The Fifth Wave: The Golden Age of Substack

The ideology of the news business proclaims that it holds powerful interests accountable to the public. Courageously, at great risk to themselves, investigative reporters protect democracy by exposing the crimes and corruption of elected leaders. The iconic example of this brave truth telling is, of course, Watergate, in which Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of The Washington Post, assisted by a shadowy film noir character called Deep Throat, blew open the misdeeds of the Nixon administration. We all saw the movie. It has to be true.

Yet even in the heyday of the newspaper, the relationship of journalism to power was closer to the opposite of that cherished ideal. Reporters were minor players in the games elites played. The news business as a whole reflected a narrow range of elite interests and cultural signaling. Misdeeds at the top were exposed when it suited other elites, never otherwise. John F. Kennedy’s sexual predations were apparently astronomical in number, but we never heard about them—at least while he was alive. He was a protected man. Nixon, a dark and troubled soul, committed the political equivalent of suicide by cop. The media played a small part in his execution—Woodward and Bernstein, an insignificant one.

In any case, the fantasy of the relentless muckraker has been quietly discarded in the digital age. Journalists are now meek handmaidens to the elites and bland deniers of scandal. Democracy, in their view, demands the public’s permanent genuflection before the ruling class. Any other posture smacks of populism or even fascism. The hero is no longer the investigative reporter but the “fact-checker”—a dull but peevish beast whose task it is to count the lies of Donald Trump and dismiss reports of corruption in high places as “conspiracy theories” and “disinformation.” Such naked prostration before the establishment, it should be noted, has less to do with journalistic principles than with a desperate need to attract a paying audience.

Read the whole thing.

If you are looking for current news, check out Twitter.

If you are looking for long-form investigative reporting check out Substack. 

Mueller Indicts MSM

Mueller Indicts MSM

The Mueller indictment states that the purpose of Russia’s efforts surrounding the last general election was to sow discord.  The indictment states that the Russians made use of “divisive U.S. political and social issues,” to set Americans against each other and “sow discord in the U.S. political system.”

The indictment goes on to say that:

Defendant ORGANIZATION had a strategic goal to sow discord in the U.S. political system, including the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Defendants posted derogatory information about a number of candidates, and by early to mid-2016, Defendants'' operations included supporting the presidential campaign of the -candidate Donald J. Trump ("Trump Campaign") and disparaging Hillary Clinton. Defendants made various expenditures to carry out those activities, including buying political advertisements on social media in the names of U.S. persons and grassroots entities and U.S. persons, and without revealing their Russian identities and ORGANIZATION affiliation, solicited and compensated real U.S. persons to promote or disparage candidates. Some Defendants, posing as U.S> persons and without revealing their Russian association, communicated with unwitting individuals associated with the Trump Campaign and with other political activists to seek to coordinate political activities.

If sowing discord was the object, any objective observer would conclude that the Russians were spectacularly successful.  For roughly half the country, Donald Trump is an illegitimate President, soon to be impeached, a Russian puppet manipulated by Putin, and the second coming of Hitler.

How did that happen if, as asserted by the Mueller indictment, most of the Russian effort was to disparage Hillary?  The indictment is a banal recitation of the use of social media, primarily Facebook and Twitter to call Hillary names and to promote “flash mobs” for Trump.  It is alleged that two of the thirteen people indicted actually came to the U.S.  There is literally nothing in the indictment that would lead anyone to conclude that the Russians had any effect on the election …. at all.  Because that was not the objective. 

In the face of a billion dollar Hillary Clinton campaign here are examples of what the Mueller alleges the Russians did:

a. In or around June through July 2016, Defendants and their co-conspirators purchased advertisements on Facebook to promote the "March for Trump" and "Down with Hillary" rallies.

b. Defendants and their co-conspirators used false U.S. personas to send individualized messages to real U.S. persons to request that they participate in and help organize the rally. To assist their efforts, Defendants and their co-conspirators, through false U.S> personas, offered money to certain U.S. personas to cover rally expenses.

c. On or about June 5, 2016, Defendants and their co-conspirators, while posing as a U.S. grassroots activist, used the account @March_for_Trump to contact a volunteer for the Trump Campaign in New York. The volunteer agreed to provide signs for the "March for Trump" rally.

There is no reference in the indictment to the number of real Americans who participated or who attended.  It’s doubtful that it persuaded anyone to change their vote and there is no assertion that it affected the election.

What’s totally missing from the indictment is the real reason that the 2016 election has divided the country more than any time since the Civil War.  The Russians set off a few damp squibs.  Meanwhile our very own Liberal media, with the apparent support of a politicized FBI, CIA and DOJ began lobbing nuclear bombs in the direction of Donald Trump, claiming that his election was illegitimate.  The entire Liberal Establishment joined “The Resistance” as if they were French freedom fighters opposing the Nazis.   It wasn’t the Russians calling Trump Hitler, Mussolini and worse.  It wasn’t the Russians who claimed that Trump conspired with Putin to steal the election.  It wasn’t the Russians who called Trump insane.  It wasn’t the Russians who went on late night TV to tell dirty jokes about Trump fellating Putin.  And it wasn’t the Russians who were demanding the end of the Trump administration via impeachment, a White House coup or assassination.  That was the hysterics in the Liberal Establishment (along with the #NeverTrump Right). 

There may be more indictments to come.  The question needs to be asked: was there another group of unidentified Russian operatives working behind the scenes to influence American opinion makers?  What made the Democrat Party operatives, member of the media, and the entertainment industry refuse to acknowledge that they lost an election?  Posting on Facebook and Twitter, getting someone to hold up a sign, paying someone to dress up as Hillary in prison is all very well.  But the biggest weapons in a culture war are found in newsprint or over the airwaves. 

“Regular” people, as Kurt Schlichter calls them are really not the object of a sophisticated attack on a culture like ours.  If you want to really move the needle you influence the influencers: the press, the talking heads, the comedians … and the educators who will influence the young “skulls full of mush.”  If we really want to dive down and see what’s causing this country to rise up against itself, this is worth examining in detail.  And this is not what Robert Mueller and his merry men are interested in doing. 

Gianna's Pizzeria & Italian Ristorante

This is our favorite place for dinner.  Located in s shopping center in North Suffolk, it's highly recommended. 

It's a lot more than a pizzeria, it's a true Italian restaurant that also serves pizza.

We often start with the fried oyster appetizer; delicious!  My wife likes the Chicken Francese and I'll try one of the specials.  Last night I had the rack of lamb.  Both dishes were more than we could finish.  The chef/owner gave us a sample of the garlic knots and the clams that come with the Linguini.  I can also testify that the Penne a la Vodka is also very good. 

For lunch or an inexpensive dinner, share the Cheese Steak.  It's a bargain and too much for most people by themselves.  Their house wines are also very good.

The staff is friendly and the owners delightful. 

CBS claims global warming will cause global temperatures to reach the boiling point

Please call CBS 1-212-975-4321and find out if they stand behind their comment.  I did. 

Joe, who answered my call at CBS said that they got their information from the IPPC  report which said the if the earth had no water the temperatures here would be the boiling point of water.

The fact that oceans cover 71% of the earth and contain 97% of the earths' water had no affect on CBS.

I'm not kidding.  This is CBS.

Tea Party vs. IRS

What makes an internet community?

There is a certain feel to an Internet blog … just as there is to a neighborhood.  In a neighborhood you get a feeling for the kind of people that live there.  Are the lawns well-kept or weedy?  Are the homes well maintained or are there signs of abandonment and decay?  Would you feel safe walking around or do you keep your car doors locked driving through?  

Blogs are like that in may respects.  They reflect the issues and attitudes that the proprietor cares about.  The sites that do not accommodate comments are defined by the proprietor of the site who sets the standards, creates the atmosphere and does all the posting.  One of the most prominent is Glenn Reynolds, a Law Professor at the University of Tennessee, who blogs as Instapundit.  Another example is Walter Russell Meade who recently turned off comments on his blog.  He is also a College Professor, from Bard College, and editor of the American Interest, a bi-monthly magazine that focuses on foreign policy and international affairs. 

A third example is Ann Althouse, also a Law Professor, at the the University of Wisconsin.  She writes on a wide range of issues ranging from photography to politics and culture.  She is a “moderate” who voted for Obama and appears to be socially liberal but fiscally conservative.  She attracts commenters who are mostly on the libertarian/conservative side along with a small gaggle of very liberal commenters who seem to be there primarily to tweak the conservative commenters. 

A fourth example is Free Republic which is an informal gathering place for Conservatives, started by Jim Robinson.  Unlike the blog posts cited above it does not have a series of essays to which commenters respond.  Sign up at Free Republic and you can post links to newspaper articles or other media sources and allow others to comment.  Free Republic acts as a news aggregator with a decidedly Conservative slant.  FR is widely credited for exposing the Dan Rather hoax about Bush National Guard papers.   

Many newspapers allow reader commnets, in effect turning their editorial pages into Internet blogs.  The Wall Street Journal allows people to post comments on its editorials and op-eds and comments are not limited to subscribers. As in most blogs, the community that comments is closely aligned with the position of the editorial page.   

But there is one glaring exception that I have found.  If I want to read comments from people who hate conservatives, FOX News and Christians; who insist that whites are racists with white hoods in their closets, who believe that gay is the new black, that opposition to same sex marriage is rank, homophobic bigotry and  a Christianist plot, I don’t have to go to the Washington Post, the NY Times, the Huffington Post or even Daily Kos.  I can go to The Volokh Conspiracy, which - despite what the name implies   -  is a blog run by law professors who post primarily about legal issues which are well written and interesting to read for lawyers and non-lawyers alike.   

Which brings me back to the question of what makes an Internet community and why do the comments in some cases not reflect the general attitudes of the proprietor?  Perhaps Volokh is an anomaly.  You can go to the Washington Post to read Jennifer Rubin – the Post’s token conservative blogger - being torn limb from verbal limb by the readers of that newspaper.  But that's not a surprise because the Washington Post - like the NY Times  - is written for a Liberal audience, for people who hate Rubin's position and the comments are perfectly reflective of the paper's editorial and news orientation.   The Washington Post publishing Rubin is like Romans throwing Christians to the lions, it's entertainment.   

But Volokh is different.  It’s proprietors (there are a number of regular contributors who write article from time to time) are law professors of either a Libertarian bent or moderate conservatives.  Yet the comment section is mostly a gathering of Leftists, many of whom use their commenting privileges to denigrate the contributors.  The more conservative the contributor, the more hateful comments he receives. 

David Bernstein is one of the  contributors who posted a one-line comment on Ann Coulter’s participation in Libertarian’s John Stossel’s program for Libertarian students.  As always, Ann makes it controversial and entertaining.  Bernstein’s comment in full read:   

Best line of the evening: “I don’t think you’re stoners...You’re nerds!”

You have to watch the video to appreciate how apt that line was.  But this post gave vent to the denigration of not just Coulter but Sarah Palin, Ronald Reagan, Christians and the Koch brothers,  while defending Jimmy Carter and Saddam Hussein.  We are also informed by Arthur Kirkland, a frequent commenter, that Coulter is a

… foul-mouthed, bottle-blonde, Guccione-fornicating, barren, leather-mini-skirted spinster .. who fleec[es] student activity funds.

Coulter is no doubt a Conservative provocateur as well as a best-selling author and frequent guest on TV shows and public debates.  It’s how she makes her living.  And she does it very well.  What’s interesting about this comment is two things:  first, Liberals tell us to stay out of their bedroom yet the essence of Arthur’s criticism is misogynist and blatently sexual.  Second, while Arthur is somewhat more extreme than the other members of this community, he is simply the one to put together a string of adjectives with which the others in the community essentially agree ... or they would comment on it, but they don't.  There are exceptions in this community, but like the Liberal commenters in the Althouse blog, they are the like the homeowner in Detroit keeping the grass mowed and the shutters painted, hoping for improvement that never comes.   

But essays by the members of the "Conspiracy" who have the right to post articles there, project a totally different atmosphere.  I have asked myself the question why is there this apparent disconnect between the proprietors and the commenters?  There are a couple of observations and conjectures.

·         Conjecture #1: Law students are flaming leftist:  The actual posts by the Law Professors like Jonathan Adler such as:  No Standing to Challenge FISA Surveillance does not really interest the layman but could interest law students who then go on to comment:  “In my judgment, anyone who uses FISA and this decision to engage in the described surveillance is a pussy hiding behind authoritarian skirts, probably because of fright.”

·         Conjecture #2: The proprietors like this because it builds readership.  Stacy McCain, another blogger, maintains that there's nothing quite as good for traffic as a flame war.  The post on Ann Coulter elicited 138 comments when I last checked. That’s a lot of traffic.   The site averages about 25,000 hits a day according to Sitemeter.  That’s good for a bunch of lawyers writing, for example, about anti-trust and its effect on the tobacco settlement. 

·         Conjecture #3: Where gangs form, good people move inside.  When the gang-bangers in the neighborhood gather on the corner or assemble their posse and move down the street, people in a neighborhood move inside.  They don’t want any trouble.  Althouse, Free Republic, the Wall Street Journal, Kos, Huffington Post attracted people who were like minded and were in tune, mostly, with the proprietors.  But if a blog finds itself congenial for commenters who do not share the bloggers’ viewpoints the comments can still create the neighborhood because in the end the comments on a blog, unless it’s constantly moderated, do not have to bear any relation to the original post.  Many comments are simply people replying to each other.  It’s fairly simple to “hijack” a thread by making a provocative statement and many people enjoy doing just that.   

I suspect the real reason is a combination of all three.  Volokh and friends are college professors, and college today is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Left.  Even if they are Libertarian or Conservative, they are used to the abuse heaped on anyone who isn't Liberal and don't find it jarring.  Having a popular blog can’t be a bad thing to have when the dollars are counted.  Finally, like a neighborhood, you end up moving to a place where you’re at home.   Once the neighborhood – or the blog - becomes a war zone the people who don’t want to be in the line of fire leave and the only ones left on the street are the gangs and the cops. 

Crowds at gun stores

 

I went to two gun stores today just to see for myself if the stories I heard about people piling into stores to buy guns are true.  They are.  One store was in Norfolk and one in Virginia Beach.  Both were crowded, with a very large large number of couples, as well as single men and women.  The wait for a chance to get into the store shooting ranges was anywhere from 45 minutes to several hours. 

And parking?  The shop in Norfolk's lot was filled and new customers had to park a block or more away in the street.  The shop in Virginia Beach hired three extra people in bright orange vests to direct traffic to an overflow lot.

 

For reasons that are very obvious, the Left is doing a fantastic job of promoting gun and ammo sales making Obama the best gun salesman in the history of the world.

 

One of the female clerks said she was concerned that the Obama administration would shut down her business.  That's the fear that is driving people to gun stores in record numbers. 

 

It's also the reason that there will not be any meaningful change in the gun laws unless Obama declares martial law.  The hundreds of ordinary men and women crowding her store and others like it across the country make it clear that the clerk at the gun store should not have to worry. 

 

The biggest impact of the Obama/Media effort to demonize gun owners is that there will be lots more guns in the hands of the American people, and they will be much better armed.

Bud Norman at Central Standard Times comments

There’s a feeling afoot, too, that any government so fearful of its people that it seeks to disarm them should in turn be feared. That’s another old American habit that’s hard to break

.

Fact checking the fact checkers.

Fact-checking is evolving from a newspaper dominated activity to a favorite sport on the Internet. After all, all it takes is a computer and a search engine. One of the most popular activities is fact-checking the fact-checkers in the media. I thought I would give it a go after reading the fact-checkers at FactCheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, a blatantly Liberal organization.  This should not surprise anyone since higher ed lists so far Left that Columbia Professor Nicholas De Genova only made news on the Right when he proclaimed

"The only true heroes are those who find ways that help defeat the U.S. military. I personally would like to see a million Mogadishus."

I was searching for information on the Obama administration’s interest in higher gasoline prices. I had just posted a comment on my blog about the ultra-high prices of gasoline in California (taken from DRUDGE) and wanted to create a few links to prove my point. One of the top Google links was to the FactCheck.org analysis which ties itself in knots to convince us that Obama does not want higher gasoline prices.

Here’s an example from FactCheck:

“Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich have repeatedly lifted several quotes out of context to allege that President Barack Obama and his administration actually wanted to drive up the price of gasoline, and have succeeded.”

Asked if $4 per gallon gas prices will help drive consumers to alternative energy sources Obama is quoted as saying: “I think that I would have preferred a gradual adjustment. The fact that this is such a shock to American pocketbooks is not a good thing. But if we take some steps right now to help people make the adjustment, first of all by putting more money into their pockets, but also by encouraging the market to adapt to these new circumstances more quickly, particularly US automakers, then I think ultimately, we can come out of this stronger and have a more efficient energy policy than we do right now.”

The “fact-checkers” at FactCheck respond:

 “It’s true that given the opportunity, Obama did not dismiss the notion outright that higher gasoline prices might be a good idea to create incentives for people to switch to alternative energy sources. But the context of the question was that gasoline had risen to $4 per gallon. The rapid rise in the price of gasoline was, he said, “such a shock to American pocketbooks” and “not a good thing,” and that he would have preferred that they had risen more gradually. That’s different from advocating for gradually higher gasoline prices in the future.”

 

No.  It's.  Not.  You see what they have done here? They first admit that Obama only had a problem with the rate at which gas prices reached $4, but refuse to acknowledge the fact that Obama wants higher gas prices to drive the American people away from using gasoline. After all, the effect of raising prices is to reduce demand. That’s also the rationale behind the high tax on cigarettes. It does not take a super-genius to conclude that Obama would like to see higher gasoline prices in the future. In fact, only someone committed to defending Obama at this point would come to the conclusion Robert Farley and Eugene Kiely (the FactCheck “fact checkers”) came to.  Obama simply stated that it would be a good thing for gas prices to rise, but he would have preferred a "gradual" rise.  What "gradual" means is left to the imagination.  

Next we come to the claim frequently made that the Obama administration would like gasoline prices go even higher, to the price of gas in Europe which is $9 -$10 per gallon. Here we have Dr. Steven Chu making the argument that gasoline prices at that level are designed to

“coax consumers into buying more-efficient cars and living in neighborhoods closer to work.”

 

Coax?  Let's see, fill the gas tank or buy food; what a dilemma!

 

Farley and Kiely come to the Obama/Chu defense in three ways:

• First, Chu made the statement before he became Secretary of Energy but denied that was his goal before a Congressional panel after he became Energy Secretary.
• Second, the original comment was made in the context of raising gas taxes.
• Third, Federal gas taxes have not increased.

Each of these attempts to deny the obvious are transparently phony.

 

• First, are we to assume that Chu was hired by Obama despite his interest in hiking gas prices to make alternative energy more competitive? After all, this is the guy who shoveled $90 billion out the door on failed projects such as Solyndra. The administration can't admit to the public that it wants gas prices to rise, it simply implements policies that cause them to rise and then deny responsibility.  The energy policies of the Obama administration are perfectly congruent with Chu’s original – pre-appointment desire to see gas at $10 (or higher if necessary). For evidence, see the administration’s shutting down exploration and drilling on public land, and the EPA’s interest in ending fracking on “environmental” grounds. The Obama administration wants to transform the energy Americans use from fossil fuels to wind, solar and “alternative” sources. Simple economics requires higher fossil fuel prices in order to make these “alternative” fuels more competitive.

 

• Second, the context was the desire to see gas prices rise. Period. You don’t interview Dr. Chu for his views on tax policy. If market forces don’t raise gas prices, the government can raise prices at its pleasure by raising taxes. See the example of local, state and federal taxes in New York City on a pack of cigarettes ($4.35 State tax, $1.50 city tax and $1.00 federal tax = $6.85 in taxes per pack). One of the tools may be raising taxes but the focus was to raise gas prices. If the desired objective could be reached by other means, the objective remains the same.

 

• Third, the fact that gas taxes have not increased even as gas prices have more than doubled is not an argument against the underlying policy, it’s simply a snarky way of trying to cover up for a policy that is clear and consistent.

This is a typical example of the media and its acolytes basically lying about facts to promote their agenda.

 

But it is fun.  There are more of us than there are of them and their hold on the public’s mind, while still powerful, is slipping fast.

The “middle class” is NOT shrinking.

There has been a lot of talk recently about the shrinking middleclass.  The statistics backing this up focus on income alone.  But the problem with this analysis is that it mid-identifies what “class” means.

 

Let’s take an example of a welfare recipient who buys a lottery ticket and wins $10 million dollars.  Receiving that much money does not make him upper class.  It makes him lower class with a lot of money … temporarily.  Then they spend it and they’re broke again.

 

Which brings me to a more useful definition of “class:” a way of thinking.  What follows are broad generalities, but more useful than defining a class by their income.  The middle class are strivers, even if they have no money.  They are future-oriented, thinking of children, homes and retirement.  They try to put money aside for a “rainy day” and believe in the value of education as a way of getting ahead in life.  They seek to better themselves by working.   The majority of the middle class are risk averse, and while that helps them avoid poverty, it limits the chances they will become wealthy and join the upper class.  And even if they become wealthy enough to be considered upper class, they often retain the attitudes and the frugality of the middle class.

 

Losing your job or your money doesn’t make you a middle class dropout, but a change in your attitude can.   It is possible that drastic changes in circumstances can do this, to go from being a doctor or lawyer to being a vagrant.   It’s also possible, but highly unlikely that winning a Lotto jackpot will make you “upper class,” but the chances are slim because it would require not just money but an entire mental makeover. 

 

One other characteristic that the middle class has is pride in their achievements, whether it’s paying off the mortgage, sending their kids to college or building a business.  The middle class in this country didn’t end up where they were because their parents gave them the means to live the middle class lifestyle without working for it.  That’s why it wasn’t just small business people who were outraged when Obama said “you didn’t build that.”  That was an attack on middle class values.

 

The question can be asked whether the middle class is shrinking, but it can’t be answered by looking at shrinking income.  It can be answered when the recession ends by how many people move off food stamps and other forms of government assistance.  The desire for independence will be the measure of the size of the middle class.

 

It is an American tragedy that we now have a President Obama and a Democrat Party that is actively working to shrink the middle class, because the lower class is much easier to control. 

Higher Education Bubble Update: The Virginian Pilot Has Called for the Ouster of Helen Dragas … Which Means She Is Perfect for the Job.

The University of Virginia Board of Visitors ousted UVA’s president, Teresa Sullivan, recently which has caused an uproar in the establishment press and at UVA.  Like the passengers on the RMS Titanic just before its little accident, they were happy with her leadership.  Sullivan was busy re-arranging the deck chairs and that just wasn’t good enough for rector Dragas and the rest of the board, who were looking for a change in direction.

The issue facing higher education is that it is on the cusp of a bubble.  Decades of double digit price increases has impoverished the families who paid and the students who loaded up on student loans.  And for what?  The graduates of these prestigious universities are elbowing each other for jobs that require them to ask “would you like fries with that?”  And those are the lucky ones.  Others are moving back in with their parents offering to work as unpaid interns in hopes of getting the next job opening in the Obama economy. 

At one time a university education was a ticket to a professional career.  It was also affordable and was largely responsible for creating an expanding middle class.  But higher education, like the housing bubble, has become the next financial bubble.  Professors and administrators have replaced realtors and bankers as the villains of the Big Education drama. 

Inside the Ivory Tower nothing seems wrong.  New classes of fresh students enter to be fleeced with promises of outsized paychecks as “studies” classes and non-teaching administrators grow like kudzu.  Outside it’s becoming obvious that something’s seriously wrong as student loan debt – which cannot be discharged through bankruptcy – has grown to over a trillion dollars and graduates can’t find jobs.  Even worse, nearly 30% of students who take out loans don’t get degrees.  Law school graduates are being supported by their schools for a year after graduation because they can’t find jobs.  Big Education has become less and less about the students and more and more about the institution.

One of the reasons that Big Media doesn’t recognize the problem is because they don’t recognize their own problem.  They are lost in a technological time warp.  Newspapers are losing readers and TV is losing eyes because information and entertainment delivery doesn’t mean newsprint and TV shows any more.  Technology has made them obsolete; they’re dying and they are either in denial or don’t know what to do about it.  The old education model is literally hundreds of years old.  The idea that to get an education today requires moving to a campus for four or more years at a cost of a couple of hundred thousand dollars is ending.  Texas has set the goal of providing a bachelor’s degree for $10,000.  This will not require residence on a campus. And why should it in an age of instant total communication wherever you are?   Wisconsin has developed a self-paced, on-line degree program that measures competency instead of "seat time."   What a concept!  A couple of Stanford professors taught free web-based courses last year that reached over 100,000 students.

I suspect that one of the reasons Sullivan was fired is that she did not recognize the problem or believed it was not urgent.  And why should she?  Her salary and benefits exceed half-million dollars a year, even after losing her job as President.  Five UVA employees earn over $500,000, another eight earn over $400,000, another 24 earn over $300,000.  Of the above only 15 of the 38 actually teach, the rest “administer.”    

Dragas owns a construction company so she has experience with financial bubbles.  She recognizes that the University system as currently constituted is about to implode because it is financially unsustainable.  The faculty is happy with the system.  The press is happy with the system.  The only people getting the shaft are the students and their parents.  Big Education and Big Media are both dinosaurs desperate to keep the status quo.  Meet the dustbin of history fellows, you’ll have a lot of company.


UPDATE:  Thanks to a link by Glenn Reynolds, it has been asserted that the real problem with Teresa Sullivan is the issue of scientific fraud in a paper she co-authored with Elizabeth Warren who claimed minority status as 1/32^nd Indian.   I have read that at Legal Insurrection.  Whether that is THE reason for her dismissal is a fair question.  If that is the real story, I have a feeling that it will not be told for quite some time.  Nevertheless, my critique of academia stands and I believe that Dragas, along with everyone else in the construction industry, is acutely sensitive to bubbles of the kind academia is currently experiencing.  When you can take a course at Stanford via the Internet for free, you know that the brick and mortar model of higher education is in deep trouble. 

UPDATE 2:  From Inside Higher Ed: 

E-mail messages were flying among leaders of the Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia in the weeks leading up to the ouster of Teresa A. Sullivan as president of the university. The e-mail messages show that one reason board leaders wanted to move quickly was the belief that UVa needed to get involved in a serious way with online education.

Norfolk to lose large part of the US fleet.

The Obama administration has said that it intends to re-direct part of the US fleet from the Atlantic to the Pacific.  Secretary Panetta is quoted as saying that the ....

“Navy will re-posture its forces from today’s roughly 50/50 percent split between the Pacific and the Atlantic to about a 60/40 split between those oceans -- including six aircraft carriers, a majority of our cruisers, destroyers, Littoral Combat Ships, and submarines

Since there are no plans to expand the size of the Navy, and because of sequestration there will probably be moves to cut its size, this means that the Norfolk Naval Station, currently the largest navy base in the world, will be slashed in size. 

This will have a devastating effect on the Norfolk economy.  Interestingly enough, you won’t find out about this in the Virginian Pilot, the area’s leading newspaper.  The editors are showing their nose for news.  It’s par for the course because they didn’t think that their reporters getting mugged by as mob was news either.

Montgomery College forced to revamp 'Occupy' class

From the Washington Examiner:

Montgomery College is revising plans to offer a summer class on the Occupy Wall Street movement -- geared toward high school students -- after residents complained that the class is promoting the Occupy movement's agenda to students.

The course in question, part of a summer program for students in grades 9 through 12, is called "Occupy MoCo!" (which, coincidentally, is also the Twitter handle of what appears to be a branch of the Occupy movement based in Montgomery County).

The course description asks students if they're "ready to join the movement for justice" and adds that "young people have the power to change their community, their schools, their future."

Montgomery College spokeswoman Elizabeth Homan is quoted as saying that

"It wasn't advocating or taking any stance on the Occupy movement. It's taking a current events subject that all the students have either read about or heard on the news and using it as a pivot point to talk about what's happening historically."

I sent Ms. Homan the following message:

Many people are curious about the content of the course which emphasizes an overwhelmingly Left-wing movement when not that long ago we saw hundreds of thousand of people in the streets under the Tea Party banner. A movement, moreover that has had a profound and proven impact on American politics in terms of getting people elected. The OWS movement by contrast was small, sometimes violent, attracted criminals and has thus far helped elect no-one. Can you explain why your college has chosen the latter rather than the former for your educational model?

I will add her reply when I receive it.

Going North for the Winter.

Snowbirds.

There is an entire culture, mostly retired people, who go south for the winter. Getting too old to shovel the driveway or go to the market in sub-zero temperatures, or drive on slick roads they go to Florida ... or Arizona from December to April.

I have lived in Virginia for a quarter century. Virginia has an “in between” climate: it’s winters are not terribly cold – last Christmas we got a magnificent (if unusual) layer of snow.

But mostly our winters are in the 40s with a mixture of sun, partly cloudy … to rain. For someone who grew up in Michigan, the winters in Virginia lacks conviction.

For over a decade my wife spent the first few months of the year that the Virginia legislature’s in session in Richmond.

On my own for about 10 weeks, I decide that I wanted the kind of winters that I remembered as a kid growing up on the shores of Lake Michigan. So I trekked to my home town to enjoy the snow in an inn that is mostly deserted in winter, except for the few couples spending the weekend away from the kids.

There could not be a more peaceful way to unwind than to sit by a fireplace reading a book while outside the snow if falling. Or going outside to walk to a coffee shop through several inches of snow.

   Or to see ducks paddling around in open stretches of water in an ice choked river.

Or driving out to the Lake Michigan shore to see the icebergs building up, and see no-one else around.

It’s the solitude as much as anything. Most people head south for the winter. If you want to be alone with your thoughts and your memories, you head north.

It also helps to have family close.

Buck teeth models ... and stylish stubble.

I was leafing through one of those high end glossy magazines - the kind that sell expensive clothing, jewellery and watches - and noticed a strange pattern.  Most of the female models, the ones who were smiling (or pouting) had buck teeth.

And most of the male models had at least a two day growth of stubble.

What?

Epicenter was situated at the convergence of Bush’s Fault, Congress’s Fault, Teaparty Fault, and Itsnotmy Fault.

President survives devastation.  National suffering continues.

King and the Sphinx.

Does anyone else notice that the ML King statue in Washington looks remarkably like the Sphinx? 

The same grandiosity, the image of a ruler, made by the same sculptor who immortalized Chairman Mao. God has his little joke.

Earthquake Hype

You may have heard there was an earthquake centered in central Virginia today. If you have not heard, you have not watched TV, heard the radio or read a newspaper today.

Let me share my personal experience as a resident of Eastern Virginia. I didn’t notice it until another person in my office mentioned it. I walked over to her office and noticed that her computer screen was wiggling.

And that is the devastating earthquake that is dominating the national news today. Tempest in a teapot doesn’t begin to describe it.

REAL Tax Reform.

Glenn Reynolds has some interesting ideas for reform in the tax code. He would, for example, “repeal the "Eisenhower tax cut" on the movie industry and restore the excise tax.” He would also levy a “50 percent surtax on any earnings by political appointees in excess of their prior government salaries for the first five years after they leave office.”

Forgive me Glenn, while your ideas are great as far as they go, but that’s still “inside the box” thinking. The problem with our current tax system is that it focuses too much on income and not at all on how people make their money. That has a perverse effect on the economy.  For example, a farmer produces food which is vitally important to people, an auto worker produces cars which are the transportation mode of choice for virtually everybody. We can’t get along without miners and the people who produce and explore for oil and gas. We can say the same for people that work in industries that actually produce things ranging from aircraft to toothpaste. Doctors, while not actually making a product, are critical to curing our ills.

On the other hand, movie actors – if they were to disappear from the planet tomorrow – would have no effect on our well-being. Ditto college administrators, professors who teach any “studies” course, most lawyers, news and editorial writers, TV personalities, ball players, government bureaucrats and elected officials, nutritionists, First Ladies, anyone in the marketing or advertising business, economists and weathermen (whose value is being a good contrarian indicator), and virtually anyone whose product is not tangible.

No matter how much money Warren Buffet has made, or George Soros, or whoever heads Citigroup today, they are basically living off of the efforts of others, skimming an obscene percentage of the goods that people who really make the country work produce.

So how about a tax system that taxes you not on how much you make, but on whether what you make actually benefits the economy in a tangible sense.

So for starters, how about a tax of, say 50% on entertainer income up to $100,000, rising to 90% of income over $1 million? We can decide what the brackets should be, but there should be no question that this would produce a more fair and equitable system; a system where the people who produce the food, the cars, the fuel, the homes are encouraged to produce more for everyone. The people who entertain would come closer to the people instead of living lives of unimaginable luxury.  Those who live like leaches on the productive work of others could still continue to do so, but they would contribute to society by contributing the funds needed to maintain a free, prosperous and fairer culture.

This would also address the issue of inflation which is defined as too much money chasing too few goods. This tax system is aimed straight at this issue. If we reward the goods makers we will get more goods produced. Some of those government bureaucrats may even decide that they want to make something for a living. A win-win as they say. It would also address the issue of the export of high paying manufacturing jobs; by encouraging people to produce more at home and even rewarding those who work in manufacturing with lower tax rates.

I have to say that this proposal is truly brilliant. That’s tax reform for the 21st Century, “change you can believe in,” and “smart economics.”

Yes we can!

A Question for Ann Althouse

I have a question for Ann Althouse.

She has done an outstanding job blogging about the multiple political train wrecks in Wisconsin, but she also voted for Obama, saying this today:

I voted for Obama, but I coolly observed all this emotionalism, soberly examined the 2 major party candidates, and made a rational choice.

I’ll take her at her word. Would Ann say that she voted for the policies or the results that her preferred candidate - Obama – has produced?  So many people have expressed disappointment with Obama that, to take Ann as an example, why did they think that Obama would be a different president than he is?

I began discussing Obama back in early 2008. I discussed why he was beating Hillaryand Edwards in the primary, his unsavory associations with 1960s terrorists and his pastor Jeremiah Wright, his sleazy financial dealings, the millions in untraceable campaign contributions, his creepy followers, his messianic complex, Obama as the"blank slate," the meaningless campaign slogans (HopeN'Change), and that’s just in the first few months of his campaign.

I am persuaded that a lot of people voted for Obama because of Palin. Now, that’s my opinion supported only by some anecdotal evidence, but I have some friends who have told me that and have read about a great many women who hate her because she is the polar opposite of what feminist women view as their ideal: pro-abortion, single parent, career gal with an Ivy League education. To them, Palin is a hick from the sticks with too many children, a baby they would have aborted, a graduate of “No-Name U” with a family (including her one and only husband) that’s part of her, and to top it off she’s an unabashed, un-nuanced, patriot and Christian. They made the excuse that because of McCain’s age she could have vaulted into the Presidency. But in reality, they could not imagine voting for her, so McCain lost them.

After the election, Ann (and many of the people who deluded themselves in 2008) believed that [H/T The Crack Emcee]

"The entire plan to bring Obama into office depended on the glorification of the man, whose actual experience was so bizarrely limited that it took some nerve to claim to be ready. Magic was required. The cult grew up not as he held power and needed to respond to a crisis. The cult was the campaign to bring him into power. It depended on our projecting all sorts of hopes and dreams onto him, and he knew it. Inside, he may have felt embarrassed by the whole enterprise, but he'd figured out that it could work, and he was right. Now, I think this worked because he really is a solid, normal person who remained grounded in the middle of all this craziness. And I like to think that, now that he's President, with his steely nerve, his intelligence, and his groundedness, he'll do the job that must be done. The trickery is over."

So what Ann really saw in Obama was a “solid, normal person” with “steely nerve, ... intelligence, and ... groundedness” who was lying to the rubes to get elected.

But he wasn’t. The guy who said that his election would heal the planet and cause the seas to recede was the guy we were warning Ann and all the other rubes about. Ann thought she had Obama figured out; that the guy behind the curtain was sane and smart and up to the job; the guy on stage was all an act.  As Glenn Reynolds so often asks "who's the rube," Ann?

All the evidence pointed to the contrary: his experience, his books, his associates, his statements, his lies. It takes someone who is really into self-delusion to believe that all this was fake and the “real” Obama would emerge after the election.

Intellectual Pride Makes You Stupid.  ... and denial is not a river in Egypt.

WELCOME NEW READERS.  Please enjoy the rest of the show.

It's Illegal In California to Give Your Customers Coffee and Donuts ....

Mark Steyn wonders what effect this election will actually have.

A few big things have the American people upset: the attempted hijacking of their health care by the federal government and the smug, condescending arrogance of the ruling class swept into power by the Obamas and their $200 million-dollars-a-day vacations.

But as a small business owner, I know that the real burdens that the American people and the American entrepreneur suffer under were not up for election this year, or the year before, or the year before that. The real rulers of our lives sit in offices with grey metal desks and who tell us that a hardware story owner can’t put out a pot of coffee and a box of donuts for its customers without a kitchen with stainless steel sinks with hot and cold running water and a prep kitchen to handle the donuts. In other words, it’s illegal to run down to Dunkin Donuts for coffee and pastries and put them out for your customers if you live in California.

In my particular business, I’m required to file something called and ADV 1 and and an ADV 2 with the federal regulators and register with the SEC to be allowed to provide my clients with financial advice. Well, OK, so we hired a law firm and tens of thousands of dollars later we’re officially and legally registered.

So, by the way, was Bernie Madoff.

So the crooks and liars who got us into this current financial mess – yes, I’m talking to you Chris Dodd and Barney Frank – decide that they need to overhaul financial regulation to eliminate financial risks, like “too big to fail.” They do this by writing a law - the Frank-Dodd Financial Reform bill - that enshrines “too big to fail” as an official government policy while completely ignoring the two institutions - other than Frank and Dodd- that more than any other caused the financial crisis: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Fannie and Freddie between them guarantee about 90% of all home loans and their reckless lending to people who could not afford their mortgages led directly to the financial crisis that cost millions of families their homes and caused banks around the world to fail.

But back to me. Thanks to the new laws I now have to file a revised form ADV 2 written in prose instead of checking off some boxes and I have to register with the state instead of with the feds. And how will that make the financial world safer for the average investor? Beats me (hint: it doesn’t) … but it’s making my lawyers richer, which may be the purpose of the law all along.

Steyn:

This is the reality of small business in America today. You don’t make the rules, you don’t vote for people who make the rules. But you have to work harder, pay more taxes, buy more permits, fill in more paperwork, contribute to the growth of an ever less favorable business environment and prostrate yourself before the Commissar of Community Services – all for the privilege of taking home less and less money.

And eventually you wake up and find, as in California, that your state is all hole and no doughnut. Just as gun control is not about guns but control, so doughnut control is likewise not about doughnuts, but about ever more total control. Big Government won’t make the coffee, or the doughnuts. It just regulates them. All it makes is small citizens. If next Tuesday doesn’t begin the rollback of unaffordable hyper-regulation, we’ll need a new mass movement – the Alliance of Non-Compliance.