I see articles like this, and can only shake my head in dismay and amazement.
Dewey’s project is complete. The entire public school system has to be razed and rebuilt from scratch.
A Disturbance In The Unicorn Force
Iowahawk has discovered a disturbing new brew, right in the heart of Hope’n’Change Land. What next, an Obamaville outside of Sausalito?
Retiring On Mars
A long story about Elon Musk.
[Update a couple minutes later]
And here’s a video interview with him.
Amusing Suggestion
Facebook keeps suggesting that I add Michael D. Griffin as a friend.
An Inside Look
…at the development of Markos’ new book cover.
Pretty funny stuff.
Paul Ryan
…is too kind to Paul Krugman. He only says that he’s “intellectually lazy.”
How To Save The Country
Some thoughts. Basically, we have to rein in spending, and grow the economy. These are things that the current regime doesn’t want to do, or doesn’t know how to, instead implementing policies that make things worse on both fronts. Maybe we can start to fix that in less than three months.
Why They’re Not Hiring (Part 2)
More thoughts on this post from yesterday:
The flat truth is no one is going to hire new employees unless there is some reasonable promise that the additional cost of the employee will be recovered through increased profits resulting from the new employee’s work. That’s not “greed”, it is bare survival in tough economic times. And all the recent additions to per-employee costs aren’t alone. There is a seemingly endless well of new possible costs coming, including new environmental regulations, the possibility of a massive new “carbon tax”, and “card check” that promises to raise labor costs even further with exactly zero (at best) increase in productivity. Vague gestures towards a few thousand dollars of tax credits to stimulate job growth don’t even begin to cover the risks.
On top of it all, if you happen to be an oil worker on the Gulf Coast, your job is politically verboten. Sorry about that. Or not.
Only a crazy person would be eager to start large-scale hiring in this political environment. Yet many anti-corporation zealots profess themselves outraged that the Evil, Greedy Corporations won’t get with the business of economic recovery.
The country’s in the very best of hands.
Two More Reasons
…that college isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be:
…many young people who could profit from a college education are more likely to do so if they don’t go straight to college from high school. My wife, who formerly taught English literature at Rutgers, was just the first of many college faculty to bring this to my attention. The students who have come to college after a hitch in the military or working for a few years know why they are in college, why they are taking a particular course, and what they want out of it, in ways that kids fresh out of high school seldom do. Apart from that, quoting my wife, “Henry James wasn’t writing for nineteen-year-olds.”
I’ve probably told this tale before, but I not only didn’t go to college from high school, but I didn’t even take the SATs in high school (I never did). I worked as a VW mechanic at the local dealer for a few months until I got laid off in the 1973 recession (which hit Flint particularly hard — over 20% unemployment at the time). After that, I was ready for school. I attended Mott Community College (which was just across the street from my house — the shortest walk I had to school in my entire career, including elementary), taking math and science courses in preparation for a transfer to an engineering school, but never got the associates degree. I transferred to Ann Arbor after two years, and from stories I heard from my fellow upper-classpeople, I got a better grounding in the basics than they did in their giant lecture courses (my physics class had ten people in it).
I think that the academic bubble is not far from bursting.
[Update a few minutes later]
More on the expanding bubble.
Sean O’Keefe
This AP story doesn’t say who’s aboard, but I’m hearing other reports that he was aboard the plane that crashed in Alaska.
He’s a former administrator, so it will have no effect on policy, obviously, but condolences to his friends and family if he and/or his son didn’t survive.
[Update a while later]
More over at NASA Watch.