A man's admiration for absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him.--de Tocqueville
National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) testing awarded the Tesla S an average of 5.4 stars--the highest total ever achieved by any vehicle.
The Affordable Care Act will cut $335 Billion in Medicare payments. The cost of increased taxes, fees and penalties is $434.1 Billion. Total: $769.1 Billion out of the system.
Zucherberg hosted a fund raiser for Christie.
Junot Diaz on his writing habits: "I wrote my first book listening to the soundtrack to the movie Conan the Barbarian on a loop. That's how I ride."
Advanced Placement Classes: In the last five years, the federal government has spent $275 million to promote AP classes and subsidize exam fees for low-income students; states have spent many millions more. The idea seems to be that students, if given greater challenges and opportunities, will rise to the occasion. Advocates often argue that students benefit from being exposed to the high expectations of an AP class, even if they don’t pass the test. In fact, taking an AP class does not lead to better grades in college, higher college graduation rates, or any other tangible benefit — unless the student does well enough to pass the AP test, said Trevor Packer, a senior vice president at the College Board.
In the last five years, the federal government has spent $275 million to promote the classes and subsidize exam fees for low-income students; states have spent many millions more.The class of 2012 failed nearly 1.3 million AP exams during their high school careers. That’s a lot of time and money.
Research shows that students don’t reap any measurable benefit from AP classes unless they do well enough to pass the $89 end-of-course exam.
Who is....Nathanial Greene?
In Swaziland, a country in southern Africa, witches are banned from riding above 492 feet on their broomsticks.
An investigation by The Wall Street Journal found that the National Security Agency uses algorithms to filter three-quarters of all Internet traffic in the U.S. and appears to retain the content of certain emails sent between U.S. citizens within the country.
An interesting conundrum: From December 2007 to June 2013, health spending rose 14.7%. Meanwhile, GDP grew at only 4.6%. Health care's share of total employment has increased from 9.5% to 10.7%. Excluding health spending from GDP, GDP growth is only 2.7%. So health spending accounted for almost half the economy's overall gain. Here's the rub: From 1999 to 2013, wages and salaries rose 50% in current dollars while health insurance premiums increased 182%, reports the Kaiser Family Foundation. Some insurance premiums would otherwise have gone into paychecks. So we are going to save money by starving the strongest horse in the trace.
William T. Vollmann won the 2005 National Book Award for Fiction for the novel Europe Central. He was apparently suspected by the FBI of being the Unabomber (the report says "anti-growth and anti-progress themes persist throughout each VOLLMANN work.") and then the anthrax killer. His article in Harper's raises an interesting question: What are the personal liberty implications of being suspected of something really serious although you don't know?
Golden Oldies:
Bloomberg reports that packs of the dogs have been spotted in groups as large as 20 roaming Detroit streets.
Morgan Stanley will pay a $1 million fine and compensate harmed investors to settle civil charges that the bank failed to give customers the best market prices for some corporate and municipal bonds, U.S. brokerage regulators said on Thursday. Civil charges, not criminal so no one goes to jail; the fine is paid by the huge corporation and everyone moves on. Bakshish.
Obama has a plan that would tie $150 billion each year in federal student aid to a ratings system the Department of Education will develop by 2015. Colleges that are more affordable, serve more students from poorer backgrounds and have high graduation rates, among other factors, will be rated higher and will influence the degree of government financial support.
What any of those factors have to do with education is uncertain. But, as stated by Mr. Earnest in a press conference, "So the record -- the President’s record on these issues -- he has a bias in favor of historically black colleges and universities because of the service they provide and because of the quality education that they provide to their students."
"We wanted to make a Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead of the zombie world." Simon Pegg, film writer of "Shaun of the Dead."
Combined global sales of hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) and battery electric vehicles (BEVs) are expected to total 5.2 million units in 2020, or just 7.3 percent of the 70.9 million passenger vehicles forecasted to be sold worldwide by that year, according to a report issued by J.D. Power and Associates. For comparison, global HEV and BEV sales in 2010 are forecast to total 954,500 vehicles, or 2.2 percent of the 44.7 million vehicles projected to be sold through the end of 2010.
Sedulous: adjective: Involving great care, effort, and persistence. From Latin se (without) + dolus (trickery, guile). Ultimately from the Indo-European root del- (to count or recount) that is also the source of tell, tale, talk, and Dutch taal (speech, language).
Sometimes an assumption of power is more than arrogance and repression, sometimes it is a test. ObamaCare administrators continue to miss deadlines set by the health care law — 41 of 82 of them, according to Forbes' Avik Roy. According to the law firm Davis Polk, the administration as of July had missed 62% of the deadlines in Dodd-Frank.
According to The Montreal Gazette, Quebec is considering setting the prices of new books for nine months to give independent booksellers a chance against Amazon and bigger stores that can offer steep discounts. Several countries including France and Germany have similar protections in place. What's the next step, inspecting mailboxes?
Fix a price of something and it goes away.
AAAAAAAAaaaaaannnnnnddddd....a graph:
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