This video is the reason the internet was invented:
I love the appearance of Leroy Jenkins and using Boxxy to open and close the video is strangely appropriate.
In 2005, the Supreme Court ruled on the controversial property rights case–Kelo v. New London. In that case, the Supreme Court ruled that cities could exercise eminent domain for purely economic development purposes, even if they took the land from one private property owner and transferred it to another. According to the Court, this was an acceptable “public use” under the Fifth Amendment.
But governments do not necessarily make good decisions about economic development and the Kelo situation is a good example. It’s four years after the Supreme Court’s decision and the land the land that the City of New London took from Susette Kelo and her neighbors for “economic development” is still vacant. None of the 3,169 new jobs and $1.2 million a year in tax revenues have materialized.
Earlier in the month, my wife and I were near New London, so we stopped by to see what the land looks like today. Below are picture I took of the site:
View to the south from where Susette Kelo’s house once stood:
View to the west from where Susette Kelo’s house once stood:
Trees on the Susette Kelo’s block:
View to the north on East street:
One block North from Susette Kelo’s, more condemned land:
View to the north, same location:
Bing maps has a nice aerial perspective of this location, especially when you use the Bird’s Eye feature.
This is a sad case of hubris. People homes were taken and replaced with empty lots?
The Explainer at Slate does a good job of explaining how Roman Polanksi came to be arrested in Switzerland.
So what did Polanski do? In 1977, when Polanski was 44, he raped a 13 year old girl in the California home of Jack Nicholson.
Why was he arrested now? Because prosecutors in California asked the Swiss to arrest him. It probably ticked off the prosecutors when Polanksi tried to have the charges against him dropped last December and they reacted by asking the Swiss to arrest him. The U.S. never asked the French to extradite Polanksi because the French (and the U.S. in the opposite case) can refuse to extradite a citizen.
Why did Polanski flee? All sides in the case thought that Polanski would only get probation and not be forced to serve jail time. But the judge, who engaged in some “ex parte communications” (communications with someone not involved in the case) decided that Polanski should serve some jail time. When the judge told Polanki’s attorney that he was considering jail time, Polanski fled.
Karl Rove gave a speech in Nevada on Saturday. Here’s part of what the press account says:
The country, he said, is still center-right. Obama won the presidency because he campaigned as a centrist, only to take office and govern as a liberal, Rove said.
He called the ongoing debate among Republicans about whether the party should return to its roots or chart a new course “sterile, artificial and unnecessary.”
His solution: “We can draw on our timeless principles and apply them to the new circumstances we face as a country.”
What timeless principles is Rove talking about? He is talking about fiscal conservatism? If he was, then he is a hypocrite since he and Bush weren’t fiscal conservatives.
One of Bush’s biggest problems is that he didn’t seem to embody timeless principles. He tried to do some good things, but he wasn’t successful in making positive change. Maybe Iraq took all of Bush’s political capital.
But really, what timeless principles did Bush and Rove apply when in the White House?
This is sad news, the unemployment rate for young Americans has exploded to 52.2 percent. There are a number of reasons for this, the bad economic environment being the obvious root cause.
But there are two other factors that aren’t helping. The first is the minimum wage. As recently at July 23, 2007, the federal minimum wage was $5.15. Now the minimum wage is $7.25–a 40 percent increase in just over 2 years. Even though Congressmen can’t figure this out, but when you make it more expensive to hire people without much experience (such as 16-24 year olds), fewer inexperienced people get hired. I hope these young Americans are thanking President Bush for signing that law…
Second, no one lobbies for policies to help young Americans get jobs. But there are lots and lots of lobbyists working to make sure that people who have jobs keep them. Just look who got the bailouts–Wall Street and the auto industry. Wall Street employs a lot of lobbyist and they provide politicians with a lot of fundraising dollars. The auto industry employs a lot of lobbyists and auto unions employ a lot of lobbyist.
The stimulus bill hasn’t helped either, since it was crafted to help special interest groups. Here’s more from the article:
Al Angrisani, the former assistant Labor Department secretary under President Reagan, doesn’t see a turnaround in the jobs picture for entry-level workers and places the blame squarely on the Obama administration and the construction of its stimulus bill.
“There is no assistance provided for the development of job growth through small businesses, which create 70 percent of the jobs in the country,” Angrisani said in an interview last week. “All those [unemployed young people] should be getting hired by small businesses.”
There are six million small businesses in the country, those that employ less than 100 people, and a jobs stimulus bill should include tax credits to give incentives to those businesses to hire people, the former Labor official said.
There’s a reason the the stimulus bill didn’t give incentives to small business to hire young workers–no one lobbied for that. Lobbyists work to help their own industries.
Our maco-economic situation is the main reason young Americans are struggling, but our policies aren’t helping either.
–the recent increase in the minimum wage.
I received this delicious piece of spam the other day. I especially love this line, “You know the funds are legal and we got it from selling crude oil at the black market.”
from: 
Sgt. Lee Eric
date: Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 8:52 AM
subject: Please Revert.
Good Day,
My name is Sgt. Lee F Eric . I need your help in keeping & Investing the money that we moved from Ba’qubah in Iraq safe in your country.
As you know i am not a businessman and need help in Investing US$45 Million US dollars in any good business idea & venture that you have, due to the financial credit crisis i know my funds will be safer in your hands.As you are very much aware most troops will be leaving Iraq this year A milestone in the completion of the British & American mission in Iraq is achieved. We have already left the major cities. Iraq will now take greater control of its own security.
We moved this money and kept it safe in Kuwait untill it was time to move it. The time is now, Now that we are handing over Security of the Green Zone to the Iraqis. We need to move the funds now. You know the funds are legal and we got it from selling crude oil at the black market. we want to move the funds from Iraq now to a secure place or location. Can you provide that for us? What do you have in Mind?
The total amount is US$45M( Forty Five Million US dollars) in cash. This money is in cash and we want to move it to you as soon as possible. Mostly $100 dollar bill notes. Total of US$45 Million dollars. So your share for helping me is US$22.5 Million dollars. Will you help? The whole process is simple and straight forward. I am still in iraq and i will be discharged soon, so we need to move as quickly as possible. I dont want to take any chances of loosing the funds.
We are sharing everything 50/50. This is a legitimate transaction. If you are interested, i will provide you further details and instructions. Please keep this Private & confidential. Can i trust you and will you help?
I look forward to hearing from you.
Yours Faithfully,
Sgt. Lee. F Eric
US Marine
Iraq
Microsoft made this video to promote their Windows 7 launch parties. But Cabel Sasser re-edited it and made it sound a bit different:
Today she is in London:
The difference between the Mac Portable and the iPhone or iPod Touch (seen here) is a stunning reminder of technology’s relentless, progress. One strains your arm like a 16 pound briefcase, the other fits in your back pocket. A 16 MHZ CPU powers one, a 412-Mhz or 532-Mhz CPU powers the other. One includes one megabyte of RAM, the other includes 128 megabytes. One contains a 40MB fixed disk, the other 8,000 to 32,000 megabytes. One has a 2,400 bit-per-second phone modem, the other contains a 54,000,000 bit-per-second wireless network interface and a wireless telephone. Most staggeringly, one cost $12,667 (adjusted to 2009 dollars), and the other costs $99-$299. The difference? Twenty years.
I’m not a big Dan Brown fan. I mildly liked Angels and Demons and the Da Vinci Code, but I certainly didn’t love them.
One thing I like about Dan Brown is how much his critics hate his work. A lot of critics can’t stand his success.
I don’t understand why his critics hate his books so much. They aren’t literature and shouldn’t be read as such.