DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: Woman Burns Husband With Cooking Oil: “A woman in Franklin County is charged with domestic violence and aggravated assault after investigators say she threw a pot of cooking oil on her husband. . . . Her husband, Jason Martin, was admitted to Vanderbilt Medical Center Sunday with third degree burns.” But you’ll have to follow the link to see why this was in the Sports section.
Archive for 2011
October 31, 2011
HERMAN CAIN’S LEAD IS OPENING UP: That is, his lead over me on the SSRN Top Recent Downloads chart.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Public universities expand recruitment efforts in quest for out-of-state money.
NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: Viruses guide nano-assembly of biomaterials.
JIM TREACHER: ‘I have in my hand a list of Herman Cain accusers…’ “So we don’t know specifically what Herman Cain stands accused of doing wrong, who’s accusing him, or how to verify any of it. Other than that, this is some solid reporting from Politico.”
I repeat my earlier question: Would Jonathan Martin, Maggie Haberman, Anna Palmer and Kenneth Vogel have put their names on a similar piece, with no named sources, aimed at Barack Obama? Would Politico have run it?
UPDATE: Occupy Politico?
ANOTHER UPDATE: Even the folks at Pro Publica — who are certainly not on the right — aren’t buying this: “Politico’s story on possible sexual harassment by Herman Cain may be the biggest investigative scoop of the campaign season. But it would be hard to deduce that from the facts as published. . . . It is clear from the story Politico posted Sunday evening that reporters made extensive efforts to figure out what happened. But much of what appeared came from anonymous sources whose knowledge appeared to be second-hand or unspecific.”
Like I said: Would Jonathan Martin, Maggie Haberman, Anna Palmer and Kenneth Vogel have put their names on a similar piece, with no named sources, aimed at Barack Obama? Would Politico have run it?
(Revised to reflect that the Pro Publica folks say that they’re not lefties.)
And reader Frank Glamser emails: “You will note that the attack on Cain came after he assumed the lead in polls just as was the case with Perry.” Are you suggesting that we should question the timing?
RASMUSSEN: Wisconsin: Perry 46%, Obama 42%.
WHAT STARTUP LIFE is really like.
KENNETH ANDERSON: The Fragmenting of the New Class Elites, or, Downward Mobility. “In social theory, OWS is best understood not as a populist movement against the bankers, but instead as the breakdown of the New Class into its two increasingly disconnected parts. The upper tier, the bankers-government bankers-super credentialed elites. But also the lower tier, those who saw themselves entitled to a white collar job in the Virtue Industries of government and non-profits — the helping professions, the culture industry, the virtueocracies, the industries of therapeutic social control, as Christopher Lasch pointed out in his final book, The Revolt of the Elites. The two tiers of the New Class have always had different sources of rents, however. . . . The OWS protestors are a revolt — a shrill, cri-de-coeur wail at the betrayal of class solidarity — of the lower tier New Class against the upper tier New Class. It was, after all, the upper tier New Class, the private-public finance consortium, that created the student loan business and inflated the bubble in which these lower tier would-be professionals borrowed the money. It’s a securitization machine, not so very different from the subprime mortgage machine. The asset bubble pops, but the upper tier New Class, having insulated itself and, as with subprime, having taken its cut upfront and passed the risk along, is still doing pretty well. It’s not populism versus the bankers so much as internecine warfare between two tiers of elites. The downward mobility is real, however, in both income and status. The Cal graduate started out wanting to do ‘sustainable conservation.’ She is now engaged in something closer to subsistence farming.”
Read the whole thing.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Strawberries protect stomach from alcohol.
POPULAR MECHANICS: What DARPA’s Scavenger Hunt Taught Us About Mobilizing People Fast.
WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY: De-Orbit Space Junk With High-Powered Lasers.
EARLY CANCER DETECTION: Suddenly, it’s not good for you after all. “Now expert groups are proposing less screening for prostate, breast and cervical cancer and have emphasized that screening comes with harms as well as benefits. . . . What changed? . . . Is all this happening now because of worries over costs?”
UPDATE: Reader David Lange writes:
I am probably one of the people the recent articles on prostate cancer screening is attempting to influence. I’ve been tracking my PSA since I was fifty and I am now fifty-nine. Having survived a type of leukemia in the 90s, I am convinced that early detection dramatically increases the chances of long term survival. My PSA jumped from 1.6 to 2.0 in one year and from 2.0 to 2.9 the next. My oncologist recommended a two month follow-up and it remained stable. Six months later, it rose to 3.2 and although my German urologist advised me to retest in six months, my NJ based oncologist was concerned about the velocity of the increase and recommended a biopsy, which came back positive with a small amount of low-risk cancer. I am now traveling to Johns Hopkins for seed implants, but suspect I would fall into the group that would never have been biopsied with the low PSA I have. On my last PSA test, it dropped back to 2.7. Ultimately, it is my decision whether to pursue treatment, but so far, I have not met one patient or doctor who would recommend doing nothing. Until they develop a test that can determine which cancers become agressive and which will not, on an individual rather than a statistical basis, it makes sense to do something.
Many people are concerned that the new “science” that has led to a sudden about-face on testing, coincident with the passage of ObamaCare, is driven by costs rather than patient welfare. This may be unfair, but one of the hazards of politicizing the health care system is that suspicions of, well, politicization of the health care system become unavoidable.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Suspicious reader Fran Akridge notes: “Not detecting cancer early has financial benefits for both the Medicare (too late for anything except hospice) and Social Security (earlier death) pools.”
SELLING JUDGMENTS: A law student creates his own job. “This is one possible piece of law’s information revolution, in which the traditional cottage industry of lawyers advising individual clients turns into a robust information market. It’s also an example of the new opportunities that may replace the disappearing traditional law jobs.”
THE GERMIEST THINGS WE TOUCH: Gas pumps?
CORZINE BANKRUPTCY UPDATE: Full MF Global Bankruptcy Petition… In Which We Find That Corzine’s Bankrupt Firm Owes CNBC $845,397? Making the network his 7th biggest unsecured creditor. Some suggest this may have influenced its coverage. Surely not.
HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): CNN: Home Prices Heading For Triple-Dip.
STACY MCCAIN IS COVERING HERMAN CAIN AT THE NATIONAL PRESS CLUB.
Meanwhile, a question: Would Jonathan Martin, Maggie Haberman, Anna Palmer and Kenneth Vogel have put their names on a similar piece, with no named sources, aimed at Barack Obama? Would Politico have run it?
MAX BOOT: Obama’s Tragic Iraq Withdrawal: The president says we’re leaving because of Iraqi intransigence—but he never took negotiations seriously. “Mr. Bush spoke weekly with Mr. Maliki by video teleconference. Mr. Obama had not spoken with Mr. Maliki for months before calling him in late October to announce the end of negotiations. Mr. Obama and his senior aides did not even bother to meet with Iraqi officials at the United Nations General Assembly in September.” So much for that “smart diplomacy” we were promised.
IN THE MAIL: From Michael Walsh, Shock Warning.
WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: The Two Political Parties Are Breaking Down. “The decay of American political parties continues as the real money and power in politics shifts inexorably away from party organizations to informal and ad hoc groups. The combination of citizen grassroots movements, decentralized party structures and the vast sums of money short-circuiting the official party structures is changing the way politics works. . . . American political parties are increasingly being reduced to flags of convenience; party organizations and party institutions have little influence over events. That didn’t use to be true.”
HIGHER EDUCATION UPDATE: When A Professor Shouts “Death To Israel!” “The professor’s remarks are being condemned by some — including Kent State’s president — as inappropriate. But others say that he engaged in a legitimate expression of his political views.”
Well, it’s not like he put up a Firefly poster or anything. That would be dangerous hate speech.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: The Economist:
Signs of strain are everywhere. In September the Department of Education reported that in 2009 the default rate, which is defined as non-payment for 270 days, had reached 8.8%. By some estimates delinquency rates, an earlier indicator of stress, for student loans exceed 10%, ten times that for credit cards and car loans. Ms Loonin’s average client has a low-paying job, $30,000 of debt and is in arrears.
This is despite punitive laws to enforce repayment.
Indeed. Plus this: “The administration says these changes will have no cost to taxpayers. If there is one lesson of the past 46 years, it is to be dubious of that claim.”
AT AMAZON, Bestsellers in Video Games.