Category: Uncategorized
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Katie Couric Picking Up Where Oprah Left Off
Gawker reports that on the first day of Katie Couric’s new show, Sheryl Crow discusses her theory that cell phone use caused her to have a brain tumor. Update: The Chronicle reports that the show is just a celebrity infomercial, with softball questions, and no critical discussion: You would be forgiven for mistakenly thinking you’d…
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The Crackpot Caucus
Timothy Egan nails it, the Republican caucus is composed of crackpots and cranks. Take a look around key committees of the House and you’ll find a governing body stocked with crackpots whose views on major issues are as removed from reality as Missouri’s Representative Todd Akin’s take on the sperm-killing powers of a woman who’s…
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Is Lynda Resnick's Admiration Good or Bad for Fareed Zakaria?
Earnest reporting or catty criticism? Fareed Zakaria, according to the Times, is on the short list of Lynda Resnick’s dinner parties, along with “Queen Noor of Jordan, George Soros, the financier, and Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California.” Is the Times’ Christine Haughney critiquing Zakaria or not? Resnick is well known for being a marketing…
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App.net and the Free Problem
Have you heard of App.net? If not, check it out. The basic premise is to create a social media platform that is aligned with users’ interest. And so, gasp, it costs money! The CEO, Dalton Caldwell, has a neat video explaining the inception of the project and the philosophy of the venture. Critics have said…
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2 of Hearts in the WSJ: Bad Apples are Spoiling the Otherwise Pristine Barrell of For Profit Education
As an educator, I realize that much of education is…well…a scam. And some scams are much bigger than others. We’ve all read about the graduates with six-figure debt loads from obscure colleges. But the for-profit college world operates on another level. Gawker has had excellent commentary on the issue, and has pointed out that the…
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So, how do you like the new look?
I can’t take any credit for it. Nat Geo has transitioned us to wordpress. Please let me know in the comments if there are any problems with the new format or with commenting and I’ll see what I can do to get things up to snuff.
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Higher US expenditures on cancer patients do not result in improved mortality.
But you’d never know that reading AEI’s highly dubious contribution to the literature in this week’s Health Affairs (lay Reuters article here). Consistent with their free-market solves everything and can do no wrong (cover ears and yell “nananananananana”) attitude towards the broken US healthcare system, they have managed to contaminate the literature with a paper…
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Good News, Max snubs PETA, will give to a local shelter
Maybe my email worked? I got a one sentence reply from Max last night saying he agreed, and today Tucker Max says hellz no to PETA and instead wants to give to a local shelter: I do not agree AT ALL with the mission of PETA. … If we’re talking about what an awful organization…
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The Bigger Pink Slime Problem for Business
In a matter of weeks, activists have been able to assassinate a popular product through a confluence of events: an official labeled it derogatorily as “pink slime,” social media buzz (or anti-buzz), and media attention against the background of Americans’ greater concern about processed foods. Could this happen to other products? Does it relate to…
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Readers remember Ayn Rand and cringe
A great article from the awl asks writers and book critics which books they liked when they were younger, but now make them cringe. The results are interesting, the two authors those surveyed reported most cringe-worthy were Kerouac and, you probably guessed it, Ayn Rand. Ha!