George Will on Colbert

A sad but true line from Colbert:
"My guest tonight is one of the intellectual giants of conservatism. He doesn't have as much competition as he used to."

I've never seen Will speak before, but I was very impressed. He's probably the closest I've seen to Buckley both in his persona and his old school conservative views.

"The government's job is to deliver the mail, defend the shores, and get out of the way."

I think he's mostly right, but where did he get the idea that the government should be delivering the mail? Thankfully it's only a small tinge of statism.

Too bad Lexis stopped giving points away, otherwise I'd get his book for free. But I think I'll still buy it.

Barry Goldwater

"A government that has the power to give you everything you want also has the power to take away everything you have."
-Barry Goldwater

I used to think that Ron Paul was the only politician who invoked Barry Goldwater these days, but I recently finished Reclaiming Conservatism by Mickey Edwards. Edwards is a former Congressman who served for 16 years and was one of the founders of the Heritage Foundation. I was very surprised to hear a Heritage Foundation leader viciously criticize neo-cons for supporting bigger government and an aggressive foreign policy.

It's also a fantastic read for anyone interested in the recent history of the conservative movement. I'm also becoming more sympathetic to the term "paleocon" even though it makes me think of small government dinosaur fossils.

Possible Speaker?

A recent post from Eugene Volokh's blog:

[Eugene Volokh, June 3, 2008 at 5:12pm]

Talks to a Few Federalist Society Student Chapters Next Spring:

I won't be teaching most of next Spring, and my boys will be a little older and (I hope) less of a handful for my wife to mind; so I'm hoping that I could do a bit more talking to Federalist Society student groups, something that I enjoy but that I have unfortunately not been able to do for the last few years.

My hope, though, is that I could avoid taking two-day-long trips across country just to give one talk. So if you are in a city with several law schools, would like to invite me to talk to your Federalist Society, and can coordinate things with a few other chapters so that I can do three or four talks in two or three days, please e-mail me at volokh at law dot ucla dot edu.

What we waste time on in education

More grade inflation. A number of schools have decided to change grade Fs from zero to 50. As a math major in college, this comment did it for me:

"It's a classic mathematical dilemma: that the students have a six times greater chance of getting an F," says Douglas Reeves, founder of The Leadership and Learning Center.

I don't want to explain what's wrong with that.

One consequence is because 60% is all that's needed to be considered proficient, students can now do absolutely nothing but squeak by on a single exam and pass.

Government math

The New York Times reports on the number of state and local governments promising benefits to public workers based on nonsense for the most part.

Things like having consultants hired by the workers themselves to do the analysis.

One great example: when Fort Worth's pension fund ended up with a $410 million deficit, they found that an actuary had calculated that the city could put less money into and give more away. All they needed was a 10.23% annual growth rate!

There is one possible solution: getting the regulator, the Internal Revenue Service, to stop the fox from guarding the henhouses.

Update on knife control in England

The Sun reports on the new shock advertising campaign featuring bloody images of real-knife wounds. More than 400 search-and-stop operations during a two-week blitz. The images, clips and radio advertisements feel strangely familiar.

Environmentalists decide to scare the children

The state-sponsored Australian Broadcasting Corporation's "Planet Slayer" site has an interesting way to inform children about their environmental impact. Children are invited to take a quiz and informs them "what age you should die at so you don’t use more than your fair share of Earth’s resources!"

Australian Senator Mitch Fifield asked the Herald-Sun, "Do you think it's appropriate that the ABC ... depict people who are average Australians as massive overweight ugly pigs, oozing slime from their mouths, and then to have these pigs blow up in a mass of blood and guts?"

Of course, as PlanetSlayer's "creative director" tells the New York Post, "you can't buy publicity like that."

Luckily for me, I only should have died at age 9.6, so I'm doing better than most. Take the quiz yourself.