I found these of interest. You might also. Subjects: China, value of a college education, freedom, paedophiles, Mickey Mouse, terrorism, CIA + Drugs, Helicopter Journalism, and Afghanistan.
(1) China has overinvested and now has too much of almost everything:
- “CHINA: Too Many Graduates, Very Few Jobs“, Inter Press Service (IPS), 21 October 2009 — Excerpt:
An explosive report released by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) in September said earnings of graduates were now at par and even lower than those of migrant laborers. The news came as a blow to many high-aspiring parents and youngsters in a country that has for centuries prided itself on cultivating elite Confucian intelligentsia.
… Some 6.1 million graduates entered the job market this summer, 540,000 more than last year. In 2008 the employment rate for graduates was less than 70% . This year nearly 2 million of graduates, many of them postgraduate diploma holders, are expected to be left without job placements.
(2) For the “watching your freedom float away in the wind” file:
- “Parents banned from watching their children in playgrounds… in case they are paedophiles“, Daily Mail, 28 October 2009 – Hat tip to Mark Steyn, who calls this Nationalization of Your Children. Excerpt:
Parents are being banned from playing with their children in council recreation areas because they have not been vetted by police. Mothers and fathers are being forced to watch their children from outside perimeter fences because of fears they could be paedophiles. Watford Council was branded a ‘disgrace’ yesterday after excluding parents from two fenced-off adventure playgrounds unless they first undergo criminal record checks.
(3) More Islamic terrorists, again no involvment with Afghanistan — Neocons advocate bombing Pakistan and Chicago:
- “‘Mickey Mouse Project’ plotted to kill Muhammad cartoonist“, The Times, 28 October 2009 — Excerpt:
US prosecutors said yesterday that they had broken up an international terror plot, codenamed the Mickey Mouse Project, against the Danish newspaper that published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Two men from Chicago who went to military school in Pakistan face terrorism charges for allegedly targeting the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, which outraged hardline Muslims by publishing the 12 cartoons in 2005
(4) More evidence of amnesia drugs in the water supply: Americans still do not see the parallels between Afghanistan and Viet Nam:
- “Brother of Afghan Leader Said to Be Paid by C.I.A.“, New York Times, 28 October 2009 — Excerpt:
Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president and a suspected player in the country’s booming illegal opium trade, gets regular payments from the Central Intelligence Agency, and has for much of the past eight years, according to current and former American officials.
(5) The past is the present, because we refuse to learn.
- “Black Hawk Up – David Ignatius’s Helicopter Journalism“, Michael Massing, Columbia Journalism Review, 27 October 2009 — Conclusion:
During the early phase of the Vietnam War, many American columnists went on similar ride-alongs with generals; subsequent events made their rosy accounts seem disconnected from reality. In Ignatius’s case, we don’t have to wait for history.
Afterword
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