Wired has an excerpt from a new book about the so-called “Golden Age of Hijacking” when US airplanes were routinely taken by crazy people and flown to crazy places like Cuba. In a span of four years (1968-1972), over 130 planes were hijacked, a threat level that, if it occurred today, would have the NSA’s nose firmly wedged in our genitals.
I found the excerpt fascinating for two reasons. First, the description of what happened … Read more
Holy Fucking Shit, UFCW:
I live in Pennsylvania. Almost all liquor sales, apart from a few places that can sell beer, are through a state monopoly of stores that employ 5000 union employees. The state-owned stores are inefficient, expensive and badly run. The state tried a hilarious experiment in wine kiosks a few years back. Not long after, they had a much-publicized effort to make liquor store employees friendlier.
Governor Corbett, in a rare display … Read more
Stupid shit like this is why I hope life fucks over these kids as hard as possible. Seriously, can you be more brain dead than these morons when you find out that they engage in this:
Students at George Mason University (GMU) signed a petition early this month asking President Obama to listen in on the “private conversations” of all Fox News employees and their families. The petition, which was circulated on GMU’s flagship campus
The NSA story is developing a little too fast for more than a periodic roundup (we did have an inflammatory story last night that the NSA was tapping phones without a warrant, but that now appears to be bogus).
Moving on…
The Rise and Scale of Surveillance
The AP has a story about how PRISM was developed. The number of requests for information continued to ramp up and PRISM was created to ease the … Read more
Wow:
In a striking repudiation of the ultraconservatives who wield power in Iran, voters here overwhelmingly elected a mild-mannered cleric who advocates greater personal freedoms and a more conciliatory approach to the world.
The cleric, Hassan Rowhani, 64, won a commanding 50.7 percent of the vote in the six-way race, according to final results released Saturday, avoiding a runoff in the race to replace the departing president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose tenure was defined largely
A show of hands, please, is there anyone here (we won’t laugh at you, I promise) who watches Blaze TV?
Last time I even heard about Glenn Beck, he left Foxnews to peddle his own (paid) internet streaming service. Never being a Beck fan, I never missed him. But about 2 months ago I was looking at the Free Preview channel on Dish (my TV provider) and I saw Blaze TV mentioned. Now I guess … Read more
The White House has made it official: Syria has crossed the “red line” of using chemical weapons on the opposition. McCain, ever eager for another war, is saying we are going to start aiding the rebels. The WH has yet to confirm.
The Syrian opposition is kind of difficult to define. But we know at least one element includes radical Islamists. We should stay out. It’s a horrible thing — 100,000 dead according to … Read more
If you are want to believe the bullshit coming from “the most ethical and transparent administration evah!”, you are probably one of the idiots defending them and pointing out that the NSA basically wholesale collection of information, on all Americans, isn’t such a bad thing. Probably because based on the usual commentary the insane fucks defending this shit leave justifying the indefensible, you feel that since these marxist-nanny staters that share the same ideology as … Read more
I have thought from early on that the revelation of the government’s massive surveillance operation is a good thing and little that has happened in the past few days has altered that opinion. Already, we are seeing some good coming out of Edward Snowden’s revelations: Google is asking to publish more information; a bipartisan group of Senators want this dragged out into the open; the ACLU is suing. The result of all this … Read more
But is regulatory despair?
Nearly all development economists agree that good institutions—legislatures, courts, administrative agencies—are crucial. When poor countries improve their institutions, economic growth soon accelerates. But what about rich countries? If poor countries can get rich by improving their institutions, is it not possible that rich countries can get poor by allowing their institutions to degenerate? I want to suggest that it is.
Consider the evidence from the annual “Doing Business” reports from
