Tuesday, November 13, 2012

How a Vicious Circle of Self-Interest Sank a California City

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From Reuters:

Yet on close examination, the city's decades-long journey from prosperous, middle-class community to bankrupt, crime-ridden, foreclosure-blighted basket case is straightforward — and alarmingly similar to the path traveled by many municipalities around America's largest state. San Bernardino succumbed to a vicious circle of self-interests among city workers, local politicians and state pension overseers. Little by little, over many years, the salaries and retirement benefits of San Bernardino's city workers — and especially its police and firemen — grew richer and richer, even as the city lost its major employers and gradually got poorer and poorer. Unions poured money into city council elections, and the city council poured money into union pay and pensions. The California Public Employees' Retirement System (Calpers), which manages pension plans for San Bernardino and many other cities, encouraged ever-sweeter benefits. Investment bankers sold clever bond deals to pay for them.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

The Presidential Debate

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Monday, October 8, 2012

No, Not Detroit!

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Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Government Doesn't Know Difference Between Compression and Encryption; Endangers 2.4 Million People's Identities

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This is terrible. Of course, don't expect anyone to suffer any consequences over this:

TORONTO — Elections Ontario staff who lost two memory sticks with the personal information of millions of voters did not encrypt the files because they didn’t know what encryption meant, privacy commissioner Ann Cavoukian said Tuesday. “They went online, they Googled it, and the closest they could discern was that encryption means zipping the data, which means compressing the data, not encrypting it,” Cavoukian said at a press conference. The missing USB keys included voters’ full names, addresses, date of birth, gender and whether they voted in the last election — information that is a “gold mine” for identity thieves, warned Cavoukian. “Cases of identity theft often take well over a year before they transpire,” she said. “They lay low, wait until the story is yesterday’s news, and then hit hard, so you have to be vigilant.” The lost data is from about 2.4 million voters in 20-25 electoral districts, but because Elections Ontario can’t say which districts, four million voters in 49 ridings are being advised to keep an eye on their bank statements. Elections Ontario discovered the “massive breach” in late April, when two memory sticks went missing, but it didn’t tell the public until July 17, prompting investigations by the information and privacy commissioner and provincial police. Even worse, said Cavoukian, the agency went right back to using USB keys without enabling the encryption software just four days after realizing it had lost the two other data storage devices. “I hit the roof, as you might imagine,” she said. “On what planet do you do that, do you do the same thing again and not encrypt the data? It’s baffling to me.”
I'll tell you what planet you do that on: Planet government!

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Vice.com: All The Kids Are Libertarians

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Oh yes they are.

Voters ranging in age from 18 to 29, the poll found, were neither here nor there on a traditional left/right political spectrum, and many displayed lukewarm feelings towards liberalism. Few, for instance, put faith in the government’s ability to stimulate the economy through spending (what’s known as Keynesian economics), less than half thought the government should provide free health care to those who can’t afford it, and a remarkably small number—just 28 percent—thought the government should prioritize environmental concerns like global warming over economic concerns. At the same time, these voters backed away from social and neo-conservative ideals: They weren’t anti-gay, they didn’t like religion in their politics, and they tended to pooh-pooh preemptive war. 

 What remained, political scientists and pollsters noted, looked an awful lot like the silhouette of libertarianism, a political philosophy that champions small government and tolerant social attitudes (think Soundgarden’s “My Wave”) and—that especially for youngsters—is fueled by a deep distrust of mainstream politics. 


Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Krugman Gets Pwned on Canadian Healthcare

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Krugman gets owned by Canadians about the Canadian healthcare system. Sorry that it has the "Conservative News" logo at the end... I couldn't find another source.

Wednesday, July 4, 2012