MEGAN MCARDLE: Down on the farm in China. “There is nothing to cure you of the romance of farming like a visit to a poor farming community. As someone whose grandparents came off the farm, I have a healthy respect, even a reverence, for what farmers do. But it is hard, backbreaking work, unremitting and too often unrewarding.”
Archive for 2010
November 20, 2010
MARK SHIELDS admits he slept through the Bush Presidency.
GLENN GREENWALD PLAYS VICTIM. He’s not a victim. He’s a perpetrator. “No one is saying Greenwald cannot criticize Israel or its advocates. The issue is why Greenwald feels the need to go much further, and accuse supporters of Israel — particularly American Jewish supporters of Israel — of being disloyal to the United States through the use of the term ‘Israel-firsters,’ or accusing Eric Cantor of pledging allegiance to Israel. When Greenwald uses this language, he well understands that he is moving beyond the merits of his arguments into emotional territory which plays upon age-old stereotypes of Jews, both here and abroad.”
Remember when it was unspeakably wrong to question people’s patriotism? Of course, that was back when protest was patriotic.
WHAT PLASTIC SURGERY can do.
UPDATE: Reader George Pepper writes: “And Photoshop. Don’t forget about Photoshop.” Oh, yeah!
SO IS THIS CONSOLATION, OR DOES IT MAKE THINGS WORSE? TSA Agents Absolutely Hate New Pat Downs, Find Them Disgusting And Morale Breaking.
MIGHTN’T THIS STATEMENT BY JUDGE KIMBA WOOD ON A BRIS BE CONSIDERED almost anti-semitic? Would she have said something similar to a Muslim lawyer?
UPDATE: Readers email: What Wood said is not so bad as the groveling by attorney Epstein. But I repeat: Would she have said something similar to a Muslim lawyer? I’m guessing not.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader — and Rabbi — Zvi Hollander writes:
I’m a daily reader of instapundit (yes, even when I recently was in Israel for the wedding of my son . . .) and had to comment on tonite’s post and link on Judge Wood’s response on the bris issue.
So sad when Jews, illiterate in their own tradition, defame it so. Would that lawyer Epstein should know that Jewish tradition revels in the birth of a girl, and a festive celebratory meal, known as a “kiddush”— meal of sanctification– is held the Sabbath after a girl’s birth, usually in synagogue after the morning services. If the mom is too weak to attend then, it may be pushed off, til she can share in the joyous occasion, too.
Sorry, no such meal is held for a the birth of a boy. Reverse discrimination? I think not. But now is not the time or place for long explanations . . .
Well, happy to help dispel ignorance.
MORE: Reader Ronnie Schreiber emails:
To expand on Rabbi Hollander’s email, a brit milah [covenant of circumcision] is a private family celebration. Girls are named in public, in the synagogue, at the climax of the service, the Torah reading.
Attorney Epstein is an ignoramus who, in his ignorance is defaming traditional Judaism. I live in the heart of the Orthodox community here in Detroit, many of my friends are Chareidim, what the MSM would call “ultra orthodox”, and while Orthodox Jews accept the concept of differing gender roles, I’ve never once heard an orthodox father or mother express ‘disappointment’ at the birth of a daughter. I’ve only heard the phrase “as long as it’s a healthy baby” in the context of parents expressing a lack of preference over an impending baby’s gender.
The reality is that for all the patriarchal image of traditional Judaism, women rule the orthodox community. They determine who is accepted as a member of the community by virtue of who gets invited for Shabbat and holiday meals and rigidly enforce community standards.
Meanwhile, I’ll just note that I still think we’d have been better off with Kimba Wood as Attorney General than we were with Janet Reno.
MARKDOWNS ON most-gifted movies and TV.
THOUGHTS ON THE TSA AND ZERO TOLERANCE: “The individual TSA agent is technically not allowed to make any tough calls. He must simply implement policy, regardless of the result. This strikes freedom-loving individualists as stupid and cowardly. It makes us mad. Ironically, these policies do not stop agents from using their discretion. All it does is cover their butts whenever they choose to more strictly enforce the policy than they usually do.”
STUXNET WORM really quite clever. So far as messing with the Iranians is concerned, that’s great. But there’s this:
Widespread distribution of the Stuxnet code could lead to disaster. Equipment made by Siemens and its competitors is used around the globe to manage virtually all of the world’s transportation, power distribution and communications systems. Joe Weiss, managing partner at Applied Control Systems, a consulting firm based in the Silicon Valley that organized the conference in September, said he was concerned that computer security organizations were not adequately conveying the potential for serious industrial sabotage that Stuxnet foretells.
“I just want the lights to stay on and water flowing, and people not dying,” he said.
Amen.
BRUCE SCHNEIER TO THE TSA: TSA Scans Won’t Catch Anybody.
ABOUT TIME: Judge Orders Cops To Stop Harassing Superheroes.
ERIC SCHEIE: Libertarianism is dictatorial collectivism. And freedom is slavery. And you can spot the fascists, because they’re the ones calling for a smaller government!
UPDATE: Related item. “Killer angels?” We sure are seeing a lot of “eliminationist rhetoric” from the pro-Obama crowd, aren’t we?
NANOTECHNOLOGY LEADING TOWARD Spin Computers. “Advances in electronics and spintronics will mean cheaper, more powerful computers, which will advance both computational nanotechnology and the development of artificial general intelligence. Further, a vigorous incremental nanotechnology industry will provide a fertile infrastructure for funding efforts to develop advanced nanotechnology.”
VIRGINIA POSTREL: The Allure Of Techno-Glamour. “In those glamour shots, wind power seems clean, free and infinitely abundant. Turbines spin silently and sometimes appear barely taller than a child. The wind blows constantly and in exactly the right amount—never so much that it piles up unwanted power and never so little that it requires backup supply. The sky is unfailingly photogenic, a backdrop of either puffy clouds or a brilliant sunset; the landscape is both empty and beautiful; and there are no transmission lines anywhere. . . . The problems come, of course, in the things glamour omits, including all those annoyingly practical concerns the policy wonks insist on debating. Neither trains nor wind farms are as effortlessly liberating as their photos suggest. Neither really offers an escape from the world of compromises and constraints. The same is true, of course, of evening gowns, dream kitchens and tropical vacations. But at least the people who enjoy that sort of glamour pay their own way.”
A TALE OF FOUR TAX CHEATS: “One of these four men is going to jail for three years for not paying his taxes. (The other three are politicians.)” Taxes are for the little people.
BEST-PACKAGED DVD and Blu-Ray Sets of 2010.
REASON TV: The Great TSA “My Ding-a-Ling” Sing-Along!
STRANGLING INNOVATION WITH RED TAPE:
As a Democrat whose politics are undeniably liberal on social issues, I lamented the outcome of the midterm elections. But as an entrepreneur with two software start-ups under my belt, I couldn’t help but celebrate – and more than a little. As the fall campaigns wore on, I had found myself listening closely to the Tea Party, nursing the hope that its message would push both major parties to change the way they do business.
To understand my motivation, pick up the November issue of Washingtonian magazine. The annual Salary Survey notes on Page 81 that top trade association leaders (industry lobbyists) make multimillion-dollar salaries to “keep tabs on what the federal government was doing or might do.”
These outsize earnings are symptomatic of a disease that is slowly killing the American economy. We are creating so much regulation – over tax policy, health care, financial activity – that smart people have figured out that they can get rich faster and more easily by manipulating rules on behalf of existing corporations than by creating net new activity and wealth. Gamesmanship pays better than entrepreneurship.
This will always be true as the government grows more powerful. The solution is obvious, but the government — and those who get rich by manipulating it — are unlikely to be persuaded.
UPDATE: As the economy continues to tank, blaming hoarders and wreckers. Boy, I never saw that one coming . . .
TROUBLE WITH THE LAW: Graduates of American law schools are finding that their chosen career is less lucrative than they had hoped.
THIS year “The Apprentice”, a television show in which contestants compete for the privilege of working for Donald Trump, features 16 who are down on their luck, having lost previous jobs or otherwise having to start anew. No fewer than five of them are lawyers. The legal-job market in America remains dire. But the numbers applying to law school are still soaring, and students are taking out ever bigger loans as tuition fees grow faster than lawyers’ salaries. Increasingly, they are graduating into a world of overblown expectation and debt.
Between 1996 and 2008 private law schools’ median tuition fees almost doubled, to just under $34,000 a year. At public law schools fees grew even faster, albeit from a lower base: for those going to schools in their home state they almost trebled, taking the median to around $16,000. Starting salaries at the biggest firms—those with more than 500 lawyers—roughly doubled, to $160,000. But such plum jobs are hard to get, especially for graduates of the less prestigious public schools. At smaller firms starting pay has for years failed to keep up with soaring tuition fees, and of late has fallen (see chart).
Read the whole thing — especially if you’re thinking of going to law school. I’m not saying don’t go to law school, but don’t go into big debt in the expectation that big bucks will pay it off easily.