Nice to see a trade school doing something good:
http://www.wacotrib.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/02/07/02072007wacWelderzz.html
There is a shortage of welders. If you don't believe me just open up any classified. This article says the guys start out making $20+ an hour. The question I want answered is why in the name of all that is good and holy do soo many college students who have no aspiration to do anything beside make money not go to trade schools and become welders, electricians, machinery technicians, etc? Why waste all that time and money going to a university when you can save two years and learn immediately marketable skills at technical schools?
Maybe part of the reason is that a university degree bestows some degree of social standing on a graduate. That's probably due to myths about the value of education created by the intelligensia. Those of us in academia need to do a better job of pulling the university off the cross.
Thursday, February 8, 2007
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
The Good and the Very Bad
On the good side of things this morning:
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article1268960.ece
This is an article by Walter Olson on warning labels. Thankfully my father never paid attention to the headline.
On the awful side, go over to the Drudge Report this morning and just take a gander at the headlines: global warming skeptics being fired, proposals for ecological crime laws, and a ban on walking and listening to music! (I'm not making that up.)
My shack in the woods days are drawing nearer.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article1268960.ece
This is an article by Walter Olson on warning labels. Thankfully my father never paid attention to the headline.
On the awful side, go over to the Drudge Report this morning and just take a gander at the headlines: global warming skeptics being fired, proposals for ecological crime laws, and a ban on walking and listening to music! (I'm not making that up.)
My shack in the woods days are drawing nearer.
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
Cold, Hard Facts?
Here's a link to an article by a global warming skeptic, a retired Canadian climatologist and current environmental consultant.
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/global-warming020507.htm
Toward the end, he writes:
"Until you have challenged the prevailing wisdom you have no idea how nasty people can be."
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/global-warming020507.htm
Toward the end, he writes:
"Until you have challenged the prevailing wisdom you have no idea how nasty people can be."
Monday, February 5, 2007
Ethanol Subsidies
There is a neat little debate about ethanol subsidies and tax credits at the Property and Environmental Research Center (PERC). It's from their magazine from March 2006.
http://www.perc.org/perc.php?subsection=5&id=780
http://www.perc.org/perc.php?subsection=5&id=780
Super Bowl Ads
I was slightly disappointed. Looked like a disproportionate number of beer ads and way too many ads for the CSI's.
If you go over to The New York Times or catch it at The Drudge Report, one writer thinks that the ads with cartoonish violence, like the Rock Paper Scissors ad, might reflect the toll of the Iraq war. I can only respond: COME ON! It's just funny stuff. Stop reading too much into everything and looking for spurious relationships. What's funnier than a bunch of guys slapping each other?
Texas and Texas A&M tonight in College Station. Big game, especially after A&M knocked off Kansas in Kansas Saturday. I couldn't help thinking about the authorities having to disperse the crowd of Aggies trying to buy tickets. If you want to efficiently distribute tickets, just raise the price. Those willing and able to pay will purchase them. This way, A&M can capture the rents that I guarantee you scalpers will capture instead. Also it may force the Aggies to learn a little economics. Of course raising the prices of tickets due to increased demand will never happen on a college campus, but one can dream.
If you go over to The New York Times or catch it at The Drudge Report, one writer thinks that the ads with cartoonish violence, like the Rock Paper Scissors ad, might reflect the toll of the Iraq war. I can only respond: COME ON! It's just funny stuff. Stop reading too much into everything and looking for spurious relationships. What's funnier than a bunch of guys slapping each other?
Texas and Texas A&M tonight in College Station. Big game, especially after A&M knocked off Kansas in Kansas Saturday. I couldn't help thinking about the authorities having to disperse the crowd of Aggies trying to buy tickets. If you want to efficiently distribute tickets, just raise the price. Those willing and able to pay will purchase them. This way, A&M can capture the rents that I guarantee you scalpers will capture instead. Also it may force the Aggies to learn a little economics. Of course raising the prices of tickets due to increased demand will never happen on a college campus, but one can dream.
Friday, February 2, 2007
Is American Idol democratic?
There is an article in The New York Times today on the increased participation of fans in choosing certain pop culture outcomes, such as American Idol, Rock Star, the Grease show and all kinds of stuff involving the Super Bowl. The title of the article is "Democracy Rules, and Pop Culture Depends on It." I can't help focusing on the democracy part of the title and story.
In democratic governments, such as ours (we're not a pure democracy, but that's for another time), everyone has a vote, someone wins, the other person loses, and we live the with decision of the majority and the winner holds office. In the American Idols contests, is there really this type of democratic decision making? The fans vote and someone wins (Kelly Clarkson for instance), but that doesn't stop you from preferring the music of Sideshow Bob (Justin whatever his last name is that was runner up to Clarkson). You still have a choice as to which person's music you prefer and you can act accordingly and purchase their CD's. You are not bound by the decision of the majority. (Granted, the number of votes per person is unlimited in the American Idol case, but the decision is still made by popular vote.) In government, you are bound by the decision of the majority. If you prefer John Kerry too bad, George W. Bush is president.
Which leads me to conclude that the "democracy" practiced in pop culture situations and government are different animals. The democracy of pop culture does not force you to do anything. You can believe that Taylor Hicks is a no talent bum and avoid his tunes like Rosie O'Donnell avoids Chip and Dales dancers. You're not bound by a majority decision. If you don't like a minimum wage set by a democratically elected Congress, just try to make your displeasure known by paying someone or agreeing to work for less!
So all I can say is thank God pop culture as a whole is not democratic. Otherwise I'd be stuck listening to George Strait and Green Day instead of Black Label Society and Dream Theater. Thank God pop culture is subject to the market and not democratic control so I'm not bound by the preferences of the majority and I can't force anyone to adopt my preferences.
In democratic governments, such as ours (we're not a pure democracy, but that's for another time), everyone has a vote, someone wins, the other person loses, and we live the with decision of the majority and the winner holds office. In the American Idols contests, is there really this type of democratic decision making? The fans vote and someone wins (Kelly Clarkson for instance), but that doesn't stop you from preferring the music of Sideshow Bob (Justin whatever his last name is that was runner up to Clarkson). You still have a choice as to which person's music you prefer and you can act accordingly and purchase their CD's. You are not bound by the decision of the majority. (Granted, the number of votes per person is unlimited in the American Idol case, but the decision is still made by popular vote.) In government, you are bound by the decision of the majority. If you prefer John Kerry too bad, George W. Bush is president.
Which leads me to conclude that the "democracy" practiced in pop culture situations and government are different animals. The democracy of pop culture does not force you to do anything. You can believe that Taylor Hicks is a no talent bum and avoid his tunes like Rosie O'Donnell avoids Chip and Dales dancers. You're not bound by a majority decision. If you don't like a minimum wage set by a democratically elected Congress, just try to make your displeasure known by paying someone or agreeing to work for less!
So all I can say is thank God pop culture as a whole is not democratic. Otherwise I'd be stuck listening to George Strait and Green Day instead of Black Label Society and Dream Theater. Thank God pop culture is subject to the market and not democratic control so I'm not bound by the preferences of the majority and I can't force anyone to adopt my preferences.
UN Climate Change Panel and the French
This line from Jacques Chirac from the Reuters write up on the report is priceless:
"Faced with this emergency, now is not the time for half measures. It is the time for a revolution, in the true sense of the term. We are in truth on the historical doorstep of the irreversible."
Who knows more about revolutions than the French? I guess heads are going to role. I should take bets on which revolution will sweep France first, the revolution in energy and society that will be required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to some level or the Islamic Revolution that's already well underway in France.
In France's defense they are on their way to banning smoking in public, so they're doing their part to stop emissions. Here's a great summary of the French attitude toward the State from a bank worker on the smoking ban: "We've no choice but to obey. The law is the law. Values have changed, and we have to move with the times." Does anyone is France every stop to think that maybe this attitude is part of the reason the country is in an economic and societal malaise?
"Faced with this emergency, now is not the time for half measures. It is the time for a revolution, in the true sense of the term. We are in truth on the historical doorstep of the irreversible."
Who knows more about revolutions than the French? I guess heads are going to role. I should take bets on which revolution will sweep France first, the revolution in energy and society that will be required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to some level or the Islamic Revolution that's already well underway in France.
In France's defense they are on their way to banning smoking in public, so they're doing their part to stop emissions. Here's a great summary of the French attitude toward the State from a bank worker on the smoking ban: "We've no choice but to obey. The law is the law. Values have changed, and we have to move with the times." Does anyone is France every stop to think that maybe this attitude is part of the reason the country is in an economic and societal malaise?
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