links for 2010-05-30

• Obamacare taking on water | Washington Examiner
  Quote:"Since passage, reports have revealed that ObamaCare would cost over $1 trillion by any standard, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), not “merely” $940 billion as previously reported (while its total costs in its real first decade, 2014 to 2023, would continue to be well over $2 trillion); that ObamaCare has prompted major corporations to discuss dropping their employer-provided health-care plans; that businesses would have to file 1099s not only for every person to whom they pay $600 in wages but for every vendor with whom they do $600 in business, thereby imposing a paperwork nightmare and incentivizing companies to avoid doing business with a myriad of small firms rather than a handful of big ones; that ObamaCare would create 159 new federal agencies, offices, or programs; that the Obama administration’s Medicare Chief Actuary says ObamaCare would raise U.S. health costs by $311 billion in relation to current law

  // Etc Etc

  (tags: healthcare obamacare polls)
• Japan's 'Knuckle Princess' makes US debut – MLB – Yahoo! Sports
  Quote:"She pitched a scoreless first inning in her debut for the Chico Outlaws of the Golden Baseball League, before struggling a bit by allowing four runs in her final two frames.

  // Very cool. Hope she stays around long enought to get a legitimate chance to develop her knuckleball.

  (tags: Baseball cool gender women)
• Old Buffalo church to be reborn in Atlanta suburb – Yahoo! News
  cool
  (tags: architecture Catholicism christianity demographics history religion)
• Halladay throws perfect game, beats Marlins 1-0 – MLB – Yahoo! Sports
  Quote:"Halladay struck out 11, and was cheered by a crowd of 25,086 throughout much of the night. Another fan called later—Vice President Joe Biden dialed up the Phillies’ clubhouse to offer his congratulations when it was over.

  // Jeeze, does Obama do anything?

  (tags: Roy.Halladay Baseball obama sports)
• The 100 Greatest Characters of the Last 20 Years: Daniel Radcliffe on Harry Potter…and Eric Cartman | EW.com
  // Homer Simpson?

  Correct!

  (tags: popularculture)

Obamacare

What was really in that billion and a half page bill?

This:

Since passage, reports have revealed that ObamaCare would cost over $1 trillion by any standard, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), not “merely” $940 billion as previously reported (while its total costs in its real first decade, 2014 to 2023, would continue to be well over $2 trillion); that ObamaCare has prompted major corporations to discuss dropping their employer-provided health-care plans; that businesses would have to file 1099s not only for every person to whom they pay $600 in wages but for every vendor with whom they do $600 in business, thereby imposing a paperwork nightmare and incentivizing companies to avoid doing business with a myriad of small firms rather than a handful of big ones; that ObamaCare would create 159 new federal agencies, offices, or programs; that the Obama administration’s Medicare Chief Actuary says ObamaCare would raise U.S. health costs by $311 billion in relation to current law and would shift about 14 million people off of employer-provided insurance — and some of them onto Medicaid; that ObamaCare’s would discourage employment, as — for example — hiring a 25th worker would cost a business $5,600 in addition to wages and benefits; that ObamaCare would impose a severe marriage penalty, offering additional subsidies as high as $10,425 a year if couples merely avoid marriage; that a lone provision in ObamaCare, which would penalize employers if their employees spend more than 9.5 percent of their household income on insurance premiums, would cut the net income of businesses like White Castle by more than half; that even though ObamaCare was supposed to get people out of emergency rooms and into doctors’ offices, those who build emergency rooms say the effect will be just the opposite and that they are gearing up for increased business; that doctors shortages are looming and would be accentuated by ObamaCare, both because more people would seek care (otherwise, what would the $2 trillion be buying?) and because fewer people would likely enter a demanding profession that would now promise greater restrictions and lower pay; and that President Obama’s nominee to head Medicare and Medicaid under ObamaCare is an open advocate of the British National Health Services’ NICE (National Institute of Clinical Excellence) and its methods of rationing care.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/obamacare-taking-on-water-95104599.html#ixzz0pT4psfMu

links for 2010-05-29

• 6 Strains On Your Financial Future – Yahoo! Finance
  // Taxes go up, services go down. That's how government works.
  (tags: economics finance)
• Maginot Line – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  // Was doing some light reading when I saw this:

  quote:

  Czech connection
  Czechoslovakia also was in fear of Hitler and began building its own defenses. As an ally of France, they were able to get advice on the Maginot design and apply it to Czechoslovak border fortifications. The design of the casemates is similar to the ones found in the southern part of the Maginot Line, and photos of such are often confused with those of the Maginot. With the Munich Agreement the Germans were able to use the Czech fortifications to study and plan attacks that proved very successful against the western fortifications (Fort Eben-Emael is the best known example).

  // Wow, that Munich agreement…I tell ya, good call.

  (tags: wikipedia history military WWII)
• » Court Document Reveals Government’s Admission That It Lacked Evidence O’Keefe, Others Intended to Commit Felony At Landrieu’s Office – Big Journalism
  // The last paragraph of the document is the most important.
  (tags: personal activism James.Okeefe)

links for 2010-05-28

• Existentialist Firefighter Delays 3 Deaths | The Onion – America's Finest News Source
  (tags: atheism funny humor martyemail philosophy)
• 6 Secrets of Getting Better Doctor Care – Healthy Living on Shine
  (tags: health)
• Foods poisonous to pets on Shine
  // Huh, we've been feeding grapes to our GSDs for a long time…
  (tags: dogs pets)
• Peggy Noonan: He Was Supposed to Be Competent – WSJ.com
  (tags: government obama oil politics)
• There Was 'Nobody in Charge' – WSJ.com
  // Interesting account of what happened on the rig before the explosion. The Captain of the rig comes off as an incompetent boob, which may not be fair.
  (tags: disaster environment obama oil weekendreading)
• John W. Finn, 100, Dies – Received Pearl Harbor Medal – Obituary (Obit) – NYTimes.com
  Quote:"John W. Finn, the last survivor of the 15 Navy men who received the Medal of Honor for heroism during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, died Thursday at a nursing home in Chula Vista, Calif. He was 100 and had been the oldest living recipient of the medal, the nation’s highest award for valor.

  // RIP

  (tags: WWII history military obits)
• Medal of Honor Recipients at Pearl Harbor in World War II
  // 15 people won MOH at Pearl Harbor. The last survivor died yesterday.
  (tags: history military)
• Motor Vehicle Occupant Injury and Fatality Risks: Age, Gender, Day of Week, Time of Day, and their Remarkable Interactions
  Quote:"Results revealed remarkable periodicities of occupant fatalities and fatality risk. While increased risk in the late evening-early morning hours is seen every day of the week, the most fatalities and risk occur during this period on the weekend, during the Friday night-Saturday morning and Saturday night-Sunday morning hours (Figure 1). But these periodic trends interact strongly with age and gender, whereby the most fatalities and risk involve young male motor vehicle occupants during late night-early morning hours, especially on weekends. The increased occupant fatality risk on weekends as compared to weekdays, which is highly amplified in young male occupants and strongly associated with late night-early morning hours, is also strongly associated with speed- and/or drunk driver-related accidents.
  (tags: numbersandstudies driving statistics drinking)

links for 2010-05-27

• Man can live by bread (and eggs) alone – Time Out New York
  // Wow. Making bread can really make a big difference on your budget.
  (tags: finance going.Galt howto)
• 100 years after his death, Mark Twain gets the final say | Life | Chron.com – Houston Chronicle
  // Somehow, I think this will actually take away from Twain's works, not add to them. But i don't know for sure.
  (tags: Mark.Twain books bookstoread)
• RealClearPolitics – Election 2010 – Minnesota Governor – Emmer vs. Dayton vs. Horner
  // As I expected, Emmer is leading in polls that look at likely voters. Can't really tell if Horner is hurting Emmer more than Dayton or not, but my guess is Horner hurts DFL a lot more than GOP
  (tags: mnpolitics elections2010)
• Silly Bandz Bracelet Craze: School Ban Over Distraction – Yahoo! News
  Quote:"Students fiddle with them during class and arrange swaps – trading, say, a bracelet with a mermaid for one with a dragon – when they should be concentrating on schoolwork, teachers say. Sometimes a trade goes bad – kids get buyer's remorse too – and hard feelings, maybe even scuffles, ensue.

  // Please, those students will learn more trading and bartering those bands than they will sitting on their asses listening to teachers complain about how they misbehave so often.

  (tags: education Schools)
• USAF vehicle breaks record for hypersonic flight – Yahoo! News
  // Doesn't look very useful.
  (tags: aviation martyemail)
• Shortage of road stripe paint threatens highway construction – Yahoo! Finance
  // Interesting note: the article says without paint, road construction jsut stops. However, somewhere in the archives of my delicious account, there is a study from Britain showing roads w/o lines are actually safer (since w/o the lines, people are actually forced to pay attention to there driving.)
  (tags: economy governmenteffeciency)
• 6 Ways to Keep Your Employees From Jumping Ship – Yahoo! Finance
  // I've often heard this in the MBA program, that pay isn't the most important thing preventing a person from leaving. But my thought it, if they're already thinking about leaving, what can you do? Obviously that mysterious factor keeping a person from pursuing higher pay is not there.
  (tags: MBA business)
• I'm Just Walkin'
  // Website of that walking guy. He's in Minnesota!
  (tags: awesome Blog photography randomlinks walking)
• Adventurer leaves NY career to walk across US – Yahoo! News
  Quote:"Others, including his parents, weren't as convinced.

  They worried about his safety, that he'd get hit by a car or attacked. They also wondered whether their eldest should be more settled in his life.

  // I like how his parents believe walking around Ohio and Wyoming are somehow more dangerous than walking around NYC. Thanks a lot east-coast prejudice. We hillbillies don't kill and eat every stranger we meet. Sheesh.

  (tags: cool exercise martyemail)
• Facebook adjusts privacy controls after complaints – Yahoo! News
  // Somehow, I don't see this as being all that important. Especially considering what Google knows about you.
  (tags: facebook ludditism privacy)
• Britain to scrap unpopular ID card program – Yahoo! News
  Quote:"Britain's home secretary said Thursday an unpopular national identity card program for U.K. citizens will be scrapped within 100 days — but many foreign nationals will still require one of the credit-card sized documents carrying biometric data.

  // Not often does something like this get rolled back. Just goes to show it's not impossible.

  (tags: National.ID governmentcreep international liberty UK)
• Improving Tabletop Pong – Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories
  // So awesome
  (tags: diy pong videogames retrogaming)
• Activist guilty in phone caper at senator's office
  // much ado about nothing. $1500 fine, probation and some community service. No bugging conspiracy, no watergate. Basically, it was a prank gone wrong.
  (tags: James.Okeefe activism personal)

links for 2010-05-26

• Phys Ed: Does Exercise Help You Sleep Better? – Well Blog – NYTimes.com
  Quote:" The correlations between how much some of the students exercised and how fit they believed themselves to be was not very precise. More than 16 percent of the students who rated themselves low on the fitness scale actually exercised the most. In other words, they worked out more than many of the other students but felt they weren’t doing enough.

  Those students who perceived that they weren’t exercising enough also tended to report sleeping less well, even though they were exercising more than some of the other students. In the end, the researchers found almost no correlation between how much students exercised and how well they slept. What mattered was whether they believed that they were being active enough. Those students who perceived that they were fit slept well. Those who didn’t, did not.

  // So it's mentall…

  (tags: numbersandstudies sleep exercise health)
• 5 tricks to grill your way to better health – Healthy Living on Shine
  Quote:"Marinate meats. Marinating can reduce HCA formation by as much as 92 to 99 percent, according to the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR). One study in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry showed that marinating red meat in beer or wine for two hours significantly reduced HCAs. Scientists believe the antioxidants in these marinades block HCAs from forming.

  // Just FYI

  (tags: health cooking)
• NAS – The National Association of Scholars :: Articles 10 Reasons Not to Go to College Ashley Thorne
  // 2,3,4,5,6,8,9 are pretty legit, but I will point out the unemployment data on HS grads no enrolled in college under 25 years of age is about 25%.
  (tags: business college education learning work)
• glimmers-of-hope-for-grads: Personal Finance News from Yahoo! Finance
  Quote:"The 8 percent unemployment rate is lower than the nation's overall 9.9 percent jobless rate, but it is high for college graduates, who typically have a lower unemployment rate than those without bachelor's degrees. Mr. Nardone noted that for high school graduates under age 25 who did not enroll in college, the jobless rate was 24.5 percent last month, up from 11.4 percent in April 2007.

  // Liberal arts degrees get a lot of grief from certain online pundits I read everyday, but, a college degree is at least proof you can read and write. As you can see, the jobless rate for young HS grads, 25%, compared to college grads, is significant. Maybe I value the liberal arts more than I should, but a classically educated person should have a lot of value to a business.

  (tags: career jobhunting jobs)
• Photos: America's Scariest Highways – America's Scariest Highways – Forbes.com
  // They don't seem all that scary
  (tags: martyemail photography Travel)
• Two more Census workers blow the whistle – NYPOST.com
  Quote:"Last week, one of the millions of workers hired by Census 2010 to parade around the country counting Americans blew the whistle on some statistical tricks.

  The worker, Naomi Cohn, told The Post that she was hired and fired a number of times by Census. Each time she was hired back, it seems, Census was able to report the creation of a new job to the Labor Department.

  // Ugh

  (tags: economy government governmentstupidity jobs obama politics)
• Shot in the Dark » Blog Archive » Social Engineering
  Quote:"

  I turned toward the window, and coughed a long, dry, hacking cough that sounded like it threatened to bring up breakfast. And then another. And then another.

  She stopped muttering.

  I dialed a number on my cell phone (my home number), and started conversing with the voicemail; “Hey. Yeah, I’m on the bus. Oh, I think my fever might get down to 101, but I gotta work. Yeah, I’m short already this week.”

  The lady was listening.

  “ Oh, I was up puking all night. Coulda swore I saw blood…”

  She moved.

  (tags: funny MOB)
• Interracial marriage still rising, but not as fast – Yahoo! News
  // Articles suggests a slowing of the increase of interracial marriage is somehow representative of an increase in American racism (or something along those lines). Just like how a slowing in the increase of water levels inside a boat repersent the boat has somehow stopped sinking. My guess is these fluctuation are natural statistical distributions, and these trends will continue at a normal rate in the next census.
  (tags: census immigration Marriage numbersandstudies race)
• The Great Auto Race of 1908
  (tags: history cars randomlinks)
• Masculine traits: To get the girl | The Economist
  // Also, all those muscles and aggression were really useful for other things, like building stuff and hunting.
  (tags: psychology evolution mankind)
• Kilpatrick gets 1.5 to 5 years in prison, loses job | detnews.com | The Detroit News
  // He got lucky, the maximum penalty for his crime would involve him becoming the mayor of Detroit.
  (tags: detroit martyemail)
• Bannerman Castle Trust, Inc.
  (tags: architecture cool history martyemail photography randomlinks todo Travel)
• Fish with Hands Discovered, But Species Face Extinction : TreeHugger
  // Maybe they should use their hands to make stuff, like weapons against foriegn species.
  (tags: animals environment weird)
• Tea party candidates spark doubts for GOP establishment – Yahoo! News
  // There are so many unemployed liberal arts majors out there, why are congressional candidates risking their elections by plagiarism?
  (tags: elections2010 gop)

From the Notebook

Old blogs never fade away. They just die.
–Mitch Berg
(Maybe my blog needs to be murdered)

-It’s been a while since I wrote an actual post, so…quality not guaranteed.

-When an idea is adopted by one of the major parties, eventually it will get enacted. This is why platform debates are important.

-Read T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland, and some other of his classic poems. The Waste Land is on the second edition of the Great books of the Western World reading plan. It is a tremendous work, exactly what poetry is supposed to be.

-Aristotle’s Ethics (selection). Again, another GBWW 10-year Reading Plan thing. In the selection, Aristotle discusses virtue as being the mean between two extremes. It’s a very practical ethical guide, though it leaves plenty of metaphysical holes.

-Read Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. A fun short story, interesting to adults and kids. A real classic.

-The one problem with reading classic books, what are you supposed to say about them? They’re Classics.

-Saw ”Kick Ass” at the theatre a few weeks ago. Some conservatives, and Roger Ebert, have raised questions about the morality of a movie that has a young girl working as an assassin. I guess I should agree, but the movie presents a moral dilemma that can’t be ignored: if violence against bad people is a moral act, why isn’t it a moral act for a young girl to do so? If not, then the act itself may be immoral. Most people, myself included, would conclude that many of the acts done against the antagonists in Kick Ass were moral and just (in a Biblical tooth for tooth sort of way). Thus, I can’t avoid the conclusion that having a young girl be the instrument of justice is not a wrong.

Kick Ass is uneven. It’s a little too long and the story convoluted and confused. “The Professional” is a better movie presenting the same questions of youth and violence, and it does so in a more entertaining fashion. But, I wouldn’t avoid seeing Kick Ass if you have yet to.

- Read a couple versions of the theoretical Q document, based mainly on the texts from Luke (linked to by the Wikipedia article on the topic). I don’t have the scholarly knowledge to analyze the two-document hypothesis re: the Synoptic Problem. But if Christian tradition is based only on Q, Mark and the Pauline Epistles, it’s still Christianity and these sources still provide strong evidence for an Historical and Divine Jesus.

-Finally, I finished “Men at Work; the Craft of Baseball” by George F. Will (and it was the old edition, not his recent upgrade). This is a great baseball book. Will does a better job putting to words what I feel about baseball than any other author I have ever read. I thought I kinda liked “Three Nights in August” by Bissinger. But this book puts that work to shame. If I had to put together a top-ten list of the greatest books on baseball I’ve read (and I’ve read a lot of baseball books), this book would be among the top three.

links for 2010-05-25

• Violent-Crime Rate Falls Again, FBI Reports – WSJ.com
  // Even in a recession. So the crime-poverty link isn't causal…hmmmm
  (tags: numbersandstudies crime)
• New Crime Stats Contradict Anti-Immigrant Hype | Cato @ Liberty
  // Imagine if marijuana was also legalized in the US. Then there really wouldn't be much ado about the border.
  (tags: immigration Arizona numbersandstudies crime)
• Answered! Life's 25 Toughest Questions – Manage Your Life on Shine
  Quote:"1. Can love really last a lifetime?
  Absolutely — but only if you chuck the fairy tale of living happily ever after. A team of scientists recently found that romantic love involves chemical changes in the brain that last 12 to 18 months. After that, you and your partner are on your own. Relationships require maintenance.

  // Just FYI friends who get married then divorced right away.

  (tags: Marriage relationships numbersandstudies)
• The Stephen Strasburg baseball card that costs as much as a car – Big League Stew – MLB  – Yahoo! Sports
  // Whne it comes to Bowman Chrome ___fractors, the number one rule is sell the hot prospects and keep mid-to-low level prospects. Especially pitchers, who are less likely to make the majors, and less likely to stay in the majors, due to injuries.
  (tags: Baseball baseballcards)
• more-workers-start-to-quit: Personal Finance News from Yahoo! Finance
  Quote:"And recent sentiment indicates that the number of employees quitting could continue to grow in the coming months. In a poll conducted by human-resources consultant Right Management at the end of 2009, 60% of workers said they intended to leave their jobs when the market got better. "The research is fairly alarming," says Michael Haid, senior vice president of global solutions for Right Management. "The churn for companies could be very costly."

  // So for you jobhunters out there, not only will you be competing with experienced workers coming off the "longterm unemployed" and "underemployed" categories, you will also be competing with workers who desperately want to get out of their current job. Enjoy the scrum…

  (tags: business going.Galt jobhunting recession MBA)
• Mike Meyers: Light rail, popular and a boondoggle | StarTribune.com
  Quote:"Yet celebrations of the achievements of light rail overlook what's happened elsewhere in the mass-transit system.

  Think 10.2 million riders on light rail sounds impressive? How about this? Metro buses gained 12.3 million riders — rising to a total of 71.6 million — over the period the Hiawatha Line was introduced, from 2004 to 2008.

  Buses seem to be a bigger Twin Cities success story than light rail has been — or ever will be.

  // Lots of good data in this piece.

  (tags: governmenteffeciency mass.transit mnpolitics numbersandstudies public.transportation)
• Rear-end collisions jump at red-light camera intersections in West Palm Beach
  Quote:"But at the three city intersections from Feb. 21, when fines began, through May 1, The Post found:

  –Rear-end collisions increased to five from two. Rear-end accidents sometimes go up with cameras because anxious drivers are more likely to stop abruptly.

  –Overall accidents increased to seven from six.

  –The only injury in either period came under cameras, in a rear-end crash in March 2010. The injury was "non-incapacitating," according to records supplied by cities and compiled in Palm Beach County's accident database.

  // Duh. There have been numerous studies that have shown this.

  (tags: governmentstupidity numbersandstudies red.light.cameras traffic)
• KSTP TV – Minneapolis and St. Paul – Rarely-used airports get millions of federal dollars
  Quote:"Jackson is the only small airport in Minnesota 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS could find trying to accurately count planes even when no one is around. A motion-triggered camera documents every arrival and departure.

  // Those fools.

  (tags: aviation governmenteffeciency mnpolitics)
• the-meaning-of-wealth-translated-around-the-world: Personal Finance News from Yahoo! Finance
  (tags: finance money wealth)
• A Guide to Complaints That Get Results – Yahoo! Finance
  "CALL THE C.E.O."

  // Captain Bogs was once displeased with a redemption offer from a baseball card manufacturer (the player we received was clearly not a prospect, but in a 'prospects' set). After some phone tag, he eventually got to speak with the individual who actually decides who gets into prospect card sets. Didn't get any cards or anything out of it, except a promise from the guy to review their criteria for 'prospects'. Captain Bogs is ready to call again.

  (tags: complaints howto haggle business)
• Giacomo Casanova – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  // the man is quite interesting.
  (tags: history people literature books toread biography)
• Reduce Three Risks with One Sweetener Switch – Health Tip – RealAge
  Quote:"And when you need a little something sweet, try a smidge of stevia in your bowl or glass instead.

  // Something dentists also recommend.

  (tags: diet health)

links for 2010-05-24

• Welcome to Book Lover.com – The Website for Book Lovers
  (tags: books free ebooks randomlinks weekendreading writing personal)
• What the Resumes of Top CEOs Have in Common – Yahoo! Finance
  // You can learn all the international tricks to business, like how to avoid environmental regs, bribing public officials and finding people who will work for next to nothing.
  (tags: business MBA)
• Horus – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  Quote:"Horus was born to the goddess Isis after she retrieved all the dismembered body parts of her murdered husband Osiris, except his penis which was thrown into the Nile and eaten by a catfish,[5][6] and used her magic powers to resurrect Osiris and fashion a gold phallus[7] to conceive her son. In another version of the story, Isis was impregnated by divine fire.[8] Once Isis knew she was pregnant with Horus, she fled to the Nile Delta marshlands to hide from her brother Set who jealously killed Osiris and who she knew would want to kill their son.[8] There Isis bore a divine son, Horus.

  // When I think "Precursor to Jesus" I think "Horus" #sarcasm

  (tags: religion mythology atheism wikipedia christianity history horus faith)
• 5 Secrets of Self-Made Millionaires on Shine
  // Spend less than I make…okay…anything else?
  (tags: finance business money entrepreneurship investing)
• AP IMPACT: Deadly, ultra-pure heroin arrives in US
  // Remember kids, don't inject heroin anymore. Smoke it or snort it. And please, dilute the mixture before you do so, if you're new to drug use. Powdered milk or sugar works best for snorters. Just FYI
  (tags: drugs heroin martyemail)
• 24 Television show – 24 TV Show – Yahoo! TV
  Incredibly, I would say that the dissociative amnesia in Season One was actually believable. The Cougar/Almeida/AgentStarbuck plotlines were far more ridiculous.
  (tags: 24 Suspension.of.Disbelief martyemail popularculture tv)
• Arizona border businesses lose key Mexican clients – Yahoo! News
  Quote:"Adalberto Lopez' family-run musical instrument shop in the bustling Arizona border city of Nogales sells guitars and accordions to foot-stomping banda musicians and mariachis who cross up from Mexico to shop.

  But in mid-May, the music stopped in the store. Mexican customers who account for almost all its sales stayed away as part of a two-day boycott to repudiate Arizona's tough new immigration law.

  // Yes, it is the Adalberto Lopez's of the world who must pay for America's xenophobia

  (tags: Arizona immigration liberalism stupid)
• Fiscal crises threaten Europe's generous benefits – Yahoo! Finance
  Quote:"Six weeks of vacation a year. Retirement at 60. Thousands of euros for having a baby. A good university education for less than the cost of a laptop.

  The system known as the European welfare state was built after World War II as the keystone of a shared prosperity meant to prevent future conflict. Generous lifelong benefits have since become a defining feature of modern Europe.

  Now the welfare state — cherished by many Europeans as an alternative to what they see as dog-eat-dog American capitalism — is coming under its most serious threat in decades: Europe's sovereign debt crisis.

  // Duh

  (tags: Duh economy europe finance recession)
• Court says black firefighter lawsuit can proceed – Yahoo! News
  Quote:"In Monday's opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the court that the applicants' lawsuit over a city of Chicago test used to weed out potential firefighter trainee applicants was not too late.

  "Today, the Supreme Court affirmed that job-seekers should not be denied justice based on a technicality," said John Payton, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., who argued the case.

  // Scalia is such a prejudiced juror.

  (tags: law scalia scotus)
• Ariz. governor uses puppet video to sell immigration law – The Hill's Blog Briefing Room
  // Great ad
  (tags: politicalhackery politics Arizona immigration)
• Settled Science: Class Size
  Quote:"Class-size reduction (CSR) mandates presuppose that resources provided to reduce class size will have a larger impact on student outcomes than resources that districts can spend as they see fit. I estimate the impact of Florida’s statewide CSR policy by comparing the deviations from prior achievement trends in districts that were required to reduce class size to deviations from prior trends in districts than received equivalent resources but were not required to reduce class size. I use the same comparative interrupted time series design to compare schools that were differentially affected by the policy (in terms of whether they had to reduce class size) but that did not receive equal additional resource. The results form both the district- and the school-level analyses indicate that mandated CSR in Florida had little, if any, effect on cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes.

  // I've had teachers give me the ol' class size routine. I always ask one thing: cite me a source.

  (tags: education psychology numbersandstudies)

links for 2010-05-23

• GhostsOfNorthDakota.com
  (tags: randomlinks Travel research writing north.dakota)
• America's Top 10 Road Trips
  (tags: cool martyemail Travel driving)
• Psssst–Your Boss Is Spying on You!- Yahoo! HotJobs
  Quote:"To top it all off, your boss can probably track your every move. If your workplace has a CCTV (closed-circuit TV) system, then you already know you're being watched. But there are subtler ways for employers to track your location. Employee ID "key badges" help employers track where you've been, security software can track how long you spend away from your computer, and the GPS program on your company-issued cell phone can provide your exact location at all times.

  // And yet, we're still in a recession…hmmmmm…

  (tags: business MBA jobs ludditism)
• GOP wins House seat in Obama's home district – Yahoo! News
  // It's not really a win, but i'll take it.
  (tags: obama politics elections2010)
• Cheap Dates: The 10 Least Expensive Cars to Own- Yahoo! Autos Article Page
  // The Nissan Versa is the cheapest new car. But once you find out what you don't get, you might as well buy used.
  (tags: cars)
• Cleaning oil-soaked wetlands may be impossible – Yahoo! News
  Quote:"They warn an aggressive cleanup could ruin the marshes and do more harm than good. The only viable option for many impacted areas is to do nothing and let nature break down the spill.

  // People act like oil isn't a natural byproduct.

  (tags: oil oil.spill environment)
• America's Top 10 Underrated Cities
  // Pitt? How does Pitt make this list?
  (tags: Travel vacation cities martyemail)