DRUG-WAR MISSION CREEP: “The Drug Enforcement Administration has been transformed into a global intelligence organization with a reach that extends far beyond narcotics, and an eavesdropping operation so expansive it has to fend off foreign politicians who want to use it against their political enemies, according to secret diplomatic cables.”
Archive for 2010
December 26, 2010
MICHAEL BARONE: Even After Shellacking, 2012 Looks OK For Obama. “Obama has obviously figured out that Americans prefer to see their president describe the glass as half full rather than half empty. That’s a good lesson for him, and for Republicans as well, especially those who believe that the Obama Democrats’ shellacking in the midterms means that Obama himself will definitely lose in 2012.”
THE COMPASSION OF GOVERNMENT-RUN HEALTH CARE:
A friend who visited him at the Rochester Psychiatric Center in February 1995 remembered that Mr. Langevin had pain in his jaw, eye and face that was not getting much attention from the staff. A week later, he was discovered unconscious, with a near-fatal infection spreading to his brain and other organs.
Mr. Langevin sued New York State, which operates the hospital, and probably would have won a sizable award. But the state countered by demanding that Mr. Langevin reimburse it $1.7 million for 10 years of inpatient care he had received. A judge sided with the state, and Mr. Langevin wound up with nothing.
Slip and fall in a New York prison, or suffer abuse by its guards, and inmates can keep whatever they win in court. But for patients in state-run mental hospitals — people too ill to live on their own and too poor to pay for their care — the state can drain court-awarded damages, effectively deducting the cost of their stays in the very hospitals that failed or abused them.
“It’s a Catch-22, isn’t it?” said Leo G. Finucane, the lawyer who represented Mr. Langevin. “I need to go to this facility because I’m sick. But if they hurt me worse, they’re immune.”
Read the whole thing.
PRAISE FOR THE SNAP CIRCUITS KIT: Reader Molly Heiss writes:
Thank you for the recommendation for Snap Circuits — we bought them for my son, age 8, for Christmas, and they are an excellent toy. Even the box is high quality. We got him Snap Circuits 500 — and he made his way through about 60 of the beginning projects before he started branching out on his own (the entire goal, in my opinion, is to get kids to branch out on their own).
HOURS of entertainment — thank you for finding it for us.
I gave a nephew the SC-750 after he devoured the SC-300 last year, and the experience was the same. I think those are great hands-on toys for kids.
UPDATE: Reader Alec Rawls emails:
I got my boy Snap-Circuits last Christmas. He liked it. This year he’s 11 and I got him Penny Norman’s “Inventions” kit (from ScienceWiz). It comes with semi-raw materials for a handful of key electrical inventions and wow, after a couple of hours in the corner he’s playing with motors and a telegraph that he made all by himself. Add’s a real excitement factor I think, and a good lesson: he doesn’t need pre-made stuff.
Good point. I like this from the description: “So much fun kids will think it’s dangerous even though it’s totally safe.” Under 20 bucks, too. Wish I’d known about this sooner.
AT AMAZON, the After-Christmas Sale is in full swing.
NEAL MCCLUSKEY: Hurrah for ‘Draconian’ Education Cuts!
For far too long, almost anything related to education has seen pretty regular, sizeable funding increases due largely to the simplistic — and easily demagogued – notion that spending more money on education must be good. Anyone opposing such increases has generally been attacked as a fool or heartless idealogue. But here’s the thing: All this spending has produced little if any discernable good! In higher ed, it has mainly encouraged more and more people to pursue degrees that they either don’t need, can’t handle, or that don’t signify much learning, all while enabling colleges to raise their prices to capture the aid increases! In other words, all the magical thinking about education spending notwithstanding, the evidence strongly suggests that more spending ultimately does little educational good while bleeding taxpayers dry and expanding our utterly unsustainable debt.
So let’s get those “draconian” cuts going, and maybe even have an honest discussion of what really happens when government spends on “education.”
It is better to be educated than ignorant, but not all spending on educational institutions actually results in more or better education. Indeed, in some cases the return may be negative . . . .
UPDATE: Reader Bart Hall emails:
We are somewhat poorly served by applying the term “education” to what is now much more properly referenced as “schooling.” Those two used to overlap almost completely, and some the the greatest damage wrought by easy funding with other people’s money is that from pre-K to Ph.D. schools these days offer bloody little real education apart from the sciences and engineering. Things are likely to change.
Eight hundred years ago education was controlled by the church. Groups of independent scholars, using Latin as a common language, began to congregate apart from the church to pursue a true education. By mid-12th century this grew into the university movement — Hic et ubique terrarum (here and anyplace on earth) as they said in Paris in 1163. It took a century or so, but by AD 1400 the church no longer controlled education.
In our time education is controlled by the universities and their lower level minions. Once again groups of independent scholars, using English as a common language have begun to congregate apart from the universities — internet, home-schoolers, independent researchers, and many others — to pursue a true education. The pattern is repeating, for the very same reasons. Hic et ubique terrarum indeed.
It won’t take a century this time.
HOW NOT TO WRECK a nonstick pan.
This reminds me of the big nonstick cookware discussion from a while back. And I should note that I find these Cuisinart pans pretty durable. I’ve gotten several years out of this one. But I’ve got some old “Silverstone Supra” stuff that just keeps going despite all abuse — but it’s just a couple of little pots.
THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED REPUBLICAN, BIG OIL COMPANIES WOULD GET SPECIAL TREATMENT. And they were right!
A federal board monitoring tests of an important piece of evidence from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the blowout preventer, demanded Thursday that the analysis stop, saying representatives of the companies that made and maintained the device have had preferential access to it. The United States Chemical Safety Board said in a letter to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement that the companies’ hands-on involvement in the analysis undermined its credibility.
Those people who told me what would happen if I voted Republican sure are right a lot. I guess I should have listened . . . .
NOT GRASPING IT: Lindsey Graham wants to push energy tax again.
NAME THAT PARTY: America’s Most Bankrupt Mayors.
WHO COULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING? Payday Lending Booms as Credit Cards Become Less Available.
“DEATH PANEL” UPDATE: Obama Returns to End-of-Life Plan That Caused Stir. “When a proposal to encourage end-of-life planning touched off a political storm over ‘death panels,’ Democrats dropped it from legislation to overhaul the health care system. But the Obama administration will achieve the same goal by regulation, starting Jan. 1.”
December 25, 2010
HEH: Obama Bans Word ‘Triangulation’ at White House. Yeah, that’ll stop people talking about it.
SECURITY: Keeping your Mac, iPhone and Data Safe.
At my sister’s this morning.
SNOWFALL: No longer “a very rare and exciting event.”
A CHARMING CHRISTMAS TUNE from the Department of Justice.
LIST: Best Movie Remakes.
MILTON FRIEDMAN ON how to cut the budget.