David Foster

Priorities

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California has a growing shortage of registered nurses–an estimated shortfall of 40,000 by the year 2014. There are lots of people who want to learn nursing, but can’t get into nursing school because of a shortage of instructional capacity–an estimated 17,000 qualified applicants are now on the waiting list.

So what does the University of California system want to do?

Start a new law school. This, despite the fact that the California Postsecondary Education Commission has found that the state has no shortage of qualified attorneys.

Joanne Jacobs has thoughts on this matter.

(cross-posted at Photon Courier)

The Nature of Dictatorships

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It seems like there are a lot of people these days who justify–or at least make excuses for–dictatorships. “Well, it’s true there are some things you can’t do,” goes one typical line. “But if you steer clear of politics, you’ll be just fine.” Dictatorships are justified based on many purported benefits, including suppression of internal violence, enabling economic development, and above all “stability.”

Mario Vargas Llosa talks about what dictatorship really is and what it does to people.

Related: Ralph Peters takes on the “stability is always good” argument. I have related thoughts here.

Vargas Llosa link via Neptunus Lex.

Practical and Apocalyptic Terrorism

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I was going to post a link to this important Ralph Peters essay in a comment to Ginny’s post, immediately below, but the spam filter had other ideas. So here it is:

When Devils Walk The Earth

The Trivialization of Science Teaching

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A U.K. physics teacher writes about the destruction of his subject by the new government-estabished syllabus.

(via the excellent Natalie Solent)

See my related post from 2005, Skipping Science Class.

SECOND UPDATE: An interesting collision between science and “Theory,” as the latter is practiced in many university humanities departments, can be seen in the episode known as The Sokal Hoax. (More here.)

Also, these books are relevant to this discussion: Higher Superstition and Fashionable Nonsense.

FIRST UPDATE: From the Telegraph:

The curriculum in state schools in England has been stripped of its content and corrupted by political interference, according to a damning report by an influential, independent think-tank…No major subject area has escaped the blight of political interference, according to the report published by Civitas.

Read more