We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
"Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship."
The Law says that there always are some of those. People in business analyze them carefully, as do war-planners - in advance. Even so, many or most things do not work out as planned. When it comes to politicians and policy-makers, often-enough things that appear, in retrospect, as Unintended, were covertly intended.
Today’s political process tends to steer people away from thinking carefully about the many trade-offs in deciding public policy issues. This leads to a cycle of overreaction in which policymaking focuses on minimizing error in one direction, leading to worse errors in the opposite direction.
When I went to boarding school, every administrator also taught (except the clerical staff). Even the head librarian taught (Russian). Every coach taught. The Headmaster taught. When I went to college, every dean taught. The college president taught.
What Ivy League Affirmative Action Really Looks Like — from the Inside
A depressing story. Clearly what the schools compete for is uncompetitive underprivileged African-American applicants. Is it a good idea to privilege one skin category over another?
Oysters have to be farmed to meet market demand. I am part of that market. They are easy to farm, but slow-growing compared to chickens. I find the West Coast oysters to be insipid, and oysters grown south of Chesapeake Bay flavorless, too large, and disgusting. Oyster gourmet.
I am completely opposed to any death taxes. The income has already been taxed.
Why tax the dead? Well, it was because the turn of the century (last century) Progressives hated the wealthy families. Wilson, Teddy Roosevelt, etc. appeared to hate the wealthy because their influence, like that of churches and large businesses, competed with government - as they should wish to compete. Government is not God. Over the years, many families have fallen victims to that tax other than those who are slick enough to dodge it.
My view is that I want all families to be free to be as wealthy and independent as they chose to be, and to be free to accumulate whatever they want to for their futures. Farm, flower shops, whatever. It means a lot to people. In America, wealth is never the most important thing in life but everybody cares about their family and their families' futures. You can call it love, not greed.
Cosmology has been on a long, hot streak, racking up one imaginative and scientific triumph after another. Is it over?
We might be trapped in this snow globe of photons forever. The expansion of the Universe is pulling light away from us at a furious pace. And even if it weren’t, not everything that exists can be observed. There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in our philosophies. There always will be. Science has limits. One day, we might feel ourselves pressing up against those limits, and at that point, it might be necessary to retreat into the realm of ideas. It might be necessary to ‘dispense with the starry heavens’, as Plato suggested. It might be necessary to settle for untestable theories. But not yet. Not when we have just begun to build telescopes. Not when we have just awakened into this cosmos, as from a dream.
... it's not unusual to hear statements like those from The Lancet editor Richard Horton that "Much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue." He continued: "Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness."
The key word is pedigree: the array of background traits, including the cultural, social, and educational capital passed from one generation to the next, which EPS candidates bring to the competition for elite jobs. But it’s a closed competition. One must get through the gates first. A candidate’s pedigree determines whether his or her application to an EPS firm is legitimately considered in the competition, or tossed in a slush pile of candidates who have no realistic chance to even compete for such jobs.
Of course, pedigree has always been influential in hiring decisions for first jobs at elite professional service firms. While Rivera acknowledges this, she contends that the rules surrounding pedigree have changed over the generations. Although elite employers have always hired on the basis of pedigree, the mechanism is now far more indirect. Finding young talent to fill society’s most important and highly paid jobs once was based on descent, the handing over of familial economic power from one generation to the next.
Today, elites have modernized the rules of entry. Rather than explicit bloodlines being the determining factor, the outcome biased toward elites is interpreted as just the rational outcome of the “meritocracy” at work. Now, just as elite colleges contend that they admit students on the basis of cognitive talent, elite employers claim their highly competitive hiring practices lead to finding the best and brightest young employees.
But the way elites choose talent is hardly an open competition, Rivera argues. Rather, EPS hiring is a “sponsored contest.” While any college graduate is free to apply for a position, only those who are pre-qualified are actually permitted to compete. The most important pre-qualification is earning a degree from one of two types of schools. Generally, EPS firms maintain two lists of colleges from which they draw the applicant pool. First is small list of so-called “core” schools that have fed firms’ talent requirements for decades. The relationships are historic, steadfast, and habitual. Think Ivy League, especially colleges that are within a few hours drive from power centers of finance, banking and law.
Next is a list of “target” schools that firms have relied on for talent, but to a far lesser extent than core schools. The pivotal difference between a sponsored and an open competition is the behavior of gatekeepers in seeking talent. EPS firms go to great efforts to seek out the kinds of college graduates that fit the firm’s culture. The firms go to the students, spending valuable time and money traveling to the listed campuses and recruiting for their applicant pool.
I think this is far less true today than in the past. However, admission to a highly-elite school demonstrates something of value and speeds up the vetting process. My advice: Save your admissions letters but go somewhere you can afford.
America has a proud tradition of provocative, obnoxious, and even treasonous speech going back to Tom Paine if not further back. (My ancestors were Tories.) Unlike any other nation in the world, it is one of our first principles. Indeed, we are an exceptional country.
Americans revel in provocative, intemperate, reckless, savage, irreverent, and satirical speech. While Americans appreciate good manners, there are times when unmannerliness is called for, even if only for fun or to make a point. Manners are mostly not encased in law, after all. Our artists, comedians, playwrights, atheists, absurd Marxist revolutionaries, pornographers, etc. all enjoy transgressing manners, propriety, and sensitivity, for better or worse. It's a free country. If you are hypersensitive here, buy a helmet.
That's why we get a kick out of the irreverent and unmannerly Pam Geller. She is a tough New York broad. I love provocative speech of any sort, even when it's about myself (well, sort of).
Anyway, if this were about satirical Roman Catholic cartoons, would the media be so upset? It would be different.
Nobody has been "triggered" by Ovid for 2000 years until now. Trigger warnings for the Bible will be next, any day now.
Our point that we make repeatedly here, however, is that that students are not really bothered by reading things. They are manufacturing a victim role to bully, attack, and control. That's what Borderlines do.
These are not some new breed of precious snowflakes, this is pure manipulation. They got rid of Larry Summers the same sort of way, so it works. Why is it that nobody can see through these frauds? If not Columbia, then who?
As James Madison recorded in Federalist 45, “the powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined.” In other words, what it was not clearly permitted to do, it could not do. That being so, a Bill of Rights made little sense, for, if the federal government had been accorded the opportunity to do only a certain number of things, listing what it could not do was superfluous. Underscoring this point, Alexander Hamilton submitted in Federalist 84 that a list of specific prohibitions would represent “various exceptions to powers not granted; and, on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted.” “Why declare,” Hamilton asked, “that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?”
