Assorted links

1. Rebranding abstinence-only education.

2. The admissions scandal at the University of Illinois gets bigger. Now it includes the law school.

3. More on the money problems at Harvard.

4. Lost train stations.

5. Why new novelists are often rather old. I remember reading John Scalzi in the Chicago Maroon when I was a graduate student; I have not had a chance to read one of his novels yet.

Various hat tips.

Movie: Enlighten Up!

We walked into Ann Arbor last night to see Enlighten Up! Roger Ebert sums it up much better than I could. I will just add that you should not expect too much, but if you are curious about the yoga world - as I am because my wonderful wife does Bikram yoga on occasion - then you will like it. If you are a dyed-in-the-wool atheist or a dyed-in-the-wool theist of a particular flavor, you will like it less.

Recommended to those not dyed-in-the-wool

Monday music

Twisted Sister |MTV Music

Someone sent me a link to the "We Are the World" video in honor of Michael Jackson and that got me watching a few videos this morning over breakfast. I thought about putting up a post about "We Are the World" as there is a good Chicago skit-show story related to it but I thought better of that. Whatever did happen to Cyndi Lauper though? Done in by too much she-bopping? So, instead, my mind wandered off to Twisted Sister, which seems a fine way to start a Monday morning.

Bonus pop culture question of the day: the first part of the Twisted Sister "We're Not Gonna Take It" video is taken from what movie?

Assorted links

1. 100 useful websites from MSN money.

2. Corruption in university admissions. I know it is Illinois but this one still surprised me. Remind me again why the government runs universities rather than just handing out loans and grants to students?

3. Fun with street signs.

4. The stimulus was poorly targeted? You would think someone could have figured that out before it passed. Oh wait, what's that you say ....

5. The WSJ on Animal House at 30.

Hat tips: instapundit and others.

Movie: Away We Go

I think we must have seen the preview for this one a dozen times, which is a lot of hype for a film aimed at the art house crowd. In the end, we both liked like, though as you can see at the rotten tomatoes site, this view is not universal. Roger Ebert's review sums up the controversy and take a stand on the positive side.

The parody of Ann Arbor (thinly disguised as Madison) is hilarious. The music is gorgeous and the lesson, that you are less crazy than you think because everyone else is covering up just like you do, is a useful one. And it has Maggie Guyllenhall!

Recommended.

Mel Stephens: Come on Down!

If you are like me, you probably looked around at Michigan and counted all the labor economists, such as Bob Willis, Frank Stafford, John Bound, Charlie Brown, John DiNardo, Jeff Smith, Brian Jacob, Brian McCall, Sue Dynarski, Mike Elsby, Martha Bailey, Mario Macis, and Kevin Stange, and the laborish development economists like David Lam, Jim Levinsohn, Dean Yang, Raj Arunachulam and Rebecca Thornton, and the laborish health economists like Edward Norton, Helen Levy, Catherine McLaughlin, Tom Buchmueller and Daniel Eisenberg and thought to yourself: wow, they could really use another labor economist up there in Ann Arbor!

We were thinking that too, so we just hired Mel Stephens from the Heinz School at CMU.

Welcome (back) to Michigan Mel!

Update on Washington football

From rivals.com, an update on what Steve Sarkisian has done so far - which is pretty good on the recruiting front - and some thoughts about the coming year. I agree with the sentiment that Washington's non-conference schedules are too tough. I would prefer one top opponent each year and then two that are winnable but still real - i.e. not Western Michigan but maybe Purdue.