Marc Comtois
So, in the Race to the Top sweepstakes (Round 2), Rhode Island has made the final 19, which is sorta like making the NHL or NBA playoffs where about half of the “regular season” competitors qualify. Some of the key components included in RI’s application include recent reforms like the passage of a school funding…
Thomas Sowell, writing about a planned vs. free-market economy, remarks on the contrast between wicked smart planners and the small decisions made by the average Joes and Jills: How was it even possible that transferring decisions from elites with more education, intellect, data and power to ordinary people could lead consistently to demonstrably better results?…
Kenneth P. Green and Hiwa Alaghebandian think they have identified why Americans seem to have less regard for science–and scientists–than they used to. Our theory is that science is not losing its credibility because people no longer like or believe in the idea of scientific discovery, but because science has taken on an authoritarian tone,…
I try not to dwell on Sen. Chafee too much. But, since he’s leading in the polls, it is worth asking if Rhode Island voters want an ill-informed, gullible conspiracy-believer as their next governor. From the ProJo 7to7 blog: Former U.S. Sen. Lincoln Chafee is questioning whether Boston Red Sox great Curt Schilling faked his…
Alexis Madrigal at the Atlantic has written a piece that uses the latest Apple iPhone problems as a jumping off point to examine the “religious experience” of being an Apple “fanboy.” In short, there are 4 myths surrounding the Apple “mystique”, according to Texas A&M’s Heidi Campbell: 1. a creation myth highlighting the counter-cultural origin…
I don’t usually directly plug a blog, but Seth Godin’s Blog is a pithy record of his thoughts, mostly applicable to business, but broadly applicable to life. Godin looks at things from different angles and, though some of his solutions may boil down to re-wordings of the familiar, his explanation and method is engaging. For…
The long, front page piece in Sunday’s ProJo about current EMA PR guy Steve Kass reinforces every status-quoists talking point about cutting the fat outta the “administration” or “up top” before slashing the benny’s and pay of the average working man and woman at all levels of government. For the truth is that the shuffling…
I missed this when it was published in May, but this Washington Post article detailing the fiscal differences between the economically and demographically similar D.C. ‘burbs of Fairfax County, VA and Montgomery County, MD is worth a read. Take a snapshot of one year, 2006, when times were flush. In Fairfax, the county executive, an…
As first reported by the Boston Herald: Sen. John Kerry, who has repeatedly voted to raise taxes while in Congress, dodged a whopping six-figure state tax bill on his new multimillion-dollar yacht by mooring her in Newport, R.I. Isabel – Kerry’s luxe, 76-foot New Zealand-built Friendship sloop with an Edwardian-style, glossy varnished teak interior, two…
Some folks–who I’ll conveniently pigeon-hole as “Whole Foods” types–want to raise chickens in Providence. About 35 people packed a small City Council meeting room on Thursday in support of a proposed ordinance that would allow residents to raise up to six chickens. Proponents said raising home-grown hens provides a local source of high-quality protein, fertilizer…