Venezuela needs de-Cubanization.
Category Archives: Media Criticism
The Cargo Cult
…of credentials.
[Update a few minutes later]
More thoughts from (uncredentialed) Mark Steyn:
The justification for this absurd prolongation of adolescence is that it opens up opportunities for the disadvantaged. But credential-fetishization has the opposite effect. Remember Ronald Reagan, alumnus of Eureka College, Illinois? Since then, for the first time in its history, America has lived under continuous rule by Ivy League – Yale (Bush I), Yale Law (Clinton), Harvard Business (Bush II), Harvard Law (Obama). In 2009, over a quarter of Obama’s political appointees had ties to Harvard; over 90 per cent had “advanced degrees”. How’s that working out for you? In my soon to be imminently forthcomingly imminent book, I point out that once upon a time America was the land where guys without degrees (Truman) or only 18 months of formal education (Lincoln) or no schooling at all (Zachary Taylor) could become president. Credentialization is shrinking what was America’s advantage – a far greater social mobility than Europe. We’re decaying into a society where 40 per cent of the population do minimal-skill service jobs and the rest run up a trillion dollars of debt in order to avoid that fate, and ne’er the twain shall meet, except for perfunctory social pleasantries in the drive-thru lane.
We’re looking at education upside down: We should be telescoping it, not extending it.
But think of all the academic bureaucrats! Won’t someone think of the academic bureaucrats?
How Does Holder Wiggle Out Of This?
A lot of heads should be rolling at the Justice Department, and not just at ATF. At this point, the question is whether or not there is a smoking gun (so to speak, and is it an “assault weapon”?) tying it to the White House.
[Mid-afternoon update]
Email confirms that “Gunwalker” known of throughout Justice Department.
But Eric Holder didn’t know anything about it.
“That’s Racist!”
Jonah Goldberg has (I know, typical for him and me and other racists) a racist column today.
The leftists’ lament: “Oh, epithet, where is thy former sting?”
Heinlein, Fascist
The LA Times interviews some young idiots in fandom:
As the literary and academic worlds open to science-fiction and genre writing, Heinlein lacks the cachet of J.G. Ballard, Ursula LeGuin, Octavia Butler, Neal Stephenson, cyberpunk pioneer William Gibson and others. Films based on Dick’s books, good and bad, keep coming. But Heinlein’s film adaptations, in the last half century, since 1950’s “Destination Moon,” culminated in 1997’s “Starship Troopers,” widely disliked by his fan base.
Non-SF writer William Burroughs probably has more influence inside the genre’s literary wing than Heinlein, who won four Hugos (the award voted by the fans), sold millions of copies, and was termed the field’s most significant writer since H.G. Wells.
“His rabid fan base is graying,” said Annalee Newitz, who writes about science fiction for Wired and Gawker. “To literary readers, the books look cheesy, sexist in a hairy-chest, gold-chain kind of way. His stuff hasn’t stood the test of time,” because of characters’ windy speechifying and their frontier optimism.
“Here at the store I actively resist promoting him, because he was a fascist,” said Charles Hauther, the science fiction buyer at Skylight Books. “People don’t seem to talk about him anymore. I haven’t had a conversation about Heinlein in a long time.
And you’ve obviously never had an intelligent one.
Barack Obama’s Gun Control
…out from under the radar.
And as a bonus, a little history lesson — just how boneheaded was the “assault weapons ban”? Consider the source.
The Case For Higher Taxes
The conservative/libertarian one. Time to make those people pay their fair share.
Not Wall Street
The housing crisis was made in Washington:
Not surprisingly, politicians have not addressed the problem, even with the benefit of hindsight. The Dodd-Frank bailout bill, which was supposed to address the problems of the housing crisis/financial crisis, left Fannie and Freddie untouched. The two government-created entities are on life support after their bailouts (speaking of which, here’s a funny cartoon), so this would have been the right moment to drive a stake through their hearts. One can only wonder what damage they will do in the future.
The biggest lie that continues to be told about the 2008 financial crisis was that it was caused by “deregulation.”
The More You Understand It
…the more you disagree:
On the whole, the most scientifically literate and numerate subjects were slightly less likely, not more, to see climate change as a serious threat than the least scientifically literate and numerate ones.
Obviously, this doesn’t surprise me at all.
“Our Live, Our Fortunes, And Our Sacred Honor”
A perennial classic from Rush Limbaugh’s late father. The people currently running the country certainly have lives and fortunes, but they seem to be a little short of the “honor” stuff, sacred or otherwise.
And celebrate, amidst the hot dogs, barbecue, ice cream and fireworks, and commemorate this anniversary appropriately, with an oral reading of the document that was signed two hundred and thirty five years ago today.
[Update early afternoon (PDT)]
More thoughts from Jeff Jacoby:
If Nature and Nature’s God intended human beings to be free and equal, then the only legitimate government must be self-government. For if none of us is naturally subordinate or superior to anyone else, no one has the right to rule us without first obtaining our approval. Political power, Locke had written, stems “only from compact and agreement, and the mutual consent of those who make up the community.’’
The Declaration of Independence emphasized the point. Not only are all persons endowed by nature with the unalienable rights of equality and freedom, it avowed, but “to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.’’
No lawful government without consent and self-rule: It was an extraordinary doctrine for its time. . . . July 4 marks more than American independence. It commemorates the great political ideals, rooted in faith and philosophy, that vindicated that independence – and that thereby transformed the world.
But some wish to transform it back.