Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

The Hidden Costs of Higher Ed - NYTimes.com

Our institutions of higher learning cannot continue to offer their best deals to a privileged few. Our country needs colleges and universities to recruit and cultivate talented young people from diverse backgrounds. To do so, we must ensure that children from working families have the mechanisms not only to obtain college admission and afford to attend without compromising their studies, but also to be free to enter the economy relatively unburdened by debt.

via www.nytimes.com

This kind of argument drives me crazy. By analogy, we need to stop the situation when some people can afford to pay cash for a car, while others have to pay more to get a loan for a car...or a TV or an appliance. If there were no other options for higher education beyond the top priced schools, I might be convinced that there was an equity issue (think health care), but there are more reasonably priced private schools AND much more reasonably priced state schools.

The Texas Charter Schools Visa® Platinum Card (for real) - The Answer Sheet - The Washington Post

From the Texas Charter Schools Association comes the Texas Charter Schools Visa® Card, which allows you to “donate with every swipe of your card!”

(Users of the card can, if they choose, ignore the latest results of the Texas Education Agency’s accountability report on the state’s charter schools. It says in its executive summary that “this evaluation provides little evidence that [59] new open-enrollment charter schools are improving students’ academic outcomes.” It also says: “In addition, analyses comparing the performance of new open-enrollment charter schools with their more established peers find that charter school student outcomes do not improve as schools gain more experience.”)

via www.washingtonpost.com

ewwww...but it does give me an idea. If the right wing really loves business all that much, why not have credit cards that donate to their favorite big business? Give your money to Exxon or GE or directly to the Koch-droids???

Go Mitt-enstein! RAWR!

via www.nytimes.com

Me own patent! Gimme money!

The truth behind industry standards

Lawyers, Coins, and Money - NYTimes.com

Sovereign governments such as the United States can print new money. However, there’s a statutory limit to the amount of paper currency that can be in circulation at any one time.

Ironically, there’s no similar limit on the amount of coinage. A little-known statute gives the secretary of the Treasury the authority to issue platinum coins in any denomination. So some commentators have suggested that the Treasury create two $1 trillion coins, deposit them in its account in the Federal Reserve and write checks on the proceeds.

via krugman.blogs.nytimes.com

OK...I want one of those coins.

Debt Ceiling Uncertainty Puts States at Risk - NYTimes.com

“For nearly 75 years we have worked hard to earn the highest credit ratings from all three rating agencies,” Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia, a Republican, wrote this week to President Obama and members of Congress, urging them to raise the debt limit. “Now your failure to get the job done is hurting the businesses and citizens of our commonwealth.”

via www.nytimes.com

This is the same governor who said he didn't care if they raised the debt ceiling or not - at least not until if affected him. http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/07/21/274428/mcdonnell-debt-ceiling-flip-flop-credit/

Unbalanced Approach to Deficit Reduction | The White House

The bill would abruptly cut more than $100 billion in spending in the first year alone, a step that Congressional Budget Office Director Doug Elmendorf stated would “affect our projections for GDP growth over the next two years.”

The House Budget Resolution plan would cut clean energy investments by 70 percent, infrastructure investments by a third, and education and training by 25 percent – cutting 320,000 children from Head Start and reducing aid for families trying to put their kids through college by hundreds, or even thousands of dollars. 

It would cut Medicaid by one-third over the decade, and by nearly 50% by 2030. This could, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, result in 36 million people losing Medicaid coverage, including people with disabilities and seniors in nursing homes.  And that comes on top of the 17 million who would lose coverage due to repealing subsidies in the Affordable Care Act.

And it would cut programs for the most vulnerable – for example, by food stamp benefits for a family of four by $1,760 per year or cut 8 million households from the program. 

Finally, the House Budget Resolution proposed to convert Medicare to a voucher program, increasing costs for Medicare beneficiaries by $6,400 a year beginning in 2021 – with those higher costs increasing over time.

via www.whitehouse.gov

As a fiscal conservative, I just cannot believe what the wackos in the right are proposing. It seems that they have adopted dogma and refuse to look at any real world evidence that their ideas are imperfect. They ignore history. The ignore economics. And add this to their ignorance of science, I wonder why they should even have a place "at the table" in these discussions, let alone being allowed to set the terms for the final resolution. It is amazing that we have come to the point where the Democrats end up being more fiscally conservative than the Republicans.

The Political Economy of the Lesser Depression - NYTimes.com

So, terrible growth prospects; low inflation; oh, and low interest rates, with no sign of the bond vigilantes. Ordinary macroeconomic analysis tells you very clearly what we should be doing: fiscal expansion and monetary expansion by any means we can manage; in fact, the case for a higher inflation target pops right out of just about any model capable of producing the kind of mess we’re in.

And what are we talking about in policy terms? Spending cuts and an end to monetary expansion.

via krugman.blogs.nytimes.com

You have to wonder if the idiots in Washington ever look outside their dogma play book. Hello? Reality calling!

The Republic of South Sudan Is Now a DXCC Entity

At 10:18 AM (EDT) on Thursday, July 14, the UN General Assembly met to vote on whether or not to admit the Republic of South Sudan as its 193rd member state. The Republic of South Sudan was unanimously admitted and is now a member of the United Nations; a two-thirds majority is needed to become a member of the UN. Immediately following the General Assembly meeting, the flag of the Republic of South Sudan flew for the first time in front of the UN, ceremoniously marking its membership in the UN. Now that the Republic of South Sudan is a member of the United Nations, the new country is now a DXCC entity by way of Section II, 1(a) of the DXCC rules. The DXCC Desk will begin immediately accepting QSOs for this new entity, with a start date of July 14, 2011.

via www.arrl.org

Gotta get on the air .... and hope for some reasonable sun spots!

For a Night Each Year, the Airwaves Buzz With Morse Code - NYTimes.com

POINT REYES NATIONAL SEASHORE, Calif. — It has been a little more than a decade since the last of the nation’s commercial Morse code radio stations officially went off the air, as new technology sank a system that had been a lingua franca of maritime communication since before the Titanic.

But like transmissions that continue to travel through the cosmos long after their original senders are gone, there are some things that refuse to die. And on Tuesday, several outposts of Morse code blazed to life again, if only for a night, with the help of a group of enthusiasts bent on preserving what they call “the music of Morse,” one key tap at a time.

via www.nytimes.com

Morse code lives on in amateur radio too...

LinkedIn now No. 2 social network in the US - Yahoo! News

These days the “other” social network everyone is talking about is, of course, Google+. While we were all busy chattering on about Circles and Hangouts, however, professional-tinged network LinkedIn quietly became the second-most popular social network in the United States, after Facebook. That pushes poor MySpace back to No. 3, in the US — but not worldwide.

via old.news.yahoo.com

In related news, Beta is now the No. 2 video tape format after VHS.

Editorial: Wrong on something so 'right'

Lewisboro and Katonah were the victims of some poor representation by their political representatives in Albany last month.

Republicans State Senator Greg Ball, 40th District, and Assemblyman Robert Castelli, 89th District, both voted against the same-sex marriage bill that was recently passed by New York.

...

In the end, both Republicans should have realized their party’s roots are not in promoting social conservatism but in limiting the size and scope of government. This bill does that .... It allows a person to decide who they want to marry, instead of having government prevent someone to wed a person of the same sex. Gay rights may have more support from those with a liberal background, but the notion of protecting a person’s privacy by supporting the rights of the individual over the rules of government is rooted in Republicanism.

via www.acorn-online.com

The editorial from the Lewisboro Ledger hits the nail on the head.

Statement by the President on Change of Condolence Letter Policy | The White House

I have also decided to reverse a long-standing policy of not sending condolence letters to the families of service members who commit suicide while deployed to a combat zone. This decision was made after a difficult and exhaustive review of the former policy, and I did not make it lightly.

via www.whitehouse.gov

Wow...bravo Mr. President!

The Mother of All No-Brainers - NYTimes.com

The members of this movement have no sense of moral decency. A nation makes a sacred pledge to pay the money back when it borrows money. But the members of this movement talk blandly of default and are willing to stain their nation’s honor.

via www.nytimes.com

A very clear statement of what the Republicans have been able to "win" and what they are about to throw away.

We Have to Fix E-Mail - NYTimes.com

14. Omit the Legal Vomit. I roll my eyes at the nine-sentence legal disclaimer that some companies insist on stamping at the bottom of every single message. I’ve got news for you: that confidentiality disclaimer has never wound up protecting a company from whatever it’s supposed to protect them from. When your actual e-mail message is only a fraction as long as your legal disclaimer, you look like an idiot.

via pogue.blogs.nytimes.com

The article is a good start at social re-engineering...but I particularly like #14!

Observations: Who Are the Winners and Losers under ICANN's New Web Site Naming Rules?

Under this new approach—which the ICANN favored by a vote of 13 to one (with two abstentions)—Internet address names will be able to end with almost any word in any language. For example, Scientific American would be able to add Internet addresses using such gTLDs as .ScientificAmerican or .Americanscience, to direct readers to different offerings. Caveat: I am not privy to any plans that Scientific American might have to acquire new gTLDs.

via www.scientificamerican.com

Sounds to me like every big company and organization will need to buy their name as a gTLD, just to keep "practical jokers" from cybersquatting. In some bizarre sense, it is a new tax on big internet businesses :-)

I.B.M. at 100 - Lessons in Tech Longevity - NYTimes.com

One central message, according to industry experts, is this: Don’t walk away from your past. Build on it. The crucial building blocks, they say, are skills, technology and marketing assets that can be transferred or modified to pursue new opportunities. Those are a company’s core assets, they say, far more so than any particular product or service.

In I.B.M.’s case, the prime assets included strong, long-term customer relationships, deep scientific and research capabilities and an unmatched breadth of technical skills in hardware, software and services.

via www.nytimes.com

At its heart, IBM is a technology company.

At 100, IBM Is Solid and Looking for Another 100 Years - Yahoo! News

No one can dispute the contributions IBM has made in business, science and society over the past century. From investing in a research lab in the depths of the Great Depression, to developing the first hard-disk drive that created the data-storage industry, to working with the U.S. government to develop the Social Security system, IBM's impact is deep.

via news.yahoo.com

Happy Birthday IBM!

What Do Economic Models Really Tell Us About Elections? - NYTimes.com

One relatively elegant method is to subtract the inflation rate from the per-capita G.D.P. growth rate. This explains about 43 percent of the variance in election results:

So we can breathe a sigh of relief. The economic fundamentals clearly do make some difference — quite a bit really.

But we shouldn’t expect any miracles. This cute little model would have called the wrong winner in six of the past 25 elections: 1912, 1948, 1952, 1960, 1968, and 2000 (although it would have gotten the winner of the popular vote right in that year).

via fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com

Nate Silver destroys the myth of the correlation between unemployment and election results. He does find some correlation when combining GDP and inflation...but definitely not "pinpoint accuracy"

Libertarian Politicians Aren't - NYTimes.com

Good grief...no libertarian would say something like this.

http://goo.gl/U9tU5 - "if someone is attending speeches from someone who is promoting the violent overthrow of our government, that’s really an offense that we should be going after — they should be deported or put in prison."

Cellphones and cancer - Ezra Klein - The Washington Post

I should start by making sure everyone understands that this step doesn’t mean that there’s a clear link. This is more akin to saying that there could be some risk, and that more research is needed. Putting cellphones in this category means that they now join picked vegetables and coffee as “possibly carcinogenic.”

via www.washingtonpost.com

A really well-written article. Amazing that a "popular press" reporter can get so much right when it comes to science, statistics, and meta-analysis.

Budget Disinformation, Part 1 Million - NYTimes.com

Oh, and while some people are still trying to praise Ryan for starting a useful conversation, the reality is that he’s totally unwilling to let facts enter the debate. Look at his exchange with Ezra Klein over health care costs: this is not the sound of a sincere, open-minded guy,. Notice how he evades Klein’s attempt to get him to accept the overwhelming fact that other countries pay much less for health care than we do.

Sorry, but we are not having a discussion — nor will we, as long as right-wingers like Hubbard and Ryan feel that they can distort the facts with impunity.

via krugman.blogs.nytimes.com

Thanks to Paul and Ezra for keeping up the fight for truth, justice, and the American way.

CHART: Bush Policies Dominant Cause Of National Debt | TPMDC

By the end of the decade, CBPP projects that, on the current trajectory, the Bush tax cuts, exacerbated by the economic downturn, combined with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will account for the significant majority of public debt as a share of GDP.

Without those factors, and without the need for stimulus measures under President Obama, CBPP projects that the debt-to-GDP ratio would have dropped under both Presidents Bush and Obama.

via tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com

It must be obvious therefore that to fix the debt you must further cut taxes, attack more evil countries, and penalize the poor and aged. What???

NASA lets go of Spirit | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine

his makes me sad, of course: Spirit was an amazing machine. But I have to admit, that sadness is offset by the incredible accomplishments of the rover. Designed to last for three months, Spirit kept on roving for over six years. Imagine having a car, a computer, that lasted for 25 times the warranty!

via blogs.discovermagazine.com

Goodbye old friend!

Win Or Lose, NY-26 Is An Ominous Blow To GOP's Medicare Phaseout Plan | TPMDC

"Even in an overwhelmingly Republican district like NY-26, voters are rejecting the Republican plan to end Medicare," DCCC spokesman Jesse Ferguson told TPM. "House Republicans who voted to end Medicare should be very worried about losing independent voters and seniors in 2012."

via tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com

They should be worried, but given the short attention span of the US voter, who knows what they will remember of this by next year?

Study Says Spam Can Be Cut by Blocking Card Transactions - NYTimes.com

The hope, the scientists said, was to find a “choke point” that could greatly reduce the flow of spam. And in a paper to be presented on Tuesday at the annual IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy in Oakland, Calif., they will report that they think they have found it.

It turned out that 95 percent of the credit card transactions for the spam-advertised drugs and herbal remedies they bought were handled by just three financial companies — one based in Azerbaijan, one in Denmark and one in Nevis, in the West Indies.

via www.nytimes.com

A nice approach...of course the spammers could never find another shady bank to handle their transactions...could they?

CDC EPR | Social Media | Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse - Blog

There are all kinds of emergencies out there that we can prepare for. Take a zombie apocalypse for example. That’s right, I said z-o-m-b-i-e a-p-o-c-a-l-y-p-s-e. You may laugh now, but when it happens you’ll be happy you read this, and hey, maybe you’ll even learn a thing or two about how to prepare for a real emergency.

via emergency.cdc.gov

A great example of using humor to get important information across!

The graph that all tax cutters need to grapple with - Ezra Klein - The Washington Post

Every time Republicans say you can’t reconcile higher taxes and growth, someone should flash this graph:

via www.washingtonpost.com

Reality, once again, rears its ugly head.

Carnival Contempt - Bedford-Katonah, NY Patch

What’s the happiest day of the year for children in our small northern Westchester town? The day the local carnival rolls in. What’s the happiest day for the parents of these ecstatic youngsters? The day the carnival rolls out.

via bedford.patch.com

And living very very very close to a carnival location, I can say (based on deep personal expertise) that I really really really hate it when the carnival comes to town!

Recent Inflation History - NYTimes.com

here’s consumer price inflation since 1985 — that is, after the Volcker disinflation, and after morning in America and all that:

via krugman.blogs.nytimes.com

Amazing how inflation under the Right was ok, but lower inflation today is evil...

Coleman Institute Announces First Student Design Award

Coleman Institute Announces First Student Design Award

The Coleman Institute for Cognitive Disabilities is pleased to announce that Joshua Hailpern, a doctoral student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne, will receive a "Gold" Student Design Award for his research project called the " Aphasia Characteristics Emulation Software [pdf, 473k]" or ACES. ACES is a software system that allows students, caregivers, and Aphasia therapists to understand some of the problems which face people with Aphasia when trying to communicate with others. Aphasia is an acquired language disorder that results in difficulty producing or comprehending spoken or written language, and affects approximately 1,000,000 people in the United States. The Coleman Institute for Cognitive Disabilities established a multi-tiered Design Awards program to encourage, recognize and reward group and individual student projects that result in technical prototypes, or a vision of future technologies, to enhance and support the cognitive function and adaptive behavior of people with cognitive disabilities. Additional information about encouraging student projects in cognitive assistive technology is available on the Scientist in Residence page.

via www.colemaninstitute.org

Congratulations to Josh!!

Catholic Professors Criticize Boehner in Letter - NYTimes.com

“Mr. Speaker, your voting record is at variance from one of the Church’s most ancient moral teachings,” the letter says. “From the apostles to the present, the Magisterium of the Church has insisted that those in power are morally obliged to preference the needs of the poor. Your record in support of legislation to address the desperate needs of the poor is among the worst in Congress. This fundamental concern should have great urgency for Catholic policy makers. Yet, even now, you work in opposition to it.”

via www.nytimes.com

Bravo to the 75 who were brave enough to call out this hypocrisy.

Wonkbook: Boehner's debt-limit demands would increase the deficit - Ezra Klein - The Washington Post

John Boehner's new line on the deficit negotiations is that raising taxes -- by which he appears to also mean closing tax expenditures -- "is off the table. But everything else is on the table." This is a bit like telling your doctor, who's worried that you've gained weight and are out-of-shape, that exercise is off the table, but everything else is on the table. Well, it's nice that you're prepared to diet, but you need to exercise, too. Otherwise, you're not going to get where you need to go.

via www.washingtonpost.com

Dogma will be the death of us...

Lawmakers Look to Abolish Do-Nothing Authorities - Bedford-Katonah, NY Patch

The move is part of a larger effort, which seems to be reaching a fever pitch thanks to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, to take a microscope to state government and eliminate waste and duplication.

“Some of these authorities have been inactive for 30 years, and many were never even operational to begin with," said Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Yonkers) who, along with Assemblyman George Latimer (D-Rye), is sponsoring a bill that would wipe 118 public authorities off the books.

Thirteen of them are in Westchester, Rockland and Putnam.

via bedford.patch.com

A good start...

The Inflation Monster Under the Bed - NYTimes.com

First, do you see any sign that workers are about to (or are even able to) demand higher wages to compensate for the higher prices of gas and food?

Second, do you any sign that employers are getting ready to make more generous wage offers?

Third, have you heard anything about companies feeling that they have room to raise prices by substantially more than the rise in their raw material costs?

The answer to all three questions is clearly no.

via krugman.blogs.nytimes.com

Again...those pesky facts get in the way of good old political dogma!

Boehner Picks Jesuit Priest to Be House Chaplain - NYTimes.com

According to the Congressional Research Service, the research arm of Congress, the chaplains perform ceremonial, pastoral and symbolic duties for the House, its members, their families and staff members. In addition to opening House proceedings with prayer, the chaplain makes arrangements for “guest chaplains” to deliver the daily invocation, provides spiritual counseling, arranges memorial services and officiates at weddings. The chaplain also conducts Bible studies, discussion sessions and prayer meetings.

via thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com

Seems to me to be a good place to save a few $ and eliminate the position.

Blodget: Flailing Microsoft utterly ambushed, being destroyed by Apple Inc. – MacDailyNews - Welcome Home

Excerpts from a BusinessWeek interview with Steve Jobs, October 12, 2004:

Steve Jobs: Apple had a monopoly on the graphical user interface for almost 10 years. That’s a long time. And how are monopolies lost? Think about it. Some very good product people invent some very good products, and the company achieves a monopoly. But after that, the product people aren’t the ones that drive the company forward anymore. It’s the marketing guys or the ones who expand the business into Latin America or whatever. Because what’s the point of focusing on making the product even better when the only company you can take business from is yourself? So a different group of people start to move up. And who usually ends up running the show? The sales guy… Then one day, the monopoly expires for whatever reason. But by then the best product people have left, or they’re no longer listened to. And so the company goes through this tumultuous time, and it either survives or it doesn’t.

via macdailynews.com

First time I have read this quote...wow, Steve J is right on target.

Famine/Death 2012! - NYTimes.com

So who should be the Republican nominee? I hear the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were considering running – but they are facing primary challenges from the Tea Party for being way too mild-mannered.

via krugman.blogs.nytimes.com

I guess the Tea Party would consider Famine a Crypto-Liberal?

Who Crashed The Wedding | Doctor Who TV

Well, there was no way the Doctor was going to miss out on this historic day for Britain…

via doctorwhotv.co.uk

It is good to know the Doctor was there, but he could have worn the tux he wore to Amy's wedding!

Scott Adams Blog: Birthers 04/28/2011

Imagine a media that has no topics that can be understood at a sixth-grade level of reading comprehension. That's the sweet spot for clear writing regardless of the reader's education. As soon as you go above the sixth-grade level, you lose about two-thirds of the country, maybe more. The high end of the news industry couldn't stay in business if it only reported on issues that require a high school level of reading comprehension to follow along.

via dilbert.com

Scott Adams, once again is both right and hilarious.

Poll Finds Most Americans Uncertain of Trump's Birthplace - NYTimes.com

A new Gallup/USA Today poll finds significant doubt about whether Donald Trump, the real estate mogul and television personality who is considering a bid for presidency, was born in the United States.

According to the survey, just 43 percent of Americans believe that Mr. Trump was definitely born in the United States. Another 20 percent believe that he was probably born here. Some 7 percent of respondents told Gallup that Mr. Trump was probably or definitely born in another country, while 30 percent were uncertain.

via fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com

Love it :-)

What Are Taxes For? - NYTimes.com

So taxes are, first and foremost, about paying for what the government buys (duh). It’s true that they can also affect aggregate demand, and that may be something you want to do. But that really is a secondary issue.

via krugman.blogs.nytimes.com

It is kind of sad that a Nobel laureate needs to explain such a basic concept. But thank goodness Paul K is around to do it.

Five myths about Planned Parenthood - The Washington Post

1. Planned Parenthood’s federal funding frees up other money to pay for abortions.

Opponents of Planned Parenthood insist that giving the organization federal dollars allows it to spend other money in its budget to provide abortions. That is not possible — there is no other money.

Title X is a federal grant program that exists solely to help low-income and uninsured people access contraceptives and sexual health care; 5.2 million people use the program annually. But Congress has never appropriated enough money to take care of the estimated 17 million Americans who need publicly funded family-planning care. There always are more patients than subsidies.

Further, a Title X grant is designed to help with costs, not to fully cover them. So family-planning programs are required to find other money to support the Title X project — not the other way around. For patients who qualify for Medicaid, reimbursement rates for reproductive health services are lower than the cost of the care. A typical family-planning visit might cost upward of $200, including the exam, lab tests and contraceptive method, but the Medicaid reimbursement rate may be as low as $20.

via www.washingtonpost.com

I know we can disagree about philosophy, but why does anyone need to make up lies to get their point across. Lets start with the facts, like this article does, and go from there.

NY Times graphic - where the national debt comes from

via graphics8.nytimes.com

Look how much comes from pre-2000 and from W!

Groklaw - Groklaw Articles Ending on May 16th

I have decided that Groklaw will stop publishing new articles on our anniversary, May 16.

I know a lot of you will be unhappy to hear it, so let me briefly explain, because my decision is made and it's firm. In a simple sentence, the reason is this: the crisis SCO initiated over Linux is over, and Linux won. SCO as we knew it is no more.

via www.groklaw.net

PJ deserves the community's thanks...not just for bringing the truth forward during the many years of Groklaw, but also for showing what the community can do together in the face of money and lies. Brava!

"Serious" - NYTimes.com

And there’s David Gergen, telling me that the Ryan plan, whatever its flaws, is “serious”. So I guess that’s the Very Serious People line.

James Fallows has a very good take on this; my version would be this: I don’t think a budget plan is “serious” unless it has numbers that remotely add up, says something specific about how it will cut spending and/or raise revenue, and puts forward proposals that have at least some chance of actually going into effect.

via krugman.blogs.nytimes.com

Thank you Paul Krugman again ... for calling out these idiots with the "serious" proposals. Where is the rest of the media??

More Fees, More Carry-Ons, More Strain on Security - NYTimes.com

Airlines first started charging for checked bags in 2005, and since then, the charges have become the largest source of flight-related ancillary revenue for the carriers. Only two major airlines, JetBlue and Southwest, still allow free checked bags, and security screeners in their terminals have not reported an increase in carry-on baggage.

The U.S. Travel Association recommended that the Transportation Department follow the example of Southwest and JetBlue and require airlines to include one checked bag in the base ticket price. It also suggested that the department enforce the number and size of bags that passengers could carry on the plane.

Airlines call the proposals regressive. The Airline Transport Association said government involvement in airline pricing “diminishes customer choice and competitive differentiation among carriers.”

This new discussion of bag fees comes after months of passenger complaints that new security practices are too intrusive and security checks take too long.

via www.nytimes.com

This is so typical of modern American businesses - if you propose to tax them for any reason, they are all "free markets rule", but if their actions cause costs to be transferred to others, they want reasonable government to protect them from the implications of their decisions. Sounds like well calculated hypocrisy to me.

The GOP’s Census problem - The Fix - The Washington Post

While much of the shifting population is moving to red states, there is increasing evidence that it’s making those red states bluer, and most of the demographic trends are heading in Democrats’ direction.

Census Bureau director Robert Groves summed it up best Thursday: “We are increasingly metropolitan today, our country is becoming racially and ethnically more diverse over time ... and geographically, there are a lot of areas of the country growing in number that have large minority populations.”

via www.washingtonpost.com

If red goes purple, that will drive the right wing absolutely crazy...for multiple reasons :-)

Fla. parents protest peanut restrictions - The Checkup - The Washington Post

Parents of students at an Edgewater, Fla., elementary school are protesting what they say are burdensome precautions placed on their children to avoid exposing a fellow student to peanuts, to which the 6-year-old girl is severely allergic.

via www.washingtonpost.com

I have mixed emotions on this one. As a parent of a peanut allergic child, I think it perfectly reasonable to ask other kids to wash their hands after eating, though I don't get the "wash their mouths" part. On the other hand, I also believe it counter-productive to try to create a "peanut free" environment at school, since that would create a false sense of security for the allergic child. No place is perfectly safe.

As Phones Become Mobile Wallets, Businesses Want a Share - NYTimes.com

“Is it possible to make a system that’s too easy to use, where you reduce so much friction from the transaction process that people aren’t necessarily aware of what they’re spending on something?” asked Jan Chipchase, executive creative director at the design firm Frog Design, who studies mobile payments.

via www.nytimes.com

Isn't that called "cash"?