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Fresh ire aimed at former Harvard University President Larry Summers prompts the question: Shouldn’t there be a statute of limitations on dumb things expressed in public? (Please say yes.) Forever accursed is the economist and Clinton-era treasury secretary for having raised — more than three years ago — the eensy-weensy possibility that innate differences between men and women might explain in part why more men than women reach the top echelons in math and science. His comments, though not completely without scientific basis, unleashed a millennium worth of female scorn, making Hell a suddenly attractive destination for the discriminating traveler...

The Talk Shows Sunday, October 12th, 2008 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): David Axelrod, campaign adviser for Barack Obama; Rick Davis, campaign adviser for John McCain; Gov. Ed Rendell, D-Pa.; Gov. Tim Pawlenty, R-Minn.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Gov. Jon Corzine, D-N.J.; Former Rep. Rob Portman, R-Ohio.FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; Gov. Bill Ritter, D-Colo.; Mayor Doug Wilder, Richmond, Va.; Rep. Adam Putnam, R-Fla.; C. Fred Bergsten, director, Peterson Institute for International Economics.THIS WEEK (ABC): Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass.; Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo.; Former Treasury secretary’s James Baker...

Taxpayers face a tab of as much as $200 billion for a government takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the formerly semi-autonomous mortgage finance clearinghouses. And Sen. Christopher Dodd, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, has the gall to ask in a Bloomberg Television interview: "I have a lot of questions about where was the administration over the last eight years." We will save the senator some trouble. Here is what we saw firsthand at the White House from late 2002 through 2007: Starting in 2002, White House and Treasury Department economic policy staffers, with support from...

"Let me welcome you all here today for the signing of this historic legislation. With this bill, the American financial system takes a major step forward towards the 21st century, one that will benefit American consumers, business, and the national economy for many years to come." -- Larry Summers, Then-Clinton Treasury Secretary And Current Obama Adviser, On Gramm-Leach-Bliley (1999) Today, The Obama Campaign, As Barack Obama Has Done Over The Past Few Days, Blamed The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act For The Current Economic Crisis: Obama Campaign Memo: "Gramm Was 'Principal Author' Of The 1999 Gramm-Leach-BlileyAct, Breaking Down Walls Between Banking, Insurance, And...

Almost certainly, now is not the moment for dramatic further price increases in energy, given the situation of the economy and the way in which consumers and many energy-using businesses are reeling. At the same time, with the economy getting used to far higher energy prices than were considered plausible even 18 months ago, it would be a great tragedy if prices were allowed to decline very sharply when the current crisis passes. So the crucial priority will be to maintain the momentum and incentive for savings caused by the current high-priced energy, whatever happens in the future.

... Almost certainly, now is not the moment for dramatic further price increases in energy, given the situation of the economy and the way in which consumers and many energy-using businesses are reeling. At the same time, with the economy getting used to far higher energy prices than were considered plausible even 18 months ago, it would be a great tragedy if prices were allowed to decline very sharply when the current crisis passes. So the crucial priority will be to maintain the momentum and incentive for savings caused by the current high-priced energy, whatever happens in the future. Right...

Profile In Cowardice by: Deborah Lambert, February 15, 2008 In a recent column at mindingthecampus.com, author and commentator John Leo noted that although former Harvard president Larry Summers was given the boot by leftist profs for telling "unwelcome truths," Duke University president Richard Brodhead would apparently not suffer the same fate after the Duke “non-rape” case. Leo’s column reviewed Brodhead's actions, including his firing of the lacrosse coach without “finding that the coach had done anything wrong,” and his refusal “to look at the overwhelming evidence, offered to him by defense counsel, that the boys were innocent.” “When racist black...

Why America Must Have Fiscal Stimulus by Lawrence Summers, Financial Times The odds of a 2008 US recession have surely increased after a very poor employment report, growing evidence of weak holiday spending, further increases in oil prices, more dismal housing data and further writedowns in the financial sector. Six weeks ago my judgment in this newspaper that recession was likely seemed extreme; it is now conventional opinion and many fear that there will be a serious recession. Markets now predict the Federal Reserve will provide further stimulus to the economy by cutting rates by an additional 125 basis points...

As if losing the presidency of Harvard for hinting that there might be a biological explanation for the preponderance of men in academic science wasn't enough, Lawrence Summers now appears to be persona non grata elsewhere too. A few weeks ago the University of California, Davis rescinded an invitation for him to speak. More than 150 faculty members signed a petition protesting his appearance, saying Mr. Summers "has come to symbolize gender and racial prejudice in academia." Ms. Stanton and her allies want pariah status for anyone who dares to suggest a biological basis for difference. Yet the scientific literature...

< >It is one crazy world when the man who rules Iran with an iron hand, denies the Holocaust, and vows to destroy Israel can speak at Columbia University, but the former president of Harvard and former Secretary of the Treasury can’t speak at U.C. Davis.< >I always thought we liberals were supposed to be in favor of free speech, open discussion, the marketplace of ideas, the notion that good ideas can defeat bad ones.< >It does us no good to forcibly silence those who say out loud what others believe in private.< >

WASHINGTON -- The latest smack-down of former Harvard President Lawrence Summers should extinguish any remaining doubt that political correctness is the new McCarthyism. Summers, you'll recall, was driven out of his university post in 2005 after he suggested at a conference that gender differences might account for an underrepresentation by women in science, math and engineering. Never mind that scientific evidence suggests as much. One simply doesn't say -- ever -- that men and women aren't equal in every way. Summers' remarks were seized upon, taken out of context and misinterpreted by many, including one female biologist from MIT, who...

...The saga of controversial liberal law professor Erwin Chemerinsky's on-again, off-again deanship at the new UC Irvine law school was highly unusual in two ways. First, the pressure to enforce political orthodoxy at Chemerinsky's expense came from the right, not the left, and second, academic freedom and 1st Amendment values won a resounding victory when Chemerinsky was ultimately rehired ...The regents had invited Summers to be the keynote speaker at a dinner tonight in Sacramento. They then uninvited him last week after some UC faculty protested that "inviting a keynote speaker who has come to symbolize gender and racial prejudice...

Lawrence Summers, the controversial former president of Harvard University, has been replaced as the planned speaker at a UC Board of Regents dinner next week after complaints from faculty members. "(UC Regents) Chairman Richard Blum and Dr. Summers talked last Thursday and agreed that the regents would have a different speaker," Trey Davis, director of special projects for the UC system, said Saturday. Davis was unable to say whether a protest letter signed by more than 300 people from the university system had any effect on the decision to find a different speaker for the regents' dinner in Sacramento on...

Ex-Treasury Secretary Summers warns of risks 'greater than any since aftermath of 9/11', reports Ambrose Evans-Pritchard # Subprime crisis in full # Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: Prepare for the crunch Former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers warned that the United States may be heading into recession as the biggest victim to date of the sub-prime mortgage debacle was humiliatingly sold for a token sum in Germany. Traders are braced for another week of turmoil after the near breakdown of America's $2,200bn (£1,100bn) market for commercial paper. "It would be far too premature to judge this crisis over," Mr Summers said. "I would...

All Things Considered, January 19, 2005 · Last Friday, Harvard University President Lawrence Summers suggested that innate differences between men and women might be one reason there are fewer women in the fields of science and engineering. More than 50 Harvard professors signed a letter protesting his statement, and alumnae have threatened to withhold donations. Summers has apologized, but commentator and psychological researcher Drew Westen says that apology might be unwarranted. (Audio at link.)

The Iowa-based ACT is trumpeting its latest college entrance examination scores as improved but a closer examination of the test results reveals them to be pretty pathetic. “National ACT scores rose significantly in 2006,” the organization claims. “The average ACT composite score for the U. S. high school graduating class of 2006 was 21.1, up from 20.9 last year.” “Scores were higher for both males and females and for students across virtually all racial/ethnic groups.” This year, 1.2 million students took the test, on which 32 was the highest score they could possibly attain. Few did. It gets worse. “For...

Courtesy of Ben A. Barres NOW AND THEN Ben A. Barres as Barbara, age 34; and as Ben at 42. Perhaps it is inevitable that Ben A. Barres would have strong opinions on the debate over the place of women in science. Dr. Barres has a degree in biology from M.I.T., a medical degree from Dartmouth and a doctorate in neurobiology from Harvard. He is a professor of neurobiology at Stanford. And until his surgery a decade ago, his name was Barbara, and he was a woman. Now he has taken his unusual perspective to the current issue of...

Weekend Talk Show *Preview* for 6/24 and 6/25/06 (not the live thread)The main message is the Sunday Shows.  Message 1 will be the Saturday Shows and message 2 will be the show guest links post.  Then I'll post the ping list.Sunday Shows for 6-25-06 ABC This Week (George Stephanopoulos) Meme: What is wrong with these Democrats?  We hand them the election on a silver platter and they just screw it up!Bush has had two good weeks - it's time to bring out the big guns and knock that fool down a peg Topics: Iraq Withdrawal?: In a pair of exclusive...

Something is very wrong at our elite universities. Last month Larry Summers resigned as president of Harvard; today Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi will speak by video to a conference at Columbia University that his regime is cosponsoring. (Columbia won't answer questions about how much funding it got from Libya or what implied strings were attached.) Then there's Yale, which for three weeks has refused to make any comment or defense beyond a vague 144-word statement about its decision to admit Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi--a former ambassador-at-large of the murderous Afghan Taliban--as a special student. The three backers of the foundation that,...

Harvard needed Larry Summers. The board's failure to stand by him suggests its members don't know what it takes to lead a great university. For the past three decades, however, Harvard's reputation for preeminence has not always reflected reality in Cambridge. Who now thinks Harvard is better in engineering than MIT or Caltech? Who thinks Harvard's Law School, hobbled by rancorous dissent, is better than Yale's, Virginia's, or Stanford's? Its Philosophy Department, once the home of William James, C.I. Lewis, and W.V.O. Quine, is now typically ranked below departments at Michigan and Pittsburgh.