Back of the Envelope

Did you know that 57% of today's college students are women? Considering that women make up only 49% of the population of that age group, that means that women are 37% more likely to go to college. Glenn Reynolds speculates on some reasons why men aren't going to college:

Some of them, of course, get good-paying jobs that don't require a college degree. Plumbers, electricians, and building contractors face their own sets of barriers, but they don't need a college degree. (And, as an upside, those jobs aren't likely to be outsourced.)...

There seems little doubt that universities have become less male-friendly in recent decades, to the point of being downright unfriendly in many cases. The kind of statements that are routinely made about males and masculinity in classrooms and hallways would get professors fired if they were made about blacks, gays, or many other groups. Sexual-harassment policies start with the presumption that men are guilty, and inherently depraved. And colleges now come at the tail-end of an educational system that is (compared to previous decades) anti-male from kindergarten on, meaning many males probably just want to get out as soon as they can.

Of course, affirmative action and sensitivity classes for the insensitive dominant gender (women) sounds like a fun reversal, but if I'm going to stick with my principles, I have to say that if it's a dumb idea when applied to sensitizing men about women, then it's dumb the other way too. My preferred solution would be to shrug it off. We should deal with the more egregious examples of prejudice, but I detest the liberal witch-hunts designed to root it out. I'd rather open up the playing field and let market forces deal with the problem. Glenn points out that this discrepancy has some wider implications, however:

I would suggest, though, that the issue is of national import, and deserves more attention. As Larry Summers noted — to his chagrin, but accurately nonetheless — the hard sciences are still a largely male area (though they're managing to chase many men away, too), and there's not much prospect of more women getting involved. If men in general are reluctant to enter higher education, then the growing shortage of American-born scientists and engineers (noted by Ray Kurzweil here) is likely to get worse. This is likely to have significant national security implications.

And don't forget the problems pointed out by the USA Today article Glenn references:

This is ominous for every parent with a male child. The decline in college attendance means many will needlessly miss out on success in life. The loss of educated workers also means the country will be less able to compete economically. The social implications — women having a hard time finding equally educated mates — are already beginning to play out.

And therein lies the biggest question raised by this whole crisis: if there are so many women looking for educated men, why do I have so much trouble getting dates?

It's been a while since I've written about Mauritania. Between Katrina, the religious debate, and the Storyblogging Carnival's firt anniversary, I just haven't given it the attention it deserves, so let's go digging through the news, shall we?

• Mali's president is expressing support for the new government, as is Morocco's king. In both cases, it's little more than diplomatic noise, not really indicating much. Ghana, on the other hand, still opposes the new government.


• Mauritania's one of the countries affected by the cholera epidemic in West Africa.


• It took nearly a month, but the new government implemented a comprehensive amnesty of political prisoners on September 2nd. Some political prisoners had been released earlier, and I wasn't the only one concerned that the ones released seemed to mainly be alleged Islamists.


• While Qatar was still giving asylum to ousted Mauritanian president Taya, they've begun meeting with Mauritanian officials. Taya had been staying in the Qatari city of Doha. On September 6th, the Mauritanian ambassador to Qatar offered to let Taya return and even take part in of the new democratic process. They must be pretty confident, as they're going to be the first ones on the chopping block if Taya actually wins.


• The new government has followed the environmental tradition of the old one in ordering a two month break from industrial fishing in order to allow for reproduction of certain species.


• On September 8th, the opposition party, Union of Forces of Progress, called for a return of exiles and an end to slavery, both worthy goals. Some exiles are already returning in the wake of the general amnesty, so I'm not clear on what the UFP wants done differently.


• The oil exploration doesn't seem to be going as well as had been hoped.

That's all I've turned up recently. Let me know if you spot anything.

Stephen Markman has some excellent thoughts on what an extremist judge really is:

Senate Democrats have warned the president to avoid sending them "extremist" judges. While there is considerable room for debate as to how best to identify truly "extremist" candidates, a starting point might be to focus on those nominees who are most inclined to disregard the admonition of Chief Justice John Marshall in Marbury v. Madison, which established judicial review, that the role of the judge is to say what the law is rather than what it ought to be. For, if there is any aspect that is central to the proper exercise of the judicial power, it is respect for the separation of powers and an appreciation of the distinction between the judicial and legislative roles in a tripartite government.

While there are few judges who ever expressly assert their disregard for the words of the lawmaker (whether that lawmaker be Congress, a state legislature, a county commission, or simply the parties to a contract), such disregard is often effectively achieved through a variety of alternative, less noticeable means. Therefore, to assist the Senate in assessing “extremist” tendencies in judicial nominees, I offer for consideration several of the more prominent rhetorical devices that often cloak judicial fiats. Senators may wish to examine the prior opinions of nominees in order to assess their propensity for employing devices like the following, with the purpose of replacing the policy choices of the lawmaker with those of the judge.

Read it all.

CENTCOM has a webpage where they post translations of what the Islamic extremists are saying. They've recently posted a statement by Zarqawi's al'Qaeda organization in Iraq, taking credit for the attack last week and promising more. Most of it's fairly typical, but I found this part telling:

Approach us, O paradise. O brigade of martyrdom-seeker: Celebrate and sing the praise of God, for tomorrow you will meet the beloved ones, Muhammad and his companions. You have never accepted injustice, O lions of monotheism. This is your day. Go after the heads of the infidels, the Jews, the Crusaders, and the descendants of Ibn al-Alqami [derogatory term for Shia named after Ibn-al-Alqami, a Shia minister who was accused of betraying the last Abbasid caliph Al-Musta'ism during Hulugu's attack on Baghdad in 1258]. Do not show any mercy toward them.

Infidels, Jews, and Crusaders are the usual targets of the terrorists, but the fact that al'Qaeda specifically mention the Shi'ites, and in such a derogatory manner, indicates that they're still pursuing the strategy they've been attempting to implement for at least the past year. They know they have no support among the Kurds, and while there are Shi'ite extremists, they don't play too well with the Sunnis. So rather than trying to win support among those groups, they're targeting them. They're hoping that they can increase tensions between the Sunnis and the Shi'ites to the point of starting a civil war. I'm not sure whether they still believe that will work, but they may be able to keep the animosity running at a high enough level that building a successful democracy is impossible.

Whether or not a civil war happens, the failure to create a democracy will most likely result in three independent nations rather than one. Al'Qaeda will have succeeded in creating the impression of a failed attempt at nation-building by the US, but whether the Sunni nation will be friendly to them is an open question. They'd still have to duke it out with the Ba'athist secularists, and the results will be bloody. The thing to remember is that this is not the result that most of the Sunnis want. There's a reason they fought so hard against federalism in the Iraqi constitution. They know that if Iraq's three ethnic groups go their separate ways, they'll be the weak one, without most of the oil wealth their cousins possess. The Shi'ites and the Kurds wouldn't be sorry to see this happen, so the only two groups with a vested interest in a united Iraq are the Sunnis and the US. At this point the Sunnis want it both ways, turning a blind eye to the terrorists among them while certain that the US, whom they still hate, will prevent the worst case scenario from happening. I think maybe it's time for the US to start saying that splitting Iraq into three nations wouldn't be such a bad thing. If the Sunnis start to realize that they're the ones who will lose the most should al'Qaeda succeed, they might just turn against the terrorists.

(Thanks to SPC Claude Flowers for the heads up!)

There's a very interesting timeline of the relief efforts for Katrina at Rightwing Nuthouse. It's fascinating reading, and very well documented. What you'll notice immediately is that everyone was moving units into place even before the storm hit, trying to stay on top of it. The Coast Guard had boats standing by, National Guard units were mobilizing, and FEMA had units outside of the city but within the hurricane strike zone:

As the Category 4 surged ashore just east of New Orleans on Monday, FEMA had medical teams, rescue squads and groups prepared to supply food and water poised in a semicircle around the city, said agency Director Michael Brown.

[Emphasis in original.]

Yet, somehow, they just couldn't stay ahead. It's fascinating and frustrating at the same time. We do not currently have, and perhaps will never have, the resources to respond to something like this any quicker. We can, of course, throw more money at it and create yet more layers of federal bureaucracy, but do you really think it will help? I think we'd be better off making sure the local authorities, those best able to do something about it, are competent and honest, something that New Orleans's government was never known for. Mark Steyn has more:

Anyone watching TV in recent days will have seen plenty of "re-primitivized man," not in Liberia or Somalia, but in Louisiana. Cops smashing the Wal-Mart DVD cabinet so they can get their share of the booty along with the rest of the looters, gangs firing on a children's hospital and on rescue helicopters, hurricane victims being raped in the New Orleans Convention Center. . . . If you're minded, as many of the world's anti-Americans are, to regard the United States as a depraved swamp, it was a grand old week: Mother Nature delivered the swamp, but plenty of natives supplied the depravity.

Not all of them, of course. But it doesn't really matter if it's only 5 percent or 2 percent or 0.01 percent if everybody else is giving them free rein. Not exactly the most impressive law enforcement agency even on a good day, the New Orleans Police Department sent along some 80 officers to rescue the rape victims trapped in the Convention Center, but were beaten back by the mob. Meanwhile, the ever more pitiful governor was, unlike many of her fellow Louisianans, safe on dry land but still floundering way out of her depth, unable to stand up to the lawlessness even rhetorically or to communicate anything other than emotive impotence...

Sept. 11 was an appalling comprehensive failure of just about every relevant federal agency. The only government that worked that day was local and state: The great defining image, redeeming American honor at a moment of national humiliation, is those brave New York firemen pounding up the stairs of the World Trade Center. What consolations can be drawn from the lopsided tango between slapdash bureaucrats and subhuman predators in New Orleans?

It's ugly, but I wonder whether it could have gone any better.