DAVID RIVKIN AND ELIZABETH FOLEY: DEATH PANELS COME BACK TO LIFE. “If government can limit Americans’ choice of effective medical treatments, there’s no limit to its control over our bodies, and the right to bodily autonomy is an illusion. In the context of the new health law, the FDA’s Avastin decision is the tip of a looming iceberg of government rationing. It must be challenged.”

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Kenneth Anderson: 21st Century Jobs 1: Higher Ed ROI Planning?

The higher education bubble — both undergraduate and professional education — has raised issues of whether the academy has priced itself out of the earnings power, now and into the future, of its customer base. The basic phenomenon has been described at length, on both supply and demand. Federal subsidies accrue mostly to universities to raise prices rather than subsidize and lower effective prices to students; the shift to loans, however, meant in large part that the federal government became not a subsidy so much as an intermediary that subsidizes the higher ed cartel on the front end, but in the end largely intermediates the cost as future loan payments by consumers. One has to wonder whether the inability to discharge student loan in bankruptcy, if properly priced as a regulatory adjustment on the risks and interest rate of a loan, might swallow any remaining implicit federal subsidy to students, at least for important sectors.

Beyond the funding subsidy and federal intermediation, numerous articles and analyses have appeared seeking to quantify the earnings power of various degrees, career tracks, etc., set against the costs of such education. These studies are important in raising the social issue of the “four c’s” of financial bubbles: conflicts (of interest), complexity (of pricing information), complacency (of easy money) and, not least, cupidity. They raise the questions of social over-investment in higher education — over-investment for several possible and overlapping reasons .

Read the whole thing. Interesting discussion in the comments, too.

JULIAN ASSANGE goes the full Rothbard.

ALL ABOUT SLOW-COOKING.

PEJMAN YOUSEFZADEH REPORTS ON encounters with the TSA.

UP TO 50% OFF ON cell phones and accessories.

INSTAVISION: More on the Higher Education Bubble, with Dr. Richard Vedder, distinguished professor of Economics at Ohio University. Plus, was my PJTV set taken over by the designers from the original Tron movie?

UPDATE: Bill Whittle emails: “It’s not TRON, Glenn. It’s MAX HEADROOM. Kn-kn-kn-know what I me-me-me-mean?” Where’s my silver makeup? (Bumped).

ART HORN: The Utter Futility of Reducing Carbon Emissions. Actually, I think there are a lot of good reasons to reduce fossil-fuel burning. I just don’t think they have much to do with global warming.

THE JOY OF TEACHING IN IRAQ.

Now, what’s so special about these Iraqi students? Let me give you a list:

* Students here come to class wide awake and cheerful. Even those students in the 8 a.m. Mathematics II class show up on time and ready to work; the same applies to the students in the later sections.

* Students here show up for class without a bunch of electronics. Cell phones are plentiful here, but I’ve never seen one in class. Last spring, at my university in the United States, I spent countless weeks wrestling with my calculus students over texting in class.

* In both their dress and demeanor, students here display a positive attitude toward learning. There’s no “slacker” mentality. Students are nicely dressed, most at a business casual level. There are no pajamas, flip-flops, or t-shirts with profane or sexually explicit messages, nor do you see a lot of skin. These kids are dressed to learn.

Read the whole thing.

A CORRECTION REGARDING Merle Haggard.

VINDICTIVE? Woman Who Protested TSA Pat-Downs At OKC Airport Banned From Flying.

THE TEN MOST POPULAR space stories of 2010.

WAS THIS THE HEADLINE OF THE YEAR? ‘Obama assails Republican foes, urges bipartisan effort.’ It certainly captures something of the flavor of 2010’s politics.

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Do you need a paring knife?

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Highest-Paid University of California Execs Demand Millions In Benefits. Yeah, that’ll play well.

MICHELLE BACHMANN, tax geek? I didn’t know that she has an LL.M. in tax.

HMM: Gravity Emerges From Quantum Information?

Plus, the year in materials science.

NYC SANITATION WORKERS’ UNION denies claims that it staged a snow-cleanup slowdown.

A CIVIL RIGHTS VICTORY IN OHIO: Ohio Supreme Court shoots down local gun control. “The Ohio Supreme Court today dealt a fatal blow to local efforts to regulate firearms, concluding that a more permissive state law should trump restrictions on guns in cities. In a 5-2 ruling, the state’s top court struck down Cleveland’s assault-weapons ban and registration requirement for handguns.” Though the decision appears to turn on issues of Ohio law, I believe that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions in Heller and McDonald, by normalizing firearms ownership, have made a difference in how state courts approach these questions.

PROTECTING YOUR JOINTS with garlic.

NISSAN RELEASES A Leaf Emergency Responder Guide.

JAPAN AND THE LIMITS OF KEYNESIANISM: “Japan’s budget is in a truly terrifying state.” Plus this: “Unsustainable’ is too weak to describe the situation; I don’t know how they’re doing it now.”

SOUTHERN LEE HIGH SCHOOL IN SANFORD NORTH CAROLINA should be closed. Its principal, and board of education, are too dumb to hold jobs. And its Superintendent, Jeffrey C. Moss, is no poster boy for Ed.D. degrees.

“Bottom line is we want to ensure every child feels safe on our campus.” Not safe from idiots like you, Mr. Moss. Because you’re unwilling to take responsibility for discipline, you formulate and enforce rules that make public schools — and now, particularly, yours — a national joke. From the comments: “Let’s have the students feel safe. How about letting them feel like their entire lives and livelihood aren’t at risk at your institution from an honest mistake. You are ruining this child’s life and future because some bonehead can’t recognize an honest mistake.”

It’s beginning to seem like placing your children in public schools is placing them at unacceptable risk.

UPDATE: Reader Gregg Hanke writes: “There is a cure: vouchers. Yes, they have been shot down in numerous elections, and I am disappointed the Tea Partiers have not pushed them yet. But perhaps the reason they were shot down is because they were promoted before the situation was ripe enough for the voters to accept them. And this situation over a paring knife is certainly ripe.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Tim Wohlford sends this, which he says is a reply from the school system:

The facts recited by the media are erroneous and without foundation.

On October 20, 2010, a faculty member at Southern Lee High School discovered a student on campus with marijuana. Based upon information obtained in the interview between school administration and the student in question, a search of several other students, including Miss Smithwick, was promptly conducted. During this search, a 3-inch paring knife was found on the person of Miss Smithwick in her purse. The knife was not found in Miss Smithwick’s lunchbox as reported by her family and the media.

Miss Smithwick has not been long-term suspended from Southern Lee High School. She is currently enrolled as a student at the school. Over two months after the event it is a mystery to us that the Smithwick’s concerns were not brought to our attention by the family through normal appeal procedures prior to going to the press.

Hmm. Well, if this is true, then the news story was wrong on some particulars. But it quotes the school superintendent. Stay tuned.

MORE: Reader John Torbett writes:

The school district’s response shows how clueless they are. Apparently, their primary defense is that the pairing knife was found in Smithwick’s purse. However, follow your link to the WRAL website and click on the second photograph and you can see that she had a lunch bag that looks like a purse. It isn’t a traditional metal lunchbox like a construction worker might carry, but it is still a lunchbox. As is usually the case, it seems that the school district is coming up with lame excuses. If your reader is correct and that is their defense, I hope someone calls them on it.

We’ll see, won’t we?

COMBAT PHOTO OF THE YEAR.

FROM F.I.R.E., legal scholarship on free speech at universities.