IDEO.org. Norman Finkelstein. Norman Gary Finkelstein (born December 8, 1953) is an American political scientist, activist, professor and author. His primary fields of research are the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the politics of the Holocaust, an interest motivated by the experiences of his parents who were Jewish Holocaust survivors.
He is a graduate of Binghamton University and received his Ph.D in Political Science from Princeton University. He has held faculty positions at Brooklyn College, Rutgers University, Hunter College, New York University, and, most recently, DePaul University, where he was an assistant professor from 2001 to 2007. Personal background and education[edit] Norman Finkelstein at Solidarity stage Finkelstein has written of his Jewish parents' experiences during World War II. He completed his undergraduate studies at Binghamton University in New York in 1974, after which he studied at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris. Academic career[edit] On From Time Immemorial[edit] A Colorblind Constitution: What Abigail Fishers Affirmative Action Case Is Really About. Abigail Fisher and Edward Blum walk outside the Supreme Court in October 2012. (Susan Walsh/AP Photo) Nearly 60 years after that Supreme Court victory, which changed the nation, conservatives freely admit they have stolen that page from the NAACP's legal playbook as they attempt to roll back many of the civil rights group's landmark triumphs.
In 23-year-old Abigail Noel Fisher they've put forward their version of the perfect plaintiff to challenge the use of race in college admissions decisions. Publicly, Fisher and her supporters, chief among them the conservative activist who conceived of the case, have worked to make Fisher the symbol of racial victimization in modern America. As their narratives goes, she did everything right. She worked hard, received good grades, and rounded out her high school years with an array of extracurricular activities. The daughter of suburban Sugar Land, Texas [2], played the cello.
Except there's a problem. Those two scores, combined, determine admission. Patent Busting Project. PDF version available here. I. The Problem Every year numerous illegitimate patent applications make their way through the United States patent examination process without adequate review. The problem is particularly acute in the software and Internet fields where the history of prior inventions (often called "prior art") is widely distributed and poorly documented. As a result, we have seen patents asserted on such simple technologies as: II.
The harm these patents cause the public is profound. Unlike most technologies, software and the Internet have attracted a vast number of small business, non-profit, and individual users — each of whom has adopted and built upon these resources as part of their daily interaction with computers and the online world. With this increased visibility, however, comes increased vulnerability.
Illegitimate patents can also threaten free expression. III. So how do we confront these problems? A. B. IV. Www.eac.gov/assets/1/Documents/Federal Voter Registration_1209_en8242012.pdf. A Class Divided. Critique of Study of Voucher Impact on College Enrollment Misguided. We recently released a study that shows that school vouchers in New York City had a positive impact on the college enrollment rate for African-American students but not among Hispanic students.
We think the study is important because it provides the first experimental estimate of the impact of vouchers on college enrollment. The National Education Policy Center has just released a critique of our study by Sara Goldrick-Rab of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Several of the issues raised by Goldrick-Rab have no merit and none undermine the primary conclusion of our study: The voucher intervention in New York City increased the college enrollment rates of African-American students. Below are responses to the primary criticisms raised in the review: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. . - Matthew M. Review of The Effects of School Vouchers on College Enrollment: Experimental Evidence from New York City. Www.hks.harvard.edu/pepg/PDF/Impacts_of_School_Vouchers_FINAL.pdf. Cities and the right America, where the pigeon soars The Economist. THOMAS SOWELL notes that the lower- and middle-class black population has been mostly pushed out of San Francisco and other big cities by high and rising housing prices.
But this is not a simple story of supply and demand. It's a complex story of supply and demand. Mostly, less wealthy groups have been harmed by restricted supply, and the left is to blame. Mr Sowell, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, writes: [B]uilding restrictions—and outright bans—resulting from the political crusades of environmentalist zealots sent housing prices skyrocketing in San Francisco, San Jose and most of the communities in between.
Housing prices in these communities soared to about three times the national average. Consequently, Mr Sowell says: This pattern of facts, Mr Sowell argues, offers Republicans a golden opportunity to make a pitch to black voters, who as a group overwhelming favour Democrats. Preach it, brother! (Photo credit: AFP) Economic Blind Spots, Left and Right. Tyler Cowen had two posts at Marginal Revolution this week listing what he believed were the common sins of left-wing economists and right-wing economists. Kevin Drum then offered a point-by-point response to the left’s list, which in turn inspired this post. I think that liberal economists, by nature, tend to be less economically liberal than your average liberal. That’s not true — or at least it’s not nearly as true — about conservative economists and conservatives generally. As a result, some of the left’s biggest blind spots on economics arise much less often among left-leaning economists.
Left-leaning economists no doubt have other blind spots. On the list of blind spots for the noneconomist left, I’d put the following views (with some partial rebuttals available through the links): * Economic growth has almost as many negatives as positives. * The demise of manufacturing is the economy’s main problem. * Education is overrated. * The economy is much more volatile than it used to be. Money Rules - Scott Sumner. Monetary policy has always been the Achilles’ heel of conservative economics. We’ve repeatedly seen conservative policymakers work hard to create a successful free-market economy, only to have their efforts undone by a devastating period of deflation.
In the 1920s, the U.S. economy did well with all levels of government spending only about 10 percent of GDP. All those efficiencies were lost in the subsequent decade. Nominal GDP fell by half between 1929 and 1933, opening the door to big-government statism. Unfortunately, many conservative economists are too dismissive of the costs of deflation. Once the devastating costs of deflation are acknowledged, one can no longer imagine an earlier age when the dollar was “as good as gold.” Nor can we avoid the pitfalls of previous gold-standard regimes by getting government out of the picture.
There is no laissez faire in fiat money. The C-Word. In early January, the British medical journal BMJ completed an investigation into one of the most notorious articles in recent history: Andrew Wakefield’s 1998 study in The Lancet claiming that the MMR vaccine, designed to prevent measles, mumps, and rubella, causes autism. The Lancet had already retracted the piece in February 2010 (following a partial retraction in 2004), and Wakefield was stripped of his medical license three months later. BMJ concluded that Wakefield consciously distorted the medical histories of each of the 12 patients on which he based his study.
“The MMR scare was based not on bad science but on a deliberate fraud,” Editor in Chief Fiona Godlee wrote. Such “clear evidence of falsification of data should now close the door on this damaging vaccine scare.” Since the original article was published, vaccination rates have tumbled in the U.K. and U.S., while measles rates have shot up. Matt Welch (matt.welch@reason.com) is editor in chief ofreason. The Giffords Shooting, The Instant Politicization of Everything, & Why Americans Increasingly Hate Dems & Reps - Hit & Run Reason Magazine. From Glenn Instapundit Reynolds, writing in The Wall Street Journal: There's a climate of hate out there, all right, but it doesn't derive from the innocuous use of political clichés. And former Gov. Palin and the tea party movement are more the targets than the source.American journalists know how to be exquisitely sensitive when they want to be.
As the Washington Examiner's Byron York pointed out on Sunday, after Major Nidal Hasan shot up Fort Hood while shouting "Allahu Akhbar! " the press was full of cautions about not drawing premature conclusions about a connection to Islamist terrorism. "Where," asked Mr. York, "was that caution after the shootings in Arizona? " More here. How do you take one of the most shocking and revolting murder sprees in memory and make it even more disturbing?
Instantaneous bitch-tweeting online (within moments of the shooting, it seems, messages such as "Sarah Palin has blood on her hands" were all over the place) is one thing. Free Trade, Free Labor, Free Growth by Kym Anderson and Bjrn Lomborg. Exit from comment view mode. Click to hide this space ADELAIDE – Protectionist sentiment and fear of globalization are on the rise.
In the United States, presidential candidates appeal to anxious voters by blaming the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) for the erosion of the country’s manufacturing base. Liberal trade initiatives have run into trouble in Congress, while new trade barriers have been mooted for products flooding in from China. Things are no better in Europe. When the Doha trade round was launched shortly after September 11, 2001, there was plenty of international goodwill. Free trade would lead to an overwhelming boost to welfare everywhere, but especially in the developing world. These barriers remain largely because further liberalization would redistribute jobs, income, and wealth in ways that governments fear would reduce their chances of remaining in power – and their own wealth in countries where corruption is rife. There would, of course, be costs. New Yorkers Can't Even Smoke at Home Anymore. Yeah, no. That smell can permeate every inch of your living space, and if you are a non-smoker that just sucks.
I live in a building with several other smokers, and that awful stench seeps out into the hallway daily. Not to mention the inconsiderate assholes who light up in the hallway because they either can't wait to get into their apartment, or because it's too cold to light up outside (hint: if it's too cold for you to light your cigarette outdoors, you shouldn't be a smoker). That said, I'm against anybody telling anyone else what they can do inside their own goddamn home. Personally, if I find a building that has a lot of smokers, I would rather suffer through it until my lease is up and then move before advocating my landlord or any co-op board stick their noses in and ban smoking, or make any other decision that affects whatever the hell I do in my fucking apartment with the doors closed.
On Bjorn Lomborg and extinction A skeptical look at The Skeptical Environmentalist Grist. My greatest regret about the Lomborg scam is the extraordinary amount of scientific talent that has to be expended to combat it in the media. We will always have contrarians like Lomborg whose sallies are characterized by willful ignorance, selective quotations, disregard for communication with genuine experts, and destructive campaigning to attract the attention of the media rather than scientists. They are the parasite load on scholars who earn success through the slow process of peer review and approval. The question is: How much load should be tolerated before a response is necessary? Lomborg is evidently over the threshold. Lomborg’s estimate of extinction rates is at odds with the vast majority of respected scholarship on extinction.
His estimate, “0.7 percent over the next 50 years” — or 0.014 percent per year — is an order of magnitude smaller than the most conservative species extinction rates by authorities in the field. Area-species curves. Why We Don't Agree - Bleeding Heart Libertarians. The remarkable truth of this conversation between bleeding heart libertarians and progressives is that our disagreement is exclusively empirical.
If we all agree that political institutions should be arranged to alleviate poverty, then the only remaining question is which policies actually do this. Why is it then that we cannot agree, or at least converge, by just looking at reliable data, studies, and empirical theories? I suggest an answer: in the political arena, a person often supports a policy, not because of the effects he thinks that policy will have, but because his supporting it has symbolic value for himself or others. Supporting the minimum wage is an act that stands for a value such as concern for the poor. The person who is concerned for the poor wants to express that concern, and there are acts that socially symbolize that concern: praising the New Deal, announcing that you voted for a Democrat, supporting public schools, criticizing Bush.
Civil War still divides Americans CNN Political Ticker - CNN.com Blogs. Washington (CNN) - It has been 150 years since the Civil War began with the first shots at Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, and in some respects views of the Confederacy and the role that slavery played in the events of 1861 still divide the public, according to a new national poll. In the CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll released Tuesday, roughly one in four Americans said they sympathize more with the Confederacy than the Union, a figure that rises to nearly four in ten among white Southerners. When asked the reason behind the Civil War, whether it was fought over slavery or states' rights, 52 percent of all Americans said the leaders of the Confederacy seceded to keep slavery legal in their state, but a sizeable 42 percent minority said slavery was not the main reason why those states seceded.
The survey polled 824 adults via telephone between April 9 and April 10. The poll had a sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. Daily Kos Joseph Stiglitz' Unpretentious Must-Read On Income Inequality Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1% Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1% Joseph E. Stiglitz Vanity Fair May, 2011 (edition) It’s no use pretending that what has obviously happened has not in fact happened. The upper 1 percent of Americans are now taking in nearly a quarter of the nation’s income every year. In terms of wealth rather than income, the top 1 percent control 40 percent. Their lot in life has improved considerably. Twenty-five years ago, the corresponding figures were 12 percent and 33 percent. One response might be to celebrate the ingenuity and drive that brought good fortune to these people, and to contend that a rising tide lifts all boats.
Stiglitz continues on to point out the "reasons"... 1.) "...glowing inequality is the flip side of something else: shrinking opportunity... " 2.) 3.) "... a modern economy requires 'collective action'—it needs government to invest in infrastructure, education, and technology. " He notes that economists in the U.S. really can't fully explain this phenomenon. Mind the gap... in intelligence re-examining the ... [Br J Health Psychol. 2006] - PubMed result. Psychology Today Hates Feminism. Satoshi Kanazawa. The Very Stupidest Things Vogue Has Ever Published About Politics. Why a really flat tax is a really bad idea Psychology Today. 14 Mistakes Mother Jones.
Common mistakes of left-wing economists Marginal Revolution. Common mistakes of right-wing and market-oriented economists Marginal Revolution. Critiques Of Libertarianism A Non-Libertarian FAQ. Libertarianism Makes You Stupid. Money and politics The Koch brothers and the progressive master narrative The Economist. George Will Mike Huckabee Is a Vibrator#more-439958. ACRJ Forward Stance. Andrea Durbin Oregon Environmental Council. Chemicals Policy & Science Initiative. Harvard immigrant parents spend on their children. An open letter to conservatives. Why does seth finkelstein hate libertarians. Do Labor Unions Promote the Middle Class, David Henderson EconLog Library of Economics and Liberty. The Atlantic Times Archive. The Bitch is Back Books GQ. Thoughts about women and homemaking in the 21st century.
Apple granted patent for the MacBook Air. "Outsourced and Out of Work" by Joseph E. Stiglitz | Project Syndicate. McKinsey: Full employment by 2020 will only occur in the most rosy scenario. Where is the U.S. headed if more than 100 million people get welfare? Cafferty File. Atlas Shrugged in 1000 Words. Journal Issue.