I was flipping through a backlog of magazines on Saturday while watching the excellent slate of sporting events. I ran across all sorts of interesting stuff, like this ranking by Forbes of the best cities to do business. The following metropolitan areas ranked 1-10: Provo, UT; Raleigh, NC; Fort Collins, CO; Des Moines, IA; Denver, CO; Ogden, UT; Lincoln, NB; Dallas, TX; Austin, TX; Nashville, TN. * * * * * * * Three California cities (Stockton, Modesto, and Merced) are in the bottom five. * * * * * * * Is it a coincidence that the best cities to live in are in "red states" and the worst places are in "blue states"? Hardly. Society breaks down when government ramps up. * * * * * * * From the same back issue of Forbes, more evidence that, hopefully, the higher education system as we know it is breaking down under the assault of the Internet. The system would have collapsed a few years ago, and tuition prices would have fallen through the floor, but a corrupt and compromised accreditation system keeps a jackboot on the neck of online schools. . . . in hopes of keeping their clientele fat and happy and wholly unaccountable for skyrocketing tuition expenses. But that might be changing because, now, the elite schools are launching online learning. The accreditation Nazis might have a hard time saying that the likes of Stanford and Duke don't meet the minimum requirements.
