Archive for 2015
January 15, 2015
SO I MENTIONED YESTERDAY THAT OUR APPLICATIONS AT UT LAW ARE UP, and wondered if it reflected a national trend. Apparently not: Fall 2015 Law School Applicants Are Down 8.5%. I’m not sure what we’re doing right, besides being located in a cheap and fun city.
On the other hand, the jobs numbers for law grads are looking somewhat better.
LAWYER AS HERO: Better Call Saul!
A NEW WORLD RECORD: Stunt driver parallel-parks with just 3 inches to spare. See, for a spot that tight I’d be more inclined just to, you know, drift it in sideways.
WHY WOULD YOU PAY MONEY TO ATTEND A PLACE LIKE THIS? Accidental kissing is ‘sexual assault’ for Texas college. Feminist punishment seems to fall often on the neuroatypical.
AT AMAZON, 30% or more off on TV & Video.
Also, 50% off on Pee-wee’s Playhouse: The Complete Series. On Blu-Ray.
WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: BMW Uses Frickin’ Lasers for High Beams That Don’t Blind.
It’s perhaps more accurate to call these headlights “laser-powered,” since the light they put out is significantly different from the pencil-eraser-sized dot you’re familiar with. In fact, deep within the headlight’s guts, the light from a monochromatic blue laser is converted into output that won’t burn your retinas to a crisp. “A special optical system directs the rays from the high-performance diodes onto a phosphor plate inside the light, which converts the beam into a very bright white light that is similar to natural daylight and pleasant to the eye,” BMW explains.
The whole process creates light that’s ten times more intense than today’s xenon, halogen, or LED headlights—all while consuming 30 percent less energy. And BMW has some nifty tricks to keep that laser-derived light from blinding oncoming drivers.
Yeah, that part’s important. I always wondered why we didn’t polarize windshield glass and headlights at 90-degree angles to one another. You’d be able to see the reflected light from your headlights just fine, since it’s unpolarized, but the lights of oncoming traffic would be dimmed dramatically. Not really practical, I suppose.
ACCORDING TO THE COMMERCIALS, ABSOLUTELY! Can Compression Clothing Enhance Your Workout?
THE EXODUS IS HERE: Our French lineage traces back to 1727. We’re leaving. “We were part of France – until France ceased to be France.”
SELF CENSORSHIP: Sky News Really Doesn’t Want to Show the New Charlie Hebdo Cover. Video at the link. Kind of pathetic. And by “kind of pathetic,” I mean really, really pathetic.
AMERICA’S BEST startup cities. Not in Silicon Valley.
But “best” is a low bar these days: “Countries such as Hungary, Denmark, Finland, New Zealand, Sweden, Israel and Italy all have higher startup rates than America does.”
MERCEDES MOVES ITS US HQ FROM NEW JERSEY TO ATLANTA: “The Southeast has replaced California as the place where many people now go to find the American dream.”
IN THE MAIL: From E. Lockhart, We Were Liars.
Plus, today only at Amazon, Up to 72% Off Select Rubbermaid Commercial Products.
TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 616.
ASHE SCHOW: When It’s Okay To Blame The Victim.
Nowadays, you can’t suggest that a woman watch her drink, avoid getting blackout drunk or to walk in well-lit areas without being accused of victim-blaming. But why is it okay to claim that students falsely accused of sex crimes somehow deserved to be falsely accused?
The most recent example of this form of victim-blaming, where the men who were falsely accused are the real victims, can be seen in the University of Virginia’s ham-handed response to an uncorroborated but explosive allegation of a brutal gang rape at one of its fraternities. U.Va. responded to the allegation by banning Greek social activities until Jan. 9, and only allowing fraternities and sororities to resume such activities if they sign new contracts. Those contracts are of course much more stringent for fraternities and have led to two campus organizations refusing to sign.
And remember, those new contracts were announced after the Washington Post discovered significant faults in the original rape allegation. The fact that the accuser made up a story about having a date or even being invited to a fraternity party by that fantasy date should have made U.Va. officials think twice about rushing to judgment and condemning Greek life on campus.
The university still wants fraternities to sign the agreements and accept punishment, even though local police found “no substantive basis” for the allegation that the rape in question occurred at Phi Kappa Psi. Instead of punishing just Phi Psi without evidence, U.Va. decided to punish all fraternities without evidence — the stated reason being that past behavior at fraternity parties warrants such restrictive punishment.
The implication is that even if no one at the fraternity actually raped a woman, they still deserve to be punished because the university doesn’t like fraternity parties.
This sexist attitude, as embodied by UVA President Teresa Sullivan, is evidence that UVA is has deliberately fostered a hostile educational environment for male students, one that deprives them, because of their sex, of full and equal educational opportunities.
NEWS FROM THE IVY LEAGUE: Princeton editor-in-chief calls out hypersensitive, politically correct peers.
EXPLODING THE BOGUS CLAIM THAT 1800 COLLEGE STUDENTS DIE FROM ALCOHOL EACH YEAR:
In other words, an accident is considered alcohol-related if there is any measurable alcohol in any participant in the crash — but there is no evidence that the consumption of alcohol led to the accident and subsequent death. Yet about three-quarters of the reported “alcohol-related injury deaths” stem from the motor-vehicle records.
The data are presented in a way that makes you think 1800 students are dying from binge-drinking-induced alcohol poisoning, but in fact it’s nothing like that.
Growing racial diversity is transforming a lengthening list of congressional districts, but not providing as much political benefit to House Democrats as many in both parties expected only a few years ago, a Next America analysis has found.
Districts high in racial diversity remain the last redoubt for the House Democrats’ depleted caucus: As Next America has reported, almost exactly two-thirds of the 188 Democratic House members in the new Congress represent districts where minorities exceed their national share of the population, 37.6 percent.
But Democrats have clearly failed to squeeze all the possible advantage from growing diversity, particularly as Republicans have consolidated their hold over districts where whites are more plentiful than they are nationally. While Democrats continue to dominate districts where minorities represent half or more of residents, the GOP remains doggedly competitive in seats where the minority population is either slightly above, or slightly below, its national average. In fact, in the new Congress, Republicans will hold a majority of the seats in which minorities represent at least 30 percent and no more than 50 percent of the total population.
Interesting. Read the whole thing.
Related: John Hinderaker: Does the Democratic Party Have a Future? “Pathetic. To hear the Democrats tell it, you would think there are only 10 or 11 Republican voters in the whole country, but somehow they manage to win majorities in both houses of Congress, 31 governorships, and an overwhelming majority of legislative seats. This sort of delusional thinking is not the sign of a healthy party.”
WAR ON WORK: 17 arrested for I-93 protests as traffic crawls. I’m pretty sure all these protests targeting commuters are a false-flag operation set up by Karl Rove. Not even the commies are this stupid. Well, yeah, actually they probably are.
Plus, this hurtful take: Fat white people have decided you don’t get to work today.
AUSTIN BAY: “It is much easier to count the dead in Paris than in rural Nigeria.”
Plus, read this prescient column of his from 2002.
INSTAVISION: Why Won’t President Obama Prosecute Wall Street?
