I’m seeing a series of ideas suggested involving major government intervention in the housing market, and these things are usually presented or sold as a way of helping homeowners stay in their homes. Then, when you look at them more carefully, what they really amount to is a bailout for financial institutions or Wall Street.
-Hank Paulson, former Treasury Secretary in the George W. Bush administration, February 28, 2008, quoted by The Cunning Realist.
Get it here.
Jon Gruber, a true thinker on all things Apple, gave this presentation a couple of weeks ago at MacWorld Expo. Worth a watch if you an Apple follower. Also, do look at his blog Daring Fireball, which is (and has been) in my Blogroll.
I have always been on the record, in fact, since 2003, with the concept of living our values. And I think that whenever we’ve perhaps taken expedient measures, they’ve turned around and bitten us in the backside. We decided early on, in the 101st airborne division, we just said, we decided to obey the Geneva Conventions…
In the cases where that is not true [where torture takes place or international human rights groups aren't granted access to detention sites] we end up paying a price for it, ultimately,” he added. “Abu Ghraib and other situations like that are non biodegradable. They don’t go away. The enemy continues to beat you with them like a stick…. Beyond that, frankly, we have found that the use of interrogation methods in the army field manual that was given the force of law by Congress, that that works.
– General David Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East and South Asia
My cat does not know me when we meet a block away from home, and I gather from his expression that I’m not supposed to know him, either.
–Guy Davenport, quoted in the New York Times.
A poem for the day:
Blonde we like wins Downhill (Last name rhymes with “Bonn”)
There once was a lawyer from the IOC,
who called us to protect “intellectual property.”“During the Olympics”, she said with a sneer
“your site can’t use an Olympian’s name even if they use your gear.”“No pictures, no video, no blog posts can be used…”
Even if they are old? “No!”, she enthused.While Olympians chase gold the IOC pursues green.
Cough up millions, or your logo cannot be seen.Except there it is, on top of countless heads!
Tax free endorsements the IOC dreads.And so it is with a wink and a nudge
that we would like to congratulate a skier whose name we must fudge.Her hair is long and blonde
Last name rhymes with the German city of Bonn.Congratulations Women’s Downhill winner –
from all of us here at UVEX (no longer an IOC sinner).
- John Rowles, of sporting goods maker UVEX, on how the racketeers of the International Olympic Committee tried to prevent them from mentioning their clients’ names. (via Quote of the Day Mailing List)
[http://www.uvexsports.com/2010/02/blonde-we-like-wins-downhill-last-name.html]
Take a listen and watch.
What can one say? The ethics review of the opinions issued by John Yoo and Jay Bybee conducted by the DOJ Office of Professional Responsibility concluded that the two should be referred to their state bar associations for possible discipline. However, that report was overruled by a career lawyer within the DOJ. As the New York Times notes:
Some of the brutal interrogation methods that Mr. Yoo and Mr. Bybee approved for use on Qaeda prisoners, including wall-slamming and the near-drowning of waterboarding, had never before been authorized in American history, and the United States had condemned such treatment as torture and abuse when used by other countries.
History will be the ultimate judge of these two and the actions their opinions authorized.
Update: The full report (save for some shameful redactions by the government) is available here.
A school district in Pennsylvania handed out laptops to students. So far so good. But now the district is accused of remotely activating the built-in cameras to watch students and their families in their homes. Who ever could have approved such behavior? The idea of a school district, a governmental unit, remotely spying into the homes of students without even the decency of providing notice is anathema to the fourth amendment. Perhaps the bureaucrats who implemented this scheme should be sent home with the same computers.
Update: The school district denies the allegations, and claims that the only technology they used was to track stolen or lost computers.
Update 2: Now the FBI is investigating, after the district apparently admitted that they used the laptop cameras 42 times.
I am currently attending a seminar and will likely have little or no posting until after the weekend. This morning I am enjoying at early breakfast and a lovely resort in Indian Wells, California. The view from my table:
Trouble with a bird and a briefcase.
Any idiot, upon seeing the first automobile, could easily predict that it would revolutionize transportation. Only someone with exceptionally keen insight could have foreseen that it would also revolutionize the sex lives of teenagers.
–Isaac Asimov