The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Perhaps Not Since Johannes Gutenberg Invented Movable Type …

Posted on | May 16, 2012 | 34 Comments

. . . has any event in the history of Western civilization been more significant than the forthcoming publication of Professor Glenn Harlan Reynolds’s The Higher Education Bubble. This 56-page booklet, the 29th in the brilliant Encounter Broadside series, has been breathlessly awaited for months, in expectation that it will revolutionize our nation’s education system. Here is the publisher’s summary of this eagerly anticipated work:

America is facing a higher education bubble. Like the housing bubble, it is the product of cheap credit coupled with popular expectations of ever-increasing returns on investment, and as with housing prices, the cheap credit has caused college tuitions to vastly outpace inflation and family incomes. Now this bubble is bursting.
In this Broadside, Glenn Harlan Reynolds explains the causes and effects of this bubble and the steps colleges and universities must take to ensure their survival. Many graduates are unable to secure employment sufficient to pay off their loans, which are usually not dischargeable in bankruptcy. As students become less willing to incur debt for education, colleges and universities will have to adapt to a new world of cost pressures and declining public support.

That’s about 120 words of a 7,000-word treatise destined to be remembered as one of the most profoundly influential documents in 21st-century intellectual history. How do I know that it’s 7,000 words? Because he told me about it over barbecue and beers the last time I was in Knoxville. And he picked up the tab.

Also — full disclosure — I’ve been procrastinating for two weeks on transcribing an interview I did with Harry Stein, whose excellent new book, No Matter What…They’ll Call This Book Racist: How our Fear of Talking Honestly About Race Hurts Us All, is also published by Encounter. So I really owe Roger Kimball and the fine folks at Encounter a solid, to say nothing of the obvious reasons I’d want to curry favor with Instapundit, who has thrown me a crapload of traffic over the years.

Furthermore — forget “full disclosure,” because my career by now is such a Gordian knot of shady ethical compromises I can’t even begin to count the potential conflicts of interest involved — there is the outside possibility that Roger Kimball and the fine folks at Encounter might be interested in a book I’d like to write.

INTEGRITY LIKE PAUL F**KING ANKA, BABY (And Other Great Riffs I Shamelessly Stole From Ace of Spades)

Well, that’s the working title, anyway. Kind of a work in progress that I haven’t actually started writing yet. I’m flexible, and if Roger and the fine folks at Encounter want me to turn it into a scathing tell-all biography of Millard Fillmore — hey, cool, whatever.

Call me, Roger. We’ll do lunch. Love ya, man.

Wait — hold on. We seem to have slightly digressed here . . .

Damn these psilocybin flashbacks. My point is that Professor Glenn Harlan Reynolds has written The Higher Education Bubble, which is due for publication on June 26. However, through special arrangement with Amazon.com, you can pre-order this forthcoming blockbuster now, and be among the first to own this $5.99 volume that is sure to become an instant classic.

P.S.: He’s got a blog that’s kind of popular.

 

Category: Books, Education, Instapundit, Neutral Objective Journalism

Rule 5 Tuesday

Posted on | May 15, 2012 | 4 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


Left Bank of the Charles kicks off this week’s (belated) Rule 5 roundup by noticing the Obama campaign’s focus on womens’ breasts, and I don’t mean in a medical way. The Rio Norte Line shows that the Mexicans’ Federal Election Institute may not know Stacy, but they sure know Rule 5. The POH Diaries noticed that a former Nevada state senator is a write-in for Maxim’s Hot 100. Laughing Conservative brings back Emily Ratajkowski, while Randy’s Roundtable takes a midweek break with Martha Hunt and Felisia Mcginn. Zion’s Trumpet marks Friday with some attractive ladies, Fishersville Mike finds some NBA rule 5, and Reaganite Republican recommends Natalie Vertiz, sometimes known as Miss Peru. Jake Finnegan’s Burkalesque Babe this week is Florence Colgate, and the Rio Norte Line reminds us to check out the Femen Newsletter for May.


A View from the Beach has Poppy Montgomery, Greek & Mexican weathergirls, Blondie’s “Heart Of Glass”, and finally, girls with ground sloth fossils.


El Opinador Compulsivo has not one but two high-res posts. Also, Julia Orayen, a Bond Girls Timeline, Danii Minogue, Jennifer Love Hewitt, and a bikini mishap.


Soylent Green’s Monday Motivationer is Heather, Tuesday’s titillation is provided by Mara, while Audrey Nicole provides the Humpday Hawtness. Also, Afternoon Awesome, and a furry interlude. Also also, Jaclyn Swedberg!


At The Camp Of The Saints, it’s Alicia Machado and Jayne Mansfield; Proof Positive had Xenia Tchoumitcheva, Jill St. John, Bar Rafaeli, and everyone’s favorite (?) breast-feeding mom. Also, Carla Bruni! Dustbury has Tamron Hall and Kristen Wiig.


The DaleyGator is apparently lost in the swamps this week; pinch hitting for him is Three Beers Later, which chose to observe National Offend A Feminist Week by exploring the topics of exercise, specifically cardio workouts, office ladies as they used to be, lurid tales of the Vanuatu Legation Constabulary, and finally an observation of how far feminism has brought us.


Thanks to everyone for their linkagery! Deadline for next week’s Rule 5 roundup is Saturday, May 19.

Category: Rule 5

Answer: Yes. Also, Naked Celebrities.

Posted on | May 15, 2012 | 9 Comments

“Is long-form journalism doomed to being subsidized by traffic-baiting animal slideshows?”
— Joe Pompeo, “‘Businessweek’ editor won’t say whether they’re making money, describes the ‘luxury’ of doing long pieces“

Category: Journalism

Rutherford B. Hayes Weighs In On #ObamaInHistory

Posted on | May 15, 2012 | 22 Comments

by Smitty

News of #OccupyResoluteDesk’s tampering with Presidential biographies on whitehouse.gov, going back to Calvin Coolidge, is currently rocking Twitter. Also, note this brutal Tumblr feed.

Reached for comment, Rutherford B. Hayes, related BHO’s record to an aromatic old saw from the South:
Of course we refer to BHO's record, not the man.

By what miracle is Obama going to crawl out from under this derision and mount anything like a Presidential campaign, one is left to wonder. More at Twitchy.

Update: check out The Lonely Conservative, playing the Calvin Coolidge card!

Category: Barack Obama, humor

Was #Anonymous Busted Because of Barrett Brown’s Betrayal — or Blunders? UPDATE: Hacker ‘Anarchaos’ Pleads Not Guilty in Federal Court Appearance

Posted on | May 15, 2012 | 12 Comments

By sheer chance today, I happened across an intriguing post at Ameristroika suggesting that Barrett Brown played a key role in the takedown of the Anonymous/LulzSec criminal hacker conspiracy.

To summarize briefly: The indictment of LulzSec hacking suspects Ryan Ackroyd, Jake Davis, Darren Martyn, Jeremy Hammond, and Donncha O’Cearrbhail mentions an unindicted co-conspirator.

There are enough intriguing coincidences — e.g., a tip to the Feds from a Kansas IP address, some months after Brown had mentioned plans to visit Kansas — to raise suspicions. Was Brown an FBI informant? Has he turned snitch since the FBI raid in March? Was it all a clever scam by Brown to score a book deal?

Permit me to suggest an alternative theory: Brown isn’t as smart as he likes to think he is, and got sloppy. He trusted someone he shouldn’t have trusted, and that person turned out to be a snitch.

Has Brown now rolled over and started giving up his former accomplices in a cowardly effort to save his punk ass? We’ll find out eventually, I guess, but the question is how soon we’ll find out.

UPDATE: One of the accused hackers thinks he can beat the rap:

A Chicago man pleaded not guilty Monday to criminal charges that he participated in a series of cyber attacks allegedly carried out by “LulzSec,” a globe-spanning collective of computer hackers who targeted government and corporate websites last year.
Jeremy Hammond, 27 years old, briefly appeared in Manhattan federal court to be arraigned on the charges.
After the hearing, a small group of supporters gathered outside the courthouse with signs saying “Free Hammond. Solidarity With All Hacktivist Prisoners” and “Burn The Prison Society.”
In a new indictment returned earlier this month, federal prosecutors in Manhattan alleged that Mr. Hammond, who allegedly went by the online names “Anarchaos,” “POW” and “ghost,” was a member of the LulzSec conspiracy and participated in some of the group’s hacking activities.

UPDATE II: Remember that “LulzSec” was a spinoff of “Anonymous,” a pre-existing network of so-called “hacktivists” that made headlines by swarming online to defend Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks project. And the online battles continue between the pro-Anonymous and anti-Anonymous. Barrett Brown’s name is mentioned several times by Sean Gallagher today at the tech Web site Ars Technica in an article about “Jester,” an enemy of Anonymous.

Brown first came to my attention in September 2009, immediately after the Great LGF Blogwar. When I learned in February 2011 that Brown had emerged as a public spokesman for Anonymous, I immediately predicted that Brown was either already under FBI surveillance, or else soon would be under surveillance.

Barely four months later, the British made the first arrest in the “Lulzsec” case, and soon the hacker named “Sabu” had turned snitch against his accomplices — although his accompliced didn’t know it — and the whole thing came tumbling down. But I’ve always thought Brown’s dumbass idea of making himself the public face of Anonymous was the key by which investigators unlocked that puzzle.

PREVIOUSLY:

Category: Barrett Brown, Crime

Feminists vs. Roxeanne’s Vagina

Posted on | May 15, 2012 | 24 Comments

Roxeanne de Luca resents having her saintly ladyparts invoked by feminists as a political argument in service of a cause she entirely rejects:

Robertson’s description of the modern left’s version of feminism [as a movement that “encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians”] is eerily accurate.

Read the whole thing. My response? No comment. Certainly, I have no official authorization to speak on behalf of Roxeanne’s vagina.

UPDATE: In the comments below, you’ll note that the aforesaid Miss de Luca demonstrates her aptitude for vivid prose in wishing upon me a rather lurid means of violent death. Let this be a warning to any of you handsome, wealthy bachelors who might imagine yourselves worthy to pursue the parthenic redhead’s connubial companionship: It’s kind of like the First Rule of Fight Club.

Her blog is Haemet, and you can follow Roxeanne de Luca on Twitter.

 

Category: Feminism, Roxeanne de Luca

Dumbest Liberal in Media: Guess Who Won That Tough Competition?

Posted on | May 15, 2012 | 25 Comments

It was never much of a contest, really. Perennial champion Chris Matthews scored big-time, massively failing on Jeopardy, a show that Noel Sheppard of Newsbusters reminds us Matthews has frequently cited when mocking Sarah Palin’s intelligence:

In case you don’t keep track of “progressive” elite sentiment, know this: They hate Matthews, regarding him as a dimwitted embarrassment who can be counted on to recycle whatever secondhand conventional wisdom he picks up among his clique of D.C. cronies.

Chris Matthews has never had a single thought that was both good and original. Every good idea he’s ever uttered was borrowed (usually without attribution) from someone much smarter than him, and every original idea he has ever had was wrong. Matthews is a perfect example of how to game the D.C. system. He is the Beltway media’s unparalleled master of strategic sycophancy — knowing exactly whose butt to kiss — and manipulative cronyism, so that even the most blatant ineptitude and wrongheadedness are no obstacle to success.

There are probably three dozen liberal journalists — notably including Chris Hayes of The Nation, now host of a weekend show at MSNBC — who could do a better job than Matthews, a living example of the Peter Principle whose strangely extended (and inexplicably overpaid) tenure with NBC is one of the great mysteries of American media.

(Via Memeorandum with further commentary by No More Mister Nice Blog, Billy Hallowell, Jim Treacher and Doug Powers.)

Category: Uncategorized

Distraction Tactic Backfires: Romney Gains in Polls After Obama Gay Shift

Posted on | May 15, 2012 | 27 Comments

Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign strategy could be summarized in four words: “It’s Obama’s Economy, Stupid.”

Romney and his aides have made clear that they regard every other issue as a distraction from what polls — as well as common sense — indicate as the main concern of American voters: Jobs, the economy and the explosion of deficit spending under the Obama administration.

So when the news cycle last week was dominated by President Obama’s announcement of his support for same-sex marriage, this was viewed by Republicans as yet another attempt to distract voters from the economy — and thus, strategically, as another “win” for Team Obama.

Yet the first polls reflecting public reaction to the president’s endorsement of gay marriage show the move has, at least so far, backfired on the White House. A CBS/New York Times poll taken Friday through Sunday shows Romney leading Obama 46% to 43%, whereas a CBS/NYT poll taken April 13-17 showed the race a tie at 46%. This result verifies polling by Rasmussen Reports showing Romney moving ahead. Obama has clearly lost support since a month ago, and the New York Times article indicates voters are starting to see through the president’s motives:

Most Americans suspect that President Obama was motivated by politics, not policy, when he declared his support for same-sex marriage, according to a new poll released on Monday, suggesting that the unplanned way it was announced shaped public attitudes.

(Via Memeorandum.) Examining details of the latest poll, Allahpundit at Hot Air suggests “that some people who would otherwise support [Obama’s] shift on gay marriage have been turned off because he’s been so transparently cynical and opportunistic about it.”

There is also the possibility that the gay shift may undermine support for Obama among some socially conservative black voters. Yesterday we reported that Obama’s gay position was condemned by Texas pastor Dwight McKissic, who supported Obama in 2008. And Peter Ingemi’s suggestion that the “historic” Newsweek cover — “The First Gay President” — could unintentionally yield an anti-Obama undercurrent is not as far-fetched as it may seem, Ed Driscoll says.

UPDATE: “We’re Not as Stupid as Barack Obama Thinks,” says The American Spectator‘s Ross Kaminsky, but Democrats may be that stupid:

Despite the issue not working so far, Democrats are doubling down, with 17 Senate Democrats (actually 16 Democrats plus socialist Bernie Sanders) asking the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security to stop refusing green cards to foreign gay “spouses” of Americans.

Hispanic voters are going to love that one, huh?

 


 

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Category: Barack Obama, Da Tech Guy, Ed Driscoll, Election 2012, Gays, Mitt Romney
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