Archive for 2012
November 24, 2012
CHANGE: “The truth is, fat is in and thin is, well, mostly fantasy.” Walking around campus, I’d say that the center of the weight distribution has shifted upward by about 15 pounds among undergraduates over the 20 years or so I’ve been teaching. The change is more notable among the women than the men — not surprising at that age — but you see it in everyone.
IN CANADA, HOW COURTING THE IMMIGRANT VOTE PAID OFF FOR THE TORIES:
Fifteen cups of tea. That’s how the election was won.
In one day during the 2011 election campaign, Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney attended 15 different chai parties hosted by Indo-Canadian voters in Brampton West, Ont. That’s just a snapshot of his epic cross-Canada campaigning, but it’s indicative of the stamina and persistence of the Conservative point man for ethnic communities.
He and Prime Minister Stephen Harper have transformed their party from one that was perceived as hostile to new Canadians to one that is now home to a great many immigrant voters and Members of Parliament.
It helps. When Phil Bredesen ran for governor in Tennessee the first time, he was thought of as an out-of-touch northeasterner. He then spent a lot of time going to chili suppers and VFW affairs all over the state, and by the next time people thought he was okay. Of course the Democrats and media run a double-bind operation here: They attack the GOP for being racist and insular, but then also attack it if it reaches out to new groups. That’s a calculated strategy to keep the GOP isolated, but you just have to overcome it.
This kind of outreach, done right, would do more good than amnesty bills. Harder to do at the national-campaign level, though.
JOHN HINDERAKER: It’s a Good Thing We’ve Got “Smart Diplomacy!”
I am so confused! When anti-Mubarak demonstrators gathered in Tahrir Square and were met with tear gas, they represented the Arab Spring. So what do these anti-Morsi demonstrators represent? Are they Arab Spring too? Or Arab Autumn? Or maybe the seasonal analogies are no longer operative. . . .
But never mind that–I am still really, really confused! Mubarak was our friend, but a bad guy. So he had to go, and Obama denounced him and helped force him out. Morsi is our enemy, and also is a bad guy. So Obama thinks he’s A-OK, and helped Morsi take power. That’s called “smart diplomacy.” You probably wouldn’t understand.
Other things are confusing, too. Did Obama know that Morsi was about to claim dictatorial powers when he made Morsi the “hero” of the Israel-Gaza cease fire? If so, did he mind? If Obama didn’t know–which seems more likely–does he now think that Morsi double-crossed him by capitalizing on his faux diplomatic mission to proclaim himself a dictator? Or is that one more thing that is A-OK with Obama? If Obama doesn’t like the fact that Morsi has cut “Arab Spring” democracy off at the knees, does he intend to do anything about it? Or, when bad things happen, is it “smart diplomacy” to do nothing and pretend you don’t mind?
Pretend you don’t mind — and lead from behind!
HOW MUCH IS AN HOUR OF SUNSHINE WORTH?
To find out where homeowners get the most solar bang for their buck, real-estate consulting firm Knight Frank looked at 14 warm-weather vacation spots around the world. Using the average hours of sunlight per day and the average house price for a four-bedroom property in a prime real-estate location, Knight Frank arrived at the price for an hour of sunshine, averaged over a year. . . . Caribbean islands ranked high on the list, in part because there’s less land to develop, which drives property prices higher, says Paddy Dring, head of the international residential department for Knight Frank.
Well, few people vacation for gloom.
HOW DO YOU TAKE OVER A WAL-MART? “An assembly line is a delicate process that can be stopped by holding one of dozens of chokepoints hostage. A store can pretty much only be stopped by holding the whole store.”
And you don’t want to get in the way of Wal-Mart customers on Black Friday. If I were management, I’d just announce that all flat-screen TVs were $20 each for the first hour. Strike broken, “occupiers” trampled, end of story.
HOW THE WORLD ALMOST ENDED: An Asteroid Near-Miss in 1883. “So if they had collided with Earth we would have had 3275 Tunguska events in two days, probably an extinction event.”
Kind of like the backstory to S.M. Stirling’s The Peshawar Lancers.
“UNREST” IS THE PROPER RESPONSE: Egypt unrest flares over Morsi’s move to broaden his power. “The state is crumbling. The law is being completely sidestepped. We are now a lawless country.” If it ends with him being deposed it’ll be better.
AT AMAZON, Black Friday deals in Camera, Photo & Video.
NICK KRISTOF WRITES A LOT ABOUT FOREIGN COUNTRIES. But given this dogs-breakfast of a column about America, I’m beginning to doubt the reliability of his observations from anywhere.
People want generators because the power goes out in storms. The reason power goes out in storms isn’t because marginal income tax rates aren’t high enough. The reason power goes out in storms in general is that ratepayers — who, not taxpayers, are the ones who pay for electrical-utility infrastructure — balk at paying the higher rates it would take to harden up the infrastructure, and the political bodies that oversee utility rates tend to agree.
The reason that power went out on Long Island is that Andrew Cuomo did a lousy job of overseeing the incompetent Long Island Power Authority. And the reason why people buy generators is because they’ve gotten better and cheaper thanks to technology, while we’ve gotten less willing to live without electricity for an extended period.
The larger phenomenon that Kristof identifies — people buying their way out of “public” (that is, government-supplied) services — is real, but the chief reason is that government has become more concerned with redistribution and cronyism, so that the quality of services has generally fallen. Increasing the amount of money available for redistribution and cronyism won’t fix that.
Also: Dear generator-owning homeowners, do not invite Nick Kristof over next time there is a hurricane. “Completely ignored is that government spending is going through the roof, including on police and schools, yet we have little to show for it. The answer for Kristof, more of the same.”
Plus, from the comments: “Kristof is losing his touch! I fully expected him to suggest that we have a progressive electric rating scheme in this country like we do our taxes. The couple with the $50k shack get their electric for free, while those with the Manhattan condos and $5m Hamptons mansions pay the highest electric rates in the nation. Slipping I tell you!”
UPDATE: Speaking of government and money: Exclusive: New Jersey railway put trains in Sandy flood zone despite warnings. “The Garden State’s commuter railway parked critical equipment – including much of its newest and most expensive stock – at its low-lying main rail yard in Kearny just before the hurricane. It did so even though forecasters had released maps showing the wetland-surrounded area likely would be under water when Sandy’s expected record storm surge hit. Other equipment was parked at its Hoboken terminal and rail yard, where flooding also was predicted and which has flooded before.”
Oh, and by the way, if you’re looking for a generator. . . .
UPDATE: A couple of more gems from Prof. Jacobson’s comments:
Didn’t Kristof (twice) favor the candidate who proposed an energy plan in which “electricity prices will necessarily skyrocket” and who thinks that’s a good thing? Therefore, Kristof believes that only the wealthy should have an adequate power supply. Q.E.D.
And:
The way things are progressing, in 20 years “only the rich can afford electricity” will be a common utterance, and an established fact.
Indeed.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: At Elite Colleges, The Rich Stay Rich.
BRITAIN: “A couple had their three foster children taken away by a council on the grounds that their membership of the UK Independence Party meant that they supported ‘racist’ policies.” Tar and feathers are the appropriate response to such outrages.
POINTS AND FIGURES: Eventually, Math Wins.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: More on the $10,000 bachelor’s degree.
LEGAL EDUCATION UPDATE: Jurors Agree: University of Iowa Law School Discriminated Against Faculty Applicant Due to Her Conservative Views.
From the comments: “I hope people will start to take this issue seriously now. Everyone knows this happens; the issue has always been proving it. Now someone has.”
IN THE MAIL: From Eric Flint and Charles E. Gannon, 1635: Papal Stakes.
JONAH GOLDBERG ON THE DEMOCRATS’ BOGUS CRIES OF RACISM:
One of the points of racial slander is to signal that only liberal policies are guaranteed to be non-racist (even when such policies were forged with racist intent, like the Davis-Bacon Act). This is why the Congressional Black Caucus insists on calling itself the “conscience of the Congress.”
That’s why policies like school choice are routinely denounced as racist, even though they’re largely aimed at improving the lives of inner-city blacks trapped in bad schools. Teachers unions don’t like school choice, ergo, it’s racist.
Any serious attempt by the GOP to win black votes won’t involve Republicans copycatting liberal policies. It will require going over the heads of black and white liberal slanderers to offer a sincere alternative to failed liberal policies on schools, poverty, crime, etc. The more effective that effort, the more the GOP will be called racist.
When Romney, whose father marched with Martin Luther King Jr., spoke to the NAACP, Michael Tomasky of the Daily Beast dubbed him a “race-mongering pyromaniac,” primarily for using the term “ObamaCare” — a term Barack Obama used himself.
Just imagine the attacks in store for a more effective Republican.
Indeed.
EDWARD JAY EPSTEIN: The CIA’s Great Gatsby. Does this history shed any light on today’s events?
GETTING IT FAST AND HARD (CONT’D): How ObamaCare will keep unemployment high — by forcing small companies to cut their workforce to fewer than 50 people.
SCIENCE: Pornography Actresses: An Assessment of the Damaged Goods Hypothesis. Apparently, they’re not any more likely to be crazy, or to have been abused as children. They do, however, enjoy sex more than average.