(CNN) — When Annie Brown’s daughter, Isabel, was a month old, her pediatrician asked Brown and her husband to sit down because he had some bad news to tell them: Isabel carried a gene that put her at risk for cystic fibrosis.
While grateful to have the information — Isabel received further testing and she doesn’t have the disease — the Mankato, Minnesota, couple wondered how the doctor knew about Isabel’s genes in the first place. After all, they’d never consented to genetic testing.
Here’s a fascinating profile on radical Santa Fe Institute economist Samuel Bowles, an empiricist who says his research doesn’t support the Chicago School efficient marketplace hypothesis. Instead, Bowles argues that the wealth inequality created by strict market economics creates inefficiencies because society has to devote so much effort to stopping the poor from expropriating the rich. He calls this “guard labor” and says that one in four Americans is employed to in the sector — labor that could otherwise be used to increase the nation’s wealth and progress.
CENTRAL bankers are an unobtrusive breed by nature and necessity. So it might have escaped the attention of many that Sydney is playing host to a meeting of some of the world’s top money men and women to celebrate the 50th birthday of the Reserve Bank of Australia.
If we did fan-finance and actually make the film, let’s say it sold: what then? There will be profits? Would people get their money back? Where would that money go? Our plan is to put anything we make into a fund that would, in turn, finance other (cost-sensible) flicks fans want to see. And from that? Build a People’s Studio. Simply have any interested/frustrated/desperate party put their script on our website, open for all to read, during a “pilot season” of sorts. Script that gets the most votes, gets the loot. That flick gets made and sold, all the loot goes back into fund for next round. If there’s enough loot from RED STATE sale to do so, idea would be to fund two low budget flicks a year. Ultimate dream: Indie Movement, v.3. Because with the shuttering and impending sale of Miramax comes the sober realization that the specialty business has just died completely. The 90’s are long over and Indie Movement v.2 has come to a sad close. Until that market is vibrant and thriving again, maybe this is a small way to keep the home-fires burning. I know we’re supposed to let all things run its course, but can’t help it: I don’t wanna see the indie film world I knew go away forever. I’m an idealist and a silly-heart, and I’ve got a dream.
Kevin Smith is a communist. (via muppetpants)
Today, as part of our ongoing evaluation of Microsoft’s Internet search privacy practices, we are pleased to announce an important change in our data retention policy. We will delete the entire Internet Protocol address associated with search queries at six months rather than at 18 months. This new and significant step will be incorporated into our existing privacy practices, which already provide strong protections for Bing users.
Non-performing loans in China have risen into the “trillions of renminbi” because of poor lending practices, an insolvency lawyer said.
“We work really closely with SASAC, the state-owned enterprise regulator in China, and there are literally trillions and trillions of renminbi of, frankly, defaulting loans already in China that no one is doing anything about,” Neil McDonald, a Hong Kong-based business restructuring and insolvency partner with Lovells LLP, said at an Asia-Pacific Loan Market Association conference yesterday. “At some point there’s going to be a reckoning for that.”
Desperate to save police, fire and other city jobs, a divided Phoenix City Council on Tuesday approved a sales tax on grocery items that will generate tens of millions of dollars a year.
RT @FOREX_VALUER: 1st signs of fundamentals gaining steam goes 2 Crude Oil - overvalued status remains but suggests it could be the star …
The video website, launched by studios to distribute TV shows over the Internet without charge, now is considering ways to draw revenue, including charging for some episodes of popular shows.
Have these companies learned nothing? Emphasis mine.
Mirandizing a suspect prevents intelligence from being collected. Clearly not the case, as Abdulmutallab has continued talking to investigators after being mirandized.
Putting an “enemy combatant” like Abdulmutallab in the criminal justice system is unprecedented. False, as the Bush administration did it with nearly 150 terrorists convicted in civilian courts over eight years. A recent example is Bryant Vinas, an al-Qaeda recruit captured in Pakistan in 2008, who as part of a plea deal has reportedly provided a “goldmine” of intelligence.We would have gotten all this information more quickly if we had just tortured him. Unlikely, and there would have been substantial downsides. Part of interrogating a suspect is verifying that information is true, and that takes time whether someone is being tortured or not. But if we had tortured Abdulmutallab, it’s unlikely that his family would have played such a key role in his interrogation. Also, the information he gave wouldn’t have been as reliable. Treating him humanely shows the world that it can trust the United States and encourages Muslims who may have important information to come forward.
The only way to get terrorists to talk is by torturing them, because of their religion. This myth is a staple of torture stalwarts on the right. Cliff May and former Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen have argued that suspected terrorists are compelled by their religious beliefs not to talk unless they “reached the limit of their ability to endure the hardships the infidel is inflicting on them,” in May’s words. Thiessen responded gleefully to a poll suggesting most Americans wanted Abdulmutallab to be waterboarded. Something tells me that despite the fact that Abdulmutallab is talking, Thiessen is probably disappointed he wasn’t tortured first.
The FBI isn’t good at interrogating suspected terrorists. The events of the past few days have again proved this to be false. As former counterterrorism official Richard Clarke told ABC, “The FBI is good at getting people to talk. … They have been much more successful than the previous attempts of torturing people and trying to convince them to give information that way. The FBI does it right.”
The threat by influential Christian leaders to mobilise a vote against Kenya’s draft constitution if it does not explicitly prevent any expansion of abortion rights appears to have succeeded.
Canon Peter Karanja of the NCCK told IPS, “Life is sacrosanct. The definition of life must be stipulated in the supreme law of the land, the Constitution. Life must be defined as starting at conception and ending at natural death.” The parliamentary committee has completed deliberations on the draft, and decided to define life as beginning at conception.
Phrases guaranteeing everyone the right to health care (including reproductive health care) and stating that no one may be refused emergency medical treatment have been deleted; added is a phrase ruling out abortion “unless in the opinion of a registered medical practitioner the life of the mother is in danger”.
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