MORE ON POLITICAL BIAS IN ACADEMIA. And though I linked the Tierney article yesterday, Veronique de Rugy does pick out a bit that deserves more attention:

“Anywhere in the world that social psychologists see women or minorities underrepresented by a factor of two or three, our minds jump to discrimination as the explanation,” said Dr. Haidt, who called himself a longtime liberal turned centrist. “But when we find out that conservatives are underrepresented among us by a factor of more than 100, suddenly everyone finds it quite easy to generate alternate explanations.”

Indeed.

THE BUSH YEARS: Great for Black-Owned Businesses! “The number of black-owned businesses grew much faster than the national rate during the five years before the recession began, according to data released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau. The ranks of black firms shot up more than 60 percent from 2002 to 2007, compared with the overall national increase of 4 percent.”

UPDATE: Wait — before the recession? Reader Scot Echols writes: “Wait a minute, I thought we were in a recession the whole time Bush was president. Or was it a jobless recovery? I forget.”

HALLE BERRY TAKES THE “ONE-DROP RULE” FROM TRAGEDY TO FARCE.

DAVID HARSANYI: Cronyism Isn’t Capitalism. That’s why the current administration is okay with it . . .

ROGER SIMON ON ARIANNA HUFFINGTON’S SENSE OF TIMING:

Arianna has read the tea leaves. Progressivism, which was riding the crest of popularity on the election of Obama, is over. It is no longer good for business. And just as the stock market is said to be a leading indicator on business cycles, I submit Arianna’s track record has shown her to be a leading indicator on the zeitgeist. She knows when to get out. Obama, and by extension progressivism, is fini. It is best left to fringey looneys like Code Pink. Put simply: Progressivism is no longer good business.

Now this does not mean Arianna won’t tilt left publicly, at least somewhat. That’s what’s done in “polite society.” But in the real world of business, it’s over. Out with the healthcare crisis, in with divorce and Lindsay Lohan. Forget the puffery about “Citizen Journalism” coming to AOL. This is for show, to continue getting free content while suckering some of the old, disgruntled audience from the original HuffPo. This combination very well could succeed.

Indeed.

WELL, WHAT THE HELL: Couple Gets Engaged Via Groupon.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Disruption, Delivery and Degrees.

Many college professors and administrators shudder at comparisons between what they do and what, say, computer or automobile makers do. (And just watch how they bristle if you dare call higher education an “industry.”) But in a new report, the man who examined how technology has “disrupted” and reshaped those and other manufacturing industries has turned his gaze to higher education, arguing that it faces peril if it does not change to meet the challenge. . . .

Clayton M. Christensen, the Robert and Jane Cizik Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, coined the term “disruptive innovation” in a series of books (among them The Innovator’s Dilemma and The Innovator’s Solution) that examined how technological changes altered existing markets for key products and services, usually by lowering prices or making them available to a different (and usually broader) audience. While Christensen’s early work focused on manufacturing industries and commercial services like restaurants, he and his colleagues, in their more recent studies, have turned to key social enterprises such as K-12 education and health care.

Actually, I think a lot of educrats do understand this, and that this understanding accounts for all the attacks on for-profit education models that, you know, lower prices and make education available to a different (usually broader) audience . . . .

AN ARGUMENT FOR PHILANTHROPIC BOOK BUYING. I’d just like to note that An Army Of Davids is still in print.

COMING SOON: Tiger Mom: The Motion Picture!

SO AOL VALUES THE HUFFINGTON POST AT $315 MILLION, but apparently the market values it at zero: AOL stock sheds $315M — HuffPo price tag. “Since Feb. 1, the price of AOL shares has dropped from $23.85 to $20.89 at yesterday’s close. With 106.7 million shares outstanding, that means AOL has shed $315 million in value over the last five trading days — which happens to be exactly the same price AOL agreed to pay to acquire HuffPo.”

APPLE’S NEW-MODEL IPAD now in production.

FAKE ROBOT BABY provokes real screams.

NOW THAT THE TOYOTA “SCANDAL” TURNS OUT TO BE BOGUS, Walter Olson wants some followup: “If, as retiring NHTSA official George Person charged last July, DoT officials dragged their heels in making public the exculpatory findings, there were very real costs to the economy. Not only did lawsuits proliferate which one hopes are now on their way to sputtering out, but Toyota (as Reuters reports) ‘was the only major automaker in the United States to report a drop in sales last year’ even though the Japanese-owned automaker has ramped up costly dealer and sales incentives. Did it make a difference that the federal government has taken a proprietor’s interest in major Toyota competitors GM and Chrysler, or that a former trial lawyer lobbyist heads the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration? Those questions might be worth a hearing at the newly reconstituted House Energy and Commerce Committee.”

SANDY CASH: Egyptian Revolution Blues.

BMW ASKS: WHERE ARE OUR FLYING CARS?

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED REPUBLICAN, the Feds would be spying on people based on their political and religious views. And they were right!

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Sun Tzu: The Enemy Of The Bureaucratic Mind. “Sun Tzu’s approach is directly opposed to most modern thought about social problems.”

I LINKED IT YESTERDAY, but in case you missed it do check out this great video on commercial space by Bill Whittle and Rand Simberg.

UPDATE: Here’s a teaser that’s short enough for me to embed.

POLITICO: Sen. James Webb (D-VA) won’t seek re-election.

IN THE MAIL: Russia’s Cold War: From the October Revolution to the Fall of the Wall.

VIDEO: WHY BIG GOVERNMENT IS BAD GOVERNMENT.

THE HILL: DEMS FACE DILEMMA ON JOBS PLAN:

“I don’t know what we’ll do next,” said Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.).

The No. 2 Democrat in the Senate on Tuesday conceded that his party faces a dilemma as it tries to come up with a legislative agenda to create jobs amid a new political environment dominated by talk of cutting spending and reducing the deficit.

They could try cutting regulation.

UPDATE: I kinda doubt that this Obama Administration initiative is going to make people want to hire. “In an unprecedented and controversial move, the White House has launched a new program at the Department of Labor which will refer workers who have complaints about their bosses to a toll free number at the American Bar Association, where they can get a lawyer to work on their case on a contingency fee basis.” Ya know?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Darryl Boyd emails: “I have seen the future of Obamabusiness and its regulations (my primary responsibility as a business is to provide jobs, not make a profit) and have responded by not hiring in the traditional manner at all – ever. I will now use temp agencies. Almost no paperwork, no disputes, no benefit costs, no HR department, no lawsuits, no commitments. Welcome to the future of being an employee.”

CUBA UPDATE: Cuban Dissidents Beaten And Arrested Outside Church In Havana. Cuba is worse than Egypt. Castro is worse than Mubarak. So why is there less enthusiasm in the commentariat for liberating Cuba?

REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS: Chinese Woman Seeks Asylum In The US Over Forced Birth Control. “Back in 1991, the Chinese government forced her to get an IUD implanted as part of its one child per family population control policy. Wong said the IUD caused her physical pain, but doctors refused to remove it. She had it secretly removed by a physician she found for herself. When another doctor discovered during a routine exam that the IUD had been removed, the government held her for three days until she agreed to have it re-implanted.” Thomas Friedman was unavailable for comment. But a lot of the commenters at The Frisky seem awfully willing to make excuses for the Chinese government. I mean, it’s not like they’ve banned abortion or done something that would, you know, implicate reproductive rights.

MARKDOWNS ON car accessories and automotive tools.