AT THE FRASER INSTITUTE, A student video contest, on the topic: “What is the Appropriate Role of Government in the Economy?”
Archive for 2009
July 24, 2009
MANY COPS ARE ANGRY AT OBAMA.
UPDATE: Reader Joseph Hrutka writes: “Didn’t their unions endorse Obama?” Just another case of figuring out who the rubes are. Kinda like those marijuana-legalization folks . . . .
AS WE LOOK AT NATIONAL HEALTHCARE, a reader forwards this piece on what went wrong with TennCare.
NASA’S POWER-BEAMING CHALLENGE is heating up.
JENNIFER RUBIN ON RACE IN AMERICA: Maybe We Should Just Not Discriminate. An idea so crazy it just might work!
SCIENTIFIC CONFORMITY:
“Academics, like teenagers, sometimes don’t have any sense regarding the degree to which they are conformists.”
So says Thomas Bouchard, the Minnesota psychologist known for his study of twins raised apart, in a retirement interview with Constance Holden in the journal Science.
Journalists, of course, are conformists too. So are most other professions. There’s a powerful human urge to belong inside the group, to think like the majority, to lick the boss’s shoes, and to win the group’s approval by trashing dissenters.
The strength of this urge to conform can silence even those who have good reason to think the majority is wrong.
Read the whole thing.
KINDLE UPDATE: Jeff Bezos issues an apology. “Our ‘solution’ to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles. It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we’ve received. We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission.”
No non-apology apology here. Good for him.
HARD TIMES AT HARVARD: “Only a year ago, Harvard had a $36.9 billion endowment, the largest in academia. Now that endowment has imploded, and the university faces the worst financial crisis in its 373-year history. Could the same lethal mix of uncurbed expansion, colossal debt, arrogance, and mismanagement that ravaged Wall Street bring down America’s most famous university? And how much of the turmoil is the fault of former Harvard president Larry Summers, now a top economic adviser to President Obama?” It’s a troubling story: “At some point in the last five years, the men and women who run Harvard convinced themselves that the endowment would grow at double-digit rates forever. If Harvard were a publicly traded company, those people would have been fired by now.”
HEH: ‘The Press Has Met Their Waterloo and It’s Obama’. Can we get ABBA to record that?
UH OH: Radioactive Drug for Tests Is in Short Supply. “A global shortage of a radioactive drug crucial to tests for cardiac disease, cancer and kidney function in children is emerging because two aging nuclear reactors that provide most of the world’s supply are shut for repairs.”
JOHN FUND: Health Reform’s Hidden Victims.
IN ASHEVILLE, TEA PARTIERS LOOK AT journalistic ethics.
July 23, 2009
TONSILLECTOMIES OF GREED: This was just another statement where Obama revealed a truly staggering degree of medical ignorance. The fact is that it’s ridiculously hard to get doctors to take out tonsils now, as it’s gone completely out of style. My sister had to go from one doctor to another before she could get my nephew’s tonsils removed — though once they were, his endless series of strep throats and sinus infections stopped. But it was like pulling teeth to get them to pull the tonsils.
Not quite as dumb as the painkillers-for-heart-trouble remark, but close.
SUPPOSE MOVEON HAD A HEALTHCARE RALLY AND A “TEA PARTY” BROKE OUT? How a Local Rally For Obama’s Health Care Proposal Turned Into a Rally Against It.
Local MoveOn.org members had penciled in on today’s schedule a protest in front of Senator John Cornyn’s Spring Valley Road office, during which they had hoped to pressure the senator to support President Barack Obama’s public health care legislation. But when Paula Anderson, a MoveOn.org member and spokeswoman, showed up at 11:30 a.m., she found another contingent had beat her to the proverbial punch: A large number of Dallas Tea Party members were already set up, voicing their opposition to the proposal.
Anderson was stunned: “We really did not expect them to show up.” She estimated the crowd at about 130. “From our perspective we took names of everyone there, and we had about 30 people,” she told Unfair Park. “And I would assume they maybe had 100.” As it turned out, according to Jessica Sandlin, Cornyn’s Texas press secretary, Tea Party-hearties also showed up to health-care legislation rallies in Austin and in San Antonio.
With it looking like the bill won’t pass before the August recess, Tea Partiers have an opportunity for in-district action.
FROM THE G.O.P., a different approach to health care reform.
CHRIS DODD UPDATE: “Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd trails former U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons, a likely Republican challenger 48 – 39 percent in the 2010 Senate race, but he is inching up in his job approval to a negative 42 – 52 percent approval rating, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.”
SIX SERIOUS BOMB SHELTERS to buy now. Apparently, there’s lots of government business: “We can’t make enough.” Time for an updated version of Farnham’s Freehold?
HMM: Crowley’s Union Predicts Obama Will Regret Remarks. Still waiting for that post-racial society we were promised during the campaign. . . .
Plus this: “And now we know the name of the woman who called the police. I suppose her life will be ruined now, as she’ll be portrayed as a racist. Lesson learned: If you think you’re witnessing a crime, mind your own business. Somewhere, the new Kitty Genovese walks into the alleyway.”
UPDATE: L.A. Times: Was Barack Obama stupid to call Cambridge police stupid?
Plus, Alan Bock: Did the Cambridge Police Act Stupidly? My take: Bad arrest, but not motivated by racism. The issue was likely “mouthing off” — not a crime, but a frequent cause of disorderly-conduct arrests without regard to race. It was just that Gates had the resources to make it a big national story.
Perhaps, as we view this confrontation between an Harvard Prof who’s a friend of the President and a Cambridge cop, we can also have a national conversation about class?
ANOTHER UPDATE: A WSJ Editorial.
MORE: Reader Kevin Maguire writes:
Have you seen the police report on The Smoking Gun? In it, three things jumped out at me that I haven’t seen reported in any of the coverage I’ve read on the incident:
First, according to Crowley’s writeup, before providing his ID Gates made a call in which he asked someone to “get the chief”. How many people can make a phone call in the sincere expectation that they’ll be able to immediately reach the chief of police, whether Cambridge PD or Harvard’s campus police?
Second, Crowley felt it appropriate to request the presence of the Harvard CPs to help him handle the situation. Would he have done that if Gates had been a Harvard student? When I was at MIT in the late 80s and early 90s, when the Boston police visited us, they certainly didn’t summon the MIT CPs (although we would, if there was a real problem, because the MIT CPs were very much on our side).
Third, Harvard sent someone from the University maintenance department over to secure Gates’ house and/or fix the broken lock on his front
door. How many people have an employer who’ll send maintenance staff over to fix up or watch over their house?
Not me.
And reader Joe Scuderi writes: “If Obama wants to speak out for a Black man who is getting a raw deal, how about this one?” Apparently that’s left to me and Radley Balko.
MORE STILL: On that “national conversation,” a reader emails: “I think you mean ‘class’ in both senses of the word.”
Plus, taking guidance from Eddie Murphy?
And some thoughts from Victor Davis Hanson. “The Gates incident seems to have had little to do with race but a lot to do with the natural human misunderstandings that happen every day in police scenes — and its final twist has everything to do with insider privilege and aristocratic disdain.”
Also: “Mr. Gates lives in a city with a black mayor, a state with a black governor and a country with a black President.” And Obama gets criticism from the Fraternal Order of Police.
WINDOWS 7 on track for October 22 release.
I doubt I’ll go to the trouble of upgrading, but I’m glad my next machine won’t have to be a Vista box.
MICKEY KAUS: Maybe Henry Louis Gates Has Stereotypes, too.
And apparently, even being one of the diversity police doesn’t get you a pass on those . . . .
JAMES PETHOKOUKIS: Why Obama Might Have Just Killed Obamacare.
BLUEFIN TUNA heading for extinction? So stop eating them, even if they are delicious.
WHATEVER YOU DO, don’t make them think of Jimmy!