woensdag 28 oktober 2009

Vers quel classement européen des universités?

Lisez la nota de l'Institut Thomas More ici.

Inburgering voor dummies

Marokko haalt meer inkomsten uit de diaspora dan uit zijn eigen economie.
INTEGRATIE VRAAGT MEER DAN EEN CURSUS NEDERLANDS — Zo lang via huwelijksmigratie de deuren van België wijd openstaan voor nieuwkomers en zo lang landen als Marokko profijt halen uit de slechte inburgering van hun uitwijkelingen, zal België integratieproblemen blijven hebben, voorspelt JEAN-MARIE DEDECKER. Dat los je op met nieuwe wetten, niet met een cursus Nederlands via internet. Lees het opiniestuk hier.

Freaked Out Over SuperFreakonomics (and climate change)

Suppose for a minute—which is about 59 seconds too long, but that's for another column—that global warming poses an imminent threat to the survival of our species. Suppose, too, that the best solution involves a helium balloon, several miles of garden hose and a harmless stream of sulfur dioxide being pumped into the upper atmosphere, all at a cost of a single F-22 fighter jet.

Good news, right? Maybe, but not if you're Al Gore or one of his little helpers.

The hose-in-the-sky approach to global warming is the brainchild of Intellectual Ventures, a Bellevue, Wash.-based firm founded by former Microsoft Chief Technology Officer Nathan Myhrvold. The basic idea is to engineer effects similar to those of the 1991 mega-eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines, which spewed so much sulfuric ash into the stratosphere that it cooled the earth by about one degree Fahrenheit for a couple of years. Read the complete article in the WSJ here.

Efficient Market Theory and the Crisis

Neither the rating agencies' mistakes nor the overleveraging by financial firms was the fault of an academic hypothesis. Read the complete article in the WSJ here.