#GREENFAIL: Ron Bailey on delusional thinking at the Durban climate conference. “T.S. Eliot wrote that ‘humankind cannot stand very much reality.’ This apothegm apparently applies to some climate change negotiators here in Durban who, when reality becomes too much, retreat to fantasies conjured by their rhetoric. The likelihood of draft proposals that require deep greenhouse gas emissions cuts by rich countries being adopted here in Durban is exactly nil.”
Archive for 2011
December 6, 2011
WHEN THE BUSINESS MODEL ignores your privacy. That’s pretty much all the time these days, isn’t it?
TEN YEARS AGO ON INSTAPUNDIT: Anti-Americanism as “Hate Speech.” I think this is a technique that should be exploited more often.
December 5, 2011
PROF. JACOBSON: White House/ThinkProgress Merger Complete. I wonder if Jennifer Palmieri will take the jar containing Matt Yglesias’ man-bits with her to the White House.
TEN YEARS AGO ON INSTAPUNDIT: Jeffersonian Cyber-Yeomanry.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: “This is just about the most absurd situation we’ve seen in a long time. We’ve previously reported on the State Auditor’s reports of some of the UNC campuses and they all show clearly that the financial condition of the campuses does not justify any kind of tuition or fee increase. But beyond that, we would once again suggest that if the university, including ECU, spent its money wisely there would be a tuition roll-back, not an increase.”
NUDE VEENA MALIK PHOTO Stuns Pakistani Twitterverse.
JERRY POURNELLE: Martha Stewart, Military Tribunals, and MacTribesmen.
COMING SOON: An Age Of Driverless Cars?
DON’T KNOW MUCH ABOUT HISTORY: Hey Greens, You Sure You Want to Deface That Particular Statue?
AT AMAZON, best books of 2011.
RICHARD FERNANDEZ: Why “too big to fail” means “wait for it.”
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Reader Timothy Dunnigan notes that some universities are trying to be marketplace-relevant.
DANIEL DREZNER: Do authoritarian elections matter in Russia? Probably not as much as you think. “On the one hand, elections like these do matter, because they dent the veneer of an effective authoritarian being in control. Despite rigging the game, it appears that Putin and his loyalists couldn’t secure the desired result. Any time an authoritarian aparatus demonstrates fallibility is not a good day for the authoritarian apparatus. On the other hand…. “
HOMEOWNER DOES what a Taser can’t.
#OCCUPYFAIL: Advantage: James O’Keefe. “Wall Street hiring someone who despises Republicans? Oh sure, like that’ll ever happen. Next, you’ll be telling me that gambling is going on at Rick’s Cafe.”
AT AMAZON, most popular gifts in Kitchen & Dining.
MEGAN FOX ON rediscovering the lost art of homebrewing.
WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Mission Sort Of Accomplished In Iraq. “The Iraq War was unhappy, but it was no Vietnam. . . . The lesson: be cautious about going in, but once in, don’t run at the first sign of trouble. War has a logic of its own; Bush and Cheney did not fully grasp what they were getting into when they invaded, underestimating the risks and overestimating the speed at which a reasonably stable Iraqi government could emerge. But they had the honesty and vision to hang tough once they were committed, and to their credit the American people, disenchanted with the war and disgusted with its leadership, refused to cut and run while hope endured. President Obama and Vice President Biden must be deeply grateful that President Bush ignored his critics and went ahead with the surge; if they want to reduce the partisan polarization in Washington they could perhaps say something about it as our troops come home.”
GRAVEYARD OF LUXURY: 14-car crackup includes, 8 Ferraris, Lamborghini, Mercedes.
FINALLY: A Beer Holder That Blocks Incriminating Facebook Photos: “Introducing Photoblocker: Cerveza Norte’s solution to unwarranted, potentially embarrassing photos taken in bars, pubs, clubs, dives, and lounges. Developed with Buenos Aires-based agency Del Campo Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi, Photoblocker is — no joke — a beer cooler which senses cell phone flashes in its vicinity and flashes its own counteractive light, rendering the photos overexposed and the inebriated subjects unidentifiable.”
Well, there’s half my Christmas list taken care of.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: The Federal Role In Pricing:
Federal efforts in the past have focused on shining a spotlight on institutions with the highest rates of tuition growth and exhorting college officials to do more to restrain their spending growth and rein in their price increases. Recent news stories indicate that these largely symbolic approaches will continue to dominate the debate as the focus seems to be on extolling the virtues of those schools or states that freeze or reduce their tuition levels, move to three-year degrees, measure learning outcomes, or find ways to use technology to lower their costs per student and hopefully their prices
But these efforts are unlikely to yield satisfactory results, just as previous efforts have failed to slow cost and price growth or to reduce the amount students must borrow to pay for their education and related expenses. They will continue to fail unless the aim is to reshape the relationship between governments and institutions and the rules that determine how much students can and do borrow. Federal and state officials must recognize that the signals embedded in a number of policies have contributed to the past growth in costs, prices and student debt — and then do something about it.
We’re not serious enough about that yet.
PUBLIC PENSIONS: Some Numbers And Reality. “I can get into the details of the situation where $29 billion in deposits and $62 billion in payouts aren’t a problem… but that’s not the situation that holds in NJ.”