WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Device Finds Stray Cancer Cells in Patients’ Blood. “The device combines existing microfluidic techniques of cell sorting into a single device, he says. The result is that the tumor cells can be pulled out of a blood sample quicker, and without prior knowledge of their molecular characteristics.”
Archive for 2013
April 5, 2013
AT AMAZON, 100 MP3 Albums for $5 Each.
ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Why Don’t We Have Holodecks?
I WAS SUPPOSED TO WRITE FOR THEM, BUT. . . . The Rise and Fall of the L.A. Examiner, a Blog That Was a Newspaper That Never Existed.
IN THE MAIL: From Andre Norton, The Forerunner Factor.
IMMIGRATION: Investor’s Business Daily: Demographics Favor the GOP — Unless They Blow It. “The liberal-counterculture Democrats will of course continue fighting this war in the schools and through the media, but have only one major demographic weapon to counter the fertility gap that is working relentlessly against them. That weapon is illegal immigration. As the population trends move steadily conservative, the liberals must bring into the country and enfranchise new voters who will reliably cast Democratic ballots. That, and that alone, is the real issue in the battle over immigration and why the Democrats are so bent on gaining amnesty for illegals. All the rest is window dressing.”
MICHAEL Z. WILLIAMSON ON FACEBOOK:
You know how that person shouting the loudest about teh gheys is usually trying to hide an uncomfortable fact about themselves?
What about the person accusing everyone else of racism?
TENNESSEE HOPS ON EDUCATION REFORM BANDWAGON. “The South is moving quickly to the head of the pack in education reform. Following the lead of Louisiana’s Recovery School District, Tennessee is taking several low performing schools out of the jurisdiction of local school boards and placing them in a state-run Achievement School District, where well known charter operators like KIPP are taking over. The switch to charter schools has raised the usual resistance, especially from teachers whose jobs were secure under the old system. . . . Programs like Tennessee’s are gaining traction across the country. Michigan has also formed a state district for failing schools, and Virginia just approved its own version in February. Slowly but surely, America is taking serious steps to reform its failing school systems. We haven’t found all the answers yet, but at least we’re beginning to look.”
Much as I predicted in The K-12 Implosion.
HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): The Scary Thing Is That This Bad Jobs Report Wasn’t Even About The Sequester. It’s caused by the end of the payroll tax cut. Wait, does this mean tax cuts help employment, and tax increases hurt it?
UPDATE: Jobs Report? What Jobs Report? Hey Look, Gay Marriage!
We are, however, thrilled that we don’t have a Republican in the White House, because if we did, the press would be incessantly yammering about this bad news until we were all sick of it. As it is, they are likely to say as little as possible about what appears to be a massive failure of economic policy and go back to covering the really important issues, like gay marriage.
If a Republican president got very busy on social issues at a time of economic stagnation and disappointment, there would be earnest hand-wringing of the “What’s Wrong with Kansas” variety about how American rubes were being diverted from their true economic interests by the skillful manipulation of emotionally charged social issues and identity politics. This would be taken as a sign of the cynicism of the ruling party and the clueless credulity of the hypnotized voters.
Fortunately, we aren’t going to have to listen to any of that depressing rhetoric now. Social issues are good and important; economic questions like jobs and incomes and growth are a distraction from the real business of the people.
Indeed. Plus, from the comments: “Most important number: 63.3% labor force participation rate – lowest since 1979.”
ANOTHER UPDATE: The Administration’s Jobs Debacle.
MORE: Austan Goolsbee: Jobs Report A “Punch To The Gut.” But gay marriage!!!!
STILL MORE: March jobs number are ‘a punch to the gut’ as Americans flee workforce and young people lose optimism.
When Dow Jones asked a group of economists to predict the number of new jobs the US economy added in March, the average answer was about 200,000. Friday’s numbers, released by the US Department of Labor, were just 44 percent of that figure, an 88,000-job showing that paled in comparison to February’s 268,000 and represented the lower number since June of last year.
And although the official unemployment percentage figure decreased slightly from 7.7 per cent to 7.6 per cent, analysts say that only happened because, as in past months, so many Americans dropped out of the workplace entirely.
Young workers in particular are feeling the pinch of disappearing opportunities.
How’s that hopey-changey stuff workin’ out for ya?
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: University of Arizona Law School May Cut Tuition To Lure Students. “With a smaller applicant pool, schools find it more challenging to maintain the quality of their student profile — a combination of their acceptance rate, median scores on the Law School Admission Test, median grade-point average and job-placement success. These factors, and others, are used to determine a law school’s ranking on surveys such as that by U.S. News & World Report.”
IS THIS A PANDEMIC BEING BORN? China’s mysterious pig, duck, and people deaths could be connected. And that should worry us.
INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: Socialist Leaders Condemn Wealth But Still Get Rich. Every single time . . . .
WELL, WHO WOULDN’T? Democrats have doubts about Obamacare too.
President Obama is eager to build public support for his health care overhaul in the few months remaining before its implementation, but waning enthusiasm from Democrats threatens his effort right out of the gate.
Two-thirds of Democrats now believe Obama’s health care reforms will either hurt them personally or have no effect on their daily lives, a Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday shows. In comparison, just 27 percent of Democratic respondents said the reforms would help them.
The president has long struggled to convince independent and Republican-leaning voters that his health care blueprint would lower premiums and expand insurance coverage.
However, an inability to convince his own party that the reforms have merit suggests an even bigger problem for the president ahead of the 2014 implementation.
A little more deliberation before the bill was crammed through might have been wise.
NOT SO HAPPY: Roll Call: ICE Union Skewers Bill From Immigration ‘Gang.’
The union for immigration agents slammed the immigration bill being drafted by the Senate’s “gang of eight” because it does not focus on enforcing immigration laws in the nation’s interior.
Chris Crane, the president of the union representing Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, said in conference call Wednesday that “the plan of the gang of eight appears to be legalization, or amnesty first, and then enforcement, that is a big problem for us.”
Hmm.
ED DRISCOLL: Asleep in Hollywood.
MAKING NANCY PELOSI THE FACE OF THE DEMS’ 2014 CAMPAIGN? PRICELESS! Carney: Obama’s fundraising push for Pelosi in Calif. a ‘traditional exercise.’
WORKS FOR ME: Victor Davis Hanson 2014. “Here’s an idea for beleaguered California Republicans looking for someone to run against Gov. Jerry Brown in 2014: Why not Victor Davis Hanson? He’s an articulate advocate of the conservative point of view on the central political issues of the state– a farmer, scholar, charismatic speaker who combines broad knowledge with a gritty machismo. He’d have an appeal in the disaffected, depressed central valley, where he lives, and the yuppie coast. While he’s skeptical of the current rush to amnesty, he talks about illegal immigrants living in his area with compassion. He’s not a career pol like the other mentionees. He’s a real human being. He’s not a multimillionaire ex-CEO (we’ve had enough of them). The media would have an excuse to cover him–the fish out of water angle–as long as he kept them amused. The debates with Jerry Brown would be highly informative. It’s possible Brown would freak out in a fit of intellectual insecurity. What have the state’s Republicans, now a pitied, powerless minority, got to lose?”
Good point. Of course, for Victor the downside is — what if he wins?
MICHAEL WALSH: Low-Capacity Lawmaking. “To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, you need a heart of stone not to burst out laughing at her — and gun control is Ms. DeGette’s ‘signature issue.'”
THE OUTDOOR CHANNEL IS LEAVING COLORADO BECAUSE OF RESTRICTIVE GUN LAWS. Move to Knoxville! The gun laws are friendly, and Knoxville is already a major cable production center, with Cinetel, Jupiter Entertainment, and production for HGTV, Scripps, DIY, Discovery, Jewelry TV, and more. Colorado doesn’t want you, but we do!