American Thinker: Iraq: The War That Broke Us -- Not

American Thinker: Iraq: The War That Broke Us -- Not:

Read all of it. You'll see this graph there as well. Burn it into your mind. When government spending increased, Very Bad Things Happened. Keynesian multiplier, my hairy backside!

Technorati Tags: anti-Bush, anti-war protests, George W. Bush, revisionism

If George Lucas Had Lived In The Twenties

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

by way of
The Jawa Report: Star Wars Silent Film:

Technorati Tags: humor, Star Wars

Left, Right, But Especially The Left

Marxism vs. the Majority - Ludwig von Mises - Mises Daily:

Class consciousness, says Marx, produces class ideologies. The class ideology provides the class with an interpretation of reality and at the same time teaches the members how to act in order to benefit their class... Of course, not every class comrade is an author and publishes what he has thought. But all writers belonging to the class conceive the same ideas and all other members of the class approve of them. There is no room left in Marxism for the assumption that the various members of the same class could seriously disagree in ideology. There exists for all members of the class only one ideology... If a man expresses opinions at variance with the ideology of a definite class, that is because he does not belong to the class concerned. There is no need to refute his ideas by discursive reasoning. It is enough to unmask his background and class affiliation. This settles the matter. But if a man whose proletarian background and membership in the workers' class cannot be contested diverges from the correct Marxian creed, he is a traitor. It is impossible to assume that he could be sincere in his rejection of Marxism. As a proletarian he must necessarily think like a proletarian. An inner voice tells him in an unmistakable way what the correct proletarian ideology is. He is dishonest in overriding this voice and publicly professing unorthodox opinions. He is a rogue, a Judas, a snake in the grass. In fighting such a betrayer all means are permissible.

And this explains academia in a nutshell. It's more than Kissinger's famous adage about the stakes being so vicious precisely because they are so small. In the minds of academics, to deviate is to be a class traitor. Ostracize! Ostracize!

Technorati Tags: academia

Or, It Could Just Be A Case Of "Taking Care Of Your Own"

Student Loan Bubble :: Accuracy In Academia:

"In tarnishing for-profit schools with a broad brush, the implication is that the noose of federal regulation needs to be tightened on the entire for-profit sector.To Ferguson, this is part of an entirely predictable process. It begins when the Obama administration takes an interest in a particular industry: “If the administration gets its way and the regulatory regime continues to tighten, the for-profit education industry won’t cease to exist. More likely, it will regress into a form of state capitalism, as kind of a government utility: utterly dependent on government subsidy, hence utterly submissive to government authority, which can set prices and profit margins. The health care industry, with the passage of health care reform, is halfway there already.”

Interesting point. But to my mind, there's another factor or two at work here. For-profit colleges tend to be oriented to business or technical degrees. The clientele they attract tend to be more conservative than the norm. Certainly the faculty tend that way. Together they represent a huge potential challenge to the overwhelmingly non-conservative professoriate at bloated non-profit institutions. Stifle the competition while you can! Or better, co-opt them into being another arm of the octopus/leviathan. You can bet Harkin et al. wouldn't be so strident if for-profit faculty were all good members of the AAUP.

Technorati Tags: academia, for-profit colleges, Higher Education Bubble

And On My Very Own Birthday, Another Reminder Of "Sic Transit Gloria Mundi"

Beloit College Mindset List for the matriculating Class of 2013.

***

Last week was a Hell Week. I will not be going into it. But today is my birthday!

Technorati Tags: history, humor, News I Can Use

Good News For Me, Not Necessarily For Thee

By way of Instapundit » Blog Archive » HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE NOISES?, one of Prof. Reynold's readers remarks:

Just having “go to a good college” as a goal isn’t cutting it anymore. Except for the very wealthy, folks just don’t have the money and spending 100K+ for a four-year “experience” isn’t going to cut it...
A lot of students/parents are now looking at getting core classes done at the relatively inexpensive local college and then transferring to a school where one can do the remaining work towards a very specific goal.

Yay! Demand for my services will increase! (At least until the gummint is finally forced to either quit giving out money for higher ed, thus ending the air stream inflating up the bubble; or else advise that student loans will be deducted directly via payroll deduction from future paychecks, which will scare the holy hell out of every one and ending demand.)

Technorati Tags: academia, education and pedagogy, News I Can Use, unintended consequences

I've Never Had Much Use For Howard Zinn.

I mean, even back in Big Midwestern Elite Liberal Arts Grad School, the lefty profs would warn us about the dangers of relying on Howard Zinn. It's simply not good history that he's writing, I was warned.

So go read this: The File on Howard Zinn :: Accuracy In Academia and follow the link to the FBI files and judge ye. As I have noted previously, the big meme in 22nd century historiography will be how corrupted American historians were in the 20th and early 21st centuries.

Technorati Tags: academia, Cold War, history, News I Can Use, revisionism, Soviet Union