THE SLEEK MODERNITY OF TRAIN TRAVEL IN EUROPE: Now with “pee bags.”
Plus, from the comments: “The you’re-a-peein’ jokes practically write themselves.”
Archive for 2011
October 8, 2011
AT AMAZON, the Halloween costume shop.
SONIA ARRISON: Can The Earth Survive The Longevity Revolution? “As the innovations driving the longevity revolution improve the length and quality of our lives, concurrent improvements in the environment can be expected. Numerous studies have shown that the less people have to focus their energy on survival and meeting their basic needs, the more they care about making their environment cleaner. This pattern has occurred, and continues to occur, in developed countries like the United States and is now beginning in developing countries.”
CONSTRUCTION: Making Room For The World’s Biggest Boats. Okay, ships, really. But that would eliminate the appealing alliteration.
THE POLITICS of hate. From the comments: “He has met the enemy and she is his navel.”
THIS WEEK in the future.
THE CARNIVAL OF SPACE IS UP!
HIGHER EDUCATION UPDATE: The Coming Senate Hearing On Law-School Malfeasance.
Now here’s where the arrangement gets strange. The ABA asks each law school to supply data on the LSAT and GPA of the 1L class, and it publishes in the Official Guidebook whatever information law schools submit. What’s weird about this is that the co-publisher of the Official Guidebook, LSAC, has this information in its database (literally). The ABA could simply ask LSAC (rather than law schools) to supply this information (but it doesn’t), and LSAC puts its name on a book that contains information that it could easily check (but it doesn’t). As a result, law schools can submit false information with impunity. …
LSAC could blow the lid off this tomorrow by supplying the true LSAT and GPA medians for every law school for the past ten years–but it won’t. … LSAC is a non-profit organization controlled by law schools (revenue of $70,000,000 last year), with a board of trustees nominated by law schools (and the President, who earned $600,000 in 2010, is a former law school dean). LSAC apparently views its primary loyalty as properly oriented toward law schools–that is–toward protecting its constituent members.
One might wonder why the ABA would go along with such an arrangement, and would put its name on an “Official Guidebook” with an organization that exists to serve the interests of law schools. After all, the ABA is supposed to be regulating law schools. Well, the thing is, the ABA Section on Legal Education has itself long been dominated by legal educators. … It’s a good old-fashioned story of regulatory capture.
Indeed.
THE TRUE MARK OF GENIUS: Large working memory capacity?
SURE, BECAUSE IT’S WORKED SO WELL AT HOME: U.S. Drug Policy Would Be Imposed Globally By New House Bill.
IN THE MAIL: The Worldwide Gun Owner’s Guide.
FORDHAM BAKE SALE PROMOTES TRANSPARENCY: “Frankly, the Fordham Bake Sale sounds awesome. It reflects that underrepresented minorities receive advantages — but it also points out all the ways the college admissions process isn’t exactly an academics-based meritocratic one. Instead, it reflects all the ways college has become about so much more — and so much less — than education.”
BOB OWENS: Gunwalker: Dems Abandoning Ship? “The typical gun-control advocates don’t have the president’s and attorney general’s backs this time.”
PERSONALLY, I BLAME RACISM: Mark Steyn: Why don’t CNN, NPR, NY Times care about ‘dead Mexicans’?
SUPPORTING THE WHOLE CONSTITUTION: I Support The Third Amendment, And I Vote!
AT AMAZON, lots of coupons.
SOLYNDRA E-MAILS: Warnings about legality came from within Obama administration.
UPDATE: E-mails suggest Rahm, and maybe Obama, pushed early to spotlight Solyndra amid financial warnings; Update: Obama appointee pushed Solyndra loan — despite conflict of interest with wife’s law firm. “Funny thing: ABC published a report about Spinner last week to which Jay Carney replied that, to the best of the White House’s knowledge, Spinner had no input on the green loans program. According to today’s e-mails, though, not only was Spinner evidently in contact with the White House — including Biden’s office! — about Solyndra, he corresponded directly with Solyndra’s VP of marketing. I can’t wait for the inevitable next round of e-mails in which we find out precisely what the people in Biden’s office were telling him.”
“DREADFULLY BAD:” Consumer Credit Unexpectedly Fell In August By Most In Over A Year. “This is the biggest drop MoM since April 2010. More surprising is that we just saw the first drop in non-revolving credit in a year: since this is credit that goes out for car purchases and school loans, is either of these two bubbles (student loans and GM subprime loans) about to pop?”
WASHINGTON POST: Barack Obama, The Loner President. “Beyond the economy, the wars and the polls, President Obama has a problem: people. This president endures with little joy the small talk and back-slapping of retail politics, rarely spends more than a few minutes on a rope line, refuses to coddle even his biggest donors. His relationship with Democrats on Capitol Hill is frosty, to be generous. Personal lobbying on behalf of legislation? He prefers to leave that to Vice President Biden, an old-school political charmer. . . . Which raises an odd question: Is it possible to be America’s most popular politician and not be very good at American politics?”
UPDATE: Ed Driscoll: Barack Milhous Obama. Love the photo.
THE HILL: Jon Tester: Senate Democrats’ Canary In The Coal Mine.
Since August, President Obama has made “running against Congress” a centerpiece of his reelection strategy, as President Truman did in 1948. But the comparison between 1948 and 2012 contains one inconvenient fact: the Senate is still controlled by the President’s own party, and that happens to be the part that is giving him the greatest trouble.
Numerous Senate Democrats – including top brass like Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer and Max Baucus – have made clear they are not going to “pass this bill” without major changes. Sen. Begich, Ben Nelson, Casey, Landrieu, Webb, McCaskill and others are openly uncomfortable with defending another fat stimulus package – this time funded with the kicker of broad tax increases.
Now skepticism is hardening into outright opposition. This week, Jon Tester, one of the three most vulnerable Democrats in the Senate, publicly opposed the Obama stimulus tax bill. What does that mean for the other two most vulnerable Senate Democrats: Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Claire McCaskill of Missouri?
What, indeed?