TCS Daily - Loving Monsters

TCS Daily - Loving Monsters: "One need only look at the treatment of such other topics as crime, terrorism, and warfare to see examples of the same sort of misplaced sentimentality and willful ignorance. Tolerance of criminality leads to more crime; tolerance of terrorism leads to more terrorism; efforts to appear defenseless lead to war. "

Natural disasters have quadrupled in two decades: study

Natural disasters have quadrupled in two decades: study: "The Oxfam study was compiled using data from the Red Cross, the United Nations and specialist researchers at Louvain University in Belgium. "

Euro exchange control possible in face of economic crisis : November 2007 : Ambrose Evans-Pritchard : Business : Telegraph Blogs

Euro exchange control possible in face of economic crisis : November 2007 : Ambrose Evans-Pritchard : Business : Telegraph Blogs: "The die is now cast. As the euro brushes $1.50 against the dollar, it is already too late to stop the eurozone hurtling into a full-fledged economic and political crisis. We now have to start asking whether the EU itself will survive in its current form."

Randy Pausch's Home Page

Randy Pausch's Home Page

Dying prof's last lecture hits home

Dying prof's last lecture hits home: "'Who wants to see a dying man?' he asked. 'It's a beautiful warm day in September.' "

The dollar's in decline. Great news! | Gerard Baker - Times Online

The dollar's in decline. Great news! Gerard Baker - Times Online: "For the historically short-sighted, let's remember we have been here before. Between 1985 and 1995, the dollar declined by 43 per cent against the world's big currencies — somewhat more than it has in the past six years. That period was also marked by dire proclamations of the end of US economic power. But it turned out that in those years the foundations were laid for the strongest period of US economic growth in the past 35 years. "

Maui News | IfA solar session out of this world

Maui News IfA solar session out of this world: "Over decades of scanning changes in the sun, solar astronomers noticed that when there were few sunspots, the Earth was cold; and when there were many, the Earth was warmer. Today is a time of many sunspots, so that might explain global warming. Not so fast, says University of Hawaii solar astronomer Jeff Kuhn. You can also find a correlation between sunspots and the number of Republicans elected to the U.S. Senate."

Al Gore Wrong Again : November 2007 : ReasonMcLucus : My Telegraph

Al Gore Wrong Again : November 2007 : ReasonMcLucus : My Telegraph: " The culprit is a developing la Nina , a cooling of the water in the eastern Pacific along the South American coast"

Silver Bullet: Neo-Con? Extreme Moderate? How about Revolutionary Liberal.

Silver Bullet: Neo-Con? Extreme Moderate? How about Revolutionary Liberal.: "Often when I walked onto the set of the West Wing some of my colleagues would greet me with a chanting of “Ron, Ron, the neo-con.” It was all done in fun but it had an edge."

Atomic Trousers: Bask in Bumper Sticker Wisdom

Atomic Trousers: Bask in Bumper Sticker Wisdom: "“A PBS Mind In a FOX News World” - This particular bumper sticker is positively oozing with smugness. “God, I can't stand being surrounded by these Wal-Mart-shopping, NASCAR-watching, deer-hunting troglodytes. How can these country-fried rubes allow themselves to be spoon-fed White House talking points from Bill O’Reilly? They must not be smart enough to enjoy watching some dusty old Brits mumble through a clunky drama on PBS like I am.”"

Contrary to reports, the nation's economy is robust | Nevada Appeal | Serving Carson City, Nevada

Contrary to reports, the nation's economy is robust Nevada Appeal Serving Carson City, Nevada: "President Bush recently noted that the nation just experienced its 50th consecutive month of uninterrupted job growth, the longest in the nation's history. This is even better than the media-vaunted Clinton economy of the late '90s, which was a bubble economy if there ever was one. To be sure, the reason this economy continues to do exceptionally well year after year is because U.S. companies really have been earning record profits year after year - as opposed to the thousands of firms that never made a dime during the dot-com bubble of the late '90s (and ultimately went out of business as quickly as they began). You can be sure that if a Democrat had sat in the White House these past seven years, there would have been no end to the praise from the media and Democrats about this incredible economy."

Controversy Over Eurostar's Shock Skinhead Urinating Advert |Sky News|UK News

Controversy Over Eurostar's Shock Skinhead Urinating Advert Sky NewsUK News: "An advert depicting a tattooed skinhead urinating into a china teacup is being used to promote tourism to London."

10 hurt in plane test smash | The Sun |HomePage|Travel

10 hurt in plane test smash The Sun HomePageTravel

OPENING ARGUMENT: Academia's Pervasive PC Rot (11/12/2007)

OPENING ARGUMENT: Academia's Pervasive PC Rot (11/12/2007): "'A RACIST: A racist is one who is both privileged and socialized on the basis of race by a white supremacist (racist) system. 'The term applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent) living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture, or sexuality. By this definition, people of color cannot be racists.' ' [emphasis added]"

Reason Magazine - Cheap Dirty Fuels Versus Costly Clean Fuels

Reason Magazine - Cheap Dirty Fuels Versus Costly Clean Fuels: "Phoenix Motorcars is ordering NanoSafe batteries from the Reno, Nevada-based company Altairnano to fuel its all-electric trucks. These lithium ion batteries can be charged in 10 minutes at a commercial 480 volt station or in six hours using home power. The trucks can accelerate from 0 to 60 in 10 seconds with a top speed of 95 miles per hour and can go 100 miles before recharging. Amazingly these batteries can be recharged 20,000 times. Typical lithium ion batteries can be recharged only 500 to 1000 times, and lead acid batteries won't last more than 700 cycles. Nanosafe batteries replace combustible graphite in typical lithium ion batteries with nanoscale titanium."

IBDeditorials.com: Editorials, Political Cartoons, and Polls from Investor's Business Daily -- Even Harvard Finds The Media Biased

IBDeditorials.com: Editorials, Political Cartoons, and Polls from Investor's Business Daily -- Even Harvard Finds The Media Biased: "Just like so many reports before it, a joint survey by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and Harvard's Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy — hardly a bastion of conservative orthodoxy — found that in covering the current presidential race, the media are sympathetic to Democrats and hostile to Republicans."

The American Spectator

The American Spectator: "The Giuliani hate fest has also infiltrated the airwaves, where Keith Olbermann has made bashing Rudy a daily feature on his show. On Monday, an Olbermann segment entitled, 'Rudy Giuliani -- The next Dick Cheney?' was about Giuliani's penchant for 'secrecy' and 'proclivity for executive power...'"

FOXNews.com - Jury Awards Father Nearly $11 Million in Funeral Protesters Case - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News

FOXNews.com - Jury Awards Father Nearly $11 Million in Funeral Protesters Case - Local News News Articles National News US News: "BALTIMORE — The father of a fallen Marine was awarded nearly $11 million Wednesday in damages by a jury that found leaders of a fundamentalist church had invaded the family's privacy and inflicted emotional distress when they picketed the Marine's funeral. The jury first awarded $2.9 million in compensatory damages. It returned later in the afternoon with its decision to award $6 million in punitive damages for invasion of privacy and $2 million for causing emotional distress to the Marine's father, Albert Snyder of York, Pa. Snyder sued the Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church for unspecified monetary damages after members staged a demonstration at the March 2006 funeral of his son, Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, who was killed in Iraq"

Women blamed for men’s sleepless nights -Times Online

Women blamed for men’s sleepless nights -Times Online: "Women who wear figure-hugging clothes are giving Muslim men sleepless nights and distracting them from prayer, a prominent cleric said yesterday."

North Muskegon campaigns have some intensity - mlive.com

North Muskegon campaigns have some intensity - mlive.com: "Override Headlee in Ferrysburg on Nov. 6

Voters in the city of Ferrysburg are being asked to do something this Nov. 6 that they wouldn't have to bother with, had the late Mr. Headlee not succeeded in attaching his pernicious tax-limiting provision to the state's constitution. The so-called Headlee Amendment was aimed at tying homeowners' property taxes to the rate of inflation; what it mainly succeeded in doing, though, was to tie the hands of city and school officials by throwing monkey wrenches into the budget processes of municipalities and school districts throughout Michigan. Thus, Ferrysburg voters have the choice -- the honor, really -- of overriding another Headlee rollback in Ferrysburg. If it is approved, the proposal would restore 0.3424 mills that would otherwise be cut from the city's operating budget, which would generate a little over $52,000. Cities, which have inflationary pressures of their own to deal with as well as ongoing steep cuts in state-shared revenues in recent years, already have a hard enough time keeping up with just the vital and basic services that their taxpaying residents expect and deserve. We strongly urge a 'YES' vote on Ferrysburg's Headlee override. "

The Tax Foundation - Summary of Latest Federal Individual Income Tax Data

The Tax Foundation - Summary of Latest Federal Individual Income Tax Data

My Way News - 1 in 10 Schools Are 'Dropout Factories'

My Way News - 1 in 10 Schools Are 'Dropout Factories': "It's a nickname no principal could be proud of: 'Dropout Factory,' a high school where no more than 60 percent of the students who start as freshmen make it to their senior year. That description fits more than one in 10 high schools across America."

Greg Mankiw's Blog: Redistribution in the Rangel Bill

Greg Mankiw's Blog: Redistribution in the Rangel Bill: "Redistribution in the Rangel Bill

The Tax Policy Center has run the numbers to show how different income groups would be affected by the Rangel tax reform proposal compared to the tax law currently on the books.

Here is roughly what the numbers (in Table T07-0300) show:

The bottom three-fourths of households, those making less than $75,000 a year, are not much affected. They each would receive a tax cut of about $100 per year.

The next 24 percent, those making between $75,000 and $500,000, would receive much more substantial tax cuts.

Those in the $200,000 to $500,000 range, who are in the 96 to 99 percentile of the income distribution, would get a tax cut of about $3,600 per year.

The top 1 percent, those making over $500,000, would pay substantially more in taxes.
Those making more than $1 million would see their tax bill rise by an average of more than $100,000.

Thus, as a first approximation, the plan increases the progressivity of the tax code by redistributing income from the very rich (e.g., CEOs, hedge fund managers, superstar athletes and actors) to the upper middle class (e.g., doctors, lawyers, congressmen)."

LA Daily News - 34 percent believe in ghosts

LA Daily News - 34 percent believe in ghosts: "34 percent of people who say they believe in ghosts, according to a pre-Halloween poll by The Associated Press and Ipsos. That's the same proportion who believe in unidentified flying objects - exceeding the 19 percent who accept the existence of spells or witchcraft. Forty-eight percent believe in extrasensory perception, or ESP. But nearly half of you knew we were about to tell you that, right? "

Quack Michael Moore has mad view of the NHS | Minette Marrin - Times Online

Quack Michael Moore has mad view of the NHS Minette Marrin - Times Online: "Unfortunately Sicko is a dishonest film. That is not only my opinion. It is the opinion of Professor Lord Robert Winston, the consultant and advocate of the NHS. When asked on BBC Radio 4 whether he recognised the NHS as portrayed in this film, Winston replied: “No, I didn’t. Most of it was filmed at my hospital [the Hammersmith in west London], which is a very good hospital but doesn’t represent what the NHS is like.” I didn’t recognise it either, from years of visiting NHS hospitals. Moore painted a rose-tinted vision of spotless wards, impeccable treatment, happy patients who laugh away any suggestion of waiting in casualty, and a glamorous young GP who combines his devotion to his patients with a salary of £100,000, a house worth £1m and two cars. All this, and for free. This, along with an even rosier portrait of the French welfare system, is what Moore says the state can and should provide. You would never guess from Sicko that the NHS is in deep trouble, mired in scandal and incompetence, despite the injection of billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money. While there are good doctors and nurses and treatments in the NHS, there is so much that is inadequate or bad that it is dishonest to represent it as the envy of the world and a perfect blueprint for national healthcare. It isn’t. GPs’ salaries – used by Moore as evidence that a state-run system does not necessarily mean low wages – is highly controversial; their huge pay rise has coincided with a loss of home visits, a serious problem in getting GP appointments and continuing very low pay for nurses and cleaners. "

German Party Backs Highway Speed Limit | World Latest | Guardian Unlimited

German Party Backs Highway Speed Limit World Latest Guardian Unlimited: "A majority of delegates at a conference of the center-left Social Democrat party backed a resolution stating that ``a fast and unbureaucratic path to climate protection is the introduction of a general speed limit of 130 kilometers per hour,'' or 80 mph. "

Japan's death penalty under threat as EU spearheads push for global moratorium - Mainichi Daily News

Japan's death penalty under threat as EU spearheads push for global moratorium - Mainichi Daily News: "The European Union and nine other countries started an open negotiation on their draft resolution on a worldwide moratorium on the death penalty, seeking support from other UN member states in order to pass the resolution at the UN General Assembly's committee on human rights later this week. The resolution, co-authored by the 27 EU nations along with Albania, Angola, Brazil, Croatia, Gabon, Mexico, New Zealand, the Philippines and East Timor, requests countries that still practice the death penalty to 'establish a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty,' according to a copy of the draft resolution obtained by the Mainichi."

An environmental warning proposed for cars in Europe - International Herald Tribune

An environmental warning proposed for cars in Europe - International Herald Tribune: "The advertising business has jumped on the environmental bandwagon, finding ways to give all sorts of industries a 'green' tuneup and profiting in the process. But is it about to backfire? The European Parliament proposed last Wednesday that car advertisements in the European Union carry tobacco-style labels, warning of the environmental impact they cause. Under the plan, 20 percent of the space or time of any auto ad would have to be set aside for information on a car's fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions, cited as a contributor to global climate change. So, should we prepare for warnings along the lines of, 'Driving this car may damage the health of the planet'?"

TheStar.com | News | Quebec to introduce veil ban in voting

TheStar.com News Quebec to introduce veil ban in voting: "Quebec City will follow Ottawa's lead by requiring all electors to show their faces before casting a ballot in elections. Premier Jean Charest's government is expected to introduce legislation on Thursday to compel all voters – including veiled Muslim women – to uncover their faces to a polling station official. The change will be enforced for provincial, municipal and school board elections."

Human race will 'split into two different species' | the Daily Mail

Human race will 'split into two different species' the Daily Mail: "The human race will one day split into two separate species, an attractive, intelligent ruling elite and an underclass of dim-witted, ugly goblin-like creatures, according to a top scientist. "