Medary.com

No Blood For Ph.Ds.

The chancellor and vice-chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley make their case for sticking their snouts even deeper into the Federal money trough:

Specifically, the federal government should create a hybrid model in which a limited number of our great public research and teaching universities receive basic operating support from the federal government and their respective state governments. Washington might initially choose a representative set of schools, perhaps based on their research achievements, their success in graduating students, commitment to public service and their record in having a student body that is broadly representative of society.

Hey, there's an idea! Take a "limited number" of self-described "great" public universities--you know, the ones who make inordinate amounts of money from their big-time football programs while generating screed after screed in "peer-reviewed journals" attacking the very liberal foundations of the society which has created them--and throw a lot more money at them. My money. Your money.

What about those public universities that are not judged by such worthies as Robert J. Birgenau and Frank D. Yeary, Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley? Does anybody really think that South Dakota State University (to name one at random) will make the cut and sit at the same table as the Lords of Berkeley and the Big 10?

Dear Mr. Birgenau and Mr. Yeary:

You have plenty of money to do what you're supposed to do. Get your hand out of my pocket in Lee's Summit, Missouri, get back to your campus and teach students more about freedom and liberty, calculus and chemistry, honor, honest work and responsibility, and less about class struggle, intolerant "diversity," post-modernist deconstruction of "what they really meant" and pseudo-scientific environmentalist dogma. Thanks.

From the book Power in the People by Felix Morley, as linked by Gary Galles at the Ludwig von Mises Institute:

Power it has, and force, and techniques to make its commands effective…But since the State has no conscience, and is primarily a continuing mechanism of material power, the human welfare side of State activity should blind no thoughtful person to its underlying menace.

It's outrage time.

The parade of Hollywood luminaries to rally to convicted child-rapist Roman Polanski tells you everything you really need to know about them. They have no morals beyond running with and viciously defending their particular pack. If you're in, they will defend you no matter how loathsome you are. If you're out, they'll attack you, no matter how virtuous you are.

But what about you, dear reader?

Do you really want to support people who side with a pedophile/rapist against his victim?

I'm afraid that you do that every time you watch a TV show or movie made by these people in Hollywood.

Or do you agree with these people that drugging and raping a 13 year old girls, and then skipping out on the justice system is good and appropriate behavior? Because that's what Roman Polanski did. He got a 13-year-old girl drunk. Then he slipped her barbituates. Then he took her clothes off. Then he arranged her limp, naked body in front of him. Then he raped her. Then he ran after he pled guilty, but before the judge pronounced his sentence.

This is an either-or issue. Either you support the rapist and his friends, or you don't.

I suggest "don't."

Or maybe just reading their white papers?

I ask because of this paragraph in Palin's speech in Hong Kong:

Think about it. How many books and articles have been written about the dangers of India’s rise? Almost as large as China – and soon to be more populous – virtually no one worries about the security implications of India becoming a great power – just as a century ago the then-preeminent power, Great Britain, worried little about the rise of America to great power status. My point is that the more politically open and just China is, the more Chinese citizens of every ethnicity will settle disputes in courts rather than on the streets. The more open it is, the less we will be concerned about its military build-up and intentions. The more transparent China is, the more likely it is they we will find a true and lasting friendship based on shared values as well as interests.

Now tonight, Justin Logan posts at Cato@Liberty about those dastardly "neocons" at the American Enterprise Institute, one of which is Daniel Blumenthal, who wrote:

China is not the only country that is rising. So is India. But we do not worry about India’s rise. That is because India is a democracy. Almost everything it does is transparent to us. We share liberal values with India, including the desire to strengthen the post-World War II liberal international order of open trade and investment and the general desire among democracies to settle internal and external disputes peacefully and democratically. The fact that China is not a democracy matters greatly as it rises. It makes its rise more disruptive as countries have to divine its intentions and observe the gap between its rhetorical policy of a “Peaceful Rise” and some of its actions that are inconsistent with a peaceful rise.

Great minds think alike? Palin has been studying up? Or, since she gave the speech on September 23 and Blumenthal posted his essay on September 25, is he cribbing from her?

Weird, isn't it?

UPDATE: Ah, I see that Blumenthal is in fact one of Palin's advisers. Makes sense then.

On October 4, 2006, I posted:

That's the conclusion of a commission report commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education to justify the department's existence and justify a budget increase. . . um . . . er . . . (cough, cough)

The purpose of the Commission is to consider how best to improve our system of higher education to ensure that our graduates are well prepared to meet our future workforce needs and are able to participate fully in the changing economy. To accomplish this purpose, the Commission shall consider Federal, state, local, and institutional roles in higher education and analyze whether the current goals of higher education are appropriate and achievable.

Oh, that's OK then. Let's look at the recommendations:

1. Every student in the nation should have the opportunity to pursue postsecondary education. We recommend, therefore, that the U.S. commit to an unprecedented effort to expand higher education access and success by improving student preparation and persistence, addressing non academic barriers and providing significant increases in aid to low-income students.

In other words, fix the high schools. Most high schools are places where learning sometimes occurs despite the efforts of the teachers and the school administrations. Public K-12 education is drowning in money, political indoctrination, empire-building, turf battles, and occasionally muddleheaded good intentions. Those teachers who truly want to teach are smothered by their administrations and the entire misguided primary and secondary education system. We need to return to teaching reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic. It doesn’t cost a lot of money to teach a kid to read and write. It does take caring and competent teachers, and lots of them.

Once given the basic tools, our needs to teach kids how to think (NOT, emphatically not—what to think). Students need to learn how to critically process information, how to look into issues, how to engage in intellectual dialogue with their peers. This also doesn’t require a lot of money. Once again, all it takes is competent, caring teachers and a classroom free from unnecessary distractions.

Of course, should we actually decide to educate our children, the introduction of masses of intelligent, reasoning, eloquent, and intellectually demanding college freshman will be a nasty shock to some college professors. But that’s a good problem to have.

2. To address the escalating cost of a college education and the fiscal realities affecting the government's ability to finance higher education in the long run, we recommend that the entire student financial aid system be restructured and new incentives put in place to improve the measurement and management of costs and institutional productivity.

This is, of course, a money grab. Basically, government is supposed to pour more money into the student aid system (and, therefore, into the colleges and universities) in hopes that something good will happen. Let’s think about that for a minute . . . more money into the system will reduce cost increases.

Someone needs to go back to economics class.

There’s some handwaving about reducing the regulatory burden on colleges and universities, while simultaneously monitoring “productivity and efficiency”. Yeah, that’ll reduce costs.

3. To meet the challenges of the 21st century, higher education must change from a system primarily based on reputation to one based on performance. We urge the creation of a robust culture of accountability and transparency throughout higher education. Every one of our goals, from improving access and affordability to enhancing quality an innovation, will be more easily achieved if higher education institutions embraces and implements serious accountability measures.

Yeah, right. The Ivy League schools are different from the rest of higher education in only two ways: 1) their reputation as “elite” schools, and 2) their enormous endowments. Can you see any scenario where Harvard and Yale will de-emphasize “reputation” as a recruiting tool?

4. With too few exceptions, higher education has yet to address the fundamental issues of how academic programs and institutions must be transformed to serve the changing needs of a knowledge economy. We recommend that America's colleges and universities embrace a culture of continuous innovation and quality improvement by developing new pedagogies, curricula, and technologies to improve learning, particularly in the area of science and mathematical literacy.

Well this must be good, it has the phrase “knowledge economy” in it. Also, the Demingesque “continuous innovation and quality improvement.” It’s all good. (I think my cynicism is starting to overflow. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for "continuous innovation." I just find the concept very amusing when applied to the current higher education bureaucracy. Let’s move on . . . )

5. America must ensure that our citizens have access to high quality and affordable educational, learning, and training opportunities throughout their lives. We recommend the development of a national strategy for lifelong learning that helps all citizens understand the importance of preparing for and participating in higher education throughout their lives.

See my comment for #1. People who know how to learn will keep learning, in spite of the best efforts of the education establishment.

6. The United States must ensure the capacity of its universities to achieve global leadership in key strategic areas such as science, engineering, medicine, and other knowledge-intensive professions. We recommend increased federal investment in areas critical to our nation's global competitiveness and a renewed commitment to attract the best and brightest minds from across the nation and around the world to lead the next wave of American innovation.

Another money grab. What they won’t do is redirect Federal money from, say the National Endowment for the Arts or the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to the National Science Foundation. They’d do this if they were really serious about increasing competitiveness in “science, engineering, medicine, and other knowledge-intensive professions.” Any bets on when this will happen?

UPDATE: Going Rogue: An American Life is reported to be coming out November 17th. The first printing will be 1.5 million books.

You might have missed this recent story:

The (Fairbanks, Alaska) Daily News-Miner has had its agreements and disagreements with now-former Gov. Sarah Palin at various points during her time serving the state of Alaska. We have tried to maintain respect for the office of governor and to be generally civil when discussing Mrs. Palin, her policies and the actions she took while serving as governor. The same has been true for the time since she left office.

Today I must apologize to Mrs. Palin personally and on behalf of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner for the choice of words used on the bottom of Wednesday’s front page regarding her speaking engagement in Hong Kong this week to a group of global investors.

We used offensive language — “A broad in Asia” — above a small photograph of the former governor to direct readers inside the newspaper to a full story of her Hong Kong appearance.

There can be no argument that our use of the word “broad” is anything but offensive. To use this word to describe someone of the stature of the former governor — who is also the former vice presidential nominee of the Republican Party — only adds to the anger that many people appropriately feel.

(emphasis mine)

First, meditate for a moment upon how a conservative newspaper would have been eviscerated by the Old Media if one of its editors was so intemperate as to allow a reference to Hillary Clinton as a "broad" in a photograph caption.

Next, what were some of the things Palin actually said while in Hong Kong? How much of this do you disagree with? How much of this did you even hear?

See: this is the heart of the issue with China: we engage with the hope Beijing becomes a responsible stakeholder, but we must takes steps in the event it does not. See? We all hope to see a China that is stable, peaceful, prosperous and free. But we must also work with our allies in the region and the world in the event China goes in a direction that causes regional instability.

Asia is at its best when it is not dominated by a single power. In seeking Asia’s continued peace and prosperity, we should seek, as we did in Europe, an Asia “whole and free” – free from domination by any one power, prospering in open and free markets, and settling political differences at ballot boxes and negotiating tables.

We can, must and should work with a “rising China” to address issues of mutual concern. But we also need to work with our allies in addressing the uncertainties created by China’s rise. We simply CANNOT turn a blind eye to Chinese policies and actions that can undermine international peace and security.

China has some 1000 missiles aimed at Taiwan and no serious observer believes Taiwan poses a military threat to Beijing. Those same Chinese forces make our friends in Japan and Australia nervous. China provides support for some of the world’s most questionable regimes from Sudan to Burma to Zimbabwe. China’s military buildup raises concerns from Delhi to Tokyo because it has taken place in the absence of any discernable external threat.

China, along with Russia, has repeatedly undermined efforts to impose tougher sanctions on Iran for its defiance of the international community in pursuing its nuclear program. The Chinese food and product safety record has raised alarms from East Asia and Europe to the United States. And, domestic incidents of unrest -- from the protests of Uighurs and Tibetans, to Chinese workers throughout the country rightfully make us nervous.

If you get Palin away from McCain's incompetent campaign workers and away from Tina Fey's mean-spirited caracatures, and actually listen to what she says, there's a lot of common sense in there.

Don't we need more common sense in our public discourse right now?

Frank J. Fleming lists seven common-sense things people can do to make the current political debate more civil. He begins:

Conservatives are very angry these days. I haven’t seen conservatives this angry since the last time a Democrat was president. So the anger is probably because the president is black.

Please take a few moments to click on the link above and read Mr. Fleming's article. I'm sure all right-minded Americans will take Mr. Fleming's well-reasoned points to heart as we continue the important work in Washington, D.C.

From the book Power in the People by Felix Morley, as linked by Gary Galles at the Ludwig von Mises Institute:

The development of the State has been that of constant aggrandizement. Necessarily, that aggrandizement has been…at the expense of Society and of the individuals who create Society…

Kansas City Star:

Even if you’re not big on nicknames, you’ve got to like the moniker given to Saturday’s Kansas State-Iowa State football game at Arrowhead Stadium: “Farmaggedon.”

Neither team may not be that good on the field this year, but somebody behind them has a dangerous wit.

That's Dave Barry, the humor writer. The one from Miami.

Yes, THAT Dave Barry. His words have, it seems, been banned at Marquette University.



Dissent is unpatriotic. Liberty is racism.

And yes, I'm quite aware Marquette is a "private" university. But some of the most egregious free speech suppressors work on state university campuses.

Via Dynamist and Instapundit.