Today's Snooze J carries a front-page article on the Provost search at DSU , and the devastating report issued by the university's search firm about reactions of candidates asked to apply. The news isn't good. Yes, the "Steve Newton" quoted in the interview as President of the DSU Chapter of the AAUP is me. I don't normally do interviews about DSU, and you'll notice that I've never posted about it here. But the News Journal called me, at the behest of someone very senior in the university hierarchy whom I cannot name. I felt obligated to answer questions honestly. Let me be clear: DSU is a great institution with a great potential future. We are currently undergoing a period of uncertainty and transition. We'll come through it as we as a university community work through it. I'll continue to try to be a positive part of that process, but don't expect to see me in the newspaper like this again, and don't expect me to post on it here. ...

Nothing in today's world is as out of date as a dead science fiction writer who stopped publishing in the late 1980s when Alzheimer's struck him. The technology in his stories is out of date, his futures have been superseded, and unless someone picks him up for a classic reprint, he's relegated to eBay and the second-hand bookstores. I mean, look at him--even the suit is cheesy. But I want to make the case that you should go out and find, and then read reverently, some of the best (and even some of the worst) of A. E. van Vogt's work. The beginning of modern science fiction is generally traced not to the appearance of the first story by Isaac Asimov or Robert Heinlein, but to the appearance of Van Vogt's Black Destroyer in John W. Campbell's Astounding during the summer of 1939. This story would later become a major inspiration for Ridley Scott's Alien movies. Within a few years Van Vogt would establish himself as one of the titans of science fiction, ...

Regular readers will recall my treatment of the Franco-Chinese relationship that emerged under Jaques Chirac and continues full throttle with Nicholas Sarkozy at the helm. Today Sarkozy is in India, cementing a deal to bring India into compliance with the International Atomic Energy Agency (making the country eligible to purchase fuel and reactor technology more freely) and to strengthen France's existing position as a military supplier to India. From Al-Jazeera : France and India have completed negotiations on a civilian nuclear technology agreement, the two leaders said, but Sarkozy said the deal depends on India concluding its own agreement on nuclear safeguards with the IAEA. India's booming economy is desperate for energy, and such deals would allow the country to buy nuclear fuels and reactors. They would also bring India into the nuclear mainstream after decades of its isolation due to its refusal to sign non-proliferation treaties and its testing of nuclear weapons.....

Today Governor Ruth Ann Minner announced her final proposed $3.4 Billion budget. It includes no pay raise for State employees. Given that there seems to be virtually no chance that the General Assembly will take action on recent recommendations to repeal Delaware's Prevailing Wage Law for school construction (savings of $34 Million to be expected)--guaranteeing that labor costs on such projects will continue to rise--here's what that means in the NewSpeak language of our Progressive friends: Governor Ruth Ann Minner today proposed a massive transfer of wealth from all State employees to all contract laborers on State construction projects. So much for our teachers, prison guards, social service workers....

There is a lot of discussion and debate in this presidential year over American Health Care. And for once I'm not going there. Whether we keep the present system or go to a single-payer plan, the issue of Medical Futility will always be with us. At what point do doctors acquire the right--even the responsibility--to tell the families of intractable patients that they will no longer apply extraordinary measures to prolong a life that is already effectively ended? What tactics are acceptable for physicians to use in convincing a family to "pull the plug"? From one of my favorite (but inherently depressing) blogs, Medical Futility , comes this heart-rending case from Georgia, decided yesterday. It's a case in which parents signed a consent form to stop treatment of their two-year-old daughter on the doctor's advice. Later, they sued, arguing that they had been pressured into signing the consent forms. Take the time to read it, and ask yourself: While I understand ...

Recently, at First State Politics , Dave Burris has taken considerable heat for his stand that Delaware's Prevailing Wage laws should be repealed. I happen to agree with him, but that's not the point of this post. The arguments for and against this policy involve unions, taxpayer interest in reducing costs, and a wide variety of other factors, all of which can be argued with logic, passion, and evidence by all comers. That debate has been fruitful and enlightening from all sides, even though I doubt it has changed the position of too many (if any) of the participants. However, Dave made the following comment during the course of the debate: According to many scholars, prevailing wage laws were first created in order to help labor unions stifle the prevalence of black labor that was undercutting their racket. This has been seized upon by the Progressive blog Delaware Watch for an extended posting Disgusting: Dave Burris’ Use of the Race Card in the Prevailing Wage Debate , in...

I'm asking you to visit The Curvature and take the time to read Cara's long post on the British NHS "Know Your Limits" campaign that is actually an anti-drinking campaign, but uses women being raped to make a very bizarre argument. It is a long post, and does not lend itself to abstracting. If you want to get the most out of it, however, first visit the "Know Your Limits" site and play the game as a female. Make the most dangerous choices you can make (chat up the cute guy, take a drink, ride in a taxi home), and see what happens. Then visit Cara and find out the subtext of what's really going on.