TINSLEY ELLIS: The Milky Way. From his forthcoming album. He says it was recorded with an actual, vintage Echoplex rather than modern digital wizardry.
I used to see him at the late, lamented Ella Guru’s. He was a very nice guy, and — as he remains — a tremendous guitarist. Check out The Heartfixers’ Cool On It for some of his excellent early work.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: IT’S NOT JUST LEGAL EDUCATION. Job Meltdown and Debt Crisis Among Veterinary School Graduates. “From my position in the industry, in the economy in which we all work, the demand for veterinary services appears smaller than the supply of veterinarians. I routinely look at the financial statements of over 50 veterinary practices; equine, mixed and companion animal. Those financial statements demonstrate that practices do not generate enough profit to pay Veterinarians sufficiently to repay student loans under the repayment terms commonly available.”
Meanwhile, some data on how legal education is doing.
Related: Medical Schools Make Reforms While Law Schools Make Excuses.
UPDATE: Dr. Peter Grout writes:
Thanks for the post. Many of us have been trying to point out basic facts to our colleagues, but most ears are deaf. Sadly, our professional organization, the AVMA is politically correct and useless.
They accredit new schools, and fund new “diversity” chairs. Meanwhile, last week 17,000 veterinarians (about 1/4 of total!) were informed last week that AVMA’s health insurance program (through NY Life) will be dropping ALL of us at the end of 2013. Including dependents, about 36,000 people are losing their coverage. We will be forced onto the OCare exchanges. And the loss of our coverage is certainly not deemed newsworthy.
Senator Landrieu’s health care rep, Peter said we were losing our choice since others did not have the same choice. I guess it wasn’t “fair” that we have all worked hard to have this choice. And AVMA has done diddley to prevent this.
People only care about you if you can be characterized as a victim of something other than the federal government. . .
ANOTHER UPDATE: Jason Van Steenwyk writes: “Quick point of order on the Veterinarian’s email to you… NY Life is not in the health insurance business. That was some other company dropping them, or more likely, Association themselves. A NYLIC agent may also contract and sell other company’s health policies on the side, but NY Life had nothing to do with this.”
MORE: Dr. Grout responds: “I assure you, it was NY Life who is dropping us. They have underwritten AVMA-GHLIT for 20 years. I am on duty until Monday morning, but will be happy to fax or email a copy of the letter after that. Or, should you be interested, you can probably confirm at AVMA-GHLIT’s website. Also Peter at Sen. Landrieu’s office confirmed this. Perhaps Mr Van Steenwyk is correct in the fact that, due to OCare they are leaving the major medical business for groups.”
Beats me.
HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Senate Approves Warrantless Phone Tapping for Next Five Years. “The bill now goes to Obama for his signature, which it wil almost surely get—he’s a vocal supporter of the legislation. Domestic spying will be a reality for the rest of his administration, and beyond.”
HYSTERIA: LOL: Media Plays Up LA Gun Buyback that Turned up (OMG!) Rocket Launchers. “That’s just crazy! You know what’s crazier? You can buy that stuff online. Here’s a page selling some. Here’s more. And try not to faint, but here’s a military rocket. And a rocket-propelled grenade. It’s crazy, just any old person can buy those things. Scary, right? The word that appears on all of those pages — inert — means quite a bit. Let’s see if anyone in the media looks it up.”
TECHNOLOGY REVIEW: Online Learning and Upheavals in Social Networks. “For all the attention lavished on the Web’s growth on mobile devices this year, one of the most interesting Internet trends is still best experienced on a desktop computer: online education. The rising cost of higher education (the average bachelor’s degree now costs more than $100,000), combined with increasing access to high-speed Internet service and a desire for more efficient and flexible learning methods, brought new prominence to websites offering free or low-priced courses in everything from programming to literature.”
SAVE UP TO 56%: Year-End Deals In Movies & TV.
ANDY FREEBERG: Gallery: Russia’s Lady Museum Guards.
LEGAL EDUCATION UPDATE: Deborah Jones Merritt: Should Law School Deans be Disbarred for Misleading Prospective Students? “The people making the representations were professionals with advanced degrees, who had inside knowledge of the legal industry. Most of the people receiving the representations were college students with relatively little knowledge of either law schools or law practice. … It’s time to reclaim our integrity by acknowledging just how wrong all of this was.”
NINE INNOVATIONS in disaster relief.
HOW’S THAT “SMART DIPLOMACY” WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? AFRICA IN CRISIS: U.S. Abandons Embassy, France Won’t Intervene. “The last time the U.S. abandoned an embassy? Syria.”
According to a State Department spokesperson, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was unable to comment, because “she fell and twisted her cankle.”
UPDATE: Related: NPR Covering For Hillary on Benghazi. In a story by Michelle Kelemen, with an assist from Aaron David Miller, vice president of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Why You Shouldn’t Stalk Your Ex Online.
END OF YEAR DEALS: Up to 50% Off In Kitchen, Home & Garden.
THE UPSIDE OF NEUROTICISM: Better health? “According to a new study from the University of Rochester Medical Center, self-described neurotics who also have high levels of conscientiousness (for instance, those who are organized, plan ahead, and are extremely self-controlled) experience lower levels of Interleukin 6 (IL-6), a biomarker for inflammation and chronic disease. In addition to lower levels of IL-6, self-described neurotics also have lower body-mass index scores and fewer diagnosed chronic health conditions.”
CHART: College Textbook Inflation.
UPDATE: Reader Dave Ivers emails:
I’ve almost quit using my favorite textbooks due to price increases. Most of our students come from mid to low income families. The texts I assigned 10 years ago are now 4 times as expensive, and there’s hardly any difference in content or physical product. I’m moving to online stuff. A friend is writing his own ‘text’ and putting on the internal web at his school, a chapter at a time.
Yes, I’m working toward something similar in Constitutional Law.
IS THIS A GOOD IDEA? Your Smartphone Will Replace Your Car Keys by 2015.
HOW’S THAT GUN-CONTROL STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA, RAHM? Chicago Reaches 500 Homicides For This Year.
LAWPROF ANN ALTHOUSE schools Howard Kurtz on law — and logic. I hate to pick on Kurtz, who’s a nice enough guy, but his defense of Gregory has been absurd. And, I have to say, since leaving the Washington Post for the Daily Beast, he seems to have become more of a cheerleader for the press than a critic.
Plus, from Althouse in the comments: “I suppose, under Kurtz’s theory, if you shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die, you didn’t commit murder, but only watching dying.”
And, from another commenter: “This logic was performed by a professional journalist on a closed mind and should not be tried at home.”
WANT TO PROTECT YOUR LIVER THIS NEW YEAR’S EVE? Try asparagus!
IN THE MAIL: From D.S. Cahr, The Secret Root.
ELIMINATIONIST RHETORIC: Rep. Steny Hoyer says House GOP are like child hostage-takers threatening to shoot.
I WAS GOING TO WRITE SOMETHING MORE ABOUT DAVID GREGORY AND HIS MEDIA DEFENDERS LIKE HOWARD KURTZ, but David French has it covered:
Thank you, David Gregory.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then your stunt is worth a thousand op-eds. In less than one minute of screen time, you demonstrated several things:
First, even “banned” magazines are ridiculously easy to acquire. How long did it take your producers to find that magazine? Five minutes? Ten minutes? There are millions upon millions of these cheap and easy-to-manufacture items in circulation, and “banning” them will have exactly the effects you so brilliantly demonstrated on national television.
Second, labyrinthine gun-control restrictions serve mainly to instantly (and often inadvertently) convert otherwise law-abiding citizens into criminals. It’s a media-created myth that guns are largely unregulated in the United States. In fact, they’re so heavily and complexly regulated that it’s difficult for citizens to track jurisdictional differences or even sometimes to understand the laws in their own jurisdictions.
Third, strict-liability gun offenses breed disrespect for the law. I tend to agree with your friends in the mainstream media — prosecuting you for holding an empty magazine in your hand would be a travesty of justice. You weren’t going to hurt anyone, you were merely using a prop for an argument, and — after all — the magazine was simply an inert hunk of metal. But the law is the law, and I’m sure you’ll agree that you should be treated exactly the same as any other (previously) law-abiding citizen caught with a similar item.
Was Washington D.C. made more dangerous because you held that magazine? Of course not. Would your prosecution deter a single “real” criminal? Of course not. In fact, it would be a silly farce. But does the law deter responsible citizens and make them less likely to defend themselves adequately? Yes. And that’s the real travesty.
I should add that these laws are complicated and strict-liability precisely to provide an in terrorem disincentive for people to own guns at all. As I suggest in my Second Amendment Penumbras article, such an in terrorem purpose is not constitutionally legitimate now that gun ownership has been recognized as a constitutional right, and even burdens that might, in themselves, pass constitutional muster should fail if they’re part of a scheme — as they are — to chill people’s exercise of their constitutional rights.
But I’m not sure how much rational argument works on these people. So as a backup, here’s some more mockery:
BACKBONE: Senate Republicans refuse to confirm Kerry until Hillary testifies about Benghazi. According to a State Department spokesperson, such testimony is doubtful as Secretary of State Clinton is suffering from “really bad canker sores.”
InstaPundit is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.