THE RISE OF THE “EDUPUNK.”
Related: The growth of online learning on campus. As the higher education bubble talk continues, look for more stories like these.
Archive for 2010
November 6, 2010
CHINA BUSTS U.S. FOR SOCIALISM. And fiscal irresponsibility.
Cui Tiankai, a deputy foreign minister and one of China’s lead negotiators at the G20, said on Friday that the US plan for limiting current account surpluses and deficits to 4 per cent of gross domestic product harked back “to the days of planned economies”.
“We believe a discussion about a current account target misses the whole point,” he added, in the first official comment by a senior Chinese official on the subject. “If you look at the global economy, there are many issues that merit more attention – for example, the question of quantitative easing.”
Ouch.
INTERESTED IN WAR ON TERROR NEWS? Check out Fred Pruitt’s Rantburg.
“HE’S JUST TRYING TO GET MY ATTENTION, I THINK, IN THE END:” Mick Jagger (maybe) on Keith Richards’ book. I wish Bob Simms were still alive. He’d know if all this were true.
JOHN STEELE GORDON: “A Short History of Midterm Elections: If the past is indeed prologue, then Republicans shouldn’t get too cocky.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.
THE DON DRAPER PRESIDENCY?
Peggy Noonan: “Not knowing how to feel humility or therefore show humility he decided to announce humility.”
It reminded me of Heather Havrilesky: “The move is classic Don Draper. He announces abruptly that he has evolved — instead of actually evolving.”
Plus, this conclusion from Noonan:
Here is an old tradition badly in need of return: You have to earn your way into politics. You should go have a life, build a string of accomplishments, then enter public service. And you need actual talent: You have to be able to bring people in and along. You can’t just bully them, you can’t just assert and taunt, you have to be able to persuade.
Americans don’t want, as their representatives, people who seem empty or crazy. They’ll vote no on that.
Indeed. Read the whole thing.
UPDATE: Numerous readers are still blaming Noonan for her earlier Obamamania. Reader Barry Dauphin writes: “So why did she fall all over him two years ago? He had even fewer accomplishments then.”
Like Draper, he can be seductive on short exposure. And reader Lawrence Loretoni writes:
I’m glad to see that Ms. Noonan’s eyes seem to be open at last. But she, like so many other Republican “moderates,” spent several months in 2008 lecturing the rest of us lower-class knuckle draggers about how Obama’s “superior temperament” and other star qualities made him a better choice than McCain for President. It would be nice if at least one of these pundits had the common decency to admit they were wrong. But I’m not going to hold my breath.
Indeed.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Dodd Harris says the comparison is unfair — to Don Draper:
I don’t think that analogy is entirely fair – to Don Draper. This last season was about the harrowing of Don Draper, just as this political season was the harrowing of Obama. But Don at least *experienced* it before not really changing. He was tortured, pushed to his limits, and forced to at least acknowledge his past failures. In the end, he chose the easy fix, but he at least plumbed the depths of his own manufactured past before doing so.
I’ve seen no sign Obama has done any of that. He’s still blaming everyone but himself.
Well, that’s the difference between real life and fiction, I guess . . . .
MORE: The Anchoress emails:
That Don Draper/ Obama comparison was brilliantly insightful. It squares well with this piece by Santiago Ramos who examines the shallow emptiness that is being revealed in Draper, and his confusion, but it also rings with Hiawatha Bray’s comments at the bottom of the piece. Bray mentions that Draper is bothered by women who are actual adults…I would argue that Obama too is bothered by adults…he wants the voters to be childlike, chanting three-word catchphrases and buying the product. he does not want adults who actually question, dare to oppose or wish to peer below the surface. Don Draper, indeed. A grad student could write a thesis on it!
And probably will!
POLICE ASSAULT CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST in Minneapolis.
UPDATE: Yes, this is the Joel Rosenberg who writes fantasy/science fiction novels. They’re good, too.
And Minneapolis needs to take lessons from Bill Haslam’s Knoxville. (Bumped).
THE PUZZLES OF PROCRASTINATION. It’s often rational, though. Often, work done early turns out to be wasted, something researchers get around through definitional shifts.
JAMES TARANTO: ObamaCare, a Catastrophic ‘Success.’ “Not long ago, progressive pundits and pols were insisting that the reason Democrats lost in 1994 was because they rejected President Clinton’s efforts to establish ObamaCare, and that if the legislative outcome was different this time, so would be the electoral one. Mission accomplished! The GOP gained more seats this year (at least 60, with 4 of 9 uncalled races trending trunkward, compared with 52 in 1994) and will have a bigger majority in the 112th Congress than in the 104th (at least 239, vs. 230 then). Now the best the progs can do is insist that this week’s election had nothing to do with health care but was all about ‘the economy’–as if the president and Congress rammed through a government takeover of one-seventh of said economy, and voters just didn’t notice.”
WELL, THOSE’LL BE LIMITED ONCE OBAMACARE KICKS IN: Lung cancer deaths cut by CT scans. “For the first time, a large study shows using CT scans to screen smokers and ex-smokers can reduce lung cancer deaths by 20 percent by catching lethal tumors earlier.”
GROUPS PRESS BOEHNER: First cut should be lawmakers’ salaries. I don’t think members of Congress are overpaid, really. I’d rather see a cut in staff.
November 5, 2010
ARRESTED FOR Contempt of Cop?
OPEN CARRY ACTIVISM IN CONNECTICUT.
Connecticut needs to take lessons from Bill Haslam’s Knoxville.
UNEMPLOYMENT GETS WORSE: Thousands of Democrats to be jobless in Washington.
REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES IN CLOSE RACES unexpectedly pull ahead in New York.
THOUGHTS ON THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. I think the Roman Republic ended because its political class had more loyalty to themselves than to the republic.
KEITH OLBERMANN: In Memoriam.
Related: Olbermann’s Raw Deal.
TROUBLE ON THE BORDER: The University of Texas at Brownsville closes its campus because of bullets from across the Rio Grande.
ENHANCING MATH SKILLS with electrical brain stimulation?
LIST: Best books of 2010.
INSTAVISION: I talk with Scott Rasmussen about what the elections meant, and what libertarians and Tea Partiers should do next. Plus, what is the GOP leadership good for?
