Archive for 2011

HIGHER EDUCATION UPDATE: Professor Fired For Being Too Tough? “They get him up here and toss him under the bus because some of the students wanted high school.”

MEDICINE: Sounds gross, works great: Fecal transplants cure nasty C. diff infections. “A new review of more than two dozen scientific reports involving 317 patients, some dating back 50 years, finds that fecal bacteriotherapy, commonly known as fecal transplant, cured the problem in 92 percent of the cases. Nearly all got better after just one treatment. That’s a better record than other treatments, including probiotics, toxin-binding molecules and an experimental vaccine.”

CHALLENGING COLLEGE SEXUAL HARASSMENT POLICIES. “I’m troubled by anti-harassment policies that seek to limit the ways adult thinkers and learners can relate to one another. After all, we’re adults.” They don’t want you to be adults. They don’t really want anyone to be an adult, because adults are autonomous and responsible. That lessens their power.

CLIMATE: Survey: Most People Are In Favor Of Wild Geoengineering Projects. “A majority of people in Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States support studying ways to reflect sunlight as a method to cool the planet, according to a new study. Researchers at Harvard and two Canadian universities say nearly three-quarters of survey respondents approved research into geoengineering.”

OUR LATEST PROBLEM: Underpopulation. “Many demographers and long-term planners say the challenge for the next century will be less dealing with growing numbers of people and more managing the much larger population of aged and perhaps dependent people while finding new strategies to deliver prosperity, jobs and essential services.” Bring on the robots!

STUDENT LOAN FORGIVENESS: Can the Youth Vote Be Bought For a Trillion Dollars? “In the realm of economic stimulus proposals, none is as audacious, as Machiavellian, and as transparently designed to buy the votes of a critical electoral demographic than the proposal to forgive all student loans. Even if it fails, as it likely will, the seamless coordination between members of Congress, leftist advocacy groups, and the media to try to sell this idea is a perfect example of how brilliantly certain factions play their hand in the high-stakes game of crafting the dominant political narrative.”

UNEXPECTEDLY: Consumer confidence tumbles, home prices stagnate. “Consumer confidence unexpectedly dropped to its lowest level in two-and-a-half years in October, while house prices were unchanged at low levels in August, suggesting the consumer is still struggling.”