Poor academic performance is strongly correlated with poverty. Households in the bottom quintile have an average of 0.4 people employed. I doubt if the parents failed to show up because they were too busy.

Nobody would accept that compromise. The protesters don't really care if the telescope is built, they just want a payoff. Any compromise that does not include some cash, is not going to be accepted. They should have paid off these groups at the beginning of the process, not when they are ready to start construction. It would have been much cheaper.

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No. The pheromone is normally emitted by the wheat when it is under attack by aphids, thus attracting predators. But the GMO wheat emits the pheromone all the time, so the predators show up, and ... no lunch. So this would make them less effective. The goal was not to make the predators more effective, but to scare away the aphids, which are normally not attracted to wheat that is already emitting the pheromone.

The latter. You should always be in "hiring mode". If you hire smart people with a track record of getting stuff done, you can always find a place for them. The criteria I use is that they should be a "top third" prospect, with an expectation that they will be better than 2/3rds of current employees. If I don't have a vacancy, then I fire one of the bottom third people to make room.

The problem is that while you are evaluating the job candidate, the candidate is evaluating your company, looking at other opportunities, and going to other interviews. It is the best candidates that are most likely to get other offers. You might think you are being more selective by dragging out the process, but the actual result is that you are losing the wheat and keeping the chaff.

There is little evidence that dragging out the process helps. Checking references doesn't really help, since you have no idea if you are talking to their ex-boss or their roommate. Even criminal records have been shown to have no correlation with job performance.

When I schedule an interview with a prospective hire, I prepare the paperwork to make a job offer at the end of the interview. If they look solid, and everyone involved gives a thumbs up, I make the offer. More often then not, they accept on the spot. Others sleep on it, and call and accept the following day. But we lose a lot fewer good candidates that way.

It is likely to have the exact opposite effect. The readers of Reason are mostly libertarian kooks that are already highly prone to conspiracy theories. Actions like this are just throwing gasoline on the flames.

Disclaimer: I am somewhat of a libertarian kook myself.

The reason the text is the way it is, is because of the election of Scott Brown to fill the seat of the recently deceased Ted Kennedy. The Democrats lost their 60 seat super-majority required to override a filibuster. So congress had to pass the bill "as is" with no changes or edits. It was either a flawed law or no law.

... and the slave trade was abolished long before slavery itself. It was banned by America in 1807, and banned by the British Empire about the same time. There was still some smuggling, but after the Napoleonic Wars, Britain established a naval squadron to patrol the coast of West Africa and suppress the trade.

Indeed it was. Here are the official words of the southerners themselves, expressed at the time of secession:

From the Mississippi declaration of secession:Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery.

From the Texas declaration of the Causes of Secession: ... maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery--the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits

From the South Carolina Declaration of Secession: ... an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery

From the Georgia Declaration of Secession:The South with great unanimity declared her purpose to resist the principle of prohibition [of slavery] to the last extremity.

In every declaration of secession, slavery was given as the first and most prominent reason for secession. Secession was popular in flat states, where large plantations were viable. It was less popular in mountainous areas, where slaves were less common, including what is now West Virginia, and the mountain state of Tennessee which was the last to secede and the first to rejoin the union. There was a rebellion within the rebellion in the hilly areas of northern Alabama. By the end of the war, every state but South Carolina (the flattest state, most dependent on plantation agriculture) raised volunteer regiments to fight in the Union Army, mostly from mountain areas.

If you feel that attending a university that does more and better research has no value, then you should not enroll in CMU. Go to a community college instead.

Why should they? In many fields, CMU is considered one of the best universities in the world, and they have far more applicants than spaces. Prices are driven by demand, not cost.

The MIT Courseware is available on Youtube. It costs $0, which is "nothing" to most people.

You answer that yourself in the very next sentence:

Bingo. This is the advancement. You can get a world class education for NOTHING. How is that not an advancement? You only need to attend a physical university if you want 1) a diploma, or 2) to meet girls.

I am currently working through the CS program at MIT Courseware. Every morning, I start up the video, jump on the treadmill, and burn up about 300 calories while I learn something new. I have applied many of the things I learned to my job, and I have also lost about 5 kg. I think it is fantastic that MIT puts this material up for free, and I am glad that CMU is doing the same. I can't see how anyone can think this is not an advancement.

There are always losers from any improvement in productivity. Millions of farmers were put out of work by the steel plow. Windmills and solar panels destroy coal mining jobs. Even if some jobs are eliminated, we are still collectively better off as we become more productive.

CMU is a research university. So every dollar they save is another than can be spent on research. Every hour that a professor saves by not regurgitating the exact same material that he taught last year, is another hour dedicated to research. So, yes, this is an advancement.

Yes, and there is nothing new about that. Even back in the pre-Internet days, you could learn anything that universities taught by just going to the library and reading the textbooks. Universities provide structure and certification. The learning has always been up to you.