HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Tamanaha: Law School Graduates Who Do Not Become Lawyers.
Archive for 2011
September 19, 2011
MY HOMEOWNERS’ ASSOCIATION WOULD LOVE THIS: Personal Turbine Makes Your Rooftop A Wind Farm.
JOB CREATION: The Texas Story Is Real. From a Democrat and urbanist.
RAPID PRICE DECLINES IN solar photovoltaic systems? “This does not mean that manufacturing costs are falling as fast as prices. For several years in the run up to the 2008 financial crisis demand for solar power was growing so fast due to government incentives (especially in Germany) that declines in production costs did not translate into declines in market prices. The recession caused a drop in demand while capacity was still growing. So prices are catching up with previous production cost declines. Companies are feeling more pricing pressures and a shake-out is going on with weaker players failing or merging.”
PRICING: Toyota Plug-in Prius priced at $32,000 and Prius V from $26,400. With asterisks.
ANDREW KLAVAN: Obama Is Wrong, Not Evil. Would that Obama would extend the same courtesy to his own political opponents.
WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: The “Christianists” Aren’t Taking Over This Week.
For decades now, shocked lefty journalists have gingerly ventured into the dark American interior, emerging with terrifying tales of “Christianist” plots to hijack American democracy and install theocratic rule. There’s an endless appetite for these stories on the secular left, and the fact that none of these Christianists dictatorships ever appear doesn’t seem to diminish the credulity with which each new “revelation” is greeted by the easily spooked.
Focus on the Family was very recently one of the most feared organizations of the allegedly all powerful Christian Right, but as the cash-strapped organization makes more staff cutbacks and donations fall, the paranoia once invested in this group looks pretty dumb. . . . In any case, if anybody in America ever establishes a theocracy, it is unlikely to be evangelicals. Almost all American evangelicals come out of religious traditions that were persecuted in either Europe or the US or both by “established” churches tied to the government. It became an article of faith for the persecuted evangelicals that church and state should be kept at arms length. Even in apocalyptic fiction like the Left Behind series, the merger of church and state is one of the signs of the approach of Antichrist and signals the start of a great persecution. For the most part, American evangelicals viscerally loathe the idea that church and state should act together to enforce religious orthodoxy.
Theocracy is forever descending on the United States, but somehow it always lands in the Middle East.
HOW TO WIN A FIGHT, OR DODGE A LAWSUIT? Thoughts inspired by Lawrence Kane & Kris Wilder’s How to Win a Fight: A Guide to Avoiding and Surviving Violence.
I agree that, for the most part, middle-class Americans need to be taught to be more, rather than less, aggressive in self-defense situations. And as for how you’ll feel if you kill someone in self-defense, you probably won’t know unless it happens. But I recommend Col. Jeff Cooper’s discussion of the topic (pp. 24-26).
We are told from all sides that if one wins a lethal encounter, he will feel dreadful. It is odd that no one seems to have felt dreadful about this until very recently. Throughout recorded history the winning of a fight has generally been considered a subject for congratulation. It is only just now that it has become presumably tainted. . . . a predatory felon who victimizes innocent non-combatants on the streets is a proven goblin, sentenced by his own initiative. Some men may be upset by killing him, but not anyone I have met.
Cooper suspects that this dreadful feeling is “primarily a public relations innovation designed to parry various sorts of preposterous litigation which have become common in our courts.” That’s probably right, and defenders are probably well-advised to fake devastation even if they really feel much better about the whole thing. That such fakery is required, however, is probably not a sign of societal health. As Cooper writes, “This sudden notion that there is something disreputable about winning in mortal conflict is peculiar and, I think, aberrant.”
UPDATE: Reader Bryan Rigsby emails:
I had the unfortunate experience of killing a man in self defense about 20 years ago. I experienced many of the “normal” immediate and longer term effects. But one significant realization I had after many months of guilt, was the startling (for me) conclusion that the guilt I felt was not for his death. I felt guilt for not feeling guilty. It was expected of me to feel regret. Many do feel guilt for killing another human being, and should not be made to feel that is unusual or unreasonable. But I do agree with Col. Cooper that much of this can be attributed to the victim’s perception of what the society or community expects.
Yes, such expectations have an impact.
I CERTAINLY HOPE SO: TransCanada CEO: Keystone oil sands pipeline ‘absolutely’ will happen. Better that the oil should go to us than to China — because it’s going to be pumped one way or another. And I’d rather burn “ethical oil” than “conflict oil” from Middle Eastern kleptocracies.
THE HILL: Fury over Solyndra loan threatens to sunset solar investments. “Should we be in the business of facilitating something that should be in the purview of the private sector? And if we’re picking winners and losers, then we’re going to make mistakes.” That’s certainly how it’s worked out so far.
JEFF DUNETZ: Gallup’s Analysis of Obama Approval Rating in Jewish Community is Dishonest. “While the president enjoyed a higher approval rating this May in the Jewish community than the national average (based on Jewish party affiliation), his approval today is slightly lower than the national average. That’s where Gallup gets it wrong.” I’m not sure it’s actually dishonest, though. But it does mean that Obama’s fall with Jewish voters is even steeper than his collapse with everyone else.
LOOKING FOR WAR ON TERROR NEWS? Check out Fred Pruitt’s Rantburg.
THINGS YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED THIS WEEKEND, if you were off, you know, having a life or something:
Thoughts on electronic publishing.
I propose more tax increases, and solicit reader suggestions.
“Green Jobs” and magical thinking.
Bill Quick unimpressed with the “Buffett Tax.” ““Is that it? Is that all you got left? Another freaking tax on rich people? Do you have any idea just how pathetic you’ve become? This sort of crap won’t even motivate your base any more.”
Is the Obama White House a hostile workplace for women? Or is that just the grumbling of affirmative-action babies?
Taxes, deficits, and the war on the young.
Bill Whittle: What We Did Right.
“Oh, what a huckster that John Edwards was!”
Getcher hyperinflation currency now!
Thoughts on Jon Huntsman. No, really, someone has thoughts on Jon Huntsman!
The press and Obama: A disastrous love affair.
Lightsquared: Lawmakers Question White House Role In Wireless Project.
MORE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT NEWS: The Politicized Hiring of Eric Holder’s Appellate Section.
WOMEN OF THE NEW YORK TIMES UNHAPPY THAT RICK PERRY IS TEXAN: “Do these New York women realize that this kind of elitist contempt makes Rick Perry more appealing… to a lot of people… including me?” Plus, a poll.
MICKEY KAUS: Why Not Pay Back Taxpayers First? “I’m sure there are sophisticated arguments for why the UAW members shouldn’t pay back the taxpayers who bailed their employer out of bankruptcy before they negotiate a deal that gives them each a $5,000 bonus. I just can’t think of them right now. … Just from a PR standpoint, repaying the debt would seem like a good idea. . . . It’s one thing to give workers power to negotiate above-market wages through collective bargaining–hey, let them squeeze the bosses for all the bosses can bear. It’s another thing when they squeeze more than the bosses can bear, the bosses go broke, and ordinary citizens, many poorer than UAW members, have to make up the difference. After that, why let the UAW continue to extract Wagner Act wages as if nothing happened?”
L.A. TIMES: Obama’s urgent jobs plan: Right now, ‘right now’ means sometime next month maybe. “Well, here we are on the next Monday after that next Monday and we’ve just learned from the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, Dick Durbin, that actually it seems that body won’t really be seriously getting into the legislation for a while yet. The Senate has some other more important business to handle. And then there’s this month’s congressional vacation. . . . So, as of right now, ‘right now’ uttered on Sept. 8 really means sometime at least one month later. Good thing the president’s own Democratic party controls the Senate. Because, otherwise, there might be some kind of silly, unnecessary delays in deliberating Obama’s urgent jobs bill that he says will surely help the nation’s unemployed millions if only those Republicans don’t connive to slow things down.”
GAMERS SUCCEED WHERE SCIENTISTS FAIL: “Gamers have solved the structure of a retrovirus enzyme whose configuration had stumped scientists for more than a decade. The gamers achieved their discovery by playing Foldit, an online game that allows players to collaborate and compete in predicting the structure of protein molecules. After scientists repeatedly failed to piece together the structure of a protein-cutting enzyme from an AIDS-like virus, they called in the Foldit players. The scientists challenged the gamers to produce an accurate model of the enzyme. They did it in only three weeks.”
This sort of distributed, cooperative approach could prove quite powerful. Someone should look into it.
HOW CONVENIENT: Rahm Emanuel On Solyndra: “I don’t remember.” Lots of folks in Chicago tend to suffer similar lapses in recollection. Some feel it’s safer that way.
USING BREITBART AS a metric.
DOUBLE STANDARD: Obama Administration Attacks For-Profit Colleges, Gives Traditional Colleges A Pass For Same Conduct. Traditional colleges and universities are an important Democratic constituency providing large amounts of money, intellectual cover, and campaign ground troops. Of course they’re getting a pass.