THE WORLD’S SMALLEST wearable TV set. Its real application will be with wearable computers, though.
Archive for January, 2009
January 30, 2009
HARVESTING ENERGY from human bodies. Hey, wait, isn’t this how The Matrix got started? . . .
HEALTHCARE NATIONALIZATION PROVISIONS in the “stimulus” bill?
MICHAEL STEELE is the new RNC Chair. You can see our PJTV interview with Steele here.
UPDATE: Mary Katharine Ham reports on Steele’s remarks.
ANOTHER UPDATE: That was fast.
We’ve watched the press pretend to beat their breasts for “not asking the tough questions of Bush” in the time leading up to the invasion of Iraq. . . . Now, we’re watching the press show zero curiosity about this “stimulus” package. They don’t appear to even know what is in it, or want to know.
Nope.
MILITARY PLEDGING LOYALTY TO OBAMA INSTEAD OF CONSTITUTION? I’ve been getting email on this for a few days and regarded it as bogus, but Blackfive debunks it.
CHRIS DODD UPDATE: Wall Street bonuses and sweetheart mortgages: Compare and discuss.
Senate Banking Chairman Chris Dodd has been in typically indignant form this week, opining on the financial crisis. Before his Tuesday hearing on Bernard Madoff, he demanded that regulators get to the bottom of any crime: “American investors deserve an explanation and the responsible parties must be held accountable!” And yesterday the Connecticut Senator denounced Wall Street bonuses and said, “I am urging — in fact, not urging, demanding — that the Treasury Department figures out some way to get the money back.”
Pardon us, Senator, but how about taking your own advice?
We refer to his promise to release mortgage documents for the two properties that he and his wife refinanced with Countrywide Financial in 2003. In June a former Countrywide loan officer charged that Mr. Dodd received preferential rates and had fees waived on those loans as part of a VIP program the company had for “friends” of the company’s then-CEO Angelo Mozilo. Mr. Dodd first issued a denial and then, days later, acknowledged that he was a “VIP” with Countrywide but said he thought it was “more of a courtesy.” In late June he pledged to make all pertinent documents public “at some point.” We’re still waiting.
It has now been 189 days since Dodd promised to release his mortgage documents.
PAGING STEPHEN GREEN: Teetotalers are not quite as successful as moderate drinkers. Why? Oh, wait, they said “moderate.” Never mind, Stephen.
While excessive drinking is of course dangerous and unwise, moderate drinking is, for most people, a lot better than abstinence. There are tangible benefits for health, career and happiness associated with sensible partaking. The benefits are not just personal: Strange as it sounds, moderate drinkers are inclined to be more philanthropic than nondrinkers.
Read the whole thing.
EARLIER TODAY I MENTIONED Netflix streaming via the Roku device, but now reader Denise Stevenson emails: “Amazon just released a beta version of their streaming service on the Roku on Tuesday. Works great, with better selection and quality than the Netflix stuff.” That’s cool. Maybe they can put PJTV on the Roku, too . . . .
UPDATE: Jim Treacher emails: “I got a Roku for Christmas and it’s fantastic. You don’t get the full selection of movies they’ve got on DVD, but there’s a hell of a lot. Waiting for discs to go back and forth in the mail seems silly now. I say go ahead and let the Postal Service go to 5 days a week.”
WHAT’S NEXT FOR Polywell Fusion? More on that here.
IGNORING LARRY SUMMERS’ ADVICE: “Summers was proposing bold action, but his concept came with safeguards: focus on the task at hand, prevent the usual Washington splurge and limit long-term fiscal damage. Now Barack Obama is president, and Summers has become a top economic adviser. Yet the stimulus approach that has emerged on Capitol Hill abandoned the Summers parameters.”
That’s because the “usual Washington splurge” is the whole point.
UPDATE: A cynical take: “What’s strange to me is the democrats can’t look 2 years ahead and see this pork bill not only bankrupted this country but did absolutely nothing to employ people. No one can possibly be that stupid. So I wonder if they are pigging out one last time before the whole shooting match goes down?”
CHANGE FOR THE WORSE: “Buried deep inside the massive spending orgy that Democrats jammed through the House this week lie five words that could drastically undo two decades of welfare reforms.”
TEENAGERS ARE HAVING LESS SEX: “How did this turn into another occasion for hand-wringing? Is that a liberal disease? If there isn’t one problem, quick, see another problem, because programs will be needed to solve them?”
Meanwhile, people wonder why teenagers are having less sex, but that’s silly — it’s obviously because of the explosion in porn and videogames over the last 20 years. Which occurred at no cost to the taxpayers!
UPDATE: Okay, in this legislative environment, it’s probably risky to link to anything containing this advice: “The solution is thus obvious — we need a massive government program to ensure that no American teenager goes without porn and videogames Let no child be left behind!” Oh, well, it’s probably already in the bill anyway . . .
IOWAHAWK: It Takes a Proverb to Run a Village.
DAN CLEARY: Keep an eye on Bob Corker.
UPDATE: A Corker spokesperson emails: “As I’ve told Fox, we were invited late yesterday to a meeting in Sen. Ben Nelson’s office and were surprised to learn by reading the news this morning that by accepting the invitation we had joined a gang. That’s not accurate and we did not attend the meeting.”
WAY OUT IN FRONT: China tops list of foreign visitors to ORNL.
NOT THE JUDICIARY’S FINEST HOUR:
The setting is Pennsylvania coal country, but it’s a story right out of Dickens’ grim 19th-century landscape: Two of Luzerne County’s most senior judges on Monday were accused of sending children to jail in return for kickbacks.
The judges, Luzerne County President Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., 58, and his predecessor, Senior Judge Michael T. Conahan, 56, will serve seven years in jail under a plea agreement.
They’re alleged to have pocketed $2.6 million in payments from juvenile detention center operators. . . .In asking the court to intervene in April, the law center cited hundreds of examples where teens accused of minor mischief were pressured to waive their right to lawyers, and then shipped to a detention center.
One teen was given a 90-day sentence for having parodied a school administrator online. Such unwarranted detentions left “both children and parents feeling bewildered, violated and traumatized,” center lawyers said.
“Very few people would stand up” to the Luzerne judges, according to the law center’s executive director, Robert G. Schwartz.
Obviously, we need more people willing to insist on their rights. These guys should be tarred and feathered.
UPDATE: Various readers point out that this is another case of Name That Party! Reader Paul Risenhoover adds: “Since they didn’t name it, I knew they were Democrats.” Ouch.
ANOTHER UPDATE: “I wonder why the Inquirer didn’t tell us this?”
TARGETING BRAIN CANCER CELLS with nanotechnology.
JUDD GREGG FOR SECRETARY OF COMMERCE? Dan Riehl thinks it’s just a trick to give the Democrats another Senate seat. Also, it gives them a Republican to blame if the economy continues to get worse. . . .
A DISMAL TRACK RECORD OF “do as I say, not as I do.” And it’s still January!
7 OUTDOOR GEAR PICKS for 2009.
HAS THE WHITE HOUSE PRESS CORPS BEEN GANNONIZED?
STICKING IT TO RAHM. “Rahm told the president that he can take care of Congress . . . He said, ‘These guys will roll over, they’re afraid of being called the party of No. Believe me, I know them. They’ll be easy.’” Plus this:
“We gave the president what he asked for, a temporary stimulus bill,” said a senior Republican, “at half the cost of what the Democrats wrote. He knows it. They handed him a monster of spending. Rahm did this, and now he takes this to the Senate. Does Rahm want to be an honest broker, or does he want to be the guy who socks Republicans in the face? He isn’t helping with the Democrats, and he’s hurting with the Republicans.”
Obama couldn’t control the House Democrats; why should he expect to do better with the House Republicans?