Eight students from the University of Wisconsin have now been charged with underage drinking based off Facebook photos. And you don’t even have to have uploaded the incriminating photo yourself! According to the article, “Someone else posted photos on a Facebook site of UW-L sophomores Brianna Niesen and Cassie Stenholt holding beer, but they still ended up in court Wednesday pleading no contest and getting fined.”

Is this legal? Yes. Is it ethical? Tough call. I mean, if you’re caught drinking and you’re under 21, you’re clearly breaking the law. At the same time, I’d say like three quarters of my Facebook friends (myself included) have photos—both tagged and untagged—that could similarly get us in trouble with the law. And I don’t feel good about that; it’s not a great feeling to know that yes, it’s possible that a cop is looking at that picture of you downing shots in your friend’s room while pregaming.

Also, if you’re a schoolteacher and your Facebook profile has pictures of (legally) drinking, you can still be forced to resign. The line between responsible monitoring and 1984-esque spying is blurry for sure, but I have hope that when our generation rules the world in a couple decades, stuff like this won’t be a problem because, come on, our president will probably have pictures online of him (or her!) downing a beer and goofily smiling into the camera, just like the rest of us.

Picture courtesy Newser

Former New York City mayor and professor of 9/11 studies Rudy Guiliani will not run for Governor of New York against either David Paterson or Andrew Cuomo, according to The New York Times. But fear not! Rudy will not leave New Yorkers to the sanity of Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand.

The AP reports that Guiliani is “seriously considering” challenging Democratic incumbent Kirsten Gillibrand. Gillibrand was appointed to the seat only last year, so Guiliani’s OCD (btw, 9/11) might not be as heavy a burden as it would be against Schumer.

“Winning a U.S. Senate seat in a heavily Democratic New York would be a huge national story and rekindle any hope he may have,” Marist pollster Lee Miringhoff told the AP. “Rekindling” would be necessary judging from Guiliani’s disastrous run for the Republican Presidential nomination in 2008. If Guiliani has learned the lessons of 2008–for example, don’t rely entirely on having been the mayor of a certain city, on a certain day–then he could be a powerful challenger to Gillibrand. This, after all, is the man who managed to get himself elected in one of the most liberal cities in the country. Here’s looking at you Staten Island.

• If you’re a gay couple living in New York state that got legally married outside New York state, you can still be considered married here. But if you want to get married within New York state, you still have to wait for the Senate to actually, you know, vote on the issue. (Will hopefully happen by the end of 2009.)
• But I guess it’s all about perspective: a law might pass in Uganda making the “act of homosexuality” punishable by lifelong imprisonment, and “aggravated homosexuality” (like having AIDS–shame on you sick people!) punishable by–you guessed it–death. Needless to say, some people aren’t too happy about that and protested yesterday in front of the Ugandan UN mission.
• Speaking of which: you know who called homosexuality “evil”? A member of the Ugandan government! (It’s in the above link.) Do you know who else just called homosexuality “evil”? The “future of the Republican party”! Uganda, America: we’re not so different after all.
• Well, at least the Democrats have got our backs, right? Oh, wait, not the ones in New Jersey (my home state!). The Senate majority leader down there had this to say about the importance of passing gay rights legislation: “This is an important social issue that should have its day, and it could be now. If not today, tomorrow or in the future, it should be discussed.”Hear that, Asbury Park? It could be now! It won’t be, but it could, is what he’s saying.
• A new Web site aims to out gay priests in the hopes of encouraging American churches to revise their notoriously damning stances on homosexuality. It seems kind of like a joke, or the result of a night of too many wine coolers and Judy Garland movies, but whatever, I’m all for it.
• Oh and also all gay media is dying, everywhere.

Photo courtesy Google/AFP.

About 50 students have taken over building Campbell Hall, where they have chained the doors shut and are wearing intimidating bandanas. Naturally, hundreds more (representing various UC campuses) have joined them outside the building, with picket signs and even more bandanas. Hm, this all sounds so familiar.

The group (with no distinct name) has released an audio statement encouraging students “who work two or three jobs while going to school” or for parents who will lose “the prospect of affordable education” to join in on the protest. Their only demand asks that state leadership find “other alternatives” besides increasing UC fees.

According to the LA Times:

“The full Board of Regents is expected to approve a fee hike of $2,500, or 32%, in two steps by next fall. That would bring the basic UC education fees to about $10,300, plus about another $1,000 for campus-based charges, for a total that would be about triple the UC cost a decade ago. Room, board and books can add another $16,000.”

NYU’s tuition is roughly twice the post-increase fees UC students pay. Just saying.

UPDATE: According to the LA Daily News, the UC Board of Regents — essentially the governing body of the UC system — has indeed “approved a 32 percent fee increase Thursday that will push UC tuition above $10,000 for the first time.” The increase comes while the entire UC system is facing a deficit of over $500 million.

Also, one student was arrested earlier for obstructing a police officer (whatever that means). Yesterday, twelve students were arrested while protesting in front of the Board of Regents’ Finance Committee.

The AP notes that “police in riot gear kept an eye on the protesters.”

Also, here’s a clarification of the fee system: All UC  universities are in a public system, thus tuition is hypothetically $0. However, all students pay through so-called fees managed by the UC Board of Regents, the UC governing body established in the California constitution.

UPDATE: Here’s a video of some protesting, with some heated action between students and police:

Compare this to last year’s TBNYU protest in front of Kimmel (for non-NYU readers, Kimmel is NYU’s primary student building). It’s interesting how similar both protests are, except the fact that UC students are wearing t-shirts and sunglasses (not jealous at all). Although, according to a few sources — friends at various UC universities — protests have been occurring regularly on campuses for the past few months:

The LA Times also reports that 40 other protestors locked themselves inside a classroom across campus from the main action. After the Board of Regents approved the fee increase — while protestors were only yards away — “some of the regents were trapped in the building and in vehicles as about 100 demonstrators surrounded the garage. Later, police cleared a path and escorted the UC officials out in a hurry as students chased them.” Here’s an awesome photo of some students blocking a van carrying regents:

The UCSolidarity website is also posting advisories for upcoming protests at different UC campuses, including UC Berkeley, which is organizing a solidarity strike.

Check in for more updates.

Photos from LA Times.

Vexing conservatives, pacifying liberals and clearly telling moderates to strap on a pair, the proposed Senate health care bill revealed last night is a favorably nuanced version of the House bill passed earlier this month to “save lives, save money and protect medicare,” in the words of majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV).

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the plan will cover 94% of Americans and cost $849 billion, which will reportedly reduce the number of uninsured by 31 million and the budget deficit by $127 billion in the first 10 years. The bill also allows States to pass legislation to opt out of the public option.

The proposed Senate bill also relaxes the stringent limitations imposed on abortion coverage by the Stupak Amendment. Federal funding for abortions remains forbidden, but women on the public option could conceivably receive insurance for abortions as long as the Secretary of Health and Human Services verifies that Federal money doesn’t contribute to the particular payment plan for it.

Also included in the bill is an amusing 5% tax on cosmetic surgery–immediately coined “botax”–will probably get Harry Reid in trouble in his home state of Nevada. The tax does not apply to “any cosmetic surgery to correct a congenital deformity or any disfigurement resulting from accident, injury or disease,” so the provision could end up as the government just taxing itself.

A tax on “Cadillac Health Plans” also helps pay for health reform. NPR describes the measure as, “If the insurance you get on the job has premiums of $8,500 or more for individual coverage or $23,000 for the family, then Reid wants to slap a 40 percent excise tax on the plans.” I’m still confused as to what that really means, but this could be enlightening.

The 60 Senator-strong Democratic caucus requires 60 Senate votes to allow the bill to reach the floor for debate. No brainer, right? Not really when you have Judas Joe Lieberman among your ranks threatening to filibuster reform. Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE), who is far from convinced about health care reform himself, was spot-on when he said, “If you don’t like the bill, then why would you block your own opportunity to amend it?”

The downturn was certainly not kind to NYU. As we speak, the reengineering efforts are trimming budgets and staff across the University in order to offset some of the damage to the university’s finances.

Bloomberg reported earlier this month that in the Fiscal Year 2009 (ending June 30th) the NYU endowment shrank by 12% to $2.2 billion, down from $2.49 billion. You might be surprised to know that this is very encouraging news.

Ken Redd, director of research and policy analysis at the National Association of College and University Business Officers, told me that college endowment losses are expected to fall between 15 and 25 percent in FY 2009. NYU fell well short of that range.

And a comparison with other leading universities tells an even bigger story. Columbia’s endowment dropped 21%. MIT also saw a 21% fall. Penn’s lost 15.7%. And Harvard and Yale each saw a massive 30% drop.

Here’s something rich: Yale’s chief investment officer, David Swensen, bashed on NYU’s 1970’s, 80’s, and 90’s conservative investment strategies in his book, “Pioneering Portfolio Management.” He wrote (my emphasis), “By failing to understand the relationship between the permanent nature of endowment funds and equity investments, NYU’s endowment sustained long-lasting, if not permanent damage.”

Someone should probably read him his own words, as he just stewarded the Yale endowment through brutal 25% losses by investing heavily in hedge funds and private equity. He plans on, according to the Wall Street Journal, keeping the strategy. Hmm. Maybe you wanna try that whole conservative thing. Kinda worked for us.

Although its past performance left a lot to be desired, NYU has had superlative investment success in recent years. From FY 2007 to FY 2008, NYU saw (pdf) the greatest endowment growth (14.5%) among all universities with a >$1 billion endowment. Coming in a distant second was Northwestern at 11.4%.

In a statement to Bloomberg, Michael Alfano, NYU executive vice president, said, “Much of NYU’s success — though we are unaccustomed to call a negative a ‘success’ — can be attributed to the foresight of the investment committee of the board of trustees, which recognized early on the contours of what was happening nationally and directed the university’s assets to be reallocated to reduce risk.”

One major player in the handling of the NYU endowment is the chairman of the finance committee. His name is Laurence Fink. He sits on the board of trustees and is also the Chairman and CEO of BlackRock, a company that, according to the NYT, “has won contracts to run major government rescue efforts involving Bear Stearns, the American International Group and Citigroup. It also won a bid to carry out a Federal Reserve program to stimulate the housing market and it has been hired to help evaluate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.”

This guy is big time. He has had extensive contact with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. He has had a strong hand in shaping federal policy. He was even one of the pioneers of mortgage-backed securities, precisely the financial tools that brought down the financial system when the housing bubble burst.

And he seems to know how to handle the stock market. BlackRock posted a $786 million profit in 2008 as other financial companies crumbled around it.

You have to wonder how much he had to do with keeping NYU’s losses so modest.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user -nathan (CC).

Going Rogue, Sarah Palin’s obnoxiously omnipresent new book has, in fact, gone rogue itself. From shooting sprees to godless sex with a heretical text, the account of “a reformer who cast aside politics-as-usual and pushed through changes other politicians only talked about” has clearly snapped under the weight of so much jingoism.

He predicts unemployment will rise throughout 2010 and plateau at 11% for at least two years. Roubini cites the weak labor markets as a possible catalyst for a (terrifying) double dip recession. To avoid imminent doom, he advocates “a bold prescription that increases the fiscal stimulus with another round of labor-intensive, shovel-ready infrastructure projects, helps fiscally strapped state and local governments and provides a temporary tax credit to the private sector to hire more workers.”

What’s he basing all this off? Well, I’ve hidden the facts listed in his article after the jump to give fair warning to anyone who isn’t a freshman: it’s grim reading if you plan on entering the job market before 2013.

And if reading that was not masochistic enough, check out Paul Krugman’s Op-Ed for The New York Times about how China’s currency policy will augment US trade deficit.

Photo from Flickr user dr. motte under the Creative Commons License

Pleasing both civil libertarians and nerds alike, President Obama told a town hall in Shanghai packed with Chinese youths that an uncensored internet is a good thing. He called access to information “a universal right,” that should be available indiscriminately, “because then citizens of countries around the world can hold their own governments accountable, they can begin to think for themselves.” Not exactly the best sales pitch to the Chinese government, but I hope it got the general population there thinking.

Granted, the “Great Firewall of China” will not tumble just because Obama says he hopes it will, but it took balls to highlight China’s horrendous record on censorship while actually visiting the country and speaking to the age demographic most inclined to rebellion. (Perhaps this defiant move in China will appease neocons after bow-gate in Japan.)

Also, revelation: Obama has “never used Twitter”? Despite that fact, he certainly does well for himself on the medium with his 2,668,863 followers.

Seriously, abstaining from wrestling and playing with “cars, trains and guns” makes you less of a man? What, did Hasbro fund this study? Why is any of this “worrying”? A century ago, not playing with a hoop and stick meant you were an antisocial loser stuck with antebellum ideals. Ten years ago, we all loved Warheads; they weren’t just candy—they were a test of endurance. Kids change! They lose interest in cars and toy guns and “play-fighting,” though that’s not even true for every boy–many retain their love of silly “masculine” activities through adolescence.

Also, the article casually mentions that these chemicals can also sometimes lead to boys being “born with genital abnormalities,” which should really be the crux of this piece because, gah, genital abnormalities.

Photo from Flickr user di_the_huntress under the Creative Commons License