First, the ones that will increase your net earnings (over the course of 20 years) by the highest margin. You won't be surprised to learn that computer science degrees (from different elite colleges) make up nine of the ten college/major combinations; the only non-computer science one in the top ten is an economics degree from a minor little school called Standford.

And then there's the colleges that will actually make you poorer -- when you deduct the cost of college (and cost of not working for four years) from the marginal increase in your net earnings, it sums to below zero -- and the specific majors which will make you poorer on the deal, too.

There's not a big surprise here, either. The majors which tend to be bad investments are Art, Humanities, English, and Education.

On that last one, teachers might say that this is a reason that they should be paid more; I'd suggest an alternate conclusion. My conclusion is that the Education degree should not be a major, but instead just an intensive minor. People with an education degree cannot work in any other area with that degree except education, which traps them in a fairly low-paid field. They cannot easily -- even if they wished to -- jump ship to another career.

And I really have trouble believing that teachers should spend most of their time studying, in a meta, bullshitty sort of way, the Theory of Education, as opposed to studying a specific subject matter (math, history, whatever else).

I am very skeptical that the Theory of Education itself can be gainfully studied as a four-year major. I have to think that after the first four or five courses, there's a lot of repetition, and a lot of higher abstract theorizing that very few in-the-field teachers have need of.

But I don't think the entrenched Education establishment would like that proposal, because it would mean an end to their phony-baloney jobs in college Education departments.

One way in which these numbers are misleading, or at least incomplete, is that they disguise an important fact: Students going to Caltech for comp science are going to make a lot more money than a student going to Murray State College for Arts whether they went to college or not. The Caltech comp science guy is, look, coming into the classroom a lot smarter than the Murray State Arts grad. Even if they both dropped out of school on the first day of classes, the guy who was at Caltech would make more money that the Murray State student.

But that's just an argument for another point: There are a lot of fairly useless degrees out there, degrees that will actually have a negative impact on someone's economic fortunes, and that means that there are a lot of people going to college who just shouldn't be going to college.

They should just start working after high school, at least if they want to maximize their earnings, which, whether they know it at 18 or not, they will, at least by age 28, if not earlier.

It's around age 28 where all the bullshit-bullshit and excuses of the college years start falling away and people start realizing, damnit, I need to start making some money.

Posted by: Ace at 09:49 AM | Comments (334)
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This is the pinnacle.

Celebrating Another Phony Obamacare Milestone

By David Hogberg

This week, the Department of Health and Human Services reported that enrollment in the ObamaCare exchanges had reached 6 million.

...

There are still plenty of things we don’t know about enrollment, which makes today’s announcement highly suspect. The most important question is: how many people have not paid their first premium? The New York Times reports that number may be as high as 20 percent. If so, then true enrollment would be closer to 4.8 million. This matters if for no other reason than it allows the Administration to claim success. If the true number is 6 million, then Administration lackeys will say, “Hey, look how close we got to 7 million.” However, if it’s under 5 million, they won’t have much to cheer about. Indeed, it’s fodder for critics. Although it’s pretty clear that the Administration has this information, don’t count on them releasing it, especially if it isn’t good. Rather, will have to wait until insurers start releasing their numbers.

Another important matter we donÂ’t know is how many persons who were previously uninsured have signed up on the exchanges. Estimates vary from 10 percent to 35 percent. If we assume that there are 6 million enrollees (based on the previous paragraph, thatÂ’s a very generous assumption), then the number of uninsured who now have coverage via the exchanges ranges from 600,000 to 2.1 million.

Actually, depending on how many of those who had their insurance cancelled choose to now remain uninsured, Hogberg figures Obamacare could actually be a "wash" -- net zero -- as far providing coverage to the population. If those who had insurance, and who are now going without, equal that number the uninsured now insured (or "insured"), then Obamacare would have had a net zero impact on the population of the insured.

Except, of course, for creating a constituency of dependents for Obama.

Just a lesson for all of you:

With hard work, with grit and guts: you too can fake great things. All it takes is a bit of brio, a pliant media, and an HHS Secretary who doesn't know any of the numbers except the ones she's come to advertise.

Posted by: Ace at 08:36 AM | Comments (362)
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She was born with Usher syndrome, which made her deaf since birth and then struck her blind in her mid-20s.

Usher syndrome is...

a rare genetic disorder associated with a mutation in any one of 10 genes resulting in a combination of hearing loss and visual impairment and is a leading cause of deafblindness.

It is incurable at present. The condition is characterized by hearing loss and gradual loss of vision.

The below video, definitely worth a watch, shows her reaction to hearing sounds (and human speech) for the first time in her life.

The cochlear implant catches sounds itself, then sends those impulses directly to the auditory nerve, bypassing the broken circuit of her actual ear. The implant transmits basic sounds, not the rich range natural hearing offers, but at this point, I guess, she's not complaining.

Actually she does say "everything sounds so high-pitched," which her nurse assures her will change once her brain figures out what sounds are being transmitted by which part of the auditory nerve.

But that's a curious thing -- how the heck does a woman deaf since birth know what "high-pitched" is?

Faker.

Just kidding.

She called the experience "overwhelming," which is borne out by the video.

"The switch-on was the most emotional and overwhelming experience of my life and IÂ’m still in shock now. I have to learn to recognise what these sounds are as I build a sound library in my brain.

"Hearing things for the first time is so emotional from the ping of a light switch to running water. I canÂ’t stop crying and I can already foresee how itÂ’s going to be life changing." The operation also means Joanne has been able to hear her own -- and othersÂ’ -- voices for the first time. She said: "IÂ’m so happy. Over the last 48 hours hearing someone laughing behind me, the birds twittering and just being with friends... they didnÂ’t have to tap my arm to get my attention which a massive leap."

I guess also she's still blind. But one miracle at a time.

Thanks to @mflynny (NDH).

more...

Posted by: Ace at 04:43 PM | Comments (167)
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It looks like the people of Detroit are defending themselves and their homes since they can't depend on the city's police force.

Detroit Police Chief James Craig said at a press conference last week that in his 37-year career, he’s never seen as many homeowners defending themselves by shooting intruders. Craig told The News in January he felt the crime rate could be lowered if more “good Americans” were armed, because he said criminals would think twice about attacking.

“It does appear more and more Detroiters are becoming empowered,” Craig said. “More and more Detroiters are getting sick of the violence. I know of no other place where I’ve seen this number of justifiable homicides. It’s interesting that these incidents go across gender lines.”

Empowered. I like that word choice.

Remember, if the government is rolled back for whatever reason(in this case the bankruptcy of a city), the citizenry can always pick up the slack. We aren't helpless.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 07:40 AM | Comments (330)
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Noah: The Comedy - Magic seeds, unicorns, and rock people, oh my! Erick Erickson watched it so that you don't have to. Say "Thank you". [NDH]

Posted by: Open Blogger at 06:59 AM | Comments (3)
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• Ezekial's Prophecy: Obamacare's Biggest Disruptions Are Yet To Come
  
• The Autumn Of Patriarch Harry Reid
  
• NRSC Jumps On Braley Gaffe
  
• State Department Gets Tough On Putin By Posting Selfies
  
• Russian Build Up On Ukrainian Border Stokes Worries
  
• Rhode Island Teach Assaults Student For Eating A Cookie In Class
  
• So God Made A Trail Lawyer
  
• Condi Rice Blasts Obama On Weakness
  
• Has Pop Culture Prepared Us To Settle For Less
  
• CITI Fails Stress Test
  

Sorry for the weak sauce news dump, I had a late night.

Follow me on twitter.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:14 AM | Comments (587)
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FRIDAY! Woooooo!

South Dakota judge gives okay for lawsuit over ABC News' "pink slime" stories to proceed.

One last great read on the Hobby Lobby argument.

Weekly Standard piece stating that there's little reason to believe Condi Rice is angling for a 2016 run likely to stoke commentary about whether Condi Rice is angling for a 2016 run.

Have a good weekend.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:45 AM | Comments (329)
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Littlewood's Law

Littlewood's law, or adage, states that an individual can expect to experience "miracles" at the rate of about one per month.

Littlewood defines a miracle as an exceptional event of special significance occurring at a frequency of one in a million. He assumes that during the hours in which a human is awake and alert, a human will see or hear one "event" per second, which may be either exceptional or unexceptional. Additionally, Littlewood supposes that a human is alert for about eight hours per day.

As a result a human will in 35 days have experienced under these suppositions about one million events. Accepting this definition of a miracle, one can expect to observe one miraculous event for every 35 days' time, on average - and therefore, according to this reasoning, seemingly miraculous events are actually commonplace.

Statistical miracles happen to us a lot. But we're either oblivious to them or they involve trivial events that we simply don't care about. But when something does cause us to pay exceptional attention to every single detail, all of sudden we discover these fairly common 'miracles' and they become the amazing coincidences that conspiracy theories are built on.

How Inmarsat Figured Out the Flight Path of MH370

On one hand the techniques used - precise timing differences, trigonometry, and using the Doppler Effect - are not new. But putting them all together, using it on the limited data they had, and cross-checking and confirming it against actual plane data in such a short time is reminiscent of the 'failure is not an answer' engineers of NASA's glory years.

And more here and here.

Also: 10 Planes That Mysteriously Vanished Without A Trace

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:06 PM | Comments (773)
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First, the bizarre attack itself, apparently an attempted "citizens arrest."

A George Mason University law professor was pepper sprayed in his classroom today after a man tried to place him under a citizenÂ’s arrest, according to Arlington County police.

The incident happened at GMU’s Arlington campus, near Virginia Square, around 3:00 p.m. Police say the man entered the classroom and attempted to place the professor under a citizen’s arrest. The professor tried to get the man — described as a white male in his 20s or 30s — to leave, at which time the man pepper sprayed him and a scuffle ensued, according to Arlington County Police spokesman Dustin Sternbeck.

You might suspect this guy was a lefty motivated by politics. Well, he may or may not be a lefty, but he doesn't seem to be motivated by politics.

He seems to have been motivated by delusions.

The man who attacked economist and George Mason University professor Tyler Cowen with pepper spray yesterday has been identified as 31-year-old John Pendleton.

Now, we don't know this email came from this John Pendleton, but shortly before the attack, a John Pendleton left this comment on Cowen's blog:

What better place to do prison research than inside a prison?

If the police and FBI won't arrest you for hacking my computer and sexually harassing me over the past several months, I will do it myself—in the next couple weeks before school starts again. Either way, one of us is going to prison

I will entertain settlement offers at the email address provided.

Sincerely,
Jonathan E Pendleton

I'm going to assume, provisionally, that Cowen did not in fact hack Pendleton's computers, nor "sexually harass" him, apparently remotely.

Coincidentally enough -- and this is true -- when Cowen was suddenly pepper sprayed in an attempt at a "citizens arrest," he was teaching a class on vigilante justice.

Cowen just emailed me to say he will go forward with next week's class, about Bugfuck Crazydrool Justice, as scheduled.

Thanks to Monty, @aoshqdoom.

Posted by: Ace at 02:10 PM | Comments (420)
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The law firm's report exonerating (supposedly) Christie says that key Bridgegate player Bridgie Kelly had a "personal relationship" with Christie's then-campaign-manager, Bill Stepien, a relationship which had cooled -- or soured -- just before Kelly sent her infamous email, "Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee."

The report claims the affair resulted in Kelly and Stepien barely communicating... and that this might have caused communication breakdowns regarding the Fort Lee lane closings.

"Indeed, that fact may have affected how Kelly and Stepien conducted themselves and whether they communicated about the lane realignment."

Two points: 1, feminists are going to freak out at the (claimed) implication that a woman's hormones caused all of this. The report doesn't say that, and doesn't really imply that, but, you know. You can get there if you really want to.

And MSNBC is going to really want to get there. "CHRIS CHRISTIE'S OLD BOYS CLUB BLAMES BRIDGEGATE ON WOMAN'S LIBIDO." You heard it here first.

2, when Bridgegate broke, I asked, jokingly, on the podcast, "Is it too early to speculate about an affair?"

Just sayin'.

It's Old: JackStraw says my prediction already came true before I predicted it -- he says Chris Matthews and a NJ State Senator guest were shouting tonight about how "gratuitous" this disclosure was, and complaining of Christie's War on One Single Woman.

Posted by: Ace at 04:04 PM | Comments (444)
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