AT AMAZON, deals on Men’s Tank Tops and Shorts. Summer is coming. Why it’s been most of a week since we’ve had snow!
Also, this week’s Deals in TV & Video. For those days when you’d rather stay inside.
Archive for 2014
April 18, 2014
HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Trust In The IRS Is At An All-Time Low. With good reason.
SO THEY’VE GONE FROM DENIAL TO ACCEPTANCE, THEN: Dem Sees ObamaCare Crisis: U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch on Obamacare’s election toll: It’ll bury Dems.
WELL, WELL, WELL: U.S. ground troops going to Poland, defense minister says. “Poland and the United States will announce next week the deployment of U.S. ground forces to Poland as part of an expansion of NATO presence in Central and Eastern Europe in response to events in Ukraine. That was the word from Poland’s defense minister, Tomasz Siemoniak, who visited The Post Friday after meeting with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel at the Pentagon on Thursday.”
SO KIND OF LIKE PUBLIC-EMPLOYEE UNIONS, THEN: “Certain crops are vulnerable to parasites that take control of their hosts’ behavior, forcing them to act in the intruder’s interest.”
J. CHRISTIAN ADAMS: The IRS Scandal: One-Way Civility In Academia. “Conservatives are ruthlessly attacked in the most vicious of ways, so many tend to shut up and hide. You don’t get many calls for civility when the left’s war machine has sprung to life and targeted a conservative for an Alinsky-style onslaught. Even many conservatives duck and cover. Rarely does a liberal defend a conservative under attack. Usually, they are the ones launching it. This imbalance is particularly acute inside the Beltway.”
THEORY: There Was Never A Better Time To Enroll In Law School. “Is now the ideal time to enroll in law school? Steven Freedman, assistant dean for admissions at the University of Kansas School of Law, has been making the counterintuitive case that it is. In a series of posts on the law professor blog The Faculty Lounge, he argues that the relatively small number of people set to graduate with J.D.s in 2017 will mean better job prospects for those who do. In short, the supply of new lawyers will be much more closely aligned with the demand for their services than for the Class of 2013. . . . Freedman is not the first to float this idea. University of Washington School of Law professor Ryan Calo made a similar argument in Forbes in November.”
Fine, just don’t gamble on this with a lot of borrowed money.
WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW CAN’T HURT US: LA Sheriff’s Dept. On New Surveillance Program: We Knew The Public Wouldn’t Like It, So We Kept It A Secret.
POLICE RAID MAN’S HOUSE over Twitter account parodying mayor.
THE DIESEL REVOLUTION: 2016 Audi A3 Sportback headed to US under diesel power.
TODAY IN PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT: Ex-Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes admits to detaining witnesses, a practice he denied last year; Testifying under oath, Hynes said, ‘They were not free to leave; so sure, they were prisoners.’ He repeatedly denied the controversial practice while seeking reelection in 2013.
Will he be punished? Will he even be disbarred?
I SHALL CALL IT “EARTH TWO.” First Earth-Sized, Potentially Habitable Exoplanet Found.
POLITICALLY, IT’S A DEADLY SIN TOO: The United States of Envy: Income redistribution will lead to high unemployment, crushing tax rates, and the end of innovation.
IN THE MAIL: Twilight of Abundance: Why Life in the 21st Century Will Be Nasty, Brutish, and Short.
Also, today only at Amazon: Up to 52% Off Select Fellowes Home and Office Air Purifiers. Breathe clean.
TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 344.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Maryland Puts Up Roadblocks to Online Ed.
Maryland has decided to stand athwart the internet, yelling “Stop!” The Maryland Higher Education Commission recently sent letters to numerous institutions across the country that offer online courses, demanding that they pay registration fees for the Maryland residents enrolled in them. However, there [are] no data available on how many are enrolled in online programs, or which programs they attend. . . .
On top of this, Maryland requires that online education programs undergo a lengthy accreditation review process, and now it seems to be vying for the title of least hospitable state in the union. (Meanwhile, the Department of Education is pursuing its plan to reinstate the requirement that distance education programs obtain accreditation in all states where they do business.)
The motives behind Maryland’s new restrictions couldn’t be clearer, according to Inside Higher Ed. The state wants to stifle programs that compete with the online programs offered by the University of Maryland University College. UMUC has already seen layoffs this year due to declining enrollment. With more than 34,000 students, it is an asset that the state will fight to defend.
The protectionism on display here is distasteful enough, but worse yet, the new regulations will fall hardest on those who already face steep obstacles to higher education.
Protectionism generally protects the haves against the have-nots. And, of course, all is proceeding as I have foreseen.
ANTARCTIC SEA ICE GROWS AT AN “ALARMING RATE.” Hey, Fallen Angels was just a novel, right guys? Guys?
WHERE DEM POLITICIANS ARE CONCERNED, THE MEDIA ARE A BUNCH OF ROYALISTS: WaPo: Chelsea Clinton’s news: Not quite a royal baby announcement, but a pretty big deal. The Bush baby just didn’t get the same kind of treatment as Chelsea’s, which got ALL CAPS SQUEE from Candy Crowley on Twitter.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Oregon Provost Rejects Law Faculty’s Offer to Divert Money for Pay Raises to Public Interest Jobs for Students.
SCALIA AND GINSBURG talk about amending the Constitution. Not long ago, the Tennessee Law Review published a symposium on Article V conventions, including a staff-written section on procedure, a couple of years ago. Contributors included such luminaries as Randy Barnett, Richard Epstein, Sanford Levinson and many others. Here’s my contribution, which focuses specifically on spending. And here’s video of me talking about it at the Harvard Law School conference on constitutional conventions.
JAMES TARANTO: Poor Little Rich Man: How to become a millionaire by lamenting income inequality.
Being a “distinguished professor” of economics at the City University of New York is nice work if you can get it. “During year-one,” the boss explains in a letter to the new hire, “you will not be expected to teach or supervise students.” In subsequent years, “you will teach one seminar per year.” In addition, the boss informs the distinguished professor that he “will play a modest role in our public events” and “will be asked to contribute to the buildup” of one of the university’s programs.
The pay is $225,000 a year, plus a $10,000 expense budget–and the distinguished prof gets summers off.
Gawker.com reports that CUNY’s new distinguished professor is none other than former Enron adviser Paul Krugman. The program he’ll be helping build up in exchange for this generous compensation is the Luxembourg Income Study Center and particularly its “inequality initiative.”
Isn’t that rich?
Yes, it turns out lamenting income inequality can be quite a lucrative occupation. By comparison, Gawker notes that adjunct professors at CUNY make about $3,000 per course, or 1/75th Krugman’s rate, and undistinguished tenured professors earn a maximum of $116,364, a little over half Krugman’s salary, although presumably many of them teach a full course load. According to 2010-12 census data reported by the public radio station WNYC, the median household income in New York City is $50,711, or 22.5% of Krugman’s CUNY salary.
Love it.
YEAH, PRETTY MUCH: Spengler: It isn’t that Putin is a genius, it’s that we are complete idiots. Well, he’s got Obama and the EU’s number. They don’t have his.