Ordinarily, protesters who tried to occupy the Wisconsin Capitol Building would be swiftly arrested and removed. But this weekend, police in Madison, Wisconsin, not only allowed pro-union protesters to stay and sleep in the state Capitol Building, they joined them.
Wisconsin union supporters applauded this lawlessness. One exulted, “Police have just announced to the crowds inside the occupied State Capitol of Wisconsin: ‘We have been ordered by the legislature to kick you all out at 4:00 today. But we know what’s right from wrong. We will not be kicking anyone out, in fact, we will be sleeping here with you!’ Unreal.” (Days later, the police finally told the protesters to leave the Capitol Building, but “didn’t evict“ them at that time, and protesters were still camped out in the Capitol Building on the morning of March 1, with their garbage and trash littering the building and the surrounding areas. By the time the police finally took grudging action to limit the protesters’ access to the building, it was during business hours — when the building has traditionally been open to the public. So a union lawyer then promptly got a temporary restraining order that, with little explanation, forced Wisconsin officials to reopen the building to the public during business hours, thus making it harder for them to clean up the building and prevent future occupations.)
This foot-dragging by police and their selective enforcement of the law was a violation of federal court rulings, like Dwares v. City of New York(1992), that require police to enforce the law in a viewpoint neutral manner. In Dwares, police were sued for refusing to arrest people who attacked flag-burners because they disagreed with the flag-burners’ message — even though police ordinarily enforce laws against assault.
Malware decreases, Trojans still dominate: “According to data gathered by Panda Security, only 39 percent of computers scanned in February were infected with malware, compared to 50 percent last month.”
Should we cheer or fear cyber vigilantes like Anonymous?: “The ongoing drama starring hacker group Anonymous and beleaguered security company HBGary has taken a startling twist: In the wake of HBGary CEO Aaron Barr resigning, a group of House Democrats plans to use information gleaned from stolen electronic documents to launch an investigation of HBGary Federal along with two other federal tech contractors for plotting to attack and discredit pro-union opponents of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, according to reports.”
Mobile Data Usage Explodes: “I picked up on an article over at ArsTechnica which references a Cisco report on mobile data usage (World Mobile Data Traffic to Explode By Factor of 26 by 2015). The Cisco report itself (cisco.com [pdf]) has a lot of interesting data and predictions in it. The ArsTechnica article focused mainly on the growth of data traffic in general; I want to talk about something else I found interesting – user profiles.”
Whenever some new, ground-breaking technology makes headlines there is invariable the observer who seems only mildly impressed and then asks when we’re going to get flying cars. Well, ladies and gentleman, that day has come.
Terrafugia (which I believe translates to something like “earth fleer”), a company based near Boston, Mass., has begun manufacturing the Transition, a car that transforms into a private plane in just 20 seconds. According the makers of the Transition, it is less “a flying car” than it is a plane that can be driven on the road, which is what separates it (along with a host of technological capabilities) from previously failed attempts to create a flying car.
The Transition was designed by a team of MIT engineers, including husband and wife Carl and Anna Dietrich, who formed the Terrafugia company. The vehicle is street-legal, has airbags and a parachute, and while it only reaches speeds of 35 mph on land, it can fly about 500 miles at 105 mph in the air. Of course, anyone wishing to purchase a Transition vehicle, available next year for around $200-$250k, must first obtain a pilot’s license. While the car can be driven on most roadways, it must take off and land at public general aviation airports with 2,500 feet or more of runway.
Via the Mercatus Center: “According to McCloskey, our modern world was not the product of new markets and innovations, but rather the result of shifting opinions about them. During this time, talk of private property, commerce, and even the bourgeoisie itself radically altered, becoming far more approving and flying in the face of prejudices several millennia old.”
It’s a hot summer day, you pass by a lemonade stand and you think “An ice-cold lemonade would really hit the spot,” but you have no cash and there are no ATMs in sight! That is no longer a problem thanks to Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey’s Square, a small credit processing device anyone can use with their mobile devices to accept debit and credit payments on the spot.
Small businesses from corner flower merchants, garage and estate sale holders, or street food vendors and farmers markets can now offer their customers a more convenient way to pay for their goods, allowing them to compete with larger businesses. Square is literally a small square device that can be attached via cable to mobile devices, and which processes credit payments for a small per-transaction fee. Square is currently compatible with Apple products such as the iPhone, iPad, and iPod, as well as Google Android products such as the Droid or Nexus One, and will likely increase compatibility with other devices as the technology catches on. There are no monthly fees and no contracts for those who sign up — just a per transaction cost of 2.5 percent plus $0.15, which Square uses to cover interchange fees to credit card companies. Dorsey claims that, with Square, merchants can see an immediate increase in sales of around 20 percent.
While the Obama administration has said it wanted to submit the U.S.-South Korea FTA by July of this year, no timetables have been announced for the other two trade pacts that have been stalled for several years. In the case of the Colombia FTA, the AFL-CIO has been the main campaigner against the agreement, charging that the Colombian government is allowing trade union officials to be killed with impunity. Yet research has shown that while Colombia is still a country with a high but declining level of violence, union officials are actually less likely to be crime victims than the average Colombian.
New, more effective optical fibers have semiconductive core: “Fiber optic cables can transmit over a terabyte of information per second – but that doesn’t mean there still isn’t room for improvement. One of those improvements, which was officially announced today, involves replacing the silica glass core of fiber optic strands with semiconductive zinc selenide. This new class of fiber optics, invented and created at Penn State University, is said to “allow for a more effective and liberal manipulation of light.” The technology could have applications in the fields of medicine, defense, and environmental monitoring.”
It’s that time once again to show your support for human achievement by not participating in the World Wildlife Fund’s dark-ages hour, where people “vote” for governmental action on climate change by spending one hour in the comfort of their homes, on a Saturday, with their lights off. Instead, join the thousands of people around the world participating in the third annual Human Achievement Hour by keeping your lights on and voting to protect individuals’ freedom to create, innovate, and achieve.
On March 26, 2011, from 8:30pm to 9:30pm, individuals, business, and governments will shut off their lights for one hour as a symbolic vote against global climate change. Observers of Earth Hour want world leaders to “do something” about pollution and energy use. What this means is that they want politicians to use sanctions and taxation to prevent individuals from freely using resources, hindering our ability to create the solutions and technologies of the future.
On the first point, getting rid of subsidies to the oil industry — and to all industries — would be great. But I fail to see how one existing subsidy justifies creating another.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report in the past few days to “identify federal programs, agencies, offices, and initiatives, either within departments or governmentwide, which have duplicative goals or activities.” They identified 34 areas where agencies have overlapping missions or provide similar services to similar populations. They also identified 47 other areas where Congress might be able to reduce the cost of providing government services.
Some of the areas for improvement don’t actually involve consolidating programs, and just represent programs that even the GAO is willing to concede are poorly thought out. Ethanol policy gets a nod at $5.7 billion. Consolidating Department of Defense procedural medical operations could save as much as $470 million annually. Certain farm subsidies are included at an unnecessary cost of up to $5 billion annually. A number of opportunities were presented for the IRS.
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