Amid nuke debates, Iranian president says 'L’shanah tovah!' - CSMonitor.com

Amid nuke debates, Iranian president says 'L’shanah tovah!' - CSMonitor.com: "As Jewish communities worldwide prepared to welcome the New Year of their religious calendar, two presidents offered salutations on social media: Barack Obama of the United States and Hassan Rouhani of Iran."



"Israelis, however, were left “bewildered” by what to make of Rouhani’s tweet, posted early Monday, which reads “May our shared Abrahamic roots deepen respect and bring peace and mutual understanding. L’Shanah Tovah.”"

Processing a Rant - The Daily WTF

Processing a Rant - The Daily WTF: "Guidelines are better than checkpoints. A lot of organizations use process to control their employees. “You must do this, and you must do it this way.” Compliance is enforced, sometimes with a carrot, usually with a stick. This grows from bureaucracy, which itself grows from a fairly natural need to ensure consistent performance regardless of which “human resources” are involved in an effort. Bureaucracies don’t care if they turn into a Harrison Bergeron dystopia where performance is consistently poor- just as long as its consistent.

The purpose of a process is not to ensure compliance. It’s to provide a well-paved path that guides your developers to success. Which brings us to our penultimate point.

Processes should grow from institutional best practices. While you can certainly learn from other organizations, and trade magazines, and articles like this one, the only people who know how to do what you specifically do are the people who do it- you."

Justice Department plan to free thousands of inmates is just the beginning - CSMonitor.com

Justice Department plan to free thousands of inmates is just the beginning - CSMonitor.com: "The bill seeks to make prisoners’ sentences more proportionate to their crimes, chipping away at "tough on drugs" measures now deemed excessive, and would outlaw juvenile solitary confinement."

FDA is making old drugs expensive to get them in compliance

"The FDA grants market exclusivity to companies that are willing to take "grandfathered" compounds into compliance with their current regulatory framework, and that's led to some ridiculous situations with drugs like colchicine and progesterone."

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/8174724

Opinion: Why we should not fear a world of ‘universal encryption’ - CSMonitor.com

Opinion: Why we should not fear a world of ‘universal encryption’ - CSMonitor.com: "Therefore the “universal encryption” narrative isn’t a realistic prediction at all; it’s just a dystopian fantasia meant to scare politicians and voters. Nor is the government “going dark”; rather, it’s enjoying a Golden Age for surveillance, and that Golden Age isn’t ending any time soon – even if there will also always be some companies offering end-to-end encrypted services to those who value security as a feature more than those other features.

And that’s the key: People will always want and need to treat different communications differently, using different types of services with different types of features. Just as in the real world, where we keep some letters in a permanent file while other things we would only say in a whisper that’s never to be heard again, so, too, in the online world do we use Twitter for one kind of communication, Gmail for another, and Whatsapp for another, balancing features like accessibility and security and searchability and cost accordingly.  "

Teen arrested for allegedly having nude photos of himself on his phone - CNET

Teen arrested for allegedly having nude photos of himself on his phone - CNET: "Because the law viewed Copening as an adult perpetrator, the charge for him was sexual exploitation of a minor (also him), a felony."

Washington Arrests Foreign Soccer Officials: Arrogant America Punishes and Sanctions the World | Cato Institute

Washington Arrests Foreign Soccer Officials: Arrogant America Punishes and Sanctions the World | Cato Institute: "Moreover, punishing foreigners creates future risks. Doing so works in America’s favor only as long as the U.S. is the dominant force on earth. Americans might rue the precedent set by their own government in a world where power is more equally distributed. Someday Americans might get indicted by other nations for “crimes” committed in the U.S."



Most of the alleged crimes involve foreigners acting overseas."

Robert Anderson sees homeless people as individuals, not problems - CSMonitor.com

Robert Anderson sees homeless people as individuals, not problems - CSMonitor.com: "Typically, homeless shelters require that residents already be off drugs and alcohol, having completed a treatment program. Anderson and his colleagues worked to establish what they called the Homeless Outreach Team. They based their approach on the philosophy that housing is a basic human right, even for those still abusing alcohol and drugs."

Cybersecurity pros slam threat information-sharing bills - CSMonitor.com

Cybersecurity pros slam threat information-sharing bills - CSMonitor.com: "The signatories of the letter take issue with the potential privacy implications of the bills. "The bills weaken privacy law without promoting security," they said in the letter. "

How shoes that grow could help change the lives of children in poverty - CSMonitor.com

How shoes that grow could help change the lives of children in poverty - CSMonitor.com: "This idea inspired The Shoe That Grows, a sandal that is designed to last a child five years. The shoes come in small and large so that with just two pairs, children can have shoes on their feet from age 5 to 14 years old."



"Four sets of snaps, two on each side, allow for adjustment of the width, while another snap at the toe can change the length. The soul is made from compressed rubber while the straps are all leather. The show can also be tightened or loosened around the ankle with a buckle, like many sandals."

LEGO turned itself around by analyzing overbearing parents - Quartz

LEGO turned itself around by analyzing overbearing parents - Quartz: "During a session with the photo diaries, for example, the researchers noted that the children’s bedrooms in New Jersey tended to be meticulously designed by the mothers. “They look like they’re from the pages of Elle Décor,” noted one participant. Another child’s bedroom in Los Angeles was suspiciously tidy with a stylish airplane mobile hanging down. “That looks staged,” an anthropologist observed, and the team discussed what that might mean. These were children who were driven everywhere in SUVs with carefully managed after-school activities. The researchers noted that the moms were also “staging” their children’s development. They were trying to shape children who were creative, fun, outgoing, humorous, intelligent, and quiet all at the same time."



"In this same session, several researchers reported that children were hiding things from their parents. The observers noted the acronym POS (parent over shoulder) so prevalent in online gaming. One researcher reported being invited into a young boy’s room to see his most secret prized possession. The child pulled a shoebox out from under the bed and announced that it was filled with magic poisonous mushrooms."



"“These kids were bubble-wrapped,” one team member recalled. “Every physical space in their life was curated, managed, or staged by an adult. Whereas children in the past used to find freedom and an appropriate level of danger on the streets, playing on sidewalks throughout the neighborhood or roaming free in the country, these children needed to find their freedom in virtual spaces through online gaming or in imaginary zones (like the box of magic mushrooms).”"

Net neutrality could hinder efforts to safeguard Web, worry security experts - CSMonitor.com

Net neutrality could hinder efforts to safeguard Web, worry security experts - CSMonitor.com: "there is a potential the rules could create gray areas with regard to the use of certain traffic inspection tools used by providers to filter out malicious traffic and spam. Anything that would impose a ban on traffic throttling without accommodating provisions for handling spam or botnet traffic could create a problem for users, Mr. Bambenek says.

The reality is that not every bit of traffic that flows on the Internet is equal, he says. For instance, a lot of content that is malicious or spam can often consume a disproportionate amount of network resources. An indiscriminate ban on traffic throttling without clear language accommodating these issues could result in a less secure Internet, he said."

U.S. Catholic League Reveals Why ISIS Must Be Destroyed | Cato Institute

U.S. Catholic League Reveals Why ISIS Must Be Destroyed | Cato Institute: "Donohue explains further: “ISIS, following Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot, wants to eradicate the collective memory of the people, which is why it goes beyond killing men, women and children: by destroying ancient works of art, and turning over graves, the totalitarians seek to erase the past, thus paving the way for the future.”"



“Totalitarians assault art and religion precisely because they bind people to their roots, thus creating an obstacle to the new social order. ISIS barbarians want to do more than kill Christian Assyrians, and those who are not just like them — they want to kill everything that ties the present to the past.”



"What ISIS has accomplished, for me, is to finally end my long-term, waning interest in Martin Luther King’s nonviolent direct action to restore individual liberties.



I continue to greatly admire Dr. King, but nonviolent action cannot cope with the unabated ferocity of ISIS."

The Political Assault on Climate Skeptics | Cato Institute

The Political Assault on Climate Skeptics | Cato Institute: "ctually, the move from “global warming” to “climate change” indicated the silliness of this issue. The climate has been changing since the Earth was formed. This normal course is now taken to be evidence of doom."



"all predictions of warming since the onset of the last warming episode of 1978-98—which is the only period that the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) attempts to attribute to carbon-dioxide emissions—have greatly exceeded what has been observed."



"The IPCC itself acknowledges the lack of any evident relation between extreme weather and climate, though allowing that with sufficient effort some relation might be uncovered."



"atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide have been vastly higher through most of Earth’s history. Climates both warmer and colder than the present have coexisted with these higher levels.



Currently elevated levels of carbon dioxide have contributed to increases in agricultural productivity. Indeed, climatologists before the recent global warming hysteria referred to warm periods as “climate optima.” Yet world leaders are embarking on costly policies that have no capacity to replace fossil fuels but enrich crony capitalists at public expense, increasing costs for all, and restricting access to energy to the world’s poorest populations that still lack access to electricity’s immense benefits."

Influencers: Stronger encryption on consumer devices won't hurt national security (+video) - CSMonitor.com

Influencers: Stronger encryption on consumer devices won't hurt national security (+video) - CSMonitor.com: ""We live in a Golden Age of Surveillance. Never in human history have police had such easy access to such vast quantities of data about people. They'll still be able to use subpoenas or court orders (and the threat of contempt penalties or even obstruction charges) to compel people to decrypt data; they can still surreptitiously attempt to get people's passphrases through physical surveillance," Mr. Sanchez continued. "It is flat out insane to suggest that we should undermine the security of a technology used by hundreds of millions of people for legitimate purposes because of the minuscule fraction of cases where crypto will be the make-or-break factor in a legitimate investigation.""

Priti Patkar helps the children of Mumbai's sex workers - CSMonitor.com

Priti Patkar helps the children of Mumbai's sex workers - CSMonitor.com: "“I was shocked to learn that children were often drugged and put under the cots as their mothers solicited customers,” she recalls. “Who would ever have thought that these young children often [served] as masseurs for their mother’s customers and ran errands for them?”"



"“It was certainly not the wish of [their] mothers,” she explains. “The moment we met them, they told us that they were longing to send their children to the local school.... Since they couldn’t look after their children in the night, they [would be] happy to drop them at a shelter home.”



And so Patkar decided to create one."

At Sadhana Forest, trees spring from once-barren land - CSMonitor.com

At Sadhana Forest, trees spring from once-barren land - CSMonitor.com: "Aviram Rozin was excited. He had just returned from Haiti where the 80,000 Maya nut trees that volunteers with Sadhana Forest had planted there during the past five years had started to flower. Before long each tree would be producing huge quantities of nuts high in protein and other nutrients. One tree could supply enough yearly protein for a family of five."



"Faced with the dry climate, Rozin has come up with a simple, yet innovative, way to water the trees: wick irrigation. A two-liter plastic bottle filled with water is planted up to its neck next to each sapling or tree. A piece of cotton rope fed through a tiny hole in the bottom of the bottle acts as a wick, slowly moistening the soil. Loosening or tightening the bottle’s cap can control the rate of flow.



“The water drips very, very, very slowly toward the roots,” Rozin says, eliminating the need for conventional watering from above, a practice that allows most of the moisture to evaporate. In many places people must carry water to the trees themselves, so every drop saved is precious."

Removing State-Based Obstacles to Affordable Healthcare | Cato Institute

Removing State-Based Obstacles to Affordable Healthcare | Cato Institute: "States can begin by repealing “Certificate of Need” (CON) laws. These are outdated and counterproductive laws which encourage cronyism, increase costs, and detract from the quality of health care.

Certificate-of-need laws require anyone wanting to open or expand a healthcare facility to prove to a regulator that the community “needs” it. Once they prove such a need, the state grants them a certificate which lets them operate. In some states the micromanaging can extend down to the level of expanding offices or adding new equipment. In North Carolina, for example, the state Department of Health and Human Services must approve the addition of basic necessities such as hospital beds."



"Legislators once thought they would tamp down health care costs by preventing unnecessary and duplicative expenditures. But instead, the certificate-granting process effectively grants monopoly privileges to existing hospitals and facilities—increasing costs in the process.



When a new provider petitions for a certificate, established providers are usually invited to testify against their would-be competitors. This means that some health care practices can openly challenge the right to exist of any practice that might hurt their bottom line. Indeed, hospital administrators openly admit that protection against competition thanks to CON laws has become an integral part of their business model."



"Large hospitals and other medical incumbents have another advantage: They can afford the lengthy and expensive process while smaller, newer health care providers cannot. Getting state approval for a certificate of need can take years or even over a decade, including appeals and re-appeals. In a place like Washington state, the application fee alone can cost  tens of thousands of dollars. All of this discourages new entrants who lack the legal and financial resources to run the certificate-of-need obstacle course."



"According to studies from the Mercatus center at George Mason University, they decrease the availability of medical resources, do not make care more accessible for underserved communities, and increase the costs of care by 13.6 percent per-capita in the states where they exist. If there is any substantial benefit associated with these regulations, such a benefit has yet to present itself. The negatives, on the other hand, are unmistakable."

The Truth about Infrastructure | Cato Institute

The Truth about Infrastructure | Cato Institute: "Spending advocates point to the 61,000 bridges that are rated “structurally deficient” (meaning they require more than routine maintenance). Yet they never mention that this number has steadily declined from nearly 138,000 in 1990 even as the number of highway bridges has grown. This continuing decline hardly signals a crisis.

The vast majority of structurally deficient bridges are locally owned. Some 15 percent of local bridges are deficient, compared with less than 4 percent of freeway bridges, which are mostly state owned.

A similar situation exists for highway pavement. The average roughness of pavement has steadily improved, but the smoothest pavements are state owned while local streets tend to have the most potholes."

AP investigation: Are slaves catching the fish you buy? (+video) - CSMonitor.com

AP investigation: Are slaves catching the fish you buy? (+video) - CSMonitor.com: "The slaves interviewed by the AP described 20- to 22-hour shifts and unclean drinking water. Almost all said they were kicked, beaten, or whipped with toxic stingray tails if they complained or tried to rest. They were paid little or nothing.

Runaway Hlaing Min said many died at sea."

FBI figures tweaked to show phony increase in mass shootings, report says | Fox News

FBI figures tweaked to show phony increase in mass shootings, report says | Fox News: "FBI figures released last September appear to show so-called "mass shooter" attacks and deaths have dramatically increased since 2000. The report asserted there were a total 160 such incidents in public places between 2000 and 2013, with attacks dramatically increased to 17 in 2013 from just one in 2000. The statistics also showed murders jumping to 86 from just seven over the span.

But Lott's group said a major flaw is the fact that the data was gleaned from news reports, and noted recent accounts were more accessible, and thus over-represented. Recent cases of the far more common “active shooting incidents” were added to legitimate cases of mass shooting incidents, making the more recent years covered by the report appear to have a large increase in both mass shootings and deaths from them."

Feds under fire for mass killings of starlings in Nevada | Fox News

Feds under fire for mass killings of starlings in Nevada | Fox News: "Land owners surprised to discover tens of thousands of dead birds across the high desert are criticizing the federal government over a mass killing of starlings in northern Nevada.

A U.S. Department of Agriculture spokesman said a pesticide was used to destroy the birds to prevent the spread of disease to dairy cows."

FEMA Is Asking Mississippi to Do the Impossible ... Or Lose Disaster Aid | Cato Institute

FEMA Is Asking Mississippi to Do the Impossible ... Or Lose Disaster Aid | Cato Institute: "For example, in its most recent compendium on climate change the United Nations uses 107 different versions, all of which predict slightly different futures and none of which have been correct about the climate of the past two decades.

In those last two decades, according to the global satellite-sensed temperature record environmentalists used to love, there has been no net global surface warming whatsoever. Is it realistic to think we could use these same models to reliably predict how many tornados will hit Mississippi in 2050?

It simply can’t be done. Not only have these models failed to accurately predict global temperatures, but tornadoes are too small to be captured by them."

Real Progressives Should Support Indiana's Law | Cato Institute

Real Progressives Should Support Indiana's Law | Cato Institute: "would you want Unitarians to work the audio equipment at a Southern Baptist revival? Would you force a Jewish printer to produce anti-Semitic flyers? Would you require Muslim butchers to serve pork ribs?"



"We’re all born free and equal under the law. That means that we may associate with anyone who wishes to associate with us, and also to decline to associate. While governments must treat everyone equally, individuals should be able to make their own decisions on whom to do business with and how — on religious grounds or otherwise. Those who disagree with those choices can take their custom elsewhere and encourage others to do the same."



"gay photographers shouldn’t be forced to work fundamentalist celebrations, blacks shouldn’t be forced to work KKK rallies, and environmentalists shouldn’t be forced to work job fairs in logging communities. This isn’t the Jim Crow South; there are plenty of wedding vendors who would be willing to do business regardless of sexual orientation, and no state is enforcing segregation laws."

Earth Hour Celebrates Ignorance | Cato Institute

Earth Hour Celebrates Ignorance | Cato Institute: "I abhor Earth Hour. Abundant, cheap electricity has been the greatest source of human liberation in the 20th century. Every material social advance in the 20th century depended on the proliferation of inexpensive and reliable electricity.

Giving women the freedom to work outside the home depended on the availability of electrical appliances that free up time from domestic chores. Getting children out of menial labour and into schools depended on the same thing, as well as on the ability to provide safe indoor lighting for reading.

“
Its ideas would send the West back 100 years and keep poor nations impoverished and wretched.”
Development and provision of modern health care without electricity is absolutely impossible. The expansion of our food supply, and the promotion of hygiene and nutrition, depended on being able to irrigate fields, cook and refrigerate foods, and have a steady indoor supply of safe hot water.

Many of the world’s poor suffer brutal environmental conditions in their own homes because of the necessity of cooking over indoor fires that burn twigs and dung. This causes local deforestation and the proliferation of smoke- and parasite-related lung diseases."

Has Freedom of Association Become a Crime? | Cato Institute

Has Freedom of Association Become a Crime? | Cato Institute: "No one likes to feel the sting of discrimination, of rejection. But neither do we want to lose our right to choose our own associations, to be forced into associations we’d rather not be in. But to choose just is to discriminate. Indeed, we think of a “discriminating” person as one who chooses wisely. Notice, however, that such a person has his own reasons for so choosing—they’re not imposed on him by others. And that’s pretty much the way the common law struck the balance when it held that, absent the exceptions just noted, the often complex and always subjective reasons for choosing whether or not to associate with another were your business and yours alone. It was not the business of government to second-guess you, to try to discern the “real” reason why you chose to discriminate as you did."

Man who committed no crime serves 900 days in jail; he's to testify in Oregon murder case | Fox News

Man who committed no crime serves 900 days in jail; he's to testify in Oregon murder case | Fox News: "The 59-year-old man has been incarcerated at the Washington County Jail for 897 days, or just shy of two and half years. His bail was set at $500,000.

Prosecutors say Vasquez-Hernandez's testimony is essential to their case, and he probably wouldn't show up to court if released."

The Export-Import Bank's Hidden Tax on America's Companies | Cato Institute

The Export-Import Bank's Hidden Tax on America's Companies | Cato Institute: "Despite the Bank’s claims that it primarily serves small and medium enterprises and that it provides financing for transactions that the private sector won’t service, in 2013 about 75 percent of Ex-Im largesse was dispensed to the benefit of ten large, creditworthy companies"



"Ex-Im’s transactions benefit two parties: the U.S. exporter and the foreign customer. And, accordingly, those transactions tax two sets of parties: the U.S. competitors of the lucky U.S. exporter (the intra-industry cost) and the U.S. competitors of the lucky foreign customer (the downstream industry cost)."

Watchdog.Org: Heavy-Handed Police Bring ‘Minority Report’ to Life | The Federalist Papers

Watchdog.Org: Heavy-Handed Police Bring ‘Minority Report’ to Life | The Federalist Papers: " In 2013, a college student named Monica Jones was arrested for the crime of “manifesting an intent to commit or solicit an act of prostitution,” which can mean up to six months in jail.

MANIFEST DESTINY: Once someone is suspected of being a sex worker, anything that person does can be construed as “manifesting an intent” to commit prostitution. Even asking a police officer to identify himself as a police officer is grounds for an arrest.

She was arrested after an undercover cop offered to give her a ride, then propositioned her for sex and refused to let her leave the vehicle when she declined, according to court documents.

She then asked if the cop was a cop — probably because she was trying to determine if she was being set-up or if she was being kidnapped — which is grounds for an arrest because inquiring “whether a potential patron, procurer or prostitute is a police officer or searches for articles that would identify a police officer” counts as manifestating an intent to commit prostitution, under Phoenix law."

Officials: Houston clears backlog of 6,600 untested rape kits, hundreds of matches in database | Fox News

Officials: Houston clears backlog of 6,600 untested rape kits, hundreds of matches in database | Fox News: "the city launched an effort in 2013 to test 6,663 rape kits — some of which dated back nearly three decades"



"More than 12,000 kits went untested for years in Memphis, Tennessee, which is facing a lawsuit from rape victims as it tries to test the kits. In Detroit, prosecutors discovered more than 11,000 rape kits in an abandoned police warehouse in 2009, and Cleveland prosecutors have sent their entire 4,700-kit backlog for testing."



Waiting that long is unbelievable, a travesty of injustice, and gross misconduct!