HE HAD A BEAUTIFUL MIND. At InstaPundit's recommendation, I skimmed through the Kitchen Cabinet coverage of the Yale Blogging Conference, and en passant discovered reference to a lengthy Atlantic Monthly report on the descent into madness of Grandmaster Bobby Fischer. A pity, his My 60 Memorable Games will reward careful study, and the way Fischer opened a can of whup-ass on the Classic Sicilian Dragon is particularly lurid: "I'd won dozens of skittles games in analogous positions and had it down to a science: pry open the KR-file, sac, sac, ... mate!"

ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT. Good going, gentlemen.

HUSKIES 49, BADGERS 47. Northern Illinois University's womens' basketball team officially opened the new arena with a victory in the final seconds. Northern Illinois led by 7 points much of the way, and kept their composure when Wisconsin took a lead late in the game. Read full coverage from Northern Illinois University or from Wisconsin.

WELCOME VISITORS TO COLD SPRING, NEW YORK. That's a rather pretty community on the Water Level Route, not far from the tunnels at Milepost 50. Sorry that I can't tell you much about shopping opportunities in downtown Cold Spring, although there are a number of antique shops and coffee houses. On the other hand, if any of you know of the parents of Mary Esther Fowler (1803-1856), wife of Deacon Ira Hopkins (1805-1877), both of whom are buried in Carmel, New York, please let me know. Mary Esther Fowler is my third great-grandmother, and the current roadblock in the family history.

PERMIT 2201, TRACK 1, YD TO CO, CORRECTLY REPEATED AT 2:39, SHK. Where Worlds Collide has a story about Russians making section speeders to use as intercity transportation. The roads in Russia are frightful, and there are numerous lightly used rail lines. The original source notes, "Trouble is, the trolleys are not subject to traffic control. The line belongs to the local authorities, but there is just one safety inspector."

There's a similar problem in the United States. Here, hobbyists collect section speeders (OK, not me, I don't collect snakes either) and run them on railroad tracks. Sometimes those are abandoned tracks, in which case the biggest problems are defective tracks, or other hobbyists going the other way. Not all hobbyists are alert to the tracks that are still live, which poses a bigger safety hazard.

The subject line of this post gives the final line of a track occupancy permit, using a slightly out of date form of the rules. Dispatchers on the railroads issue permits for the section speeders (or, more commonly these days, pickup trucks with railway wheels) to use a section of track. Free agents are not allowed to request such permits. The hobbyists have ways of coordinating their use of abandoned track, at least the organized ones do. The organized hobbyists are still at some risk of running into a free agent joyriding on the same track. I wonder how the Russians manage.

WELCOME BACK. Daniel Drezner is back from his sabbatical, no doubt seeking a break from committee work. He has a spot-on post about French farmer Jose Bove. Sample: "Bové's decision to attack the MacDonald's in the first place was due to a U.S. decision, during a typical trade spat with the EU, to raise tariffs against French luxury goods. This had a devastating impact on Bové's livelihood, as 'someone who supplies sheep's milk to makers of Roquefort cheese,' according to the New York Times. In other words, the initial incident that triggered Bové's 'protest' was a lack of globalization, not its acceleration." Reality is even better than that. The Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union, and the tariffs that accompany farm price supports in the States, are specifically exempt from sanction under the trade agreements. That is one criticism of the current trade treaties I can agree with, but, ironically, it means M. Bove owes his large income to the World Trade Organization, keeping that Kazakh sheep's milk out of Europe.

WELCOME TO THE UNSULLIED AND THE UNDISMAYED. Thanks for the link and the kind words. Yes, the Superintendent has several degrees from the University of Wisconsin, and works at the University of Southern Wisconsin in DeKalb (that's Northern Illinois University.)

Speaking of Badgers, the Jane Albright-coached (she used to coach here) Badgers will be helping officially open the new Northern Illinois University basketball arena tonight, talk about a loyalty problem.

I'm going on record about this now: should both Wisconsin and Northern Illinois football teams become bowl-eligible, and the Badgers go and the Huskies don't go, I will be a very unhappy Superintendent. That's the sports report for today. Back to some research.

RUBRICS. That's the latest assessment fad, and I've had a bellyful of them lately working on some general-education related stuff. Here is my Instant Rubric:
A: Clear on the concept
B: Misses minor points
C: Understands Major Idea
D: Not Quite Clueless
F: Clueless.

THE TEN PERCENT SOLUTION. Recent research noted by Highered Intelligence and then covered by Volokh Conspiracy. The staff of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights appears to be making an end run around Commissioners with whom they disagree.

TENURE DENIED. Volokh Conspiracy has done some research on the case of CUNY historian Robert David Johnson, whose lack of "collegiality" oughtweighed a solid publication record and effective teaching. The CUNY Association of Scholars is following the case. Where is the lack of collegiality? "Professor Johnson’s difficulties at Brooklyn College started when he adopted public positions questioning the desirability of affirmative action quotas in hiring and the suitability of a college-sponsored 'teach-in' containing no known supporters of U.S. or Israeli policy in the Middle East. When Professor Johnson championed the need for quality in academic and hiring standards within his own department, the department chairperson termed this position 'preposterous, specious, and demeaning'." Given that a department chairman often has the responsibility of making a separate recommendation on tenure, getting into such a fight pre-tenure is risky. But that any position on academic or hiring standards be dismissed in those terms says more about the chairman than it does about Johnson. Volokh Conspiracy is correct, there are questions of fact, and of policy, yet to be settled, but his allusion to Bad Behavior by CUNY rings true.

THE PROBLEM IS RESOURCES, NOT ANCESTRY. A report on student achievement, ably fisked by Highered Intelligence.

THE EXTENDED TIME SCAM is now accessory to a crime.

DARWIN AWARD. Psychometrician Number 2 Pencil is a snake fancier. She has appropriate scorn for an adventurer who thought it would be cool to bring home a baby rattlesnake and kiss it in front of friends.

INTELLECTUAL SNOBS Great takedown of the species at Tightly Wound (top entry as of now). "Intellectual snobbery is the only real weapon left to those whose ideas are morally indefensible and intellectually bankrupt. When academicians, journalists, and politicians find their views met with scepticism or rejected outright, they tend to respond by wrapping their mantle of "greater understanding" around themselves and hastening to point out that their opponents simply don't have "the entire picture," or "a full understanding of the issues involved." Sometimes, they get a little carried away and go straight into the vicious invective category." Amen.

NEW ENLIGHTENMENT? Tim Blair discovers a Devine Miranda column that discovers a "turning point in Australia for logic over emotion." The occasion is a point-counterpoint on Australian television between Bjorn Lomborg and Peter Garrett. Sample:

Garrett: "Quite clearly whether it's 800 million people or four million kids who are suffering from starvation now it's still a problem for us and we haven't solved it in the world and to argue anything else is a statistical lie."

Lomborg: "This is the problem I have with this kind of argument. You think you're so right that you can also just deny the numbers that we all understand and we all agree to." Read the rest.

CLEANING UP FOR THE CLEANING LADY. Rick Heller's version.

AND LEAD US NOT INTO PENN STATION, BUT DELIVER US FROM GRAND CENTRAL. The National Council of Churches fatwa against the internal-combustion engine has attracted commentary here and here and from Andrew Sullivan ("More bad puns on this theme are hereby eagerly solicited.") All this discussion of what Jesus would drive is moot. The Queen of Sheba's train filled the entire Temple of Solomon. And it is well known that when the Lord created all creeping and crawling things, He created Amtrak.

NAME THAT COMMITTEE. Harvard's "Committee on Healthy Diversity" reminds Common Sense and Wonder of the Committee on Public Safety. Yes, Narodnii Kommissariat Vnutrekhi Del' has too many consonant clusters.

KNOXVILLE NO LONGER HELD HOSTAGE. Volokh Conspiracy has both good news and bad news.

WHISTLING SHRIMPS? "If you’ve come to this place for comfort, I urge you to rise, walk through yonder gate, and don’t look back." Noted, with satisfaction, by InstaPundit.