3/17/15 Today's Inquiries

Harumph


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Low social mobility hurts low-income children most.

It ends up being cheaper to give homeless people housing than leaving them on the streets.

Health care deductibles are climbing out of reach. I always thought this was a bog gap in the ACA. Plans might be "affordable" but having a $2k deductible is an expense most Americans can't afford.

The minimum wage debate in the UK is driven by facts. In the US, not so much.

In a recent lecture at the London School of Economics, Prof. Alan Manning, a British economist who has done extensive research on the impact of the national minimum wage in the United Kingdom, said something that caught my ear. Manning was closely involved with the launch of the national minimum in 1999, and in reflecting on the debate at the time, he pointed out that once research about the positive impact of the minimum began to show that it raised low wages without leading to many job losses, “scare stories” about how the increase would kill “millions of jobs” lost credibility.

At least one conservative is starting to understand how to approach Ferguson and problems like it.

So Wolf went through the 102-page report on Ferguson police, focusing on the evidence and documentation provided by the Ferguson Police Department — to avoid any possible bias from the Justice Department and the people it interviewed. He is unrelenting in his conclusions that the Ferguson Police Department was racially biased and focused far too much on raising revenue through fines and court fees:

Still more on Ferguson.

It found the county’s 90 municipalities, despite being home to just 11% of Missouri’s population, took in 34% of all court fines and fees in the state in 2013. Better Together also showed that in Ferguson, as assessed property values plummeted during the recession, court fines and fees skyrocketed, up 84% 2010-2013.

Hard at work making out souther border resemble the wall between Israel and Gaza.

How knowing abut the surveillance state changes people's privacy habits. Honestly, I didn't expect this much of a reaction since technology is hard. Although a lot of the results are a combination of actions and considering actions.

How the FBI created a terrorist. This is pretty much the Potemkin village of national security.

But if Osmakac was a terrorist, he was only one in his troubled mind and in the minds of ambitious federal agents. The government could not provide any evidence that he had connections to international terrorists. He didn’t have his own weapons. He didn’t even have enough money to replace the dead battery in his beat-up, green 1994 Honda Accord.

Looking through the Jeb Bush emails reveals that large political "donations" to his campaigns were really more like "purchases." Which is exactly how it works for every politician, including Hildabeast.

NJ pension finds were safe in the hands of Chris Christie. Well, in the hands of his close personal friend whose fund was given all the pension contracts.

How'd that whole Super PAC to end the influence of money on politics thing work out?

Yet the election was a bust. We had picked hard races, except for one. Beyond that one, we won just one. 

Next up in the "grifter's gotta grift" department, Mike Huckabee is selling his followers miracle cures for cancer.

One ad arriving in January in the inboxes of Huckabee supporters, who signed up for his political commentaries at MikeHuckabee.com, claims there is a miracle cure for cancer hidden in the Bible. The ad links to a lengthy Internet video, which offers a booklet about the so-called Matthew 4 Protocol. It is “free” with a $72 subscription to a health newsletter.

Good thing you didn't buy all that gold Fox News was asking you to gold.

Wealth and Power played more of a role in early human society than survival of the fittest. I think "the fittest" may be very widely open to interpretation. I think we'd be better off saying that humans have been altering their own selective pressures for a long time.

Thought on the genetic origins of economic development.

Put me on record as saying that peer to peer lending is a scam. While that's not the point of the article, there's a reason random people don't just go around loaning money to every person who needs it: they won't get their money back. With banks and official lending, that risk is managed. With peer to peer lending, not so much. Why no borrow money from faith-based institutions instead?

I've read that these pictures of Tibet and its watershed are some of the most important for the next 50 years.

Google executive makes an ass out of himself at SXSW by constantly interrupting the woman on the diversity panel. Debbie, the men are talking.

The founder of 4chan walked away from the job. Why? Here's a hint it was about ethics in video game journalism.

More evidence that tardigrades are aliens. We should go ahead and start seeding them throughout the cosmos. Just put 'em in some rockets and shoot them where we think there may be a chance for life.