OF SUICIDE AND MASS MURDER: “Today, fast-firing assault weapons grab international attention, but that is not what makes people like Adam Lanza so dangerous or what gives us reason to fear more such attacks; it’s the fact that Lanza had no will to live. That’s not a problem that can be solved by gun control or arming school guards. It is a problem about people.”
Archive for 2013
January 29, 2013
ABOUT TIME: After centuries of stagnation, science is making a comeback in the Islamic world.
THE sleep has been long and deep. In 2005 Harvard University produced more scientific papers than 17 Arabic-speaking countries combined. The world’s 1.6 billion Muslims have produced only two Nobel laureates in chemistry and physics. Both moved to the West: the only living one, the chemist Ahmed Hassan Zewail, is at the California Institute of Technology. By contrast Jews, outnumbered 100 to one by Muslims, have won 79. The 57 countries in the Organisation of the Islamic Conference spend a puny 0.81% of GDP on research and development, about a third of the world average. America, which has the world’s biggest science budget, spends 2.9%; Israel lavishes 4.4%. . . .
But look more closely and two things are clear. A Muslim scientific awakening is under way. And the roots of scientific backwardness lie not with religious leaders, but with secular rulers, who are as stingy with cash as they are lavish with controls over independent thought.
Not sure the Muslim Brotherhood will do any better.
CHANGE: Europe’s Eroding Press Freedom.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: 14 First-Date Dos And Don’ts.
EVEN IN MARIN COUNTY, people are stocking up on ammo.
AT AMAZON, Warehouse Deals on TV & Video.
WHY HOMESCHOOLING is becoming Hipster.
I had some related thoughts here. And, of course, in The K-12 Implosion.
WHY YOU SHOULD OWN A DIGITAL CAMERA even though you have a smartphone.
MICKEY KAUS: 6 Simple Questions on Immigration.
If the Republicans were smart, they’d be using this issue as a wedge against the Democrats, splitting blacks and Big Labor from hispanics. That shouldn’t be hard, given that there’s already significant black-latino friction out in the community, where illegal immigrants compete with blacks for jobs.
FASTER, PLEASE: Why The Flu Is So Relentless And How Technology Might Help.
In November, the FDA approved a new vaccine from Novartis, which is produced in cultured dog kidney cells. And earlier this month, the agency approved a vaccine made by ProteinsSciences in cultured insect cells. The methods “offer the potential for faster start-up of the manufacturing process than traditional egg-based vaccine methods,” says a spokesperson for the FDA. Additionally, they may help people with egg allergies safely get flu vaccines.
Public and private researchers are also working to develop so-called universal flu vaccines that would preclude the need to get a new vaccine every year.
Like I said. . . .
A SMALL BUSINESS SUCCESS STORY.
This goes with something I wrote several years ago, about how it’s easier to be small when others are big.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: 5 Tips For Surviving Simple Emergencies On The Road.
ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Nudism: Is It The Ultimate Form Of Body Acceptance? Apparently so. As a friend of mine once said, the people you see at the nude beach are seldom the people that you want to see at the nude beach.
ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Has a passenger ever landed a plane after the pilot was incapacitated?
RICHARD EPSTEIN: The End Of Charity?
IN THE MAIL: Tyranny Unmasked.
BILL HENDERSON: Washington & Lee is Biggest Legal Education Story of 2013. “Here it is in a nutshell. There is empirical evidence that Washington & Lee’s experiential 3L curriculum is delivering a significantly better education to 3L students—significantly better than prior graduating classes at W&L, and significantly better than W&L’s primary competitors. Moreover, at a time when total law school applicants are on the decline, W&L’s getting more than its historical share of applicants and getting a much higher yield. When many schools are worried about revenues to survive next year and the year after, W&L is worried about creating the bandwidth needed to educate the surplus of students who enrolled in the fall of 2012, and the backlog of applicants that the school deferred to the fall of 2013.”
I should point out that much of this stuff — heavy writing emphasis, focus on practical lawyering skills, extensive clinics, etc. — is stuff that we’ve been doing at the University of Tennessee for years.
WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Another Road: The Blue Elites Are Wrong. “The task facing America today looks something like the task we faced after the Civil War. How do we manage the transition from a well-established political and social system to something more productive? Both then and now, many of the negative features of the transformation appeared first, while the benefits came slowly. The population boom and the agricultural transition drove millions into cities looking for work when there wasn’t yet enough factory employment. There were many people in the 19th century like our gentry liberals today who believed that the new world would pauperize the majority, and who thought that the elite had to band together to defend the values and practices of a vanishing past. Fortunately, history rolled right over them and Americans were ultimately able to build a society that was both more prosperous and more free than anything the pre-industrial world had ever seen.”
PUNCHING BACK TWICE AS HARD: Vermont Gun Range Bans Police Officers From Facility Over Proposed City-Wide Ban on Semi-Automatic Rifles.
A Vermont gun range has banned the Burlington Police Department from using its facility after City Council voted to advance a proposed ban on semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines. And given the fact that such facilities are limited in the area, the move could impact when and where officers can go target shooting.
Officials with the Lamoille Valley Fish and Game Club told Fox News that it is hard for the facility to support the city, which includes police officers, due to the attempted gun grab by City Council.
“We have members in Burlington as well as members of our club that are going to be passing through Burlington and this would directly affect them and we felt that a prejudicial vote like that was going to be non-supportive of our club and being non-supportive of our club makes it very difficult to support Burlington City,” the club’s chairman Bob Boivin said.
“It is a constitutional issue. I mean, it’s not just a Second Amendment constitutional issue; but it’s also a constitutional issue for Vermont. We have laws that have the state governing our gun controls in this area and they’re looking to supersede those,” he added.
Responding to the gun range ban, the Burlington Police Department said in a statement: “It is unfortunate that this important and much-needed community dialogue regarding gun control currently under way in the City of Burlington and across the nation has resulted in this action.”
Oh, it’s dialogue that you’re seeing. That’s what you don’t like.
The Ahmed Baba Institute, an Islamic learning center in the town of Timbuktu in the West African nation of Mali, holds thousands of ancient drawings and writings from the Quran and everyday life in this point along a historic Saharan caravan route.
On Monday, Timbuktu’s Mayor Ousmane Halle said from Mali’s capital Bamako that he had gotten word Islamist fighters had torched the library as well as his office before retreating. The Malian army, backed by French forces, are working on driving back rebel forces from cities they had taken over last year.
Pathetic.
AT AMAZON, up to 60% off on clothing. For men, women, kids, and babies.
Also, Valentine’s Day deals on clothing and lingerie.
And, today only: Stuhrling Original Men’s Aquadiver Swiss Quartz Watches, $49.99 (85% off).
TAX THE REVOLVING DOOR: My USA Today column expands on my proposed post-employment surtax for federal officials.