#GREENFAIL: Are Fisker Karmas breaking down? “Consumer Reports bought a Fisker Karma to test the luxury extended range EV, and they weren’t able to even complete the tests. With only 180 miles on the odometer, the CR testers got a warning light and then their Karma died in their driveway. Not quite bricked, like a Tesla with an overextended batter, but immobile just the same.” Plus, other problems.
More here.
ROGER KIMBALL: Why is Jon Corzine Still At Liberty?
IN THE MAIL: The Atlantic and Its Enemies: A History of the Cold War.
OVERREACH: Limbaugh Attack Boomerangs On White House. And on Bill Maher. “This is one issue on which the mainstream media is offering the White House no cover. As National Journal put it: ‘[E]ven the most ardent Obama supporter would have to admit that if Limbaugh crossed the line on acceptable discourse, then Maher obliterated that line, even acknowledging the difference between a political talkmeister and a comedian.’”
Hey, if you replace your cable/HBO with a Roku box, be sure and tell ’em why.
UPDATE: Reader Tony Methvin writes: “I cancelled HBO in a chat session with a Comcast CSR. They asked for my reason and I mentioned ‘Bill Maher & guests make unacceptable political jokes about conservative women and sexual assaults (Dan Savage); and the HBO movie ‘Game Change’ was political propaganda against my values.’ the CSR said they had heard this often recently. I like that my TiVo allows Netflix and YouTube streaming as an alternative. BTW Lilyhammer is a great Netflix series. In your face smashing of the nanny state fun!”
And reader Mike Couvillion writes: “The Roku is a good device but has one, big glaring omission in capability that keeps me from getting it–it can’t stream from existing internal media servers. I have nearly 6 Terabytes of media digitized format (yes, all legal or self produced home movies) on a media server and cannot stream to the Roku. I actually use an Xtreamer device for that. Xtreamer has other issues, but if Roku ever addresses the issue (other than the hack-through-a-channel they promote) I’d buy one that day.”
And reader Darren Gold writes, “Don’t let David Axelrod off the hook for calling Miss California a dog! Please get it out there that in 2009 David Axelrod implied that Miss California was a dog. This was right after Miss California’s answer in the Miss America contest that angered the left. What would Sasha and Malia think?”
What, indeed?
And here’s Ed Driscoll’s Roku review. There are other devices, too, but this one’s cheap and easy.
JAMES PETHOKOUKIS: The real unemployment rate? It sure isn’t 8.3%.
WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Brazil: The Country of the Future, Again? “Growth is down in Latin America’s largest economy and nervous, shell shocked Brazilians are crossing their fingers that their economy isn’t still stuck in its historic trap of commodity-dependence and high inflation.”
In the past two months, dozens of tea party groups that have applied for nonprofit status in the past year say they have received lengthy and intrusive questionnaires, some of which request the names of donors and volunteers.
Lawyers who work with nonprofits seeking exempt status said the questions are unprecedented but agreed that they are within legal bounds.
Sounds like an appropriate subject for congressional oversight. And is it any surprise that the IRS is using its legal authority in “unprecedented” ways — against Tea Party groups?
“WORK-LIFE BALANCE:” It’s not just an issue for women.
VIRGINIA POSTREL: TAKE THE BIRTH-CONTROL BATTLE OVER-THE-COUNTER.
Anyone — a local teenager, a traveling businessman, a married mother of four, an illegal immigrant, even a student at a Jesuit university — can walk into my neighborhood CVS any time, day or night, and, for less than $30, buy a 36-count “value pack” of Trojan condoms.
That’s enough to last most Americans at least three months, according to Kinsey Institute surveys. If you want more, you can buy out the store’s entire stock. There’s no limit, and you don’t need to see a doctor for permission and a prescription.
Contrary to widespread belief, there’s no good reason that oral contraceptives — a far more effective form of birth control — can’t be equally convenient.
True, making the pill available over the counter could reduce the amount of outrage and invective available for entertaining radio audiences, spurring political fundraising and otherwise amusing the American public. But the medical risks are quite low.
Well, my wife’s heart attack was probably caused by birth-control pills. On the other hand, the need for a prescription didn’t protect her. And, of course, OTC drugs have risks, too.
AT AMAZON, bestsellers in parenting and relationships.
Also, markdowns on Turbo Tax.
And, today only, a Kensington iPad keyboard/case for $39.99. Turns your iPad into a laptop, more or less.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: The Student Loan Debacle.
JEFF CARTER: Can You Trust The Jobs Number?
LOOKING FOR WAR ON TERROR NEWS? Check out Fred Pruitt’s Rantburg.
MORE ON UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER PRESIDENT JOEL SELIGMAN’S ATTACK ON FACULTY SPEECH: “This is elite academia’s brand of free speech and free academic inquiry in action. It’s a double standard.” As I said yesterday, Seligman’s statement will have, and might as well have been intended to have, a chilling effect on the speech of faculty who are less eminent than Steven Landsburg. I understand, however, that Seligman has also gotten considerable pushback from other senior faculty. That’s as it should be.
UPDATE: Prof. Jacobson comments: “Why did the President of the University feel the need to get involved? Is he the thought policeman? Sure, the President of the University is entitled to an opinion, but it’s clear that he was trying to tamp down a dissenting view using the power of his presidency.”
And here is Landsburg’s response:
President Seligman says that the mission of the university is to promote the free exchange of ideas and lively debate, and I agree. That mission is undermined whenever a member of the academic community elevates raw self-interest over the exchange of ideas.
That’s what Sandra Fluke did. She observed that contraceptives are expensive, and therefore demanded that somebody other than herself and her fellow students pick up the tab. She didn’t even pretend to be interested in debating any of the serious issues raised by the question of when some of us should pick up the tab for others’ expenses.
Sometimes we should, sometimes we shouldn’t, and there’s a lot to be said, discussed, and debated about the particulars. An emotional appeal for one’s preferred outcome, ignoring all the substantive issues, is the exact antithesis of the free exchange of ideas that President Seligman claims to endorse.
Indeed. More at the link.
JAMES TARANTO: What used to be a normal family life is now available only to the affluent.
Eventually, however, her career “succumbed,” as Reuters oddly puts it. In truth, this is no tragedy but a hypergamous happy ending. Mancini left the labor force because her husband was doing so well that he could afford to support the whole family: “She quit in 2005 when her six-digit income was overtaken by his seven-digit one.”
For Mancini, it was a liberation. She tells the wire service: “At that point, it was clear that my wage had become family pocket money. There was a real opportunity to do other things that did not require being chained to a desk.”
An increasing number of affluent women with affluent husbands are casting off the chains of professional work, according to a forthcoming Federal Reserve study that Reuters apparently obtained in advance . . .
For women with lower levels of education, the picture is markedly different, as Charles Murray shows in “Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010.” One-income households have become common at the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum as well–but because women are less likely to be married at all, while men are less likely to be in the labor force.
Marriage and male responsibility for families were once the norm at all levels of American society. Feminism was supposed to liberate women from dependency on men. Instead it has helped to create a two-tiered culture in which the norm is for women to be “chained to a desk,” but those who hit the jackpot in the mating game can realistically aspire to escape that status. Nice going, ladies. Happy International Women’s Day.
Feminism has always been about promoting the interests of affluent women.
THE HILL: Tea Party senators unveil five-year plan to balance the budget. “Members of the Senate Tea Party Caucus on Thursday announed a plan to balance the budget in five years, cutting spending by nearly $11 trillion compared to President Obama’s budget.”
A VIDEO FROM SHEPAC: Bill Maher: Obama’s Million Dollar Man. Obama may get tired of this issue before it goes away.
REPUBLICANS PAN HBO PALIN MOVIE: “She’s a good and decent person, and this continuing maligning of her by the liberal left is reprehensible to me.”
So if you’re mad, cancel HBO — or cancel cable altogether — and get a Roku box or something. Just tell ’em why you’re canceling when you do.
APOLOGY REJECTED: Michelle Malkin and S.E. Cupp to Keith Olbermann: We don’t buy your belated, fake apology.
At this stage in his career, Olbermann’s probably just happy to have people notice him.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Tuning In To Dropping Out.
In 2009 the United States graduated 89,140 students in the visual and performing arts, more than in computer science, math, and chemical engineering combined and more than double the number of visual-and-performing-arts graduates in 1985.
There is nothing wrong with the arts, psychology, and journalism, but graduates in these fields have lower wages and are less likely to find work in their fields than graduates in science and math. Moreover, more than half of all humanities graduates end up in jobs that don’t require college degrees, and those graduates don’t get a big income boost from having gone to college. . . .
The obsessive focus on a college degree has served neither taxpayers nor students well. Only 35 percent of students starting a four-year degree program will graduate within four years, and less than 60 percent will graduate within six years. Students who haven’t graduated within six years probably never will. The U.S. college dropout rate is about 40 percent, the highest college dropout rate in the industrialized world. That’s a lot of wasted resources. Students with two years of college education may get something for those two years, but it’s less than half of the wage gains from completing a four-year degree. No degree, few skills, and a lot of debt is not an ideal way to begin a career.
Nope. Under my proposal, of course, colleges would be on the hook for defaulted student loans, which would provide an incentive not to produce dropouts.
Plus this: “Our obsessive focus on college schooling has blinded us to basic truths. College is a place, not a magic formula. It matters what subjects students study, and subsidies should focus on the subjects that matter the most—not to the students but to everyone else.”
Related: Statistics on college completion.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: The Coming Crash in Legal Education: How We Got Here, and Where We Go Now.
UPDATE: Reader Joseph Ferry writes: “Glenn, what we need is a College Equivalency Diploma.” Yes.
PETER WALLISON: Tim Geithner Remains Stuck in 2008.
What most people have come to recognize since the crisis is that the Fed and other bank regulators had strong oversight responsibilities for the banking system, but banks-Citi, Wachovia, Washington Mutual and IndyMac-got into just as much trouble as the supposedly “unsupervised” investment banks. So tell us again, Mr. Secretary, why it makes sense to designate nonbank firms-insurers, securities firms, holding companies, finance companies, hedge funds and others-that will be regulated and supervised by the Fed? How can it be a good idea to declare, in effect, that these firms are too big to fail, and why would anyone think the Fed will be able to improve on its bank regulatory record when it is supervising nonbanks?
The failure of the regulators in the financial crisis has gotten insufficient attention.
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