Moe Lane

Thus is titled Walter Russell Mead’s probably-not-meant-to-be-cheerful analysis of how our current higher education system is merrily spinning its way towards a thoroughgoing smash-up at the base of the cliff – got to love those mixed metaphors, huh?  Anyway, the basic ‘problem’ is that we’re producing mediocre ‘scholarship’ that nobody reads, let alone actually uses; and that increasing numbers of people are going to be reluctant to actually pay for.  I respond to this scenario with all the righteous fury of a liberal arts major (BA, English Literature, with a minor in History): chop.  CHOP.

Or is that the response of the partisan Republican tired of subsidizing partisan Democrats?  Ach, well, works either way.

Moe Lane

(Via Instapundit)

Hopefully, it won’t suck.

Ace is not thrilled, but I: quite liked The Dark Knight; and was pretty much engrossed in this trailer, to the point where I got snappish when my wife (perfectly legitimately) interrupted it halfway through.  Well, snappish in my own head, at least.  I am not in point of fact- and contrary to popular belief – an idiot.  Anyway, I grok Ace’s philosophical issues with the plot as seen, but I’m not freaking out about it.

Interesting side note: I saw The Dark Knight in Imax during the last GOP convention; I expect that I might see this one during the next one…

So suggests this Instapundit update.

The ban remains on the books. All Congress has done is zero out the money to enforce it. All it would take is for the funding to be restored as yet another publicity gimmick – or slipped it unobtrusively in yet another multi-thousand-page omnibus – and the ban could -immediately- drop into effect.

And if so… should I put up the link on the sidebar, again? I mean, I don’t mind making a buck or two off of people stocking up, but I don’t want to actually be a schmuck about it.

[It got noted in comments that I was flogging the wrong light bulbs. Thanks to Constant Reader Murgatroyd for pointing that out.]

This Robert Samuelson piece on the inherent problem with Keynesian economic theory – which, in my opinion, can be summed up neatly as “First, assume that your planned economy will be managed forever by an immortal, unelected, and incorruptible Keynesian economist” – is pretty good, but it has one passage in it that makes my teeth ache.  Here it is, in all of its questionable glory:

For the record, I supported Obama’s stimulus – though disliking some details – and, under similar circumstances, would again. The economy was in a tailspin; the stimulus provided a psychological and spending boost. But how much is less clear. As Romer notes, estimating the effect is “incredibly hard.” For example, the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate of added jobs from the stimulus ranged from 700,000 to 3.3 million for 2010.

We’re going to unpack this, sentence by sentence. Because it has to be unpacked. (more…)

So.  Roll Call notes this:

In May 2010, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi took to a podium in the Capitol to introduce a half-dozen economic experts she had convened for a meeting on how to jump-start the economy. The group had met for several hours with top Democratic leaders, and Pelosi invited them to speak publicly on their perspectives on economic growth.

What Pelosi did not mention is that one of the men in the group was her son’s boss and a partner with her husband in more than a half-dozen investments, including one that generated more than $100,000 in income for the Speaker’s family last year.

The problem here is not that what Pelosi did here was illegal.  The Roll Call article is right: it’s actually not.

(more…)

…at least, according to the BBC.  Here’s hoping that his replacement (Kim Jong Un, at least for this week) is not quite as clinically insane.  BBC video after the fold*.

(more…)

Finishing up Jade Empire.

Free ice cream starts again tomorrow.

A Christmas Carol, Tom Lehrer

An old family favorite.

…Actually we had very traditional Christmases, growing up.  Why do you ask?

It’s a bit like Knights of the Old Republic, only without the problem of having to look like something that George Lucas came up with with regard to landscaping.  Dag, but most of the scenery in those movies is grim…

Yeah, yeah, yeah: heresy.  Seriously, though, the landscape is really pretty in this one.

It sure does, Aimee.  It sure does.  Let me make it even worse for you: that oh-so-horrible Starbucks job that nearly snapped your soul like a rotten twig?  The ones that caused you permanent mental scarring, apparently? Yeah, about that… ten bucks an hour, eight guaranteed hours a day, two ten-minute breaks in addition to the half-hour for lunch… wow.  When I worked for the Scotsman I got a half hour for lunch, no other breaks, and made just barely above minimum wage.  For seven years.

Shorter Moe Lane: piker.

(Via AoSHQ Headlines)

Moe Lane (more…)

This site is hysterical: see here, here, and especially here for some examples.  Warning: language and subject matter can occasionally be a bit rough, but at least the guy is an equal-opportunity skewerer.

The parts where they’re impotently fulminating about the way America deeply mourned Ronald Reagan’s passing is danged tasty stuff.  But not as tasty as the way that Glenns are incredibly bitter about the fact that even Christopher Hitchens’ enemies – of which the man had a plethora, across the political spectrum – are willing to admit that Hitch had his points.  Which Hitch did: the man (who I never met) could be absolutely maddening at times, but he was never, ever dull.

Unlike, say, Glenns Greenwalds.  Seriously, there’s a reason why I only ever link to them when they’re loudly screaming in petulant agony.

Moe Lane