HIGHER EDUCATION: An Obituary. “Two related but separate issues revolve around the inner metabolism of higher education, in particular its astronomical and still escalating costs and—an even bigger reality—the wave of technological innovation that is poised to break over the entire institution of higher education like a tsunami.” A nice summary of higher education bubble developments. I also like phrase “Glenn Reynolds is right.”
Archive for 2013
January 1, 2013
JAMES DELINGPOLE: Why We Fight.
EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN: Reliving The Left-Wing Terrorism of the 1970s. “The main sense I get is of a sort of perverted Groundhog Day, as we find ourselves living through one phenomenon after another that decades ago, we thought were gone for good.” Upside: They haven’t gotten any more competent.
PLACERAIDER: The Military Smartphone Malware Designed to Steal Your Life. “An Android app that secretly records your environment and reconstructs it as a 3D virtual model for a malicious user to browse.”
AT AMAZON, the Kindle Daily Deals. They now have multiple categories, like Science Fiction and Romance.
BOB OWENS: Dick’s Sporting Goods screws over their customers and their suppliers.
UPDATE: From the comments: “So, the moral of the story is don’t be a Dick.”
BOTOX HELPS WITH DEPRESSION? “The patients were randomized to receive either Botox treatment for smoothing out frown lines or a placebo injection into the same facial region and were assessed three and six weeks later. By the end of the study, about 27% of those receiving Botox reported nearly complete remission of their depression, compared with just 7% of those who received the placebo.”
RALPH BENKO: As 2012 Comes To An End, The World Has Never Been Better. “Never has there been less hunger, less disease or more prosperity. The West remains in the economic doldrums, but most developing countries are charging ahead, and people are being lifted out of poverty at the fastest rate ever recorded. The death toll inflicted by war and natural disasters is also mercifully low. We are living in a golden age.”
Plus: “There’s an urban legend besetting the urbane that capitalism is a system of privilege designed for the Ebenezer Scrooges of the world. Not so. Capitalism works at least as well for us Bob Cratchits as it does for misers, probably better. Capitalism is the only proven mechanism by which the workers of the world may unite to lose their chains.”
CBO ON FISCAL CLIFF DEAL: $1 in Spending Cuts for Every $41 in Tax Increases.
IN THE MAIL: From Ben Shapiro, Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences Americans.
FOR AMERICA’S POLITICAL CLASS, Dysfunction is the “New Normal.”
A CALL TO INVESTIGATE AN ACCREDITOR:
A higher education nonprofit representing trustees and alumni is seeking an investigation by the U.S. Department of Education into an accreditation agency’s decision to put the University of Virginia on warning for its failed attempt to fire its president last summer.
The American Council of Trustees and Alumni contends the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools’ Commission on Colleges had no basis for issuing the warning and overstepped its role as an accrediting agency when it put U.Va. on warning Dec. 11 for its messy bid to oust President Teresa Sullivan.
Interesting. I expect accreditors to come under more pressure in coming years.
THE WHITE COLLAR CRIME BLOG’S 2012 WHITE COLLAR CRIME AWARDS. I note this one:
The Collar for the Tim Geithner Lifetime Achievement Award – To Attorney General Eric Holder for acquiescing in Treasury’s decision not to indict HSBC or any of its senior officers.
Many more at the link.
MY USA TODAY COLUMN ON WASHINGTON AND INEQUALITY: In a town that has more people per square mile talking about income inequality than probably any other — you also find really striking examples of, well, income inequality. “The federal government has emerged as one of the most potent factors driving income inequality in the United States – especially in the nation’s capital.”
TOM BLUMER: Missing Breitbart.
“FANTASTIC STEP FORWARD:” Britain: 60,000 patients put on death pathway without being told but minister still says controversial end-of-life plan is ‘fantastic.’ “The review follows a public outcry over a string of disturbing cases, highlighted by this paper, in which patients or their families were ignored. . . . It found many patients were not consulted despite being conscious when doctors decided on their care. Records from 178 hospitals also show that thousands of people on the pathway are left to die in pain because nurses do not do enough to keep them comfortable while drugs are administered.”
SENATE APPROVES FISCAL CLIFF LEGISLATION: “Hours past a self-imposed deadline for action, the Senate passed legislation early New Year’s Day to neutralize a fiscal cliff combination of across-the-board tax increases and spending cuts that kicked in at midnight. The pre-dawn vote was 89-8. . . .Under the deal, taxes would remain steady for the middle class and rise at incomes over $400,000 for individuals and $450,000 for couples — levels higher than President Barack Obama had campaigned for in his successful drive for a second term in office.” Democrats sound kind of disappointed in the size of the tax increases.
UPDATE: Senate Quickly Passes 157-Page Deal on Fiscal Cliff.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Over the Fiscal Cliff, Or There And Back Again.
But Jeff Carter isn’t happy.
Related: Rand Paul on the Fiscal Cliff. “I never considered myself a Rand Paul fan (or enemy), but he seems to be one of the few people making sense right now.”
MORE STILL: Ann Althouse:
Is that a “clear win”? Good lord, whatever happens, the NYT will spin it as a win for Obama. I thought his number was $250,000 for couples, and now, it’s way up at $450,000. That should be called a clear compromise. How hard it must be for the Republicans to compromise, when even clear compromises are declared clear wins for the other side.
I notice that it’s $400K for individuals, but only $450K for married couples. That’s a $350K difference in threshold if you’re living together but not married. Is Obama anti-marriage?
THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR ROMNEY, SCHOOL-PRAYER SUPPORTERS WOULD BE COMING OUT OF THE WOODWORK AFTER THE ELECTION. And they were right!
Illinois state Rep. La Shawn Ford (D-Chicago) made a surprising statement this week about a major change he would like to see in schools: more prayer.
Ford told a group of ministers: “I also urge the ministers here to fight to get prayer back in schools. That’s a mission that we need to do. We need to make sure that we get prayer back in schools in some form or fashion,” KMOX, the CBS radio affiliate in St. Louis, reported.
Ford’s comment, which the radio station reported as being made “out of the blue,” is a real head scratcher.
Well, they didn’t say it would be Republican school-prayer supporters. . . .
HAPPY 2013. For your information, here’s Moe Lane’s list of vulnerable Democratic Senators in 2014.
ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Why Do We Crave Greasy Food When We’re Hung Over?
IT’S A BRIGHT NEW DAY: ‘World’s fattest man’ Paul Mason looks to the future.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Every man should carry a pocketknife and a handkerchief.
CHANGE: Kenyans take up weapons to save wildlife, tourism. “Elephants, he has come to believe, are actually worth more alive than dead, because of the tourists they attract. So Lokinyi stopped poaching and joined a grass-roots squad of rangers — essentially a conservation militia — to protect the wildlife he once slaughtered. Nowadays he gets up at dawn, slurps down a cup of sugary tea, tightens his combat boots and marches off with other villagers to fight poachers. . . . The conservation militias are often the only security forces around, so they have become de facto 911 squads, rushing off to all sorts of emergencies in areas too remote for the police to quickly gain access to and often getting into shootouts with poachers and bandits.”