Archive for 2012

DEBATING LONGEVITY RESEARCH AT OXFORD: Aubrey de Grey writes:

I’m writing to notify you of a rather interesting event happening this coming Wednesday evening (April 25th at 7pm UK time) in Oxford, at the University’s spectacular Sheldonian Theatre: a debate between myself and Prof. Colin Blakemore, whom I’m sure you know as a high-profile neuroscientist and science communicator and also ex-head of the Medical Research Council, the UK’s largest funding body for biomedical research. The debate will be entitled “This house wants to defeat ageing entirely” and will address both the feasibility and the desirability of bringing aging under comprehensive medical control. See here for details.

There promises to be a very good turnout (based on advance registrations), and media coverage is encouraged. I expect that this will be quite a watershed event, since it’ll be the first time that a bona fide grandee of the British biomedical establishment has risen to the challenge of describing publicly, in a forum where he can be challenged, why intervention against aging is not in fact medicine’s most pressing priority.

I think there will be a video posted afterward. I’ll link it when it’s available. And if any InstaPundit readers happen to attend, please send me a report!

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Don Surber: Underemployed college grads is a good thing. “Underemployment rocks because it knocks out that sense of entitlement. People also learn what real work is.”

Well, I hope it’s a good thing, because it’s vastly more prevalent: “Taking underemployment into consideration, the job prospects for bachelor’s degree holders fell last year to the lowest level in more than a decade.”

IN MY SOON-TO-APPEAR HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE BOOK, I note that the bubble’s bursting will force administrators to realign priorities. So far, that doesn’t seem to be happening in Florida: University of Florida Eliminates Computer Science Department, Increases Athletic Budgets.

UPDATE: Tyler Cowen comments: “I see this as illustrating how university incentives are not always aligned with those of the Governor or with the social interest. As Governor, Scott can more easily direct new funds towards STEM than tell entrenched university bureaucracies how to reallocate funds among existing programs. In particular Scott wants to promote STEM and computer science graduates for the externalities they produce but universities don’t get paid for producing externalities.” Though the externalities are what they point to when they want money.

Or maybe it’s just the old Washington Monument strategy.

NICK GILLESPIE: Sen. Kent Conrad, Senate Dems Punt on Producing Budget Because GOP is Obstructionist, Needs Document to Vote On. “Conrad is officially retiring at the end of his current term, which expires early next year. But if we define active employment as, you know, doing your basic job function (such as passing a budget resolution), then he’s been off the clock for at least the past three years. He’s the king of legislative vaporware, constantly signaling that he’s about to release some big plan than never seems to make it out the door so that it can actually be discussed in the light of day. . . . Cue the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein, who is as good a pal as Kent Conrad will ever have in the press.”

SO “HOMELAND SECURITY” MEANS ACTING AS ENFORCERS FOR BIG ENTERTAINMENT? Federal agents raid Patapsco Flea Market: Counterfeit sports apparel and cosmetics, pirated music confiscated.

Capping a lengthy investigation into counterfeit and pirated merchandise, including the allegedly illegal use of a major sports apparel trademark, federal Homeland Security Investigations agents on Sunday raided the Patapsco Flea Market and confiscated numerous items being sold there.

Nicole Navas, a public affairs specialist with the Department of Homeland Security, said sports apparel, musical recordings and cosmetics were among the items under scrutiny in the 2 1/2-year-long investigation.

Abolish the Department of Homeland Security. If they’ve got time for this crap, we don’t have a terrorist problem anymore.

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Video: Former Dem VP candidate goes on trial today. “Eight years ago, he ran on the Democratic ticket for the second-highest political office in the country. Four years ago, he vied for the nomination in a tough three-way race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Today, John Edwards begins another battle — to stay out of federal prison.”

According to an Obama spokesman, it’s not news. Of course not. He’s a Democrat. “Meanwhile, Edwards still lives ‘in a sprawling house on about 100 acres with two of his children, Emma Claire, 13, and Jack, 11.’ Their mother is dead. Their dad faces 30 years in prison for letting friends help him hide his adulterous affair from the public.” Nope. Not news.

WAR ON PHOTOGRAPHY UPDATE: MY NEW LAW REVIEW ARTICLE, A Due Process Right To Record The Police, co-authored with John Steakley, is now available online. It’ll be out in print from the Washington University Law Review in May. Download early and often. It’s short and punchy!

AN ALLAH HEADLINE GETS REPORTED AS A DIRECT QUOTE. I linked the headline, but didn’t present it as a quote; nonetheless, I’ve updated the post. Does this change the meaning? Not that much, since I think Obama was making exactly the point Allah did, but it’s better to be accurate. (Via Eugene Volokh).

JONATHAN ADLER: How President Obama Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Executive Power. “Both Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush relied upon executive authority to advance policy initiatives Congress failed to enact, though sometimes these efforts were rebuffed in court. What’s interesting, notes political science professor William G. Howell in the story, is President Obama’s transformation on the issue.” Executive power is fine, when he’s the Executive.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: IT WAS THE POWER, STUPID.

What is going on? Two things, really. One, the media believes that the noble ends justify the tawdry means. So if it is a choice between emphasizing the latest Obama embarrassment, digging into the scary Fast and Furious, the “millions of green jobs” Solyndra insider giveaways, the Secret Service decadence, the GSA buffoonery, the work while getting food stamps con in Washington, OR endangering Obamacare and by extension “the children,” or the war to eliminate autism, or the right to breath clean air, well, why would one ever wish to derail all that by weakening a landmark progressive and his enlightened agenda?

Or for you more cynical readers, why would you wish to enervate the present comfortable culture in Washington in which the press and politics are at last one? Or why undermine the first African-American president who is a constant reminder of our progressive advancement, or why weaken our only chance some day to have open borders or gay marriage?

Two, the Left has always operated on the theory of medieval penance. We surely must assume that Warren Buffett has never had problems with the ethics of Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. or had a company he controls sued by the IRS for back taxes. Why? Because he has confessed his sins, and accepted the faith and paid his tithe to the Church. Ditto a Bill Gates or a multi-million-dollar a year celebrity like Sean Penn or Oprah. In the relativism of the left, if the one-percenters will simply confess that their class is greedy and needs to pay their fair share—even if they are entirely cynical in the manner of GE’s Jeffery Immelt and penance is written off as the cost of doing business—then they become exempt from the wages of them/us warfare, and the ‘you want to kill the children’ rhetoric.

Read the whole thing. But I can’t skip this part: “But at least 2012 won’t be a default campaign. In other words, to quote Obama, Romney will get in ‘their faces’ and ‘bring a gun to a knife fight’ in a way McCain more graciously and nobly lost by putting all sorts of concerns off the table. I would expect that should Obama keep harping about Romney’s tax returns, Romney will demand Obama’s transcripts and medical records at last to be released. If Obama’s surrogates keep writing about Mormonism, we will learn of new disclosures about Trinity Church. For every Mormon bishop who said something illiberal in 1976, we will hear of a Father Pfleger or Rev. Meeks trumping that in 2007. And so on.”

Absolutely.

UPDATE: A reader emails: “So, Charlie Brown no longer believes Lucy will hold the football…that’s what is really pissing the Dems off.”