A Hearing Aid That Cuts Out All the Clatter

I had profound hearing loss when I was 21 years-old. I regained some of my hearing and use a hearing aid. So as you can imagine, this story rings particularly true.

At New York Times:

After he lost much of his hearing last year at age 57, the composer Richard Einhorn despaired of ever really enjoying a concert or musical again. Even using special headsets supplied by the Metropolitan Opera and Broadway theaters, he found himself frustrated by the sound quality, static and interference.

Then, in June, he went to the Kennedy Center in Washington, where his “Voices of Light” oratorio had once been performed with the National Symphony Orchestra, for a performance of the musical “Wicked.”

There were no special headphones. This time, the words and music were transmitted to a wireless receiver in Mr. Einhorn’s hearing aid using a technology that is just starting to make its way into public places in America: a hearing loop.

“There I was at ‘Wicked’ weeping uncontrollably — and I don’t even like musicals,” he said. “For the first time since I lost most of my hearing, live music was perfectly clear, perfectly clean and incredibly rich.”

His reaction is a common one. The technology, which has been widely adopted in Northern Europe, has the potential to transform the lives of tens of millions of Americans, according to national advocacy groups. As loops are installed in stores, banks, museums, subway stations and other public spaces, people who have felt excluded are suddenly back in the conversation.

Continue reading.

Obama Unveils 'Son of Stimulus' for Housing Assistance

Critics called the administration's now-failed jobs initiative the "Son of Stimulus." And now it turns out the housing assistance program has an offspring. See Alana Goodman, "Obama’s New Housing Plan Purely Political." And Felix Salmon's not wasting any breath on it, "Obama's pathetic refinancing initiative."

But see WSJ, "Obama Housing Plan Highlights Sharp Political Split" (via Google):

President Barack Obama on Monday went where his Republican White House rivals have so far refused to go. He asserted that Washington should help Americans refinance their mortgages at lower rates.

The president's move to expand an existing, little-used program underscored his administration's belief that government has a role to play in restoring the health of the nation's broken housing market. In contrast, Republican presidential hopefuls have been loath to address the housing issue at all, in part because they blame government for causing the financial crisis and housing mess.

In 2008, Republican presidential candidate John McCain proposed that the government buy up home mortgages that exceeded the value of houses, then re-issue them at market value. "He got killed," said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the economic adviser who had urged Mr. McCain to make the proposal.

Months later, the tea-party movement took off after CNBC analyst Rick Santelli's on-air tirade in February 2009 after the new Obama administration suggested it would try to aid homeowners. "How many of you people want to pay for your neighbor's mortgage that has an extra bathroom and can't pay their bills?" he asked.

Ever since, politicians from both parties have feared aggressive action that would smack of welfare for McMansion dwellers.

Well, yeah. Bailing out over-leveraged homeowners? Still not popular.

Levi's 'Go Forth'

At Astute Bloggers, "LEVI'S GO FORTH: SELLING JEANS BY PROMOTING POLYTHEISM AND ANARCHISM?"

Dana Loesch: Occupy Wall Street Endorsed by Nazis

And boy, did she kick up a storm on the radical left.

See: "Media Matters’ Eric Boehlert Still Needs To Provide Proof For His Arguments *UPDATE: David Duke Endorses."

RELATED: More Nazi backing for OWS at Pamela's.

Muammar Gaddafi Allegedly Sodomized After Capture

It's pretty awful, but seriously? Folks are going to get worked up about this? The dude promised to go "house to house" to cleanse the "greasy rats" from Libya.

There's commentary at CBS News, "GlobalPost: Qaddafi apparently sodomized after capture." (Via Memeorandum.)

Or go straight to the source, "Gaddafi sodomized: Video shows abuse frame by frame (GRAPHIC)."

Down But Not Out: Investors and Home Buyers Returning to Inland Empire

From the front-page at yesterday's Los Angeles Times, "Inland Empire is showing early stirrings of recovery."

Few places have been as devastated by the Great Recession as the Inland Empire, a region of 4 million people encompassing Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Unemployment has tripled since 2006. Home values have plunged 56% in Riverside County and 60% in San Bernardino County. Nearly 12,500 foreclosure notices were filed in the three months that ended Sept. 30.

Yet amid the stillborn subdivisions, abandoned storefronts and crowded unemployment offices, there are early stirrings of recovery.

Well, praise be Obama! (Or Jerry Brown — our local Democrat messiah!)

We even had unemployment come down to 11.9 percent from 12.1 percent. Booming!

Obama Doctrine: How Obama Blew It In Iraq

From Bruce Kesler, at Maggie's Farm:

After 9-years of US sacrifices, President Obama's rush for the exits in Iraq and the incompetence of his administration is seen again, with very probable bad consequences for Iraq's ability to withstand internal discord and external influence from Iran. The US is left with little but a likely buffer protecting Iranian interests and a sanctions evasion route that allows Iran greater freedom from Western pressure. Once again, each time over and over, Obama blows US interests into the crapper.

No doubt.

RTWT.

RELATED: From Pejman Yousefzadeh, "Leaving Iraq the Wrong Way."

How Many More People Does Obama Need to Kill to Get Reelected?

See James Taranto, "Lethal Weapon '08: Who'd have thought Obama would kill more Arab tyrants and terrorists than Bush?"

European Leaders Debate Severe Options for Accord

At WSJ (via Google):

BRUSSELS — European leaders took their first steps toward a new plan to stem the euro crisis, admitting that their last grand plan, agreed to only three months ago, has failed.

The new effort, which leaders hope to finalize at another summit on Wednesday, involves a sweeping recapitalization of European banks, a substantial restructuring of Greece's debts, a bigger bailout fund, and even possibly fresh efforts to entice sovereign-wealth funds in China and elsewhere to come to Europe's aid.

Continue reading at that link.

Banks are writing off some of their Greek loans, and lots more capitalization is needed. See also Der Spiegel, "German Parliament Slows Euro Rescue Decisions," and Telegraph UK, "David Cameron vows to reclaim EU powers amid looming rebellion."

Who Wants to Be Evaluated by Students?

Well, interestingly, I'll be passing out my own student evaluation forms next week, as part of my post-tenure review cycle. This happens every three years after the fourth year of employment (and the final probationary evaluation, when one is granted tenure). I don't mind them at all. I get decent reviews, and it's my political science colleagues who'll be using them to do a brief write up for their post-tenure committee reports. I imagine the dean and higher ups in the administration might be interested in them, but I doubt they do anything more than accept the recommendations from the department committees. The buzz on campus, however, is the latest union negotiations with the college over "student learning outcomes," which if implemented college-wide, could be used in evaluating faculty. (These SLOs could be combined with student evaluations in way way or another.) Needless to say the union's not falling in line for this. So many factors (outside of the classroom) determine student success that using SLOs in evaluating faculty would be seriously flawed, and worse, prone to really awful abuse if faculty retention decisions are made with them. I mention all of this as background for this piece at Minding the Campus, "Who Wants to Be Evaluated by Students?" Read the whole thing at the link, and here's this from The Barrister, at Maggie's Farm:

The notion that students evaluate profs as if school were American Idol seems perverted to me. School is not infotainment. I can be an entertaining speaker and did some litigation in my distant past, but I would never teach where my career, even in part, depended on student evaluations. When teaching, I like to be a demanding SOB, intolerant of anything short of excellence and keeping people on their toes. In the end, people are thankful for my demanding attitude.

RELATED: One of my favorite articles on this, "Something Wrong in Our Schools? Let's Blame Teachers."

Vanuatu

Robert Stacy McCain tweeted the other day, "Just updated my profile to include 'future U.S. ambassador to Vanuatu'."

I thought that was kinda funny at the time, but even more so now, with this piece on Vanuatu at Sunday's travel section at Los Angeles Times, "Vanuatu islands: Get happy, get a little wild."

The background on that ambassadorship at The Other McCain, "Memo From the National Affairs Desk to the Herman Cain Presidential Campaign."

The Tax Reform Evidence From 1986

From Martin Feldstein, at Wall Street Journal:

Congress's Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction is struggling to find $1.5 trillion in cuts over the next 10 years. This is a unique opportunity to use tax reform to reduce future budget deficits while lowering individual tax rates.

The Tax Reform Act of 1986, enacted 25 years ago last Friday, showed how a tax reform that includes lower rates can change incentives in a way that grows the tax base and produces extra revenue. The 1986 agreement between President Ronald Reagan and House Speaker Tip O'Neill reduced the top marginal tax rate to 28% from 50%. A conservative Republican and a liberal Democrat could agree to a dramatic reduction in top rates because the legislation also eliminated a wide variety of tax loopholes.

A traditional "static" analysis that ignores the response of taxpayers to lower tax rates indicated that those combined tax changes would leave total revenue unchanged at each income level. But the actual experience after 1986 showed an enormous rise in the taxes paid, particularly by those who experienced the greatest reductions in marginal tax rates.

RTWT.

Jennifer Lopez Breaks Down on Stage

At People Magazine.

And lots of pics at London's Daily Mail, "Jennifer Lopez runs off stage sobbing after singing about lost love... (but at least she looked sensational in nude skintight catsuit)."

PREVIOUSLY: "Jennifer Lopez Hot New Fiat Ad."

Executive With Schizoaffective Disorder Uses Job to Cope

My wife and I are both like this. It's not schizophrenia, but keeping busy with work helps combat symptoms of severe anxiety. And now psychiatrists are finding large-N support for the tendency.

At New York Times, "An Executive Job as Defense Against Mental Ills."

Mitt Romney Offered Healthcare to Illegal Immigrants

Well, I doubt this will derail his "inevitability," but you never know. The inconsistencies are piling up.

At Los Angeles Times, "Medical help for illegal immigrants could haunt Mitt Romney":

The Massachusetts healthcare law that then-Gov. Mitt Romney signed in 2006 includes a program known as the Health Safety Net, which allows undocumented immigrants to get needed medical care along with others who lack insurance.

Uninsured, poor immigrants can walk into a health clinic or hospital in the state and get publicly subsidized care at virtually no cost to them, regardless of their immigration status.

The program, widely supported in Massachusetts, drew little attention when Romney signed the trailblazing healthcare law. But now it could prove problematic for the Republican presidential hopeful, who has been attacking Texas Gov. Rick Perry for supporting educational aid for children of undocumented immigrants in Texas.

"We have to turn off the magnet of extraordinary government benefits," Romney said at the recent Fox News-Google debate in Florida.

Perry has defended the Texas program, saying it is better to educate young people, even if they are in the country illegally, to help them become productive members of society.

Similarly, supporters of the Massachusetts program note there are ultimately higher costs for denying care to sick patients regardless of their immigration status.

The Massachusetts program, which cost more than $400 million last year, paid for 1.1 million hospital and clinic visits. It's unclear how many undocumented patients benefited because the state does not record that data.

The Romney campaign referred questions to Tim Murphy, who served as Romney's state health and human services secretary. Murphy said the governor never intended the Health Safety Net to serve undocumented immigrants.

Right.

"Never intended." Just like Romney never intended to hire illegal immigrants, like the ones the Boston Globe reported on in 2006: "Illegal immigrants toiled for governor: Guatemalans say firm hired them." And here: "Lawn work at Romney's home still done by illegal immigrants."

Gaddafi Killed by Shot to the Head

Well, you think?

It's not like it took a forensic medical examiner to figure it out.

See CBS News, "Autopsy: Qaddafi was killed by shot to head." (Via Memeorandum and Doug Powers at Michelle's.)

Hillary Clinton Warns Iran on U.S. Withdrawal From Iraq

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made the rounds on the Sunday talk shows. Here's she's seen with Christiane Amanpour, where she announces that "no one should miscalculate our commitment to Iraq, most particularly Iran":

See New York Times, "Clinton Defends Iraq Withdrawal Plan."

Springtime for Islamists in Tunisia?

At LAT, "Tunisia vote could shape religion in public life":

This nation that inspired revolution across the Arab world is facing another bellwether moment that may again foreshadow what happens throughout the Mideast in the intensifying battle between secularists and Islamists over the role of religion in shaping public life.

Tunisians will vote Sunday for a constituent assembly that will set the course for a new government and write the nation's laws. Islamists, suppressed for decades by autocratic rule, are poised to win big, a prospect that has liberals and secularists worried about the future of civil liberties.

The outcome will be the latest evolution in a tumultuous year of Arab rebellion that last week saw Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi killed and his half-naked body laid out in a souk's cold-storage locker, a gruesome show of contempt that would have been unthinkable just a few months ago.

But it has been a year of the unfathomable: Here in Tunisia, the suicide late last year of a desperate fruit seller launched an uprising that in January brought down President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali. With quickening speed, revolt spread to Egypt, where President Hosni Mubarak was overthrown weeks later. Today, as the words "Arab Spring" have become the catchy lexicon of rebellion, the entrenched leaders of Yemen and Syria face gathering forces arrayed against them.

The pressing concerns facing Tunisia mirror those of other countries trying to advance beyond the grip of tyrants. Voters here say they do not want the vital issues of joblessness, economic problems and widening youth disenchantment to be eclipsed by an Islamic agenda.

But ambitions of Islamists have been simmering for years in a region where police states arrested their leaders and muffled the voices of fiery clerics. Freedoms brought by the Arab Spring are reigniting debates between Islamists and secularists, but also between ultraconservative and moderate Muslims over how deeply religion should permeate society.

Also at WSJ, "Large Numbers Turn Out for Tunisian Vote" (via Google):

Democracy activists across the region hope that a successful vote here could galvanize pro-democracy movements that have flagged amid violent regime crackdowns, as in Syria, Bahrain and Yemen, and by a pushback by old-guard counterrevolutionary forces, as in Egypt.

Among the countries that have overthrown leaders, Tunisia presents the most fertile seedbed for democracy, say analysts: It has a relatively large and educated middle class. Women enjoy a measure of equality unmatched in the Arab world. The country has a tradition of civil rule both before and after January's revolution. With a relatively homogenous population of 10 million, the country also suffers from few ethnic and sectarian rifts.

The question is the degree to which Tunisia's vote will apply to the likes of Egypt, Libya, Yemen or Syria, where uprisings have been bloodier and rife with internal tribal, sectarian or regional tensions. Tunisia may stand as an aspirational example, analysts say—or as a bar set too high.

Dan Neil Reviews the 2012 Honda Civic

This is Neil's "Rumble Seat" column, which used to be exclusively at the Los Angeles Times.

Now (also?) at Wall Street Journal, "Honda's Sporty New Civic, Heavy on the 'Ick'":

And just like that, a giant stumbles. The redesigned 2012 Honda Civic—one of the most successful cars in U.S. auto history, a nameplate burnished with the grateful tears of generations of Americans—is a dud. A sham. A shud. Massive fail, LOL.

Civic's U.S. sales were down 26% in September and 15.6% year-to-date, a cratering rivaled only by the 15.7% decline registered by the Honda Accord. Some part of the losses was caused by supply-chain issues associated with the April earthquake; the greater part, surely, is bad press. The Civic sedan/coupe recently got scratched off the Consumer Reports list of Top Five recommended cars—which for Honda is like getting your name scratched off the frontispiece of the family Bible.

Over at the Honda fan site vtec.net they're in the midst of a high-tech Spanish Inquisition, with John Mendel, American Honda's executive vice president for sales, as guest of honor. It ain't pretty.

I've just spent two weeks enjoying the company of the 2012 Civic Hybrid sedan (see sidebar) and the Si sedan—the sport-tuned version with a 201-hp four-banger, a limited-slip differential, and a six-speed manual gearbox to slap around—and, to damn them with faint praise, they're actually pretty good cars. Still, they do not burn with Honda's once-routine overachievement, and the ire the company faces reflects the high expectations and great trust consumers have placed with the brand. In other words, merely decent feels like a betrayal from Honda.

What's going on with these cars? I have a theory....

Keep reading.

I've had three Honda Civic LX sedans, the second two with GPS navigation systems. They're awesome cars. But Honda does this every couple of iterations. They alienate the car's core fan base, perhaps attempting to appeal to a larger, family demographic, etc.

In any case, I used to read Neil's column every Wednesday at the Los Angeles Times. I thought I read something of his over there a few weeks back, but he might be syndicating his reviews now across different newspapers. He's fun to read, in any case.

Gilad Shalit Release

Gilad Shalit was released last Tuesday. I posted a couple of times on the Israel/Hamas deal, but I didn't have the chance mid-week to comment on Shalit's homecoming. He looks ghastly. That's what five years of being held hostage does to you. Terrorists terrorize. Not enough to eat. No loved ones to care for and have care for you. It burns inside the think of what in God's name drives these people to such barbarism. But he's home, and that in itself is a blessing, even if there may be more just like him.

I'm reminded after checking over at Melanie Phillips' blog, and she links to a couple of her essays: "The infernal choice," and "Journalism? No, cruelty and propaganda."