The German Miracle: Another Look

Interesting:

Lawrence H. White: The German Miracle: Another Look - WSJ.com: "Earlier this summer George Soros and some leading Keynesian economists criticized what they regarded as Germany's overly strict fiscal discipline. Yet Germany's real output expanded at a robust 9% annual rate in the second quarter, while the U.S. economy grew at an anemic 1.6% rate. So is Germany now a role model for how to recover?

In a June op-ed, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble justified his government's decision to cut spending, citing 'aversion to deficits and inflationary fears, which have their roots in German history in the past century.' He was presumably making a reference to the destructive hyperinflation of the 1920s."

Mind - Research Upends Traditional Thinking on Study Habits

Hmm.

Mind - Research Upends Traditional Thinking on Study Habits - NYTimes.com: "Every September, millions of parents try a kind of psychological witchcraft, to transform their summer-glazed campers into fall students, their video-bugs into bookworms. Advice is cheap and all too familiar: Clear a quiet work space. Stick to a homework schedule. Set goals. Set boundaries. Do not bribe (except in emergencies)."

And this:

Take the notion that children have specific learning styles, that some are “visual learners” and others are auditory; some are “left-brain” students, others “right-brain.” In a recent review of the relevant research, published in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest, a team of psychologists found almost zero support for such ideas. “The contrast between the enormous popularity of the learning-styles approach within education and the lack of credible evidence for its utility is, in our opinion, striking and disturbing,” the researchers concluded.

Ditto for teaching styles, researchers say. Some excellent instructors caper in front of the blackboard like summer-theater Falstaffs; others are reserved to the point of shyness. “We have yet to identify the common threads between teachers who create a constructive learning atmosphere,” said Daniel T. Willingham, a psychologist at the University of Virginia and author of the book “Why Don’t Students Like School?”

Having observed many students over the years I'm not sure I agree on their take for learning styles. I would like to read more on this research.

Research finds repressed memories don't exist

Fascinating:

Research finds repressed memories don't exist - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation): "Soldiers returning from war zones, victims of violent crime and sexual abuse, can now be helped by cognitive behaviour therapy, where they learn to assign terrible memories to the past, instead of them crowding their present and future.

Professor Devilly says the therapy is working.

'We're now getting, at the end of between 8 and 12 sessions, 90 to 92 per cent of people no longer meet the criteria for PTSD,' he said.

Now psychologists are working to fend off post traumatic stress in high-risk occupations, by teaching recruits to develop resilience."

Back to School?

Many of our Universities are not good places for our youth, and the costs are getting exorbitant:

Roger’s Rules » Back to School?: "There has been a flurry of interest in alternative, internet-based “universities” — I’ve been approached about participating in one such venture myself. Some of these are free, others charge a small fraction of what traditional colleges charge. There is widespread, if still largely anecdotal, evidence that parents and alumni are increasingly disenchanted with the sort of education on offer at most institutions. As I wrote in a piece for The New Criterion a few years ago,

“Many parents are alarmed, rightly so, at the spectacle of their children going off to college one year and coming back the next having jettisoned every moral, religious, social, and political scruple that they had been brought up to believe. Why should parents fund the moral de-civilization of their children at the hands of tenured antinomians? Why should alumni generously support an alma mater whose political and educational principles nourish a world view that is not simply different from but diametrically opposed to the one they endorse? Why should trustees preside over an institution whose faculty systematically repudiates the pedagogical mission they, as trustees, have committed themselves to uphold?”"

This Chaplain Is Protected By God—and by an Atheist--at War

Talk about unequally yoked:

This Chaplain Is Protected By God—and by an Atheist--at War - WSJ.com: "They say there are no atheists in foxholes. There's one on the front lines here, though, and the chaplain isn't thrilled about it.

Navy Chaplain Terry Moran is steeped in the Bible and believes all of it. His assistant, Religious Programs Specialist 2nd Class Philip Chute, is steeped in the Bible and having none of it.

Together they roam this town in Taliban country, comforting the grunts while crossing swords with each other over everything from the power of angels to the wisdom of standing in clear view of enemy snipers. Lt. Moran, 48 years old, preaches about divine protection while 25-year-old RP2 Chute covers the chaplain's back and wishes he were more attentive to the dangers of the here and now.

It's a match made in, well, the Pentagon."

Religious leaders hit back at Hawking - CNN.com

Hawking is clever but doesn't seem to have any grasp of God. He is seeing what he wants to see:

Religious leaders hit back at Hawking - CNN.com: "Religious leaders in Britain on Friday hit back at claims by leading physicist Stephen Hawking that God had no role in the creation of the universe.

In his new book 'The Grand Design,' Britain's most famous scientist says that given the existence of gravity, 'the universe can and will create itself from nothing,' according to an excerpt published in The Times of London.

'Spontaneous creation is the reason why there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist,' he wrote.

'It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper [fuse] and set the universe going.'

But the head of the Church of England, the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams, told the Times that 'physics on its own will not settle the question of why there is something rather than nothing.'"

Happiness - NYTimes.com

Very interesting:

Happiness - NYTimes.com

How do you spend your Sunday? For many, this traditional day of rest and churchgoing has become a day to shop, but it may be taking a toll on happiness.

Researchers from DePaul University in Chicago and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel tracked church attendance and levels of happiness among Americans living in states that had repealed so-called blue laws, which once required most retailers to stay closed on Sundays.

The researchers found that allowing stores to open on Sundays was linked with a decline in church attendance among white women, which led to a subsequent decline in happiness. Among black women, the repeal of the blue laws had no measurable effect, although that may be because the sample size was too small to draw any statistically meaningful conclusions.

Notably, the finding was true only for women. For men, the repeal of blue laws didn’t seem to influence church attendance or levels of happiness.

Since the repeal of blue laws, women are about 17 percent less likely to report being “pretty happy,” and more likely to report being “not happy,” according to the study, which is still awaiting final publication.

“People know there is a correlation between religiosity and happiness, but there’s not conclusive evidence that there is a causal effect,’’ said William Sander, professor of economics at DePaul. “Our paper tends to provide more conclusive evidence that religiosity among women does affect happiness.’’

Many Liberals Reject Markos Moulitsas's Anti-Conservative Book

Good:

Many Liberals Reject Markos Moulitsas's Anti-Conservative Book - Yahoo! News: "A number of liberal writers are condemning American Taliban, the just-released book by prominent liberal blogger and political organizer Markos Moulitsas. Moulitsas, also known as Kos and the chief of prominent website Daily Kos, argues in his book that elements of the U.S. conservative movement are akin to the Taliban, a militant terrorist group responsible for thousands of deaths in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Some liberals--though certainly not all--think that's a bad idea. Here's why."

Obama's Misguided Approach: America Has Become Too European - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

Very interesting:

Obama's Misguided Approach: America Has Become Too European - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International: "Is the US economy perhaps suffering less from an economic downturn and more from a serious structural problem? It seems plausible that the American economy has lost its belief in American principles. People no longer have confidence in the self-healing forces of the private sector, and the reliance on self-help and self-regulation to solve problems no longer exists.

The opposite strategy, one that seeks to treat the American patient with more government, is risky -- because it does not fit in with America's image of itself."

Net Neutrality

This is an important topic:

Gateway Pundit: "If you are as worried as I am about the left’s effort to force ever larger amounts of big government onto our lives, then you should be looking into the issue of Net Neutrality. To that end a few times a week I’ll be posting some links and info about Net Neutrality to help you all get your feet wet on this important issue.

Here are just a few of the latest articles on Net Neutrality for your information:"