http://www.drudge.com/user/Robson New links and comments. en-us http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification Wordzilla/0.58 10 http://www.drudge.com/news/166434/unz-myth-american-meritocracy http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-myth-of-american-meritocracy/ Ron Unz: How corrupt are Ivy League admissions? In the last generation or two, the funnel of opportunity in American society has drastically narrowed, with a greater and greater proportion of our financial, media, business, and political elites being drawn from a relatively small number of our leading universities, together with their professional schools. During this period, we have witnessed a huge national decline in well-paid middle class jobs in the manufacturing sector and other sources of employment for those lacking college degrees, with median American wages having been stagnant or declining for the last forty years. Meanwhile, there has been an astonishing concentration of wealth at the top, with America's richest 1 percent now possessing nearly as much net wealth as the bottom 95 percent. To quote the article.....When one combines "shared group biases" with "the extreme flexibility and subjectivity" that exists in the college admissions process, one should not expect, Unz concludes, objective, meritocratic decision making. Asians and non-Jewish whites turn out to be the big losers. <p>Overt racism in the Ivy League college admission process is behind the decline in meritocracy. Thu, 14 Mar 2013 10:39:54 -0400 Robson http://www.drudge.com/news/166434/unz-myth-american-meritocracy#discuss tag:drudge.com,2005:weblog.166434 news, 0.5 daily 166434 http://www.drudge.com/news/165819/feds-raid-power-wheelchair-company http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505266_162-57570450/the-scooter-store-power-wheelchair-company-raided-in-federal-probe/#postComments On Wednesday, 150 federal and state agents raided The Scooter Store headquarters in New Braunfels, Texas. Last year, former employees told CBS News the company's main goal is not to help patients -- it's to pressure doctors into writing prescriptions to boost profits. Once a doctor has written a prescription, Medicare rarely verifies whether the chairs are actually necessary. Former employee Brian Setzer described the process this way: "Bulldoze and get them to get the paperwork done." Every time I saw one of their ads foisting one of their expensive power wheelchairs on seniors claiming it won't cost you a dime it made my blood boil. It was easy to see that it was set up intentionally to have seniors push their doctor to sign off on the need for these wheelchairs when they were a luxury that was not needed by many and many who could afford them would not waste their own money. There is not a day goes by when I see these being sold by individuals. The fraud by physicians, pharmaceuticals, equipment providers, etc. is why Medicare is going broke. <p><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/TWQcuE4u_NI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Fri, 22 Feb 2013 10:31:25 -0500 Robson http://www.drudge.com/news/165819/feds-raid-power-wheelchair-company#discuss tag:drudge.com,2005:weblog.165819 news, 0.5 daily 165819