The United States has a problem: rapidly rising student debt. It also has a solution: online education. The primary reason for spiraling student debt is the soaring costs of a college education at a physical college. Online education strips away all of those expenses except for the cost of the professor's time and experience. It sounds perfect, an alignment of technology, social need and limited resources. So why do so many people believe that it is a deeply flawed solution?

Because it means massive swaths of higher education is about to change. Technology has disrupted many industries; now it's about to do the same to higher ed.

The reality is that numerous high-powered political operatives for both Republicans and Democrats have formed 501(c)(4) organizations. The GOP's most prominent political guru, Karl Rove, has Crossroads GPS, a 501(c)(4) entity that spent $70 million during the 2012 campaign encouraging voters to cast their ballots for Republican candidates. Under the guidance of former Obama campaign manager Jim Messina, the president's reelection apparatus has been reorganized as a 501(c)(4) group that no doubt will "educate" the public about the need for more Democrats in Congress. [...]

The fact is that none of the right-wing applicants were turned down, even though they are probably as engaged in partisan campaigning as Karl Rove or Jim Messina. A 501(c)(4) group is, by law, supposed to be a social welfare organization whose primary activity is not politics. Can anyone honestly say that about Rove or Messina or any of the many tea party organizations?

Michael Ignatieff: Syria is a case where we're now into the third year of a bloody conflict in which the Syrian regime is using artillery and aircraft to attack civilian populations. Their security forces and their militias are staging obvious and horrifying massacres. So from a "responsibility to protect" point of view this is a case where a state has forfeited its right to be left alone and betrayed its responsibilities.

On Friday, senior Defense Ministry official Maj.-Gen. (Res) Amos Gilad said in an interview with Israel Radio that Assad is in total control of his country's weapons systems and is acting sensibly with regard to Israel, seeking to calm escalating tensions between Jerusalem and Damascus following reported Israeli airstrikes earlier this month.

Gilad stressed that Israel is not striving to topple Assad's regime...

While the last-minute nomination came as a surprise to many, it could be expected that the news would lead to a positive response from the key economic and business players in the country. Immediately after his registration, the price of gold coins (a main indicator of market trends) and foreign currencies started dropping. In fact, the Iranian rial appreciated by about 4% compared to the US dollar within one day. 

More interesting than the market reaction was the emergence of news that segments of the powerful Motalefeh Party (the representative of the old merchant community in the Bazaar) would support Rafsanjani in the race. This is a very significant development as the Motalefeh had traditionally always supported the conservative candidates in Iranian elections. However, it also indicates that even the Bazaaris expect Rafsanjani to play a more positive role in managing the economy as opposed to other leading candidates.

There are diverse reasons for the overall positive reaction of market players to Rafsanjani's candidacy. Emotionally, Rafsanjani is still known as the politician who put an end to the Iran-Iraq war in 1988. He was the one who persuaded then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini to drink the "chalice of poison" and accept the cease-fire with Iraq. That day was one of the most significant turning points in modern Iranian history and some believe that a similar event will be needed to generate a new positive momentum. This historical fact bears symbolic significance, particularly when we realize that many Iranians compare the current conditions to the economic misery that had dominated Iran in the 1980s. Rafsanjani is seen as the political figure who can restore some normalcy in the Iranian economy.

Furthermore, Rafsanjani was Iran's president during the post-war reconstruction era when many of Iranian industries were revived and when the country invested heavily in  building domestic capacity. The same industrial units that emerged under Rafsanjani (and later Khatami) presidency, were dealt a heavy blow under the Ahmadinejad policies. Therefore, many industrialists and market players hope for a more balanced set of economic policies in a Rafsanjani government.

Finally, Rafsanjani has always been seen as a pragmatic "crisis manager" in Iranian politics. Not just for the political elite, but also for many average citizens, Rafsanjani is a more credible political figure to address the current crises in the economy, foreign policy and domestic affairs. Approaching the age of 80, Rafsanjani is also seen as an experienced politician who will not allow the same type of trial-and-error mentality that the Ahmadinejad camp produced over the past eight years.

A more plausible explanation is offered by Michael Chernew and some Harvard colleagues. Their model suggests that market choice and competition helped produce the slowdown, especially among Mr. Obama's preferred villains. Hide the children: the insurers.

Dr. Chernew investigated changes in the insurance mix at large businesses from 2008 to 2011. Even as these firms did better than their smaller counterparts, their workers shared more of the costs of their own care through higher deductibles, co-pays and new benefit designs. "Rising out-of-pocket payments," he writes, "appear to have played a major role in this decline, accounting for approximately 20% of the observed slowdown."

In a word, patients make better decisions when they have the right incentives and information. 

What worked for the late female former prime minister in politics works for men in business, scientists have found, as those with the deepest voices earn more on average than their higher-pitched colleagues.

[T]he North Carolina Growers Association]  is required to heavily advertise for native workers before their applications for H-2A guest worker visas are approved, but these efforts seldom pay off. Even when unemployment was at its height in 2011, they received a grand total of only 268 referrals. They hired 90 percent of the applicants, but only 163 showed up for work on their first day--and that was the best response in NCGA's history. [...]

Within two months, 80 percent of the native workers had quit. By the end of the growing season, only seven were left.

The Obama administration is still playing it cool with environmentalists. First it skirted the protracted battle over the Keystone XL pipeline, which could carry dirty tar sands oil from Canada to the American Gulf Coast. Now it's facing opposition to proposed fracking regulations on tens of millions of acres of government land.

Volvo is testing a new plug-in electric hybrid diesel bus in Gothenburg, Sweden. The company says the vehicles can cut fuel consumption and carbon-dioxide emissions by 75 to 80 percent compared with conventional buses. And if the buses are fueled with biodiesel, carbon-dioxide emissions would be cut by 90 percent.

Increasing the fuel efficiency for buses and trucks is an easy way to cut fuel consumption and greenhouse-gas emissions, mostly because these vehicles get such terrible mileage to begin with. New York's old diesel buses got about 2.75 miles per gallon. So even if the MTA's new hybrid buses only get 4 mpg that's almost a 50 percent improvement. (The MTA says is has about 800 hybrid buses on the road, with more to come.) When you're dealing with mass transit, marginal gains in efficiency go a long way. And because cash-strapped transit agencies often keep old diesel buses running for years, those gains come relatively easily.

The IRS isn't clear on the origin of section 4, but it apparently resulted from a 1913 request from the Chamber of Commerce asking that "civic and commercial" organizations be exempt from paying federal taxes. In 1958, the NAACP won a case at the Supreme Court allowing it to keep its donor list private, in order to protect its work for the social welfare.

Which is what (c)(4)s are supposed to do: advocate for the improvement of the social welfare. Here's how the IRS describes that mandate:

To be operated exclusively to promote social welfare, an organization must operate primarily to further the common good and general welfare of the people of the community (such as by bringing about civic betterment and social improvements).

The IRS gives examples: groups pushing for affordable housing, those doing job training for the unemployed, those working to build a stadium at a school.

What isn't mentioned is: using non-profit status to shield contributions from donors that are used to advocate during political campaigns. It's this use that's become a problem, because the IRS definition of what constitutes social welfare is broad and vague. And unlike some other non-profits, these groups can do political advocacy. The IRS indicates that such groups cannot directly or indirectly advocate for candidates, but can "engage in some political activities, so long as that is not its primary activity."

After Congress revised rules governing contributions to political parties a decade ago, donors went looking for other ways to anonymously promote political causes they supported. As far back as 2006, the media was calling out 501(c)(4)s that appeared to serve little "social welfare" outcome beyond the political goals of its funders. Forming a (c)(4) offered the best of all possible worlds: anonymous political money that could largely be used to influence politics. Once, that money flowed into political parties. Now it goes to IRS-designated non-profits.

In 2011, with the prospect of a presidential election looming, the Center for Public Integrity described the breadth of the loophole -- little reporting, lots of money, unknown sponsors. 

We conservatives reject the progressive view that it's impossible to go back, given that we now live in a more advanced stage of History. History isn't simply a tale of either progress or of decline and fall, and who each of us is isn't completely determined by his or her Historical situation. It's just not true that the sophisticated understanding of who women are these days is simply an advance over the alleged prejudices of the past.

Our understanding of who we all are has become too "Historical" or even "existential" or not properly natural or personal. Our sophisticates mistakenly think each of us can define the mystery of his or her personal existence--personal identity--without regard to the purposes and limits he or she been given through his or her embodiment, through birth, genuinely relational life, and death.

But it's also true that we can see, in justice, that our high-tech society has opened possibilities for largely unprecedented personal development for women. We add that it's difficult--much more difficult than progressives and liberals acknowledge--to reconcile personal fulfillment through work with the more relational forms of free personal fulfillment as a parent. It's hard to properly honor "voluntary caregiving" in a society that's, more than ever, a meritocracy based on productivity. But that's the challenge that's been given us, and we conservatives pride ourselves in facing up to it. We think that both love and work--even contemplation and charity--should animate every personal life.

What the film did not depict was the reported encounter Robinson had with the one baseball player who could best understand the prejudice the Civil Rights symbol encountered on the field in 1947.

That man was another first baseman, Jewish slugger Hammerin' Hank Greenberg, playing for the Pittsburgh Pirates in the sunset year of his career. Greenberg had been unfairly released from the Detroit Tigers the year before even though his power had helped the team win four pennants and two World Series.

The two men met on the field on May 15th. According to sports columnist Ira Berkow "Greenberg was appalled by some of the things the players in his own dugout were hollering at Robinson."

A little drama unfolded when Robinson hit a ball and collided with Greenberg running to first base. Greenberg went out of his way to help Robinson up and give him a pep talk. After the game, the reporters asked the rookie what Greenberg had said to him. Robinson asserted, 'He gave me encouragement."

This empathy was expressed because Greenberg understood Robinson's struggles. "42" mentions in passing that Greenberg was subject to anti-Semitic slurs, but that was only the tip of the prejudice. Upon first entering the minor leagues in the 1930s,

Greenberg realized that most of his ballplayers were "country boys and had never had seen a Jew. I remember my teammate Jo-Jo White, when he saw me he couldn't understand because he was always told that Jews had horns. And here I was, I looked like a normal human being, and he just couldn't figure it out."

Gerald Wheeler caught the hot dog demonstration at the International Woodworking Fair in Atlanta in 2002. A man took an Oscar Meyer wiener and pushed it into the blade of a table saw spinning 4,000 times per minute. As the hot dog touched the whirring saw, the blade came to a dead stop in about three one-thousandths of a second, leaving the dog with only a minor nick.

The saw was equipped with a safety device called SawStop that could distinguish between wood and flesh and then stop the blade fast enough to prevent a gruesome injury. Wheeler was amazed. As the operator of a wood shop in Hot Springs, Arkansas, he was all too aware of the unforgiving nature of table saws. Not long before, two of his employees had been maimed within a few weeks of each other. Wheeler felt awful about the injuries, the loss of two good workers, the $95,000 in medical bills, the doubling of his workers compensation rates. Watching SawStop in action, Wheeler thought: If only this had come along sooner.

Those kinds of injuries are all too common: Each year, more than 67,000 workers and do-it-yourselfers are injured by table saws, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (PDF), resulting in more than 33,000 emergency room visits and 4,000 amputations. At an average cost of $35,000 each, these accidents lead to more than $2.3 billion in societal costs annually including medical bills, lost wages, and pain and suffering.