]]>Many thanks to SEB for pointing me to this.
]]>]]>In recent weeks, my family and I have carefully observed the bailouts that have been provided to, or requested by, various companies since the financial crisis began. After much deliberation with our accountants and financial advisers, we have concluded that, in order to prevent a deeper recession and turn around the U.S. economy, the federal government needs to give the next bailout package directly to us.
The U.S. government is currently considering a variety of economic rescue strategies, including some that would ultimately cost as much as $1.2 trillion, or approximately $4,000 for every man, woman and child in the United States. Accordingly, for a family of 10 such as ours (three sons, three grandchildren and two daughters-in-law), this means a $40,000 bailout.
]]>New security check points in 2020 will look just like something out of the futuristic movie, The Minority Report. The idea of the new checkpoints will allow high traffic to pass through just as you were walking at a normal pace. No more, waving a wand to get through checkpoints. The new checkpoint can detect if you have plans to set off a bomb before you even enter the building.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is developing a system called Future Attribute Screening Technology, or FAST for short. The system uses cameras to detect slight alterations in pupil sizes, blink rate and even direction of gaze. A laser radar called BioLIDAR measures heart rate and changes between heartbeats. The BioLIDAR can even monitor a persons respiration and track movements in the face, neck, and cheeks. Stressed out? A thermal camera will pick up on this too by gauging changes in the skin temperature.
Eight years ago, at the brackish dawn of the second Bush era, TIME offered a list of potential national-security wise men. One was Brent Scowcroft. “Yoda of Dad’s foreign policy team, will consult unseen in son’s White House,” we predicted, inaccurately. Instead, Scowcroft proved a demure scold. He opposed the Iraq invasion, publicly, in the Wall Street Journal. He scorned the neoconservatives and hard-power nationalists who controlled George W. Bush’s foreign policy. In return, Scowcroft’s brand of low-key “realism” was derided as milquetoasty by the neocons. The nickname stuck, however, among his associates at the Scowcroft Group: Yoda, he was. A fount of common sense, he remains. And so a not-so-bold prediction: “Yoda of Bush the Elder’s foreign policy team will consult unseen in Barack Obama’s White House."
I have to admit, after eight years of foreign policy wackiness, a little milquetoast sounds lovely.
]]>Having kids or grandkids expands your focus and also your time horizon. You pay a bit less attention to what the Dow is likely to do over the next quarter and more to the underlying wealth of the nation. By that I don’t mean just its gross domestic product but also its gross domestic decency, if there were such a measure: The quality of our public schools and of our atmosphere, the extent of our openness and generosity toward one another, our national promise of opportunity to all. You find yourself less interested in the gossip surrounding Bernie Madoff or Rod Blagojevich than in the larger questions they raise about private greed and public morality.]]>
]]>George Francis, the nation’s oldest man, who lived through both world wars, man’s first walk on the moon and the election of the first black president, has died. He was 112.
Francis died Saturday of congestive heart failure at a nursing home in Sacramento, his son, Anthony Francis, said Sunday.
“He lived four years in the 19th century, 100 years in the 20th century, and 8 years in the 21st century. We call him the man of three centuries,” said the younger Francis, 8
Teenagers who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are just as likely to have premarital sex as those who do not promise abstinence and are significantly less likely to use condoms and other forms of birth control when they do, according to a study released today.
The new analysis of data from a large federal survey found that more than half of youths became sexually active before marriage regardless of whether they had taken a “virginity pledge,” but that the percentage who took precautions against pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases was 10 points lower for pledgers than for non-pledgers.
I don’t care if someone pledges to be virtuous, a virgin, or a freaking cat, but we are funding on these programs with federal tax dollars. They don’t work. And we should not be funding ineffective programs.
]]>]]>Männerspielplatz is a 17-acre theme park in Germany with a real theme. The name translates to “men’s playground”.
For 219 euros (about $280), patrons can spend the day operating 29-ton Liebherr backhoes and 32-ton Komatsu front-end loaders, off-roading through the woods in a Mercedes-built Unimog, peeling out in a Suzuki SUV, and slinging some mud on quad bikes.
The park began as a one-time promotion that became permanent when more and more patrons wanted to have some fun. The biggest customers are women, however, who buy tickets as gifts for men
]]>]]>My fellow Americans, we can’t continue in this mode of “Dumb as we wanna be.” We’ve indulged ourselves for too long with tax cuts that we can’t afford, bailouts of auto companies that have become giant wealth-destruction machines, energy prices that do not encourage investment in 21st-century renewable power systems or efficient cars, public schools with no national standards to prevent illiterates from graduating and immigration policies that have our colleges educating the world’s best scientists and engineers and then, when these foreigners graduate, instead of stapling green cards to their diplomas, we order them to go home and start companies to compete against ours.
America still has the right stuff to thrive. We still have the most creative, diverse, innovative culture and open society — in a world where the ability to imagine and generate new ideas with speed and to implement them through global collaboration is the most important competitive advantage. China may have great airports, but last week it went back to censoring The New York Times and other Western news sites. Censorship restricts your people’s imaginations. That’s really, really dumb. And that’s why for all our missteps, the 21st century is still up for grabs.