Zimbabwe: Agree with us or we’ll steal your capital investments (here)

Wired reports on Darpa – that agency which built the internet, now wants a new mathematical language to describe everything (here):

The very first step? Create a unified mathematical language for everything the military sees or hears.

The armed forces are overwhelmed by all the data its various sensors are sniffing out. They want a single data stream that combines drone video feeds, cell phone intercepts, and targeting radar. Darpa’s solution, found in the brand-new Mathematics of Sensing, Exploitation, and Execution program is to design an algorithm that teaches the sensors how to interpret the world — how to think, how to learn and what data, accordingly to collect.

The Economist debates: This house believes that restricting the growth of cities will improve quality of life (here).  An interesting topic, with the debate revolving around whether size is a problem and if so, forcing a certain size or giving individuals freedom to choose.  Research, not (yet at least) discussed,  has been attempted in the past to find the perfect size for a city; meaning how large does a city get before standard city services such as garbage collection or policing become less effective with the addition or each new citizen.

Either way, I’m still for free choice.

SCOTUS Blog on an upcoming Supreme Court arguments about corporate “person hood” (here):

At 10 a.m. Tuesday, the Court will hear one hour of oral argument on a government appeal arguing that business corporations do not have a right of of “personal privacy” that shields from compelled public disclosure the records they turn over to federal agencies.

From Stratfor, especially needed in light of gun control regulation based upon a single incident, Separating Terror from Terrorism. The piece concludes with this:

Recognizing that terrorist attacks, like car crashes and cancer and natural disasters, are a part of the human condition permits individuals and families to practice situational awareness and take prudent measures to prepare for such contingencies without becoming vicarious victims. This separation will help deny the practitioners of terrorism and terror the ability to magnify their reach and power.

Via The Big Picture – Is WordPress As Big As Guttenberg?Almost.:

WordPress, the blogging software that powers The Big Picture along with 11 million other blogs and has 256 million unique visitors to its hosted sites, may not be as revolutionary as movable type but it is a crucial element in what has made it possible for blogging to grow from a hobby into a major threat to the mainstream media….

Via Reason.com – In England it’s so bad, cops rob you! (here):

Police in Exeter, England, say some residents make life too easy for burglars, and to prove it, they’ve burgled around 50 homes themselves. The police look for places with unlocked doors or open windows, and then they slip inside and put valuables into a bag for the owners to find.

Via Cato – Cisneros, the Clinton Administration’s head of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) explains how the government had little to do with the housing crisis – Cato responds (here):

In a recent speech to real estate interests, former Clinton HUD secretary Henry Cisnerospreposterously claimed that the recent housing meltdown “occurred not out of a governmental push, but out of a hijacking of the homeownership process by some unscrupulous interests.”

The only criticisms Cisneros could muster for the government’s housing policies over the past 20 years were that regulations weren’t tough enough and it should have focused more onrental subsidies.

Imagine that… government officials acting as if they  weren’t effecting anything even though their entire intention was to affect the housing market.  Their entire reason for being is to affect the housing market.

Seems oddly similar to recent reports from the White House on the oil spill.  Listen carefully and you’ll hear this:  ”We have been in charge since the incident occurred, but everything that is happening is someone else’s fault.”

Speaking of which, Obama’s approval rating down (here via Gallup).  In late January of this year, 66% approved, only 19% disapproved.  The latest figures show 49% approval, 44% disapprove.  That was quick…

Lastly, but certainly not least – great pictures of the birth of a star (here via Yale):

New Haven, Conn. — Astronomers have glimpsed what could be the youngest known star at the very moment it is being born. Not yet fully developed into a true star, the object is in the earliest stages of star formation and has just begun pulling in matter from a surrounding envelope of gas and dust, according to a new study that appears in the current issue of the Astrophysical Journal.

The 9th Circuit strikes again…. via LA Times (here):

SAN FRANCISCO — A sharply divided federal appeals court in California on Monday exposed Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to billions of dollars in legal damages when it ruled a massive class action lawsuit alleging gender discrimination over pay for female workers can go to trial….

Now I don’t claim to be a lawyer and haven’t even played one on tv, but part of the dissent seems obvious to me:

…Judge Sandra Ikuta wrote a blistering dissent, joined by four of her colleagues.

“No court has ever certified a class like this one, until now. And with good reason,” Ikuta wrote. “In this case, six women who have worked in thirteen of Wal-Mart’s 3,400 stores seek to represent every woman who has worked in those stores over the course of the last decade — a class estimated in 2001 to include more than 1.5 million women.”…

Maybe they like being overturned (here from 2007)?

…The 9th Circuit also has a long-running streak as the most overturned, which went unbroken this year. The Supreme Court reviewed 22 cases from the 9th Circuit last term, and it reversed or vacated 19 times….

Via WSJ, The Big Brown Union Bailout

If you can’t beat ‘em, have Congress hobble ‘em. That’s the motto of some in corporate America, and Exhibit A might be United Parcel Service’s campaign to get Washington to impose its labor woes on rival Federal Express. This would be one more union bailout at the expense of business competition and economic efficiency….

This is a continuation of this administration’s policies to pay off unions at the expense of others (DA posts here).

Via Reason.com, GM’s Phony Bailout Payback

Uncle Sam gave GM $49.5 billion last summer in aid to finance its bankruptcy….  So when Whitacre publishes a column with the headline, “The GM Bailout: Paid Back in Full,” most ordinary mortals unfamiliar with bailout minutia would assume that he is alluding to the entire $49.5 billion. That, however, is far from the case….

I say if you want to buy American, buy Ford – no bailout money and still going strong.

& cool science news via e!Science (here):

…In a study published as an Advance Online Publication in the journal Nature Nanotechnology on Sunday, physicists at Ohio University and the University of Hamburg in Germany present the first images of spin in action….

Proving how little we truly understand about addiction, a new study (via UK Telegraph here):

Bingeing on junk food is as addictive as smoking or taking drugs and could cause compulsive eating and obesity, a study has found.

According to the research, rats when given junk food, will crave it in a similar fashion to much harder drugs, as it all uses the same pleasure center:

…As these pleasure centres become less and less responsive the animals quickly develop compulsive overeating habits, consuming larger quantities of high-calorie, high-fat foods until they become obese.

The very same changes occur in the brains of rats that over consume cocaine or heroin…

I wonder if this will put to rest the nicotine is addictive as cocaine meme?  Or possibly destroy the idea of heroin addiction altogether?  Whatever it does do in the end, it should give us pause anytime we hear “as addictive as…”

John Stossel on government testing (here).  Among the other illuminating information, you can read about GAO’s audit of energy star products, including this gem:

…The GAO attached a feather duster to a space heater, sent the photo to the EPA, and got approval in just 11 days…

All told:

GAO sustained Energy Star certifications for 15 bogus products, including a gas-powered alarm clock.

Via WSJ, In War Between States and Feds, Utah Strikes Latest Blow:

All is not well between the states and the federal government….states in recent months have signed sovereignty statements….last week, more than a dozen states sued to strike down the new federal health-care law…..Now….Utah Governor Gary Herbert on Saturday authorized the use of eminent domain to take some of the U.S. government’s most valuable parcels….

This should get interesting.

Lastly, an interesting idea via HBR (here).  Asking CEO Tim Brown:

…what does it take to bring about such mass behavior shifts? Are there approaches that businesses could use, too, to influence behaviors on a micro level, and gain benefits on a macro one?…

Under the title, Unnecessary Court Decisions, FIRE has won a victory for free speech rights on college campuses (here):

FORT WORTH, Texas, March 16, 2010—Late yesterday, in a striking victory for the First Amendment on campus, a federal district court in Texas ruled that a number of restrictions on students’ speech at Tarrant County College (TCC) are unconstitutional. In his decision, U.S. District Judge Terry R. Means found that TCC’s reliance on a policy prohibiting “disruptive activities” to restrict students Clayton Smith and John Schwertz from holding an “empty holster” protest violated the First Amendment….

Congrats to FIRE once again for trying to teach society what free speech actually means, just wish a court wasn’t required to force “educators” to understand freedom.

More “When I say what others should be allowed to do, that doesn’t apply to me” politicians.  This time via Reason Foundation discussing Arne Duncan, the current US Secretary on Education has prevented poor people in one district from having vouchers while maintaining a system for the well connected in other parts of the country (here):

US Education Secretary Arne Duncan has been unwilling to support the DC Opportunity Scholarship program that allows disadvantaged students to attend higher-quality DC private schools and even rescinded the scholarships of 216 children that had already been accepted into the program this year. This becomes even more ironic in light of the fact that Duncan maintained an exclusive list of well-connected folks that he helped exercise school choice in Chicago’s highest quality public schools….

What they call ironic, I consider extreme arrogance, but to-may-to, to-mah-to…

CATO shows us an interesting chart about the level of government spending in health care.  Hopefully with straight forward facts we can start to disabuse others of the notion that the current state of health care is due to private industry (whole thing here):

via Mercury News, CA, with major budget issues (via KNX 1070 News), but should that stop them from further propping up home sales during a correction in the market cycle?  Well, if you’d think yes, then you give too much credit (here):

…The deal reached Monday provides $200 million in new tax credits for homebuyers…

Which is stupid enough, but politicians can’t be held back by things such as economics.  So while more sellers exist than buyers, they also want to spur construction:

…to be split evenly among those buying a home for the first time and anyone buying a newly constructed home. Anyone qualified who makes a purchase between this May and August 2011 will receive a credit for 5 percent of the home’s purchase price, up to $10,000 over three years….

DA has several posts on the governments’ continuing actions which are understood to have been part of the problem in the first economic crisis (here, here, & here), but attempting to add new inventory to a market under correction is grossly irresponsible.

• Here come’s the CFPA…. known as the Consumer Fraud Protection Act, which is shaping up to confirm my theory on the titling of bills.  Meaning it will not protect anyone, including consumers, from anything, including fraud; which I thought was already against the law….  More @ Reason by Tim Cavanaugh here.

• More psychology study showing evidence that concealment or perceived anonymity can lead to more unethical behavior.  via Time here

• Via Calculated Risk, Home Builders $2.3 Billion “Gift” from Taxpayers, demonstrating our government’s utter indifference to the economic realities associated with propping up businesses which should naturally contract during a correction.

• Cato on the government’s continued refusal of basic facts showing government employees earning more on average than their civilian counterparts (here)

• Obama administration to reverse decision on trying terrorist mastermind in NY & instead opt for a military tribunal – via WSJ here

• For light reading, America’s Craziest Cities @ The Daily Beast where they rank cities based upon stress, drinking, eccentricity, and number of psychiatrists.

Sorry for the respite….

• Two great articles in Reason’s February issue:  One by staff science writer, Ron Bailey discussing health care (here), which starts with something everyone should know who’s interested in high price of medical care:

According to the conventional wisdom, the United States faces a massive medical bill thanks to our use of pricey new treatments and equipment. “About half of all growth in health care spending in the past several decades was associated with changes in medical care made possible by advances in technology,” a 2008 Congressional Budget Office report declared….

Don’t be fooled however, some of our more interesting intellectuals think this is reason enough to retard medical advance:

…This is familiar territory for [bio-ethicist Daniel] Callahan, who for decades has advocated reining in medical innovation to reduce health care costs. He also favors limiting the life-extending treatments that older people receive, on the grounds that most of them will “have lived a full and fruitful biographical life prior to age 70.”….

Who like most people that wish to control every thing in your life, including how you’ll die – refuses to take his own medicine:

…Interestingly, Callahan, age 79, underwent a life-saving seven-hour heart procedure in August that cost upward of $100,000….

So out “bio-ethicist” wants to tell your grandmother tough crap, while he does as he pleases.  I’m guessing his title was self-anointed as this is a one-way trip to genocide…. all genocidal societies started with this premise – the young, but very sick & the old, they are burdens on us… what a disgrace as a human being.

But going forward… the second article, written by staff writer Radley Balko… generally disliked because all his articles contain bad news about law enforcement abuses angering most readers and this case is no different.   Read about LE & justice system abuses when they are allowed to seize assets they believe were used in a crime or bought with criminal proceeds (here).  One more thing the state is actively doing to subvert true freedom.

• PysBlog has a good post on reasons we desire and try for conformity (here).

• The IRS, one of the most hated government agencies, is now allowed to bring armed guards into your home if they find you a possible threat (here).  The Christian Science Monitor seems to think this is warranted due to anti-government violence, but tries to prove it with numbers that are likely on par with the rest of society:

…The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), which oversees the IRS, handles an average of 918 threats made against IRS employees every year, according to the agency. Between 2001 and 2008, court cases resulting from those threats have resulted in 195 convictions, according to TIGTA….

Even if out of all the hundreds of thousands of people who worked for the IRS between those 7 years, it seems like this is overkill.  Having said that, I also have no faith in their numbers at all.  Months ago we were told to stay away from 10% unemployment, we have to spend money.  We spent, we’re at 10% (here).

Additionally, organizations like MADD routinely exaggerate their findings.  For instance, in their version of “alcohol related accidents” – if you had too much to drink and just want to sleep it off and someone, completely sober, runs into your parked car – that’s an alcohol related accident.

I’m not saying he’s lying, I’m just saying that in my personal experience while studying, believing a government agency is telling the full and accurate truth, especially when that truth gets them extra funding, is highly unlikely.

• Lastly, an oldy but a goody.  My 13 year old daughter heard this on an economics talk I was watching, told one of her friends parents about it & they refused to believe.  You might refuse as well…. but remember, we are all entitled to our opinions, but not our facts (here).  Basic thesis:  Seat belt laws did not reduce driver fatalities significantly, because it increased the number of overall accidents and worse still, it has resulted in more deaths of pedestrians.  Proving once again, that almost all governments laws intending to prevent some result, do more harm than good.

• Never before seen aerial photos of 9/11

I think they show much more in terms of scope than most pictures I’ve seen so far @ UK Telegraph.  Side note:  It should not have required FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) to release these.

• Interesting research in solar cells @ Scientific American, “researchers [led by Harry A. Atwater] at Caltech say they’ve designed a device that gets comparable solar absorption while using just one percent of the silicon per unit area that current solar cells need.”

• Despite calls for greater transparency as recent as the State of the Union speech, the Feds still refuse FOIA requests to show how stimulus money was spent.  @ The Conglomerate Now some may say the Fed isn’t the Whitehouse, but the law that was passed by both houses & signed by the President is the law in which the Feds are standing behind.  If this isn’t challenged successfully in court, then any government action could be completely hidden from the citizens just by pushing the leg work to an executive agency.

• Krugman…. proving once again the Nobel Peace Prize is worth far less than imagined. Author Tim Cavanaugh via Reason.com

• Short, 5 minute video discussing school choice versus governmental monopolies.  Isabel Santa via Cato.org

• John Stossel on our politicians using European social spending as the leading example (here), “Europe does have a bigger “social safety net.”  But the gain comes with pain: Europe’s higher taxes and bigger government lead to slower job growth and higher unemployment. Politicians always claim that the safety-net will be limited to “necessities for the truly needy,” but such government programs always grow.”

• Greg Mackinaw show how President Obama’s agenda, grossly misnamed “A New Era of Responsibility”, will saddle US citizens with continuing and ever increasing deficits.  This is according to the administration very own numbers.  via NY Times proving once again that when a politician names a bill, the probability of the bill doing the exact opposite of its authors’ claims is directly proportional to how much the title of said bill attempts to imply those same claims.