A few months ago I was supposed to read Bryan Caplan’s “The Case Against Education” for a libertarian book club meeting. Since I read Charles Murray’s “Real Education” shortly after it was published, I did not think that it can offer me much new information, but it did.
Both should be read. Caplan’s book has a different approach but arrives to the same conclusion as Charles Murray. Continue reading →
I know some smart people. I know that they are smart because they have all the credentials, the accomplishments and the recognition to prove it. They are experts in their fields, they are clearly knowledgeable, they are articulate and very confident about the value of their knowledge.
Yet, when it comes to subjects that is not in the direct purview of their field of expertise, they can be excessively stupid and difficult to argue with. Their stupidity on those subjects can be outright obnoxious. Continue reading →
The following item was part of my daily dose of the Economist this Tuesday the 7th of June:
Class action: China’s university entrance
The 9.4m teenagers taking the two-day exam which starts today have been cramming for years. The tests, known as the gaokao, will (they believe) determine their entire future. Meritocratic exams have been revered in China since imperial times, when any man could sit them to enter the civil service. For centuries they enabled the poor but talented to rise to high office. The gaokao is intended similarly to be a great leveller. But China’s education system is becoming more unfair. The number of university students has increased nearly sevenfold since 1998, but the expanded intake has mostly been from cities, whereas 90% of rural youths leave school at 15 or younger. As a result the country is increasingly divided between those with degrees and those who never even make it to senior high school. Give China’s rulers a failing grade on that test.
I am very often puzzled by conservative media.
Anthony Furey was hosting Ezra’s The Source the other day talking to someone in Vancouver about the Vancouver School board’s new policy about sexual orientation.
We went to visit our liberal friend in New York. The last I was there before, the WTC towers were still standing. The Giuliani reforms just started working.
Before we went, we all agreed not to talk politics but we all know how difficult that is. Everything is politics.We drove by a school proudly declaring itself a magnet school on a sign above its entrance. “I hate these things” she said. “Why?” I asked. She started to explain and in the middle of the explanation she asked a rhetorical question: “who wouldn’t agree that we need excellent public education?” My wife and I answered in almost perfect unison: “I wouldn’t”- said I, “I would, it is just not possible” – said my wife.
“Well, there you go” she said in apparent shock and that was the end of the conversation.
There is an awful lot of talk on Sun News about balls. From the shorn scrotum of Dr Evil/Special Rapporteur De Schutter to the invisible balls of Premiere Charest.
But how about the balls of Sun media? Continue reading →
