15:00.000-06:00

In Chicago I always complained about how it was always 33 degrees and raining. Now in Champaign I get to complain about how it's 28 degrees and raining.

Best Presidential Cookies

2007-11-28T00:36:00.000-06:00

If you are looking to make the best cookies recipe from a presidential candidate this holiday season, Mrs. Paul's Apricot-Coconut balls are apparently the way to go. They've got the support of 94% of the electorate (7,041 voters). Second place goes to Mrs. Romney with 1%. I'm not sure where the other 5% went.

Ron Paul's Blimp

2007-11-27T12:02:00.000-06:00

Ron Paul is getting his very own blimp. It seems like a stupid idea, but everybody always looks at blimps as they fly around. And none of them (yet) have presidential candidates on them.

Changing the Rules at the End of the Game

2007-11-20T13:16:00.000-06:00

The BCS has decided to change the way that it chooses teams for its sham bowls... for the 2007 season.

Yes, real sports change rules in the off season. No, the BCS doesn't have much to do with either reality or sports.

The previous rules said that an at-large team can be chosen from the teams in the top 14 of the sham BCS standings. Unfortunately for the BCS, it looks like that another WAC team is heading for the BCS. Hawaii is currently ranked 15 and would definitely catapult into the top 14 with a win over Boise State. If, on the other hand, Boise State won, they might get into the top 14. I'm pretty sure that this is the first season where all the automatic berths to the BCS are likely to be ranked in the top of the standings (the sham selection procedure likes to favor crappy teams from power conferences and Notre Dame, even when they suck... witness Notre Dame's string of consecutive bowl losses). This means that there aren't a lot of at-large teams available, so Hawaii or Boise would automatically go.

That's why they've decided they need a changes in the rules. Now, before they have to make their selection. The BCS is moving the goalposts, basically. Now, if there aren't enough teams to fill the at-large spots, the BCS will add FOUR additional teams. Obviously if there aren't enough spots they've got to add more teams, but how about this: if they need one more team they can add ONE more eligible team -- not four. This is obviously a way to trigger avoiding Hawaii or Boise. There aren't enough teams in the top 14 to fill the bowls. Solution: don't allow #14 to play in the bowls. You've got to love the BCS!

Anyway, the team most likely to benefit from this new policy is probably Illinois. They are the only team ranked 15-18, aside from Hawaii, that can realistically play in the BCS because their conference isn't maxed out. Tennessee and Virginia would also be eligible under the current standings, but taking them would mean getting rid of a higher ranked conference mate, which would never happen -- only Hawaii and Boise would be eliminated in this manner since they are members of a conference with no voting power.

There's still a lot that needs to happen to see where everything falls. I think that after Kansas loses one of their next two games that Ohio State is in the top two and should be playing in the championship. Unfortunately, only the computers agree with me -- the sham opinion pollsters don't. If Ohio State made the championship then Illinois would have a pretty good shot at the Rose Bowl.

More on Albuquerque Water

2007-11-18T12:27:00.000-06:00

Albuquerque water costs $1.014 per 748 gallons, but gets bumped up to $1.409 after environmental taxes. The cost in Champaign is $1.906 (without the 40% rate hike that the water company wants). Champaign's water rates are just about average for the country.

Albuquerque's sewer rate is $0.822, while Champaign's is $1.38. That means that the marginal cost of water in Champaign is 47% higher than in Albuquerque, even though Champaign has a plentiful supply of water.

Making the Daily Illini Look Good

2007-11-18T11:20:00.000-06:00

Even though the Daily Illini is horrible, I have found proof that it doesn't have the market cornered on horrible journalists.

Newspapers are supposed to write at something like a fifth grade level in order to make everything understandable. This V.B. Price must have misunderstood that: he/she writes like a fifth grader at a second grade level.

Worse yet is that unfathomably stupid "logic" of the article. Here's a little excerpt:

Food transportation costs and incompetent federal inspection of imported foods will force us to depend more and more on local agriculture, organic and sustainable family farming and ranching.

Because local/organic agriculture and ranching will be a whole lot safer. I mean, I couldn't eat spinach made in California for months last year because some organic farmer sprayed his spinach with water full of excrement. Things will be much safer once that farmer has set up shot in far flung places across the country.

Couple that with predictions of $4 for a gallon of gas by next summer, and who knows how much in the years ahead, as oil prices rocket to more than $100 a barrel, and what's known as "food miles" will cause a boom in less-expensive foodstuffs from local farms.

Most produce in American grocery stores has traveled, on average, an estimated 1,500 miles to get to your table. And, a Web site called Sustainable Table estimates, the broccoli in our supermarkets travels some 1,800 miles on average...

As gasoline prices rise, national and international transportation prices will also rise, and they will price many of us out of supermarkets and into farmers markets and food co-ops.

Wow, that high priced transportation is going to mean the end of transporting food! I mean, have you ever wondered why the grapes from Chile in the winter cost about half what the grapes from California cost? It's because it's REALLY, REALLY expensive to truck things out of California.

But those are the least stupid parts of the column. The stupidity of it all can only be realized by knowing where this local food cheerleader is from: Albuquerque. The one in New Mexico. Where it rains 8.5 inches a year.

So what does the author have to say about that? Looks like there's more stupidity raining in Albuquerque than moisture:

It seems unlikely that urban populations in New Mexico will continue to expand by pirating agricultural water to feed reckless growth...

Developers and urban politicians complain about how much water agriculture uses in New Mexico, as though it were being wasted. But in not too many years, flourishing and diversified local agriculture will again become an ultimate necessity...

Local agriculture is only going to grow, even if our cities start to depopulate because of water scarcity and fuel inefficiencies. We all need to support local farmers and ranchers.

Please take a moment to pause and laugh a lot.

Okay, settled down? If I was teaching an Econ 101 course, and it was the first week, I would use this as a good example of "comparative advantage". (Actually, it wouldn't make that good of an example since agriculture in Albuquerque is never at any sort of an advantage, but it would work if you're talking about growing corn in Nebraska vs. urbanization in Champaign, where land is much more fertile.) The really insane/stupid/infuriating thing about this Price moron is that he/she recognizes that water scarcity is a big problem in a place where it doesn't rain, yet he/she advocates engaging in more agriculture.

When I was giving a presentation at a symposium I had a "Rush Limbaugh must have set this up" moment. I had showed the economic benefits of environmental restoration: something that should make both regular people and environmentalists happy. Afterwards one of the environmentalists told me that she wasn't interested in my results because she prefers that the economy lose jobs. I didn't exactly know what to say other than accusing her of being Rush Limbaugh dressed up as an environmentalist trying to make them look bad. This Price character is very similar. I'm pretty sure that Price would consider him/herself to be an environmentalist. But he/she is advocating extremely irresponsible environmental policies while being giddy about the fact that the water losses to this industry may cause depopulation.

Is there a word for environmentalists who care not about the quality of the environment but rather advocate the elimination of one species from this planet? Environmental fascists?

FBI to raid every country on Earth

2007-11-17T10:49:00.000-06:00

The FBI is getting to raid every country on Earth after this article: The dollar's decline: from symbol of hegemony to shunned currency.

Of course, these countries have time because they will first be raiding many homes in America since having gold and silver coins that aren't dollars "can buy users a prison term." And who doesn't have some sort of silver coin with a picture of, say, Wrigley Field on it?

Okay, I'll be charitable. The mint probably has no problem with you having a silver Wrigley Field coin. The problem is when the silver coin is protesting the activities of the mint. And who can blame them? What part of the Constitution allows freedom of speech on precious metals? Sure, there's freedom of the "press" and coins can be created in a coin press, but that just means that you're allowed to use those machines that flatten a penny into a souvenir. That's the level of free speech that the founders intended.

This Is Going to Be Awesome!

2007-11-16T11:05:00.000-06:00

When I got down to the third paragraph of this DI article I screamed out, "This is going to be awesome!" I'm going to blog the article in real time so that you, the reader, can experience all the hilarity that I am experiencing for the first time.

Let's start with that third paragraph:

Over time, urban sprawl has spread into former farmland and increased the size of Champaign County.

Soon Champaign County will be in Ohio! The blob that ate "The Abusively Named State East of Here".

Farmers surrounding the city limits have been protesting the outward growth and have asked for better planning from the government.

Unfortunately, the author fails to give us an example of a farmer who is upset that the price of their farmland has gone up ten times its value due to Champaign's growth.

Oh, here's one further down in the article:

Barnhart said he understands the incentive for some farmers to sell their land into development.

"A lot of the times it's a trade. You get four or more acres for the price of one. There's an economic benefit from it. The long term results are not good though," he said.

And these long term results are on the next page. Oh the suspense!

...and the suspense will just have to linger, I guess, since there's nothing about the negative long term results.

"So many other countries don't do what we do," said Misty Barron, Champaign resident. "So much is wasteful in the way we plan our cities.

"It's probably cheaper to buy land and start over, but in the long run I don't think it's necessarily as cost effective to our resources and community members."

And that would be how somebody talks out of their ass.

And maybe these are the negative long term results:

Resources for new developments are not limitless, said Barnhart.

"Once you lose the resource, you've lost the resource," he said. "We now have to plan as though we're going to be here for while. Maybe we should think 1,000 years in advance."

I don't think we're exactly losing the resource. Dense residual areas are worse uses of land since it's hard to renovate or expand them, which means that the apartments that are further from the university deteriorate and start attracting people who like to shoot guns in the parking lot. On the other hand, single family homes on larger pieces of property can easily be expanded. If necessary, two lots can be razed to produce a really large house. It's much more flexible!

Oh wait... I get it now: these people are upset that we are losing farmland. If there's one thing this country needs to do, it is to preserve our industrial landscape!

Oh, man, now I feel bad. I've been working with the forces of evil. If people build single family homes and one acre lots on top of farmland there is a chance that they might plant some native plants and trees as "landscaping". Gaia likes her surface to be artificially brown for nine months of the year! And think about the poor rivers: who's going to be dumping tons of pollutants (not to mention topsoil) into these bodies of water if not the farmers?

Our way of living is at risk. Wow, I'd really just love to give ADM a ton of (other people's) money right now.

Another Airline Leaves Champaign

2007-11-15T15:37:00.000-06:00

Earlier today I heard the sound of a loud MD-80 taking off for Las Vegas. I won't be hearing that much longer since Allegiant Air is pulling out of Champaign.

It won't be a big loss since it's only two flights a week. Still, it's less competition, and it means that the trip to Vegas that my friends have been talking about for three months probably won't happen.

U.S. Government Steals Ron Paul

2007-11-15T15:29:00.000-06:00

The Liberty Dollar recently start issuing Ron Paul gold and silver coins. In response, the FBI and Secret Service did this:

According to the e-mail, about a dozen agents arrived Wednesday morning and seized gold, silver, platinum and nearly two tons of recently delivered Ron Paul Dollars. They also took all the files, all the computers and froze the group's bank accounts, the e-mail said.

Note that there is absolutely nothing illegal about making gold and silver coins and putting a picture of Ron Paul on one side. Perhaps the feds thought that Ron Paul could be mistaken for Thomas Jefferson or George Washington? Or perhaps somebody is scared...

Buy Your Holiday Flights Early

2007-11-14T20:39:00.000-06:00

After having to shell out over $300 to fly last Christmas, we bought our plane tickets for this Christmas in February. The total cost was $234, which is almost the lowest we've ever paid to fly at Christmas. Plus we get free parking since we're flying out of SPI.

I checked out the current cost of our tickets. The published fare is $394. The problem is that one of the flights is no longer on sale (it must be oversold). The closest itinerary is $1051. The cheapest available is $577, but that involves an extra segment each way. The cheapest available out of any airport within driving distance is $444 out of St. Louis (not counting Southwest, which I'm too lazy to look up).

So buy those holiday flights as soon as possible.

Ron Paul Polls 8% in General Election at 3rd Party Candidate

2007-11-14T12:03:00.000-06:00

A poll was conducted that runs Giuliani, Clinton, Paul, and Nader. It finds that Ron Paul is polling at 8%, which is more than he is getting in most polls for the Republican primary (5-6%).

It sort of makes you wonder how accurate the primary polls are when somebody is polling more in the general election as a third party candidate. Are they excluding people from the primary poll?

$4 mil Man

2007-11-05T23:01:00.000-06:00

Ron Paul raised $3.989 mil online on November 5th (EST) according to the latest data. That rounds up to $4.0 mil, and doesn't include about $300k in offline donations that were also added to his total.

That puts him at $7.1 mil for the quarter (less than a month and a week so far). By comparison, Giuliani raised $10.5 mil across all three months of the previous quarter.

$5mil in a day?

2007-11-04T23:16:00.000-06:00

Ron Paul's supporters are trying to raise a lot of money today. After of 12:15 EST, Ron Paul has raised $51,300. That's on a pace to raise $5mil today. We'll see if this is just everybody donating at Midnight, or if this will be sustained throughout the day.

First Christmas Commercial

2007-11-01T20:10:00.000-05:00

I just saw my first (non-movie) Christmas commercial. It was about how you could buy your husband an HD-DVD player for Christmas at Walmart.

Fascism is Alive; First Amendment Dead at the University of Illinois

2007-11-01T12:22:00.000-05:00

From yesterday's News Gazette:

Photos of the students applying brown makeup to their faces and posing in their costumes were posted recently on the social networking Web site Facebook. Someone forwarded the photos to the university, and administrators said they are now investigating the incident...

UI spokeswoman Robin Kaler said the university investigates "every incident that's brought to our attention. This incident is under investigation and will be addressed either through the student judicial system or tolerance program."

After a complaint about an act of intolerance is sent to the UI via e-mail or a form is submitted online, a team of employees from student affairs will gather the information, contact the people involved and try to figure out what happened, Cobb said.

The team then determines if there has been any violation of the student code.

If there were any possible violations of the student code, the students are then referred to the Office for Student Conflict Resolution, which handles adjudication, mediation and referrals.

If the student code has not been violated, but an action violates "our community standards, our efforts to create an inclusive Illinois," then the university will contact the people involved and try to have conversations with them, involve them in educational programming and work with them to help them understand why such incidents can affect a community, Cobb said.

Acts of intolerance can be reported by e-mailing stophateuiuc.edu or filling out a form online at www.odos.uiuc.edu.

You too can be sent before the thought police. Just dress up as the Jamaican bobsled team at a non-university off-campus event, or dress as anything else that anybody at the University of Illinois could possibly think is offensive, and you'll be hauled before the thought police.

Geez... I guess I could even be in trouble for this insensitive blog post.

FIRST AMENDMENT!!!

There, I'm definitely in trouble.

Ron Paul is in Third

2007-11-01T11:29:00.000-05:00

Ron Paul has now moved to third place in the Intrade betting market for the Republican Nomination. He has a 9% chance of winning, which is second to Romney at 29% and Giuliani at 40% (the whole Fred Thompson is god thing really fizzled out, huh?)

Obama has a 12% chance of winning, so Ron Paul isn't quite at Obamania levels yet, but he's close, and there's a lot more competition on the Republican side.

Ron Paul is now up to 1.2% in the vice presidential race, which means that there's some free money on the table. Huckabee is at 30%. I would put Huckabee's chances at something more like... well... 91%. Obama is now leading the Democratic race, which means that in addition to two horrible presidential candidates the market is predicting two horrible vice presidential candidates.

Another Halloween With No Trick or Treaters

2007-11-01T11:21:00.000-05:00

For the second year in a row we had a total of THREE trick or treaters show up at our front door, begging for candy. Unfortunately, they came early in the night so we weren't yet able to give them each a pound of candy.

I drove out to get a pizza for dinner and noticed that there were quite a few trick or treaters in our neighborhood, yet only one group bothered to stop at our house. At one point last night there was a large group across the street, but even they didn't come. This despite putting out Jack O lanterns for the first time ever (I kept two pumpkins in the garage so the squirrels wouldn't eat them.)

I see two possible reasons for the lack of trick or treaters (other than there being some mark on our house that gives a signal that we like to eat kids). First, probably over half the houses in our neighborhood didn't have their lights on. When I was a kid trick or treating in my subdivision it was rare to find any houses like this -- it was usually Jehovah's Witnesses or something like that. This explanation, though, probably isn't too good since most of the homes on my street had lights. Second, if kids aren't allowed to cross a street, they probably won't come to our house. I don't know if a lot of parents forbid crossing the street nowadays, but if they do it means that kids will only go around the block. Even if kids take a strategy of going around blocks trick or treating, they probably won't come to our house since our "block" is essentially huge since it takes up the whole eastern part of the neighborhood.

Bringing back the marriage tax

2007-10-25T10:49:00.000-05:00

After getting us out of Iraq, the Democrats have moved on to more important things like raising our taxes. Here's part of their tax plan:

Upper-income families, however, would pay for that repeal with a 4% surtax on incomes above $150,000 for a single earner or incomes above $200,000 for a married couple.

If you and your wife are both making $150,000 then you will pay $4,000 more than you would being single. That's in addition to the $5,979 you would be this year because Bush was too busy spending money (and pulling out of Iraq following the election of the Democrats) to complete the changes in the tax code. Together the marriage penalty would surpass the $7,366 in penalties that would have been paid in 2000.

(This legislation will not affect the trust fund kids, like most of our Congress, who will still be paying zero taxes on most of their trust fund income.)

The End of an Era

2007-10-22T22:44:00.000-05:00

Last year, on the eve of the election, Rod Blagojevich announced that he was giving airlines in Illinois $1.6 million to fly from small airports to Midway. Last week that airline, Mesa Airlines, announced that will be leaving.

Passenger levels were a little off the mark, as I predicted. Officials originally predicted that 23,723 passengers from Decatur would fly to Midway each year. That's 1,977 per month. In reality, the airline averaged 502 passengers per month (according to the most recent DOT statistics), but 390 passengers per month made the trip from Marion to Decatur and presumably stayed on the plane to Midway. That means that only about 112 passengers per month originated in Decatur, or about 6% of what was predicted.

But there's good news for Decatur! Service to St. Louis is finally coming back. After RegionsAir was grounded in March with the prodding of Dick Durbin Essential Air Service to St. Louis has stopped. Great Lakes was awarded the route, just as Durbin asked for prior to the Regions Air shutdown. Unfortunately, they couldn't get any planes to start service, so nothing has been happening. Next month, though, service returns.

Now the bad news. There will only be two flights a day on 19 seat planes. IIRC the previous service was four flights per day on those planes, and before that it was three flights per day on 29 seat planes. Worse yet, when they say that "Great Lakes" will be the airline, they don't mean "Great Lakes dba American Connection". The service will be totally disconnected from American Airlines, unlike all previous Essential Air Service. The airport people are trying to play this as a good thing: "That would give the airline more flexibility in keeping prices affordable." In reality, the prices will be horrible because they will no longer be subsidized by American. The cheapest roundtrip flight is currently $152 including taxes. Last year I paid $169 to fly from Decatur to St. Louis to Little Rock. Do you think American has roundtrips to Little Rock out of St. Louis for $17?

Futile Search for a Job

2007-10-22T10:30:00.000-05:00

Once again I'm thinking that my search for a job might be futile. Unlike last time, however, I don't have the option of pursuing another degree.

I was pretty excited when I saw a job listing for somebody to do research about location and statistics. They desired a PhD and only a couple of years experience -- something that my five years of RA work should qualify for (if given 5 years of RA work and a PhD vs. 2 years of regular work and a masters, I should easily win). The job must have been difficult to fill since it started getting posted on Monster and CareerBuilder by recruiters. I applied to the job via the corporate website... and heard nothing. I wrote to the HR at the specific location where the job was to ask if corporate HR had forwarded by resume... and heard nothing.

Now I'm seeing a different job for the same company/branch. I don't qualify for it since they want about 10 years of experience, and the job manages lots of people. One thing it stresses is experience with "spatial analysis". So the company wants people with "spatial analysis"? How about somebody with "spatial analysis" in the name of their major? Guess not. I had always thought that I was in a really good position to have my pick of (the few) industry jobs that combine location, statistics, and economics and require a PhD. Obviously I was totally wrong since I can't even get a call, let alone an interview, let alone a job.

The scariest thing in all of this is that the weakest part of my package is likely to be my interview. Of course, I wouldn't really know since I can't get one. I didn't get one after I got my masters. I'm not getting any now.

And So It Begins

2007-10-18T12:50:00.000-05:00

The university's campaign to keep me from getting my PhD in May has begun. Here is the first shot:

Margin
--requirement has changed to 1.5 inches on the left and all others remain 1 inch.

Not very good news after I've spent several months writing a dissertation complete with well over 100 figures and tables that assume a one inch margin on the left.

Job Offer!

2007-10-15T18:25:00.000-05:00

Well, it's not quite a job offer, but I think I've found my calling:

The qualifications and experiences you've listed on your resume prompted me to contact you regarding an available position we are attempting to fill for a client. DFW Pet Sitting Services, Inc. is looking for a Pet Sitter and I feel that you may have the attributes they are seeking.

Dallas, here I come!!!

Illinois Republicans pushing religion on schools

2007-10-14T13:57:00.000-05:00

The Illinois Republican party passed a mandatory moment of silence in schools. The Republicans demonstrated their power by passing it with more than a 2:1 margin in both the senate and the house.

Bet you didn't know Republicans in Illinois held more than 2/3 of state legislative seats, did you? Actually, it's crazier than that -- according to this senate vote all but one state senator is an evil Republican trying to push his religion down our throats.

Listen to the clear fascism motivating my Republican state senator, Dan Rutherford: "State law already allows schools or teachers to start the day with a moment of silence if they want to. That's important. If they feel the need to do it or believe it's a good idea, the law says they `may.'"

UPDATE: There's a pretty eye-opening discussion about this law on the Chicago Tribune website. There are two common arguments in support of this law that are totally dishonest.

The first is that this has absolutely nothing to do with prayer. That is why the law says:

In each public school classroom the teacher in charge shall observe a brief period of silence with the participation of all the pupils therein assembled at the opening of every school day. This period shall not be conducted as a religious exercise but shall be an opportunity for silent prayer or for silent reflection on the anticipated activities of the day.

Also, the name of the law is "The Silent Reflection and Student Prayer Act". It seems to have a little something to do with prayer. Even if the law didn't explicitly mention prayer it would still be obvious that this is about prayer.

The second argument is that the Constitution says nothing (or something completely made up) about the establishment of religion. Yeah, right. If every Constitution in this country weren't shredded already, it would be pretty easy to read it and see that things are pretty clear.

Here's a nice argument from some guy who makes both claims:

To all those who are screaming "unconstitutional" and "separation of church and state," please remember, the US Constitution does not promise freedom FROM religion, just freedom OF religion. And giving 30 seconds to allow a student to think about whatever he or she may wish is fine with me. I don't go pushing my Christianity down your throat, please don't go pushing your atheism down mine.

Presidential Betting Markets

2007-10-12T13:45:00.000-05:00

I was surprised last night to see that Al Gore had shot up above Obama to second place in iTrade's Democratic nominee market. I was less surprised when I starting reading things about him winning the Nobel prize. Funny, though, as the prize is totally secret until 4am. Of course, we all know that Europeans have trouble with following procedures.

Gore has actually dropped a little since the announcement. He's at 12% to 11.5% for Obama and 69.3% for Hillary. But there's a big bid-ask spread for Gore -- it seems people are afraid of the uncertainty.

Anyway, this is good news because it moves my second-least compatible candidate down a spot. I'm not sure where Al Gore will fall, but unfortunately my third-least compatible candidate seems to be running away with the nomination.

On the Republican side, Giuliani is staying steady at 39.8%, Romney is increasing at 24.2%, Thompson is getting hammered at 17%, and Ron Paul continues to shoot up at 7% passing McCain who is at 5.4%. By comparison, Ron Paul was at 0.1% in February compared to about 30% for McCain.

Anyway, this is still more bad news because the most likely matchup is my most uncompatible and third-least compatible candidates. Maybe Romney can move up and improve things a bit -- he's only the sixth-least compatible.

Back From Vacation

2007-10-10T11:01:00.000-05:00

I'm back from vacation. The last several days I have been gone the temperature has been in the 90s, and it's been humid. Despite being a little bit cool during the last few days of vacation, the 70s are better than the 90s and humid.

Luckily, the weather has changed. Sadly, I'm in Champaign. It is now 52 degrees. I guess there's not going to be much 60-70 degree fall weather this year.

Cubs Win!

2007-09-28T22:15:00.000-05:00

The Cubs made it hard on themselves, but they won today, and with a three game Brewers' losing streak, they are the Central Division Champs.

Cubs fire their manager: go to the playoffs the next year.
Rice fires its manager: go to a bowl game the next year.

Start listening to me sooner!

I try not to read it

2007-09-25T10:08:00.000-05:00

Here's the first line of an opinion column in the DI:

In 2005, a horrible hurricane named Katrina destroyed most of Louisiana.

The rest of the article is about as stupid.