TEN YEARS AGO ON INSTAPUNDIT: Thoughts on multiculturalism.
Archive for 2011
December 3, 2011
AT AMAZON, it’s the Holiday Toy List.
Also, 75% off on select winter outerwear. Get ready for the cold.
THE HILL: New documents detail how Justice sent faulty info on gun walking. “Over 1,000 pages of emails detail officials’ debate on how to defend the ATF.” By lying?
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: UNLV: Over student objections, regents raise undergraduate tuition 8 percent.
IS RON PAUL about to win Iowa?
IS THIS A GOOD IDEA? Replacing the LSAT with psychological testing?
ED DRISCOLL: Dropping the A-Bomb on History. “What causes an ideology to completely turn its back on its culture’s past and descend into what Australian historian Geoffrey Blainey calls ‘Black Armband History?'” Puerile leftism, driven by Oikophobia.
Plus this: “If conservatives ever want to recapture the high ground of culture, just creating an alternative news media is nowhere near sufficient. they have to — somehow — recapture academia, where culture is ultimately created. And destroyed as well.”
ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Why can’t skycaps be allowed to work in the ever greater distance between the security checkpoint and the departure gates?
WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: The Rise Of The Fifth Reich? “Over at the always interesting Small Wars Journal, Tony Corn has a stimulating piece on the implications of the European crisis for world politics. He sees a clueless German policy establishment recklessly moving toward an unsustainable quest for power reminiscent in too many ways of problems Germany has had in its past. . . . This is much more exciting than the usual bland pap about European politics one reads in the US, and Corn’s analysis is deeply grounded in what serious people are thinking and writing in Paris, London and Berlin.”
HOPE AND CHANGE: Black Friday Bestseller: Guns.
Numbers from the Federal Bureau of Investigation show an all-time one-day high for background check requests from gun buyers last Friday. There were 129,166 requests to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS)–a third more than the previous record of 97,848 on Black Friday 2008, FBI spokesman Stephen Fischer said. On Black Friday last year, there were 87,061 requests.
The numbers, first reported in USA Today, reflect the experience of gun-sellers on the ground. “It was the biggest rush we ever had. Some of the people at the gate sent their kid running to the gun counter to get in line,” said Tom Ritzer, store manager at MC Sports in Springfield, Mo., which opened its doors at 5 a.m. on Black Friday. Gun buyers had to wait until NICS opened at 7 before they could leave with their purchases, he said.
This reflects the sort of optimism about the future that has characterized Obama’s time in office.
UNDER ASSAULT FOR LIBERAL BIAS, Politico’s Traffic Dives. Come to think of it, I think I’ve been linking them less lately. They just seem less interesting.
RUSS ROBERTS’ PODCAST: Gary Taubes on Fat, Sugar and Scientific Discovery.
I like his book.
APTERA UPDATE: Another Electric-Car Company Officially Closes Its Doors. I’m sad about that, as their car looked promising. But the market didn’t agree: “President and CEO Paul Wilbur explained in a statement that the company couldn’t find private investors to match a proposed $150 million loan from the Department of Energy. In an effort to attract that investment, the company had switched focus from that interesting three wheeler to a more conventional four-wheeled electric car.”
SO THE KINDLE FIRE REVIEWS continue to accumulate over at Amazon. The people who love it seem to see it as a Kindle-with-benefits. The people who hate it (and there are some) seem disappointed that it’s not an iPad. Well, it’s not, but it’s less than half the price.
RATS ON THE WESTSIDE, BEDBUGS UPTOWN. What my yearlong battle with Nix- and RID-resistant head lice taught me about the future of the American louse.
100 INCREDIBLE VIEWS OUT OF AIRPLANE WINDOWS.
“RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT IS A DIRTY GAME:” Herman Cain suspends campaign.
UPDATE: Reader John Lunde emails: “Cain missed his chance for immortality: what he should have announced is that he’s taking a seventeen-day vacation.”
Now that sounds . . . Presidential!
PRE-CHRISTMAS MARKDOWNS ON TOOLS.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Obama Invites College Leaders to Closed-Door Meeting on Affordability.
The White House and the Education Department did not respond to questions about the meeting, which was first reported on Friday by Inside Higher Ed, an online news source.
But an official of a higher-education association, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that the presidents and other leaders in attendence will include F. King Alexander, president of California State University at Long Beach; Francisco G. Cigarroa, chancellor of the University of Texas system; Jared L. Cohon, president of Carnegie Mellon University; William (Brit) Kirwan, chancellor of the University System of Maryland; Holden Thorp, chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and Nancy L. Zimpher, chancellor of the State University of New York. The names of other invitees could not be learned late Friday.
The discussion will be a candid conversation about how higher education can remove barriers “to college access, affordability, and success for students,” according to a letter of invitation, from the White House to the higher-education leaders, that was obtained by The Chronicle.
The letter says the Obama administration wants to discuss ways to bring down “overall campus costs” and to make other innovations so college is more affordable for students.
More here:
President Obama has invited the presidents or chancellors of 10 colleges or state university systems to a meeting at the White House on Monday to discuss affordability and productivity in higher education. The move is highly unusual: While administration events often feature college leaders in various roles, a meeting called on such short notice, with the president himself in attendance, is rare.
Hey, maybe someone over there has been reading my stuff.
It would be smart if they invited Andy Rosen, too, but he’s from the hated for-profit sector and this — if cynicism offers a correct guide — is more about shoring up a key source of Democratic support before November of 2012.
But maybe, for once, the cynics are wrong. Anyway, for those journalists and pundits who are interested in the substance of the matter, just go here and keep scrolling.
THE KINDLE FIRE in an Age of Distraction.
THE MOST AND LEAST TAXING STATES to retire and live in.
“ARAB SPRING” UPDATE: After the hope of the Arab Spring, the chill of an Arab Winter. “One year after a Tunisian fruit vendor set himself on fire in an act of defiance that would ignite protests and unseat long-standing dictatorships, a harsh chill is settling over the Arab world. The peaceful demonstrations in Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Syria and Yemen that were supposed to bring democracy have instead given way to bloodshed and chaos, with the forces of tyranny trying to turn back the clock.”
A NEW BLOG ON HIGHER EDUCATION: Dissident Prof.
AFTER WHICH, HE LEFT ON VACATION: Obama: Congress ‘shouldn’t go home’ until tax cut is extended.
And no, I’m not really kidding about the vacation bit: Exhausted From Grueling Fundraising Trips, POTUS to Vacation for 17 Days. But to be fair, he’s not leaving for a couple of weeks.