Odom On Hewitt
LOL. General Odom smacks Hugh Hewitt around. Hilarious. Full transcript here.
Encouraging Classroom Innovation
I know many college professors who are teaching the same class they did years ago. There’s no incentive to innovate, even when the world is changing around them.
Most colleges require students to fill out end of course gradesheets, but these usually disappear into the black void that is the bureaucracy or is kept by the professors to analyze. But that is old thinking, that is hoping the hierarchy will fix things. It won’t.
Instead, build a database where these things are input (skip the paper altogether and move it online) and then made publicly accessible. Allow a market to develop where students pick classes ranked by their peers along diverse criterion. Ingrain these results in the professor’s academic career through a rewards and punishment system.
In essence you’re leveraging your customer base to adapt your product inventory to their needs. Sure, it will be open to abuse to some degree, but that can be mitigated. All in all the benefits definitely outway the costs.
18% Wasted (Of $57B)
Via MountainRunner –
The Defense Contract Audit Agency reported to Waxman’s Oversight Committee this week that nearly 18% of the $57 billion audited so far was wasted. This figure, nearly $10 billion now, is likely to increase before it’s all over.
The three top auditors overseeing work in Iraq told a House committee their review of $57 billion in Iraq contracts found that Defense and State department officials condoned or allowed repeated work delays, bloated expenses and payments for shoddy work or work never done.
More than one in six dollars charged by U.S. contractors were questionable or unsupported, nearly triple the amount of waste the Government Accountability Office estimated last fall.
”There is no accountability,” said David M. Walker, who heads the auditing arm of Congress. ”Organizations charged with overseeing contracts are not held accountable. Contractors are not held accountable. The individuals responsible are not held accountable.”
California Funds Stem Cell Research
SFC – Excellent, the more the better –
California’s Proposition 71 stem cell program approved its first research grants Friday, using borrowed funds to outmaneuver lawsuits and financing delays that had threatened to scuttle the program before it could get started.
Directors of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine announced 72 grants worth $45 million over the next two years — roughly equal to the amount of federal support for human embryonic stem cell research.
Eighty million dollars in state grants are expected next month, more than enough to make California the world’s No. 1 backer of biomedicine’s most ethically contentious research
The Prestige
Haunting but a must see movie. Caine, Jackman and Bale all do a great job, and it’s cool to see Tesla in any context.