WHY DOING A PhD is often a waste of time.

As a PhD (1978; Electrical Engineering), I would no longer recommend going for the doctorate. In fact, I am increasingly skeptical of the economic value of a Master’s degree.

Read the comments as well.

I’M A SENATOR. I’m too important to read the bill I’m voting on.

SMART GRID PRIMER. [W]hat exactly is a smart grid, and how might it affect you?

A smart grid would help make everything better, thus improving reliability, security, and efficiency, which are of critical importance given that electric power consumption worldwide is expected to triple by 2050.

The key to making things better is two-way data communications among all the elements, so that information about the grid's condition can be shared and acted upon. To do that, many devices, including those on the customers' premises, must be computer controlled and interactive.

Ultimately it’s about control.

IVIES MOVING TOWARD restoring ROTC. Given their sheer incompetence at governing, why would the military even wish to consider returning to their campuses?

Linked from Instapundit.

IT’S TIME to bury the estate tax.

[I]f it hasn’t been pointed out often enough already, the wealth has already been taxed repeatedly. There comes a point where enough is enough already.

Paraphrasing the President: “I think at some point you have taxed enough money.”

GEORGE WILL on the ’No Labels ‘movement’: ”The label ‘conservative’ conveys much useful information about people who adopt it. So does the label ‘liberal,’ which is why most liberals have abandoned it, preferring ‘progressive,’ until they discredit it, too.”

Instapundit comments: “Why are they against labels? Because if they were labeled accurately, no one would listen to them ....”

NEVER LET A DISASTER GO TO WASTE: Hugo Chavez seeks dictatorship.

STUDY: Some viewers were misinformed by TV news (especially Fox). Having plowed through the report, my sense is that all that has been shown is that “experts” are overrated.

BACK THEN we had a leadership class that wanted America to be successful.

THE MEME that would not die.

FROM MY EMAIL on the Obama administration’s Medal of Honor presentation ceremony: “I personally watched the Medal of Honor presentation at the White House. Something didn’t feel right, but I dismissed it to the typical dead ‘spirit’ regarding this Administration’s attitude toward the military and war in general. This video amazingly brought out what was as revealing as it was terribly wrong.”



The original YouTube video is here.

MICHELLE OBAMA’S obesity war. Destined to be an epic fail.

It won’t stop them from trying, though.

ATTORNEY GENERAL KEN CUCCINELLI on Virginia’s ObamaCare victory:

[W]e need to move in the direction of empowering individual citizens and consumers in this process, and reintroducing competition. The notion of what insurance is has been so destroyed over 45 years. These days, insurance in the health-care industry is like a service contract on your furnace. It’s regular services. Insurance was supposed to be protection against catastrophic occurrence. If we move back in that direction, and people absorb the initial, underlying costs of carrying forward ordinary health insurance, the cost even of insurance for those catastrophic occurrences would come way down.

Amen.

AND THE NANNY OF THE YEAR IS ... San Francisco.

CONGRESS OVERTURNS don’t ask, don’t tell. While I favor allowing homosexuals to serve openly, I have a bad feeling that this will prove to be the wrong way to go about do it.

WE ELECTED HIM. NOW WHAT? Bill Clinton’s step-in the other day was simply the reification of what condescending liberals are now thinking: “OK, our liberal trance with Obama is over; he got us in power, but is of course clueless; now how can we finesse it for the liberal varsity to take over?”

HELP WANTED: Power Engineers.

ONE NATION UNDER GOD. What’s motivating religious conservatives now, says Campolo, is a vision of America as God’s own special country, and free-market capitalism as crucial to the nation’s flourishing.

Er, it’s also motivating non-religious conservatives. And religious independents. And non-religious independents. And religious moderates. And ....

I hate to burst your bubble, but “American exceptionalism” isn’t a codeword for religious-right extremism.

DANA PERINO: Mr. Obama, Is This Relationship Worth Saving? “[W]ith things going the way they are, this loveless marriage could turn into a one-term stand.”

With luck, yes.

ANN COULTER: Don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t call our troops homophobes. Ann is a bit over the top - as usual - but makes a good point: in the past five years, less than 1 percent of all unplanned military discharges (i.e. not due to retirement or completion of service) were for homosexuality.

Maybe it’s time to pay attention to the other 99% ....