links for 2009-11-26

Great points from Dave Chappelle. Under the law of many states, a 17-year old is unable to consent to sex with her 18-year old boyfriend. In those same states, a 15-year old can be tried as an adult. If a person lacks the ability to understand the nature of sex, how can a person understand the nature of criminal acts? Add in race, and you have the wisdom of Chappelle (video starts at 4:20, and is worth watching from the beginning)

More on tenure... A few alert readers called my attention to this post by Michael Berube, in which he attacks my response to the AAUP. He even goes so far as to "nominate DD’s post for the coveted Richard Cohen Award for Advanced Wrongheadedness." Clearly, a response is in order.

As regular readers know, I've argued for some time that the tenure system is unsustainable and even unethical. I've proposed as an alternative a system of long-term renewable contracts with academic freedom stipulated in the contract language. (For the record, I envision an initial contract of three years -- consistent with current practice for most tenure-track lines -- followed by renewable five-year contracts.) That way, if academic freedom is attacked, a complainant wouldn't have to rely on an extra-constitutional and undefined legal doctrine; she could bring action as breach of contract. Academic freedom could also be stipulated in institutional policy. To the extent that employee handbooks and/or institutional bylaws are given the force of contract, the objection from 'expiration' is rendered moot.

Gould says it's pretty clear ants don't have maps in their heads and don't recognize markers along the route. This experiment strongly suggests that ants do have internal pedometers that allow them to "count" their [steps to find the] way home.

"Whatever you have thought of me in the past, I can tell you right now that I am one of your greatest friends and I mean for us to work together," he said in a live interview with Telemundo's Maria Celeste. "I hope that will begin with Maria and me and Telemundo and other media organizations and others in this national debate that we should turn into a solution rather than a continuing debate and factional contest."

Mr. Dobbs twice mentioned a possible legalization plan for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S., saying at one point that "we need the ability to legalize illegal immigrants under certain conditions."