BETTER THAN BATTERIES: Ultracapacitors For Hybrid Military Vehicles.

IN THE MAIL: From Tim Worstall, Chasing Rainbows: Economic Myths, Environmental Facts.

HEH: Let’s get responsible.

SO EARLIER I NOTED THAT Rick Perry’s educational cost-lowering program might mesh well with the Khan Academy’s new online expansion, and the more I think about that, the better I like it.

The weak part of the Khan Academy’s program is that it doesn’t produce a credential that employers will accept the way they accept a college degree. This — and other online ventures — produce an opportunity for an independent certification agency. So why not Texas? On the one hand, employers in other states may not want to take a Texas state certification. On the other hand (1) They already do where college, high school, etc. degrees are concerned; and (2) Maybe it doesn’t really matter anyway, since the jobs are in Texas, anyway:

In 2008, 70 percent of all the jobs in the country were created in Texas. In 2009, all of America’s top five job-creating cities were in Texas.

More recently, “Texas created 129,000 new jobs in the last year — over one-half of all the new jobs in the U.S. In contrast, California lost 112,000 jobs during the same period,” according to “Texas vs. California: Economic growth prospects for the 21st Century,” a new report by the Texas Public Policy Foundation released in October.

Texas is home to 64 Fortune 500 companies — more than any other state in the union. (California has 51 and New York has 56.) For five years in a row, Texas has topped Chief Executive magazine’s poll of the best state to do business.

So if Texas did this, it would handle most of the new jobs as is, and lots of employers would probably be interested. Just sayin’ . . . .

UPDATE: Reader David McCune writes:

The idea of Texas teaming with Khan or some other for-profit educational business to verify subject mastery and certify an online educational credential is disruptive in one additional way beyond what you have mentioned. Consider:

1) Early adopters of such an educational model are likely to be highly motivated and innovative individuals who are willing to tolerate some risk.

2) The degrees offered and skill sets gained will tend to be more responsive to market forces than a traditional “bricks and mortarboard” university.

3) As long as Texas is the one doing the certifying, the new grads will have an incentive to move there. (plus, with minimal debt, they will be relatively mobile)

Not only will Texas have the most jobs, it will also have its pick of the best employees.

Interesting dynamic.

A LOOK AT Education’s gender gap.

VALENTINE’S DAY CHEER, featuring Nutella and Doughnuts? Don’t tell Dr. Atkins . . . .

SO YESTERDAY’S POST ON cheap radio-controlled helicopters produced this email from a reader in Iraq:

Glenn, it’s interesting that you posted this as the officers in my unit are in the mists of a RC Helicopter arms race. With the Iraq war all wrapped up except the cleanup, we find that we have time to fly these things around our operations center. When someone gets a new RC helicopter, some else immediately has to outdo them and get a big, faster one. I’m on my third bird.

Glad to hear things have settled down to this point.

IN LIBYA, Khadaffi sounds scared.

WAR AGAINST PHOTOGRAPHY UPDATE: Atlanta Police Department Won’t Hinder Citizens Who Videotape Cops. “Faced with complaints from a citizen watchdog group, Atlanta police will stop interfering with people who videotape officers performing their duties in public, an agreement reached with the city Thursday says. The settlement, which also calls for the city to pay $40,000 in damages, requires city council approval. The agreement resolves a complaint filed by Marlon Kautz and Copwatch of East Atlanta, a group that films police activity with cell phones and hand-held cameras. The group has volunteers who go out on patrols and begin videotaping police activity when they come across it.”

NOBODY TELL TIM GEITHNER: At Amazon, markdowns on TurboTax.

BOSTON GLOBE: Bush program helped lay the groundwork in Egypt. No, really, that’s the headline. In the Boston Globe. And the article even blames Obama for undermining the efforts: “When Obama took office, his administration halved the amount of money available for democracy funding in Egypt, to $20 million in 2008, and allowed Egypt to have a veto again over some funds.”

AT LEAST THEY DIDN’T OPEN UP A “BLUE HADES” COLONY: Lake Vostok drilling project halted by cold weather.

THOUSANDS OF IRANIANS RALLY FOR FREEDOM.

PERHAPS WE COULD TAKE A LESSON OR TWO: De-Bureaucratization Within China’s Universities:

Colleges and universities have been objects of fierce public criticism from scholars, students, government, and other stakeholders. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao opposed bureaucratization within higher education institutions. As he indicated, “Universities had better abolish so many complicated administrative levels.” . . . The root cause of bureaucratization within colleges and universities is a result of the strong influence of an external actor—the government. As Chen Xuefei, a distinguished professor of higher education at Peking University has insightfully pointed out, “The key to de-bureaucratization within higher education institutions is in government’s hand.”

In the United States, meanwhile, most of the explosive growth in higher education costs has come from administrative bloat, much of it driven by the need to comply with federal regulations.

WALL STREET LOBBYISTS TO G.O.P.: Hands Off Dodd-Frank. They bought the bill fair and square, I guess. . . .

WISCONSIN PUBLIC UNIONS not exactly Going Greek over budget cuts. “You can see that it wasn’t a very big crowd. There was an effort to get cars to honk, and when they honked, the honkees went ‘Wooo!’ There were no speakers and no chants.”

Plus, from the comments: “I do love the last pic. So typical of Union work – one guy holding the sign, four others standing around watching.” Kinda like a cold-weather version of this stirring demonstration.

RICH GALEN: Being smart on the budget. “Either the Arctic is going to be ice free in two years or we need to fully fund home heating assistance to combat this brutal winter. Can’t be both.”

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY! Do something nice for someone you love.

VIRGINIA POSTREL: Would Bogart Wear Gore-Tex?

SEXISM IN TRADITIONAL MEDIA: Some questions about the possible sexism of the way the NYT portrays Judy Clarke, the public defender in the Tucson massacre case.

MORE ON the sad decline of Time Magazine. “Newsweek recently sold for a dollar. At the rate Time is going, Newsweek may soon be eyeing it as a takeover target.”

UPDATE: Reader Bob Jacobs writes:

Last week I had to take my mother to close on a house she sold. While we were waiting for our lawyer I spied a pile of magazines on a table. I grabbed the Newsweek on top but thought it was an advertising insert. Nope, it was the whole magazine, just a few pages. Yes, the mighty have fallen. I don’t feel sad though, I feel wonderful. Would a note like this get the time of day from Time or Newsweek? I think not.

Yeah, if you haven’t seen a Time or a Newsweek lately, you’ll be surprised.

DATAMINING FOR THE MASSES: “OKCupid’s datamining blog is a source of amusement, politically incorrect insight, and horror in equal measure. But what strikes me is the enormous power that comes from the democratizing of data-mining. It will change the world, just as Google did when it democratized clipping files and newspaper morgues.” That’s true, though I don’t think OKCupid is the platform that will do it.

CHANGE: Yesterday Tunis, Today Tahrir Square, Tomorrow Tehran? Let’s hope.

PROGRESSIVE TAXATION: A quarter of all of Britain’s income tax revenues this year will be paid by just one per cent of earners, according to official data.