All those topics that i wish i had time to pursue more earnestly.

Internet research 7.0 Conference Program:

The conference program is available here, in PDF format.

Prejudice and fear surrounding sexual pleasure makes me weep:
You’ve seen the bumper sticker: “You think education is expensive? Try ignorance.” The costs of sexual ignorance are far, far greater than the costs of honest sexual education.
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knowledge in this case is necessary, to keep someone in ignorance because of personal embarassment seems to be antithetical to the spirit of education.

Belfast Telegraph:
Isn’t it contradictory to ascribe human-based rights to animals? Surely
it is absurd to apply a purely human concept to an animal who has no hope of ever understanding such a thing?
Zaki Nahaboo, London

Not at all. Anyone who ascribes rights to babies or humans with intellectual disabilities must be willing to attribute rights to beings who can’t understand the concept. It’s the moral agents, the ones who are acting, who need to understand the concept. Those to whom we attribute rights, do not need to understand these concepts.
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He’s a utilitarian, i’m more of a virtue theorist, but unsurprisingly most of his ethical answers are similar to mine.

Google Book Search: Celebrate Your Freedom to Read:
plore Banned Books

For more information about Banned Books Week (September 23rd-30th), visit http://www.ala.org/bbooks.
Is a book being challenged or banned in your community? The ALA can help you
do something about it.

To Kill a Mockingbird. Of Mice and Men. The Great Gatsby. 1984. It’s hard to imagine a world without these extraordinary literary classics, but every year there are hundreds of attempts to remove great books from libraries and schools. In fact, according to the American Library Association, 42 of 100 books recognized by the Radcliffe Publishing Course as the best novels of the 20th century have been challenged or banned.

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banned books week…..

Idéologie has taken over – Jeffrey Hart:
But that was then. Today, the standard-bearer of “conservatism” in the United States is George W. Bush, a man who has taken the positions of an unshakable ideologue: on supply-side economics, on privatization, on Social Security, on the Terri Schiavo case, and, most disastrously, on Iraq. Never before has a United States president consistently adhered to beliefs so disconnected from actuality.
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another conservative pundit speaks out…

And we thought Clinton had no self-control – Joe Scarborough:
This must all be shocking to my Republican friends who still believe our country would be a better place if our party controlled every branch of government as well as every news network, movie studio, and mid-American pulpit. But evidence suggests that divided government may be what Washington needs the most.

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or perhaps just a democratic government…

The Scientist : Are We Training Too Many Scientists? :
After three years of postdoctoral work at the Mayo Clinic, Crystal Icenhour was ready to embrace the life of an independent researcher in a tenure track position. But after more than a year of job searching, and only a couple of job interviews, she was bitterly disappointed. The first job was lost to another more qualified applicant. The second institution was hiring two faculty: one senior, one junior. “I thought I had that one … I was ready to pack my bags because the interview went so well and they asked for start-up requirements,” says Icenhour. But after the senior faculty hire negotiated his compensation, there were insufficient funds for the junior position. “He offered me a postdoc in his lab… I didn’t take it.”

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I don’t think people should take postdocs.. frequently they end up being just another form of underpaid labor. some prestigious postdocs are fine and good institutions, but not all are. postdocs narrow your options and i think, that most cut down on your capacity to seek future employment.

Seed: Girl Shortage Could Cause Rise in Crime:
The authors assert that over the next 20 years, in parts of China and India, there will be a 12 to 15 percent excess of young men—men who will have to remain single in societies that also place a high value on marriage. Because women will be able to select high status males to marry, the men who remain single are most likely to be members of the lower classes or those who are otherwise undesirable.

These unmarried, low-status males are the people most likely to be perpetrators of violent crime, the authors suggest. Previous research has shown a strong correlation between sex ratio and violence.

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the lumpenproletariot will lead the revolution? to what… we’ve seen this demographic shift in the past, and yes, two factors increase in male youth and unmarried males both contribute significantly to crime rate… what we’ve not seen is this sort of ’scale’ of problem.

The Globalist | Global Economy — U.S. Universities and Global Competition:
Traditional assumptions about who can and should attend college are no longer adequate, if we are to remain competitive.

Without the economic success that is the product of education, we as a nation may face a reduction in our quality of life in the next generation, something unheard of in our past.

To avert what sometimes appears to me an impending societal train wreck, education must become the central focus of our society.

In China, I witnessed an unprecedented effort now underway to build from scratch approximately 100 research universities.

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larger population means larger talent pool, larger talent pool means more possible genius’s and innovators… the question becomes whether that can be centralized through universities in china, much like the u.s. did in the 50’s-60’s or not.

Yesterday, the Pratt Manhattan Library started the first of what I hope will be a very long tradition of hosting the September Project, we had a good sized audience for the starting event and 3 speakers. Professor Bencivengo presented on the Patriot Act and the ethical issues it raises. Professor Rabina presented on the recent practices and legal aspects of security classified information, specifically the movement to reclassify documents that were previously released. I spoke to the broader issues of where the normative foundations of information professional and librarians might lie in the digital age through my presentation on cosmopolitan democracy: dissent and informational power. Our librarian, Jean Hines, did an excellent job in pulling this effort together and I look forward to working with her on the September Project in the future. Thanks also go to David Silver and his colleagues at University of Washington for imagining the project and providing the network of information that makes it interesting and successful.