WHAT IF EUROPE all falls apart? “Suppose that the EU in 2030 has become something like the Holy Roman Empire in, say, 1730: still extant on paper, but more origami than political reality. What then?” 2030?
Archive for 2011
October 13, 2011
TRYING TO HELP BOSTON’S POOR RECOVER FROM DAMAGE DONE BY #OCCUPY PROTEST: “Since ‘Occupy Boston’ has forced the cancellation of the Greenway Mobile Food Fest, The Right Sphere is trying to raise $1,000 for the Greater Boston Food Bank, which was supposed to benefit from that event. Please consider donating as little as $1, $5 or $10 to the Greater Boston Food Bank to help defray the Occupy movement’s damage to Boston’s nonprofits and to to show that we can put our money where our mouth is and support the needy in Boston.”
THE 21ST CENTURY’S servant problem.
IMPORTANT NEWS FROM the Center For Zombie Awareness.
AT AMAZON, warehouse deals in Grocery & Personal Care.
THE STORY OF AMANDA KNOX’S DNA:
If you watch crime dramas, you’ll be forgiven for the impression that DNA evidence makes an airtight case. And if you do have that impression, you might be confused about the internationally famous case of American Amanda Knox, convicted of murdering her British roommate in Perugia, Italy in 2007. After all, the prosecution’s case was based on DNA evidence; Knox’s genetic fingerprints were found by Italian police on the handle of a kitchen knife, which also had the victim’s DNA on the blade.
But not all DNA evidence is created equal — and Knox walked free last week from an Italian jail after scientists savaged the forensic evidence against her as being wholly unreliable. How did DNA analysis go so wrong?
Lots of “scientific evidence” goes wrong.
JOB-CREATION, OBAMA STYLE: Gibson Guitar CEO warns that jobs may be sent overseas in aftermath of DOJ raid.
LYNCH MOBS: When digital shaming goes too far. “As of this writing, Jezebel has yet to amend its post to say that Liss fingered the wrong Andrew Meyer. But even if Liss had had the right guy, would that have warranted the kind of mob justice people on the internet are obviously champing at the bit to mete out? Other than fulfilling a desire for revenge, what purpose does siccing bloggers and Twitter users on low-level meanies serve? . . . I believe a guy who calls his bartender fat is not a guy I’d like to hang out with, but I’m not sure that guy should have to explain a mean thing he said once in every job interview he has for the rest of his life. At a certain point the bully becomes the bullied.”
RALLYING FOR CAMPUS CARRY RIGHTS at James Madison University.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Degree Required? “The assumption that one needs a college degree to get ahead in life is looking more vulnerable than it has in a long time. It will be interesting to see whether challenges to that assumption lead to a rethink of what is truly required in order to perform certain jobs. More interesting still will be to see what new practices emerge to ensure quality of service beyond or outside of the current ‘degree = qualified’ paradigm.”
MORE ON THE HORRORS of “Text Neck.”
OUT, IN ROTC, at military college.
WHO BESIDES SOLYNDRA GOT LOAN GUARANTEES? “Solyndra CEO Brian Harrison just resigned, as the controversy stubbornly refuses to go away. Seems worth revisiting the loans once again, since I’ve spent a little time looking more deeply at the program over the past few days. . . . I have highlighted what jumped out at me: most of the money has gone to enormous companies that should have no trouble accessing capital. Established utilities, large multinational auto manufacturers, a global warehouse owner. The bulk of these funds are not going to rectify some gap in the capital markets. They’re straight subsidies to huge corporations. Even some of the smaller firms/deals are owned by large corporations like Total SA. . . . We’re just sticking a green smiley face on the same old corporate welfare–and the government’s less like a VC than a farmer slopping the pigs at the trough.” Do tell.
KATE BOLICK: All The Single Ladies. “We took for granted that we’d spend our 20s finding ourselves, whatever that meant, and save marriage for after we’d finished graduate school and launched our careers, which of course would happen at the magical age of 30. That we would marry, and that there would always be men we wanted to marry, we took on faith. How could we not?”
AT AMAZON, generators and outdoor power.
Also, snow removal gear.
J.J. GOULD: #OWS: What the Media Can’t See About America’s First Web-Era Movement. “Occupy Wall Street is a pluralist protest that’s better at asking questions than offering answers.” I think it compares poorly with the Tea Party, which I would also characterize as a Web-Era movement.
Related thoughts here. Plus this: “If that scenario came to pass, I think the Tea Party side would win overwhelmingly… which is another way of saying that the Democratic Party should not wish for too much OWS momentum. But the energy is so exciting, isn’t it? And they always wanted their very own Tea Party.”
UPDATE: Anti-Semitism at Occupy Wall Street? In a movement attacking “greedy bankers” and “the 1%”? Inconceivable!
THE REAL REASON WHY Steve Jobs Wore Turtlenecks.
CRONY CAPITALISM: Barack Obama’s other billionaire: How George Kaiser turned Oklahoma into his personal tax haven. “It’s unlikely that President Barack Obama will be naming any tax proposals after George B. Kaiser. An investment by the Tulsa billionaire’s family foundation in Solyndra, whose bankruptcy may leave taxpayers on the hook for $535 million in federal loans, has raised speculation that the administration acted in part to aid a financial supporter. But the impact on taxpayers of Kaiser’s career goes far beyond the $535 million loss. Kaiser has built his fortune in part through shrewdly playing the Internal Revenue Code.”
THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: Inspector General: 41% Error Rate in $30 Billion First Time Homebuyer Tax Credit Program.
BAD IDEA: Bill to strip terrorists of citizenship. Start down this road and they’ll be stripping people of citizenship for any trendy offense soon. At any rate, it’s of dubious constitutionality.
PARENTS OF A CERTAIN AGE: “The first time they had sex, during that initial exploration of unfamiliar flesh, John Ross uttered words to Ann Maloney that would sound to her like prophecy. ‘You have the body of a young girl. You need a baby.’ This compliment, though gallant, could not have been objectively true. The first time Maloney and Ross had sex, he was 54 and she was 47. Maloney may have looked good for her age, but she most certainly did not have the body of a young girl. And the subject of babies, not in wide use as a come-on in any cohort, might have struck another woman so deeply middle-aged as creepy. But Maloney had no children at the time, and she wanted them—badly. . . . Today, Maloney and Ross, 60 and 66, inhabit their home with a rotating crew of housekeepers, a couple of fish tanks, a cockatiel, two bearded dragons, two dogs, two cats, and a dwarf hamster. Lily and Isabella are 7 and 10 and come with a docket of demands befitting their age—soccer games, birthday parties, sibling fights. . . . The baby-having drive in this set is so strong it’s recessionproof. Since 2008, birthrates among women overall have declined 4 percent, as families put childbearing on hold while they ride out hard times. But among women over 40, birthrates have increased. Among women ages 45 to 49, they’ve risen 17 percent.”
WARHEAD TECHNOLOGY hits the market.
NOT SURE THIS COUNTS AS PROGRESS: More corn now going to ethanol than animal feed.
UPDATE: Reader Rob Cooper writes: “Now this presents a dilemma–it’s like there’s a conspiracy to starve the earth!”