MetaFilter posts tagged with washingtonmonthly

College for $99 a month

cogneuro — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 20:38:05 -0800

Will universities go the way of newspapers and the music industry? Says so right here. ITTET will students continue to pay huge tuition for college when they can get the same education on-line at a fraction of the cost? Quality inexpensive on-line courses are here (previously 1, 2, 3 and others). A learner can pay the big tuition bucks and take Psych 101 in a classroom with 300 other people and an overworked contract lecturer, or DIY on-line. Article argues that on-line courses will undermine the business model for universities, with potentially "catastrophic" results. Virtual beer pong extra.

The War for Afghanistan

Pants! — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 11:15:26 -0800

How to win in Afghanistan? Peter Bergen looks at the capability of the Taliban insurgents, NATO troops, and the Afghan army and police, compares the current conflict to the Soviet invasion, and weighs the dangers of civilian casualties and popular support. He concludes that renewed American effort in the fight will "produce a relatively stable and prosperous Central Asian state." (via Matthew Yglesias)

Flesh and Blood

nasreddin — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 23:13:02 -0800

"'I am not a defendant,' Mitchell declared. 'I do not have attorneys.' The court 'lacks territorial jurisdiction over me,' he argued, to the amazement of his lawyers. To support these contentions, he cited decades-old acts of Congress involving the abandonment of the gold standard and the creation of the Federal Reserve ... Judge Davis ordered the three defendants to be removed from the court, and turned to Gardner, who had, until then, remained quiet. But Gardner, too, intoned the same strange speech. 'I am Shawn Earl Gardner, live man, flesh and blood,' he proclaimed." Too Weird for the Wire: How black Baltimore drug dealers are using white supremacist legal theories to confound the Feds. [via]

Top Universities, by any definition

blahblahblah — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 22:42:34 -0800

The Top 200 Universities in the World. [logon:mefier/pass:metafilter] For the second year, the Times Higher Education Supplement has exhaustively ranked the top schools in the world. The US, and, to a lesser extent, the UK, dominate the list, but Australia continues to have a strong showing, and China makes more appearances. If you don't like that list, try Newsweek's Top 100 Global Universities, or the ranking by Shanghai Jiao Tong University, which looks at Nobel Prizes and highly cited articles, or just judge universities by their age. All of this a little too global? Washington Monthly rates universities by how they contribute to social mobility and the US as a whole, Mother Jones ranks by social activism, and Young America's Foundation lists the 10 best conservative colleges. [prev.]

The Road To Abu Ghraib

y2karl — Wed, 27 Oct 2004 09:03:17 -0800

The Road To Abu Ghraib A generation from now, historians may look back to April 28, 2004, as the day the United States lost the war in Iraq... It was a direct—and predictable—consequence of a policy, hatched at the highest levels of the administration, by senior White House officials and lawyers, in the weeks and months after 9/11. Yet the administration has largely managed to escape responsibility for those decisions; a month from election day, almost no one in the press or the political class is talking about what is, without question, the worst scandal to emerge from President Bush's nearly four years in office... Given the particular conditions faced by the president and his deputies after 9/11—a war against terrorists, in which the need to extract intelligence via interrogations was intensely pressing, but the limits placed by international law on interrogation techniques were very constricting—did those leaders have better alternatives than the one they chose? The answer is that they did. And we will be living with the consequences of the choices they made for years to come.

What busking could teach the music industry

mojohand — Thu, 08 Jan 2004 11:02:48 -0800

What busking could teach the music industry An intelligent essay on how the music industry should adapt to the new digital realities, drawn from the author's experiences as a street (well, subway) musician. No one who could learn from it will read it, of course.

Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them.

XQUZYPHYR — Wed, 27 Aug 2003 12:36:25 -0800

Lies and the Lying Presidents Who Tell Them. The Washington Monthly publishes its "mendacity index" of the last four U.S. presidents, ranking their overall history (and severity) of lying. TWM's site also lets you rate them yourself, just in case ranking the 20 worst Americans got boring.

Mideast chaos is part of the plan

homunculus — Thu, 27 Mar 2003 12:42:24 -0800

"Chaos in the Middle East is not the Bush hawks' nightmare scenario--it's their plan." This is a fascinating and disturbing article by Josh Marshall for next month's Washington Monthly, released early due to recent events. Of course, whether or not the war will destabalize the Mideast is open to debate.

raysmj — Tue, 17 Apr 2001 13:56:16 -0800

Theocracy in America? Specifically, in Utah, according to the writer of this Washington Monthly piece, who grew up there. Is the article too harsh, though, given the author's apparent lingering bitterness regarding her upbringing?

Postroad — Fri, 13 Apr 2001 04:25:46 -0800

Soul Mates? Black like me. Do black Americans love Clinton because of his "in -your -face attitude" , a legacy going back to slavery, or because he "feels your pain"?