mehI don’t usually make a point of linking to Zero Tolerance Follies because they all tend to run together, but complaining that a deaf boy’s name sign looks too much like a gun is a new one.

Bilingualism in Canada is declining.

Prairie voles in love…. thanks to a love drug. It’s fascinating to think about.

Inside Higher Ed has an piece looking at Asian-American support and opposition to affirmative action. They’re really the demographic to watch, as many of the strongest voices I’ve heard on both sides of the debate come from Asian-Americans.

I suppose it’s supposed to be telling that the government has a lot of different definitions of rural. But seriously? It’s all pretty relative and different definitions are appropriate, even if maybe we do have more than we need.

Given our lack of life insurance on Clancy and what a jam I would be in if something happened to her, I’ve put some thought into what happens if something happens to her. One of the possibilities is Midland, Texas, which isn’t pretty, but it’s productive.

PPACA comes with a slush fund.

Who in Brazil thought that a Happy Prostitute ad campaign was a good idea?

Sometimes, science conflicts with the message that scientists want to send. In this case, obesity. (To be fair, he was rebuked.)

The NYT has an article on real life examples of The Breakup. It is, of course, gratifying to have my biases against premarital cohabitation confirmed, albeit my anecdote in this case.

When considering policy for the safety of children, we can be quite selective in what we will consider.

How the government and its good intentions screwed up spectrum-assignment, one of the factors leading to our mobile phone industry being in the shape it’s in.

Gray wolves may be getting off the endangered species list.

How noise-cancelling signals could lead to a faster and more reliable Internet.


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16 Responses to Linkluster Meh

  1. Peter says:

    Regarding Asians and affirmative action, it’s long been my understanding that Asian political advocacy groups do not come close to representing typical Asian-American views. Most Asians have little or no involvement with or interest in such groups. Some Asian advocacy groups may support affirmative action, but it’s a very reasonable guess that the great majority of individual Asians do not.

  2. David Alexander says:

    Bilingualism in Canada is declining.

    From what I’ve seen, being bilingual in Canada is really a proxy for a select number of Anglophones looking to work for the Canadian Federal government, and Francophones who learn enough English to watch Anglophone media. Otherwise, for your average Anglophone, there’s little to no reason to learn French as most Anglophones live in majority Anglophone areas.

    From what I’ve seen with friends and family, Francophones in Eastern Ontario have far better English skills than their counterparts in Quebec. My cousin was able to transfer from a French high school to an English college without much trouble, while my cousins in Quebec still have relatively weak English skills and would have no business being in an English college. The former grew up as French speakers in an English world, while the latter grew up sheltered in Quebec’s language regime. The differences certain explain why some feel justified in maintaining that language regime lest Quebecois culture disappear and collapse under the weight of Anglo-Saxon North America.

  3. David Alexander says:

    One of the possibilities is Midland, Texas, which isn’t pretty, but it’s productive.

    It’s hard to point at somewhere like Midland when it’s basically fueled by petro-extraction. That place would have taken off with NYS’s tax regime.

    And given the risks to the water supply of New York City (and potentially Philadelphia), it’s understandable as to why we’re reluctant to permit drilling.

    • Trumwill says:

      Sure, Midland would be fine with New York’s tax regime. But would New York’s regulatory regime allow something like that to take off to begin with? Or would there be petitions about the water supply?

      • trumwill says:

        Less than clear. I don’t think that the danger has to be to NYC’s or Philly’s water supply. I think the danger has to be to the water supply more generally. And I think NYC and Philly would freak out whether it would hit their water supply or not.

        They’d find a reason to make it not happen.

        • David Alexander says:

          From some of the proposals floating around, the real concern seems to be the water supply in general, but they may simply ban any drilling in the Catskills region because of the effects on the water supply for New York. The cost of building filters could easily outweigh the costs of any revenue for drilling. Drill in regions west of I-81 where the water won’t flow into the Catskill or Hudson watersheds, and you may see far less controversy.

  4. David Alexander says:

    It’s all pretty relative and different definitions are appropriate, even if maybe we do have more than we need.

    To think there are places in NYC Metro that could actually qualify as rural…

    • trumwill says:

      Yeah, that is a definition problem.

      • Mike Hunt Rice says:

        I like the new math app.

        Anyway, Northern New Jersey, which is part of NYC Metro, is quite varied in the density of the population. You don’t have to drive very far to get to parts of NJ that are down right pastoral, and the mountains aren’t much further away than that. We aren’t called The Garden State ironically.

        Before cheap AC and cheap airfare, New Yorkers used to drive to the Catskills for vacation. They are definitely part of the NYC DMA.

        • trumwill says:

          There are some pastoral places near Colosse, as well.

          The term is, nonetheless, “suburbs” and/or “exurbs” rather than “rural.”

          As an aside, I read an interview sometime back about an actress that is from the Colosse area, or a suburb thereof (Thessalonica). She describes growing up in “farm country” and I thought “Thessalonica is not exactly farm country.”

          She’s a little bit older than I am, though. And the thought occurred to me that given that there were three high schools in that school district when I grew up and there are eight now, it’s possible that it was a lot more farmy even 5-10 years before I first made my way out there. (Especially given that for those in the district, there are certainly more on the outskirts of it.

          This is in marked contrast to the part of town where I grew up. The third traditional high school had just been built when my brothers started high school in the late eighties, and now there are… five. For Colosse, that’s not rapid growth at all. Not because neighboring districts have expanded much, either. I guess the area is boxed in by water and towns that nobody wants to live because of the odors and for safety reasons.

          Glad you like the math app. The other one wasn’t just easy to miss, it turned out not to be very effective at all.

          • David Alexander says:

            In contrast, my town has had the same three high schools since the late 1960s. If anything, they closed down two middle schools in the 1980s, and they just closed down an elementary school and eliminated bussing for the elementary school students in our section.

            I can’t think of any town around here that will build a new school unless it’s a replacement for an old school.

          • trumwill says:

            I found it very interesting that New York City (proper) has actually been experiencing considerably more population growth than I would have thought. I guess not so much for families, though, so not so much need for new schools.

          • David Alexander says:

            To be honest, I suspect that’s it’s immigrants replacing older residents, and hipsters.

            And to be honest, NYC has been on bit of a mini-school building boom for the past decade or so to relieve overcrowding. More so in places like Queens and Staten Island than say, Brooklyn. For example, they built three new elementary schools near my grandmother’s neighbourhood.

      • David Alexander says:

        Remember, 1 in every 15 Americans resides in the loosely defined NYC Metro Area. 🙂

        Of course, given that the metro area stretches about 75 miles or so away from the city, it makes some sense for some rural areas to be included. Technically, they’re really exurban, but there are places that are rural in Western New Jersey, Long Island, or the Hudson Valley that will probably never see large scale development.

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