Jun
1
2006

URLs du Jour

2006-06-01

  • If you're like me, you'll sadly shake your head at this Joanne Jacobs article about the unusual problem faced by Summit Prep, a charter school in Redwood City, CA: it's doing such a good job of teaching, it's in danger of losing its charter. New regulations put it at the mercy of "sponsorship" by the local school district, which is apparently pressuring Summit to increase its efforts at mediocritization.

  • David Friedman catches the Secretary of State making a botched literary reference, attributing "Had we but world enough, and time" to Walt Whitman instead of Andrew Marvell. Somewhat less embarrassing than Al Gore's mistranslation of "E Pluribus Unum" as "From One, Many", but still. It's not a mistake Spenser would have made. Which is why, frankly, we should replace our politicians with fictional detectives.

  • Anya Kamenetz is the disease; Will Wilkinson is the cure:

    Anya Kamenetz's mind is an ideological funhouse mirror designed to baffle and enrage the economically literate.

    But she's in the New York Times … that explains a lot, actually.

  • Bet you thought the CEO of Whole Foods Market would be some sort of long-haired hippie commie. Well, turns out he's not.

    What I love most about the freedom movement are the ideas of voluntary cooperation and spontaneous order when channeled through free markets, leading to the continuous evolution and progress of humanity. I believe that individual freedom in free markets, when combined with property rights through rule of law and ethical democratic government, results in societies that maximize prosperity and establish conditions that promote human happiness and well-being.

    Wow. Me too! Unfortunately, the closest Whole Foods Markets are down in Massachusetts, otherwise I'd totally be there for all my Sesame Tahini needs. (Via an article at American Spectator.)

  • <irony>I'd like to pretend I wrote this, but</irony> … for our student readers, Alex Halavais has written a brilliant article on "How to cheat good".

    If you follow these simple rules, you are almost guaranteed to pass off your plagiarism and cheating as your own work. This will allow the faculty to remain in blissful ignorance, believing that—despite the low pay—they are spreading knowledge in the world, while at the same time convincing your parents to continue to pay for several more years of school, drunken orgies, and Prada bags. Your classmates who do not follow the above rules will constitute the "low hanging fruit," easily picked off and tormented by mean-spirited unfulfilled teachers for their own amusement. You, however, will rise above the fray, secure in your superious ability to act smart, even if you don't understand the text you are passing off as your own.

    (Via GeekPress.)


Last Modified 2016-07-15 8:35 AM EDT