3.5 Timeouts Tuesday

1.

I work at a university bookstore.  While I am not a right winger, politically, neither am I a left winger.  As such, I am sick to death of all the leftist books we get in here.  Can we please order some books with a message other than 'eat the rich!'?

2.

Speaking of which, today two titles arrived which sum up the problem neatly.  The first was Noam Chomsky's "How the World Works".  Any respect I ever had for the man (next to none) has now vanished.  The only people who are dumb enough to think that they got a handle on how the world works are first year university students, and those who never grew beyond first year.  Chomsky may have been in academia for., say, forty years, but that doesn't amount to forty years experience, but one years experience, forty times over.  Flipping through the book, it seemed to me to be broad assertions backed up by quotations and statistics taken out of context.  Typical first year stuff.

3.

The second was a book by a Nobel prize winning economist by the name of Krugman, called "End this Depression Now!"  Reading the dust jacket, which claimed that he lines up all his opponents and destroys them with a knock out blow, I learned that the guts of his book is a clarion call for massive government stimulus spending.  Now, I am not an economist, and I don't have a Nobel prize in anything, nor shall I, but, unless I am mistaken, the American Government launched a massive stimulus package not too long ago, and the net result was... nothing. 

Why are so many academics- both left and right, as the right falls for this trap as well- married to their stupid, outdated, useless and disprove ideas?

3.5

Here's a video from Britain's Got Talent, (and Canada's Got Talent people, take note and do a better job of using the Internet if your show survives into next season) featuring Jonathan Antoine and Charlotte Jaconelli.  The last time, I posted about their audition, and how Simon sought to break up the duo.  Now, Simon eats crow, or realizes that the two make a better story and are therefore more valuable as a duo.