Links from the Weekend

* The Call of Cthulhu, by Dr. Seuss.

* Traxus considers Occupy Austin. Žižek goes to Occupy Wall Street. Dear Occupiers: A Letter from Anarchists.

* What do you call a bunch of law schools getting sued for lying about employment data? A good start.

* What everyone is too polite to say about Steve Jobs. Against Nostalgia.

* MetaFilter has all your Breaking Bad finale links. We haven’t seen the last episode yet, but the buzz is good.

* The word “new” has no place in the title of this document. Nearly all of these chancellors were in office during the twenty years of UC public funding decline, and have come together to advocate the acceleration of what they have been doing all along. This consists of advocating business-as-usual non-public revenue growth on a base of doubled tuition.

* In 1979, traveling unsupervised around the neighborhood was a developmental milestone for six-year-olds. Nowadays my parent friends tell me it’s widely considered child abuse.

* The beta text for the new edition of the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction is up.

* Huntsman hits 0%.

* Amanda Marcotte worries Parks and Recreation may soon collapse under the weight of its internal contradictions.

* #occupymadisonsquaregarden

* And science has finally proven optimism is a mental illness. Have a good night.

Wednesday!

* Local news: A major donation at Duke will rebrand the Rare Books, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library.

* Neofeudalism at Verizon from Pandagon and Feministe.

* Taibbi:

For the past two decades, according to a whistle-blower at the SEC who recently came forward to Congress, the agency has been systematically destroying records of its preliminary investigations once they are closed. By whitewashing the files of some of the nation’s worst financial criminals, the SEC has kept an entire generation of federal investigators in the dark about past inquiries into insider trading, fraud and market manipulation against companies like Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and AIG.

There’s a little more here.

* Debunking the Texas miracle: turns out the whole thing was on the back of government jobs. Socialism!

* With Rick Perry already going up in flames, there was a surge of interest today around Chris Christie amid rumors that he was focus-testing a 2012 run. Then New Jersey got downgraded. Now people are talking about Paul Ryan again. Who will be tomorrow’s savior?

* Of course they might not need one. Gallup has Obama’s approval rating on the economy down to 26%, and his disapproval rating up to 71%.

* Also in GOP primary news: Why is Jon Huntsman even a Republican? It seems like the guy is just in the wrong place.

* And your obscene atrocity of the day: Missouri School Sued For Allegedly Making Special Ed Student Write Apology Letter To Her Rapist.

Thursday! Wisconsin, Optical Illusions, the Death of the Public University, and More

* Some genuinely breaking news: Wisconsin’s anti-union bill was just struck down for violating the state’s open meetings law.

* …the curious thing about this report is that it dances around policy questions, but doesn’t ask a single one directly, or name a single policy that has shaped the higher education landscape.  “The public” is asked to confine its thoughts to individual success; “college presidents” are asked to ruminate on the mission of college.  But the two are never articulated as part of the same system, or as having a mutual set of interests that are social and organically intertwined.  And this, I would argue, is because neoliberal government policies, and right-wing political demagoguery, have sold the ideology of “low taxes” and “small government” so successfully that the moral commitment of the state to nurture an educated citizenry has entirely evaporated from the equation.

* Ohio hates John Kasich. But GOP voters love Herman Cain; he’s outpolling Pawlenty now, and nearly tied with Gingrich and Ron Paul.

* Steve Benen notes that Jon Huntsman is so liberal he could probably be a credible candidate in the Democratic primary in 2016. As I noted on Twitter the sad thing is that’s really as strong an argument against Democrats as it is for Huntsman.

* And just a little bit of awesome: your optical illusions of the year.

Thursday Night Links

* Lucylou is illustrating Harry Potter.

* Parts 3 and 4 of Foundation Week at io9.

* Also at io9: An infographic explaining the Phantom Time Hypothesis. Is the idea really that complicated?

* TEPCO has confirmed what we already knew: Fukushima suffered a full meltdown.

* Even more Portal 2 speedruns.

* When Facebook smeared Google.

* Republican follies! Jon Huntsman pulls a Pawlenty, pretends he doesn’t believe in climate change anymore. The John Ensign case has been referred to the Department of Justice for prosecution. John McCain hates torture again. The Wall Street Journal hates Mitt Romney. And so does Mitt Romney.

Monday Afternoon Links

* The tenure chase as hazing ritual.

* Sign me up: Argentina is to consider granting a special pension to writers on the grounds that they generate “social richness” but often end up impoverished.

* How will single payer actually work in Vermont? Ezra Klein reports.

* Toward a Unified Theory of Republican Flip-Flops. Related: Policy in an Age of Post-Truth Politics.

* And one of the great pleasures of incumbency is watching your enemies fight. Today’s entry: Why (the odious) Erick Erickson will not support Jon Huntsman.

Saturday!

Saturday!

* I knew we were in a Seldon crisis: Obama eying “New Foundation” as his answer to the New Deal.

* If you can’t beat ’em: GOP moderate and feared 2012 rival Jon Huntsman joins Obama administration as ambassador to China.

* There’s been a lot of talk on the blogotubes about recent polls showing a national shift towards pro-life positions. It’s possible there’s been some sort of catalyzing event or demographic shift I’m unaware of that accounts for this, but it seems to me most likely that this reflects an important rhetorical shift that has recently been embraced by the GOP. Consider that the nation’s most prominent pro-life politician, Sarah Palin, routinely describes “life” as a morally admirable “choice” made by her and others. I suspect this new rhetoric of choice is significantly muddying the waters in these polls, encouraging people who might not choose abortion for themselves to think that’s what being “pro-life” is. Of course, that any choice is or should be involved at all is incompatible with what the term “pro-life” has historically meant.