Apple's iMessage encryption trips up feds' surveillance | Politics and Law - CNET News

Apple's iMessage encryption trips up feds' surveillance | Politics and Law - CNET News: " "it is impossible to intercept iMessages between two Apple devices" even with a court order approved by a federal judge. "

I Survived Sequestration | Cato Institute

I Survived Sequestration | Cato Institute: "This week marks the one-month anniversary of one of the most terrifying events in American history: the sequester. So, with great trepidation, I have climbed out of my bunker to survey the devastation and send off this column.

I was shocked to discover that somehow mankind had survived."

"Several federal agencies were forced to impose hiring freezes, but the federal government is hardly closing its employment business. In just one week last month, nearly 4,600 job listings were posted on USAJobs.gov, the federal government’s recruiting site."

"The National Archives was forced to return to the hours of operation it maintained prior to 2008."

"One can go all the way back to Bill Clinton’s welfare reform, which, it was solemnly predicted, would throw 2.7 million more children into poverty. Instead, poverty, child poverty, and African American–child poverty all declined after the law was passed."

Why U.S. Can't Deliver Women's Rights to Afghanistan | Cato Institute

Why U.S. Can't Deliver Women's Rights to Afghanistan | Cato Institute: "women’s rights activists observe that forced marriages involving young girls remain common. Beatings, torture, and other forms of domestic violence against Afghan women persist. Worse, women and girls are often shot, stabbed, or even stoned to death in honor killings when captured for running away from their abusers."

Countdown to Climate Change: It's Only 297 Years Away! | Cato Institute

Countdown to Climate Change: It's Only 297 Years Away! | Cato Institute: "The first one, in 2000, used two (out of the dozens available) climate models. One predicted the largest precipitation changes of all, and the other the largest changes in temperature. They were both wrong at the time the Assessment was published, predicting three times as much warming as was observed, and having absolutely no forecast skill estimating changes in precipitation. It seemed impossible, but the temperature predictions were worse than one could get from a table of random numbers, a rare example of what should be called negative knowledge; kinda like getting less than 25% correct on a four-way multiple choice test."

The Minimum Wage Typifies Much That Is Wrong with Washington | Cato Institute

The Minimum Wage Typifies Much That Is Wrong with Washington | Cato Institute: "In 1977 Congress established the Minimum Wage Study Commission. The panel concluded that the “time-series studies typically find that a ten percent increase in the minimum wage reduces teenage employment by one to three percent.” Similar were the results of more recent research. Observed businessman Brandon Crocker, “most studies of previous [pre-1996] rate hikes (such as 1990-1991) show clear evidence of job losses.”

A 2007 review 102 studies starting in the 1990s by David Neumark and William Wascher found: “although the wide range of estimates is striking, the oft-stated assertion that the new minimum wage research fails to support the traditional view that the minimum wage reduces the employment of low-wage workers is clearly incorrect. Indeed … the preponderance of the evidence points to disemployment effects.” Studies which did not do so were more likely to be industry specific and short-term, which may have influenced the results."

"James Sherk of the Heritage Foundation pointed out that in 2011 and 2012 only 2.9 percent of all workers earned the minimum, and that figure included service workers who earned enough in tips to move them above the minimum. Just .6 percent of full-time workers and 1.7 percent of full-time hourly workers earn the minimum. Even 77.2 percent of teens earn more than the minimum. Explained Wilson: “The higher the minimum wage relative to competitive-market wage levels, the greater the employment loss that occurs.”"

"What is certain is that when jobs disappear those with the least education, training, skills, and experience suffer the most. This means younger and minority workers. For instance, a 1973 study by economist Douglas K. Adie concluded that a ten percent increase in the real, inflate-adjusted minimum wage increased teen unemployment by 3.62 percent."

"The minimum wage is a major reason for the persistent gap between unemployment rates for black and white teens and young adults."

“the consequences of the minimum wage for black young adults without a diploma were actually worse than the consequences of the Great Depression.”

"Minimum wage increases rapidly accelerate the rate at which technological innovations replace entry-level jobs."

"A score of studies have found a modest impact on prices—an average of .4 percent for every ten percent rise in the minimum. Restaurants appear to be particularly prone to such increases. A 2011 study found that price hikes in this industry were more common than employment cuts, accounting for roughly two-thirds of the cost increase.

Price hikes can claw back wage gains. Said Romer: “Often, the customers paying those prices—including some of the diners at McDonald’s and the shoppers at Walmart—have very low family incomes. Thus this price effect may harm the very people whom a minimum wage is supposed to help.”"

"some employers responded by reducing pay raises for other workers. In addition, explained Wilson: “Some firms try to increase worker productivity by requiring better attendance, insisting that job duties are completed faster, imposing additional tasks on workers, minimizing hours worked with better scheduling, and terminating poor performers more quickly.”"

“Since 1995, eight studies have examined the income and poverty effects of minimum wage increases, and all but one have found that past minimum wage hikes had no effect on poverty.”

"just 11.3 percent of minimum wage workers live in a poor household. The average income of families with minimum wage workers is above $53,000, more than twice the poverty line for a family of four. Nearly two-thirds of recipients live in homes with incomes at least twice the poverty line. Just 16.8 percent of teen minimum wage workers live in homes below the poverty line."

1 $750G bid for unwanted Alaska ferry worth $80M | Fox News

1 $750G bid for unwanted Alaska ferry worth $80M | Fox News: "An unwanted, $80 million ice-breaking ferry owned by an Alaska borough has only one bid to buy it, and it's for $751,000"


"The project was funded mainly with Department of Defense earmarks wedged into the federal budget by then-U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens.

The borough has no suitable docks or a workable business plan to operate the vessel as a ferry between Anchorage and Port MacKenzie in the Mat-Su.

With monthly costs to the borough averaging $75,000 for insurance, maintenance, fuel, docking fees and other expenses, the Borough Assembly has directed employees to find the most economical way to shed it."

California Chick-fil-A gives free meals to gay marriage supporters at rally | Fox News

California Chick-fil-A gives free meals to gay marriage supporters at rally | Fox News: "Corey Braun, the owner and operator of a franchise in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., says he felt the gathering was an opportunity to show hospitality to members of his community, regardless of their beliefs.

"I wanted to show that Chick-fil-A doesn't discriminate against anybody," Braun told the Los Angeles Daily News. "We serve everyone. We're happy to serve the community and this was an opportunity to have this group come in and show them our hospitality regardless of their beliefs, sexual orientation, or whatever.""


Eden Anderson, who is a board member for a local LGBT rights group, called Braun's actions "surreal."
"What I experienced with the community, is when people are open and apologetic and accepting, it's touching to us," Anderson told the Los Angeles Daily News. "It feels like acceptance and we just want to be accepted and engaged in society, so when it's confirmed, I think the overall reaction was, yes, certainly that Chick-fil-A in Rancho Cucamonga is welcoming to us." "

Being kind to even your opponents is very powerful!

Massachusetts 13-year-old suspended for bringing butter knife to school | Fox News

Massachusetts 13-year-old suspended for bringing butter knife to school | Fox News: "When the school's vice principal reportedly saw Morgan with the butter knife during her lunch period, he brought her into his office and issued her a suspension."

Suspended for a butter knife?!?

Jim Harper's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week | Techdirt

Jim Harper's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week | Techdirt: "I think a lot of people believe so strongly in democracy that they apply their ideal vision of Congress when they think about what Congress and the government might do. The reality is very different.

It's not that all members of Congress are gomers. They and their staffs are very smart, very dedicated people. But they haven't got the knowledge to organize a society as large, diverse, and open as ours. "

Three Years of Broken Promises | Cato Institute

Three Years of Broken Promises | Cato Institute: "in a study of more than 11,000 plans on the individual market released this month, less than 2 percent of existing plans are in compliance with the law’s benefit requirements. While current plans are technically grandfathered in, allowing people to keep them for now, any change in the plans requires that their coverage be brought into full compliance, even if that means more expensive plans that include new and unnecessary benefits. Moreover, because non-compliant plans cannot enroll new members, most of the existing plans will eventually disappear, requiring even those members who have been grandfathered in to switch plans eventually."

"12 percent of companies have already been notified that their current coverage will be canceled or will not be renewed because it doesn’t meet Obamacare requirements."

"the CBO has raised, from 4 million Americans to 7 million, its estimate of the number of workers who will be dumped from their employers’ health plans and forced into the exchanges. "

"A survey of physicians conducted by Deloitte found that 59 percent of them expected that at least some doctors will retire early as a result of the health-care law and that others will scale back their hours."

"under Romneycare, the average wait to see a primary-care physician increased from 33 to 55 days"

"insurers are warning that enactment of the law’s provisions next year could as much as double some people’s premiums in the small-group and individual markets."

"according to the CBO, the total cost of exchange subsidies under Obamacare has increased by $125 billion, on a year-over-year basis, since initial estimates."

"Senator Jeff Sessions, in an analysis based on information provided earlier this month by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), has found that Obamacare would actually add $1.4 trillion to the national debt over the next ten years, and as much as $6.2 trillion over the next 75 years. It is true, as the GAO pointed out, that this is only one interpretation of the data (though one they call “reasonable”), but the scenario that Senator Sessions lays out reflects the concerns expressed by the Medicare trustees, the Congressional Budget Office, and the office of the chief actuary that the cost-containment mechanisms in the health law will not be sustained over time. Even if Senator Sessions’s analysis is off by, say, a couple hundred billion, it stretches credulity to call Obamacare “fiscally responsible.”"

"the March edition of the Federal Reserve’s “beige book,” a compilation of regional economic surveys, reports that employers continue to cite Obamacare and uncertainty over the rising cost of health insurance as a reason they are not hiring in the wake of the recession. “Employers in several Districts,” the report says, “cited the unknown effects of the Affordable Care Act as reasons for planned layoffs and reluctance to hire more staff.”"

"The latest CBO estimates suggest that, by 2023, there will still be more than 30 million uninsured Americans. For all the enormous cost and disruption caused by the Affordable Care Act, it will provide insurance for less than half the Americans currently without coverage. Further, only 25 million of them will actually receive proper insurance (and subsidized plans, at that). The remaining 12 million are merely dumped into Medicaid"

"According to the CBO, by the end of the decade almost 11 million fewer Americans will have private unsubsidized health insurance than do today."