Daily Links From Glimpse From a Height

• Montgomery County DOT Thwarts BRT? @ggwash
  Seems so: Unfortunately, while publicly embracing this idea, the Montgomery County Department of Transportation (MCDOT) is unwilling to do what must be done to make it succeed. Asked to find a few places where buses could be moved faster right now, MCDOT refused, saying that it had to do a study first, and then didn’t […]
• Why Does The Ailing West Aid Its #Islamist Enemies? @MelanieLatest
  We’re too steeped in reasonableness to recognize religious fanaticism when we see it: But the deeper reason is surely the Western belief that the world is basically governed by rationality. So all conflicts arise from grievances, and all parties can be persuaded to settle a quarrel in their own interests. Refracting everything in the world […]
• Foundation to Virginia Colleges: Stop Wasting Our Money @chronicle
  The Beazley Foundation has, for the time being, had enough: The release quotes Richard Bray, chairman of the Beazley Foundation of Portsmouth, Va., as saying that the suspension is a stand against “the departure of numerous institutions from the discipline of a core curriculum fundamental to education in the liberal arts,” and that the report […]
• Mozilla Questions Web Orthodoxies With Pancake @webmonkey
  Sounds like fun: Pancake, as the new project is known, will help Mozilla, “better understand what people do on the web, why and how they do those things, and how we can make those things easier and more efficient.” The goal of Pancake according to Mozilla’s new, awesomely titled Director of Pancake Stuart Parmenter, is […]
• #Romney and Kosher Nursing Home Food @alanagoodman
  Less there than meets the eye.  Good for Commentary for getting to the bottom of this.  Over-reacting to these sorts of reports doesn’t do anyone any good, especially Jewish groups.
• WTO Rules Against China on Rare Earths @engadget
  The WTO ruled that the export quotas and monopoly created an illegal two-tier pricing system.  If you’re going to have a free-trade system, then export quotas are a problem, but for a different reason.  China’s less interested in the cash (and the quotas aren’t really doing much for prices, anyway) than they are in forcing […]

Daily Links From Glimpse From a Height

• #Azerbaijan on Iran Sanctions: Not a Market Opportunity @eurasianet
  Azerbaijan looks as though it’s getting ticked off with its neighbors the mullahs, and is willing to go along with sanctions, and doesn’t see it a chance to increase its own oil exports.
• The UK-EU Ties Begin To Tremble #anglosphere
  Open Europe’s call for repatriating crime and policing laws back to the UK will be taken up by Britain’s all-party parliamentary committee on EU reform.  Sounds less like reform and more like retreat, which is a good thing. When even Labour is calling for repatriation of EU money back to the UK, you know you’ve […]
• Fritz Goro: The Art of Science #design #photography @life
  Classic science photography from Life.
• Why Obama Stacked the #NLRB @dailycaller @kausmickey
  Unionization rate nears zero. Unions relying more and more on government support, while the administration relies more and more on government unions.
• Posters From the El @life_salon @printmag #design
  Classic London Underground posters have met their match in the Chicago Transit.  
• Another Blow For the Climateers @powerlineblog
  Still no net warming since 1998. I once got into a heated discussion with a warmist friend of mine about this non-trend, and the best he could do was attack me for selectively accepting UN Climate Change Panel data.  It was a pretty weak performance from a usually-thoughtful guy, but also pretty much all he […]
• Mark Your Calendars, Solar Eclipse, May 20 @phys_org
  Looks like the western US will get a good look, and since it’s a Sunday, we can drive southwest to see totality.
• US House GOP to Link Energy, Infrastructure, #ANWR, #KeystoneXL
  Seems like a logical connection to me.  The House GOP is going to link ANWR and offshore drilling, and Keystone XL, to increased infrastructure funding.  Since I’m all for all of these, I like it.  Don’t count on the Democrats going along, though.
• Richard Epstein Schools Jeffrey Sachs on Libertarianism @DefiningIdeas
  Sachs can only attack libertarianism by caricaturing it. The popular version of the term libertarian does not convey solely this meaning. The second branch of libertarian theory is classical liberalism. It takes a somewhat larger view of government that makes it a bit more elusive to characterize. The classical liberal does not deny the importance […]
• A #3DPrinting Roundup @doingitwrong
  Lisa Harouni gives TED a primer on how 3D printing works. Tim Maly rebuts Chris Mims’ claim that 3D printing is just a passing fancy. And the BBC compares the product vs. platform competing visions of how to bring 3D printing to the consumer.  (Along with the obligatory environmental alarmism.)

Daily Links From Glimpse From a Height

• Mossad Assassin Insurance
  Assuming that’s who’s actually killing the great nuclear chefs of Iran. It’s good to see them being forced into a defensive crouch over this, though.
• Evidence Mounts For Kagan ObamaCare Recusal
  Law professor Ronald Rotunda makes a compelling circumstantial case, which barring a better defense from Kagan than we’ve seen should be enough

Daily Links From Glimpse From a Height

• #HigherEdBubble news from @Mark_J_Perry
  I’m going to guess that Udacity won’t have a top-heavy administration.
• Truckers Spending Money, Not Adding Capacity @joc_talk
  Truck carriers are buying more trucks, but it’s mostly to replace older fleets, rather than to expand fleet sizes.  The problem, according to Werner Enterprises (where I work for a living), is that there’s a pretty serious driver shortage.  So in the short term, this is going to drive up costs and probably expand profits […]
• DC Metro Suffers Complete Shutdown @ggwash
  Pretty much the whole system went down: “Metro suffered a complete system failure last night around 11:30 pm. The failures were so extensive that all communications, including track circuits, were out of service.” When I lived in DC, people were proud of the combination subway-light rail.  The trains were packed, and while they basically proved […]
• Illinois, Obama’s Economic Thought Leader
  Well, we had better hope not.  High unemployment combined with a terrible state credit rating.  For the umpteen millionth time, evidence that high taxes and heavy regulation don’t actually work.  I’m not sure a flat tax is inherently “fairer,” in the way that most people use the term.  But it would probably do a better […]
• Regulate Incentives, Not Outcomes
  Via Russ Roberts at Cafe Hayek: What is notable about contemporary reform is that there is little effort to change the incentives that caused bank executives to take the big risks and a huge emphasis on regulating their choices. The implicit assumption seems to be that incentives and the assignment of liability plays only a […]
• Ranking the States by Competitiveness @DesktopEcon
  Colorado ranks slightly better than average, but look at the two biggest winners: Texas and North Dakota.  Given our coal and shale, we really ought to be doing better than this.
• Romney’s Economic Case Against Obama @aei
  In one chart:
• 25 Time-Lapse Videos @pixiqphoto
  From landscapes to portraits being drawn.

Daily Links From Glimpse From a Height

• A 3-D Glimpse
  The New York Public Library re-creates the View Master online (h/t Popular Science), with its online collection of stereographs.  I can usually get the photos to overlay on my own, but for those without independently-moving eyeballs, this is really cool.
• Battery-Swaps Go Live
  An Israeli company is giving the battery-swapping model of electric cars a live test.  The ranges are still too low for the US, but I think if electric cars are going to work, this is the only viable recharging solution.
• The Debt – Worse Than You Think @dmarron
  Yes, even worse than that: This range of figures – $10 trillion, $14 trillion, $50 trillion – sows confusion about how indebted the United States is. Yet none of them captures all of America’s debts. The government has a host of other obligations that often get overlooked. These other liabilities appear in the government’s little-known […]

Daily Links From Glimpse From a Height

• Will California Development Agencies Default?
  What happens when the government piggy bank is empty.  Greece on the Pacific.
• Not Shovel-Ready @KeithHennessey
  According to internal memos, the administration started out knowing these projects weren’t “shovel ready:” If Mr. Lizza’s reporting is correct, over the objection of his economic advisors President Obama replaced $60 B of “highly stimulative spending” with a slow-spending but “inspiring” $20 B for high-speed trains and $40 B in pork for his Senate Democratic […]
• 3D Printing Skepticism from @Mims
  Over at Technology Review: This isn’t just premature, it’s absurd. 3-D printing, like VR before it, is one of those technologies that suggest a trend of long and steep adoption driven by rapid advances on the systems we have now. And granted, some of what’s going on at present is pretty cool—whether it’s in rapid […]
• Iranapalooza
  The EU finally agrees on a boycott of new Iranian oil contracts.  The sticking point?  Greece, Italy, and Spain, who import a lot of their oil from Iran.  Ultimately, this will strengthen China’s hand vis-a-vis Iran, as one of their last large customers. Melanie Phillips doubts that this will induce Iran’s leaders to abandon their […]
• Nostalgianomics @asymmetricinfo
  Back to a future that never was, from Megan McArdle: And to the extent that the fifties and sixties were actually like this, we should remember, as Max Boot points out, that this was not actually the day of the little guy.  Big institutions actually had a great deal more power than they do now; […]
• Quantum Cryptography Aids Cloud-Based Quantum Computing?
  So say researchers at the University of Vienna: Imagine the computer tries to snoop on the qubits and see their entanglement, which could then be used to extract the information they carry. You’d be able to tell, because of the laws of quantum mechanics. The cat is both dead and alive until you check whether […]
• EU Fiscal Pact In Trouble. Again. Part MCMXVII
  Sweden and Poland are having doubts.  As are the Czechs, despite going through a change in government over the issue. Meanwhile, Sinn Fein, which didn’t fight all those years to ditch the Brits just to get ruled from Brussels, are threatening legal action without a referendum. The EU is starting to look more and more […]
• Hispanics Not Single-Issue Voters
  So says a participant in the conservative Hispanic Leadership Network, meeting this week in Miami: Substance is precisely what Hispanics are looking for when we consider what’s desperately needed to return America to what so many of us came here looking for. For the majority of Hispanics who are immigrants and sons and daughters of […]
• “What Will Become Of Us?”
  Seriously.  From your tenured diplomatic corps, charged with representing your interests again the sharks overseas. The pitch for Clinton to run for Vice President came from a moderator who combined questions from two State Department employees: “With the election season fast approaching, can you offer any predictions for the State Department after the elections in […]
• Fewer Regs, Greater Cost
  The CEI and Daily Caller make a compelling case for the REINS Act:
• Walker Leading Democrat Opponents
  …in Wisconsin recall.  Like IowaHawk said, winners never quit, and quitters never win, but if you never win, and you never quit, you’re probably in a Wisconsin public employees’ union.
• Defense Cuts For Decline
  We’re the only country in the world with a navy worthy of the name, and it gives us a tremendous ROI.  No wonder Obama wants to gut it.
• Andrew Biggs on Federal Retirement
  A federal worker makes out pretty well compared to his private-sector counterpart.  Given that there’s a heavy net cash flow into Washington (look at their real estate resilience), and that those workers still have excellent job security, the defined benefit plan doesn’t really make sense any more.
• Fair Share
  Fair? Even when taking into account income distribution, the well-off in America pay a higher share of America’s taxes then do the well-off in any other comparable country. Meanwhile, 46% of tax filers pay absolutely no federal income taxes at all and the fastest-growing group of those, up from almost zero during the Clinton years, […]
• 3-D Objects For Download
  And this is just the beginning. Seriously, The Diamond Age is on the horizon. http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2012-01/get-your-3-d-printer-models-pirate-bay

Daily Links From Glimpse From a Height

• Stop-Motion of a Drummer
  Frederick Winslow Taylor, meet Gene Krupa.  Seriously, wouldn’t it be cool to compare “Sing, Sing, Sing” with Check Webb and Buddy Rich?
• About That Countrywide Settlement
  Leftover money to be distributed according to ACORN’s mission statement.  What could possibly go wrong?
• How To Make Choosing Easier
  There is such a thing as “too many choices.” What Wal-Mart could learn from Aldi, or from “Moscow On the Hudson,” for that matter.  Right now, if I had to get a new smartphone, or even a new SLR, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have the faintest idea how to optimize my choice.  Like a […]
• Building Better Interfaces…
  …through science fiction.
• The Tricorder May Be Within Reach
  ‘The ubiquity of smartphones, and rapid developments in artificial intelligence and cloud computing have turned the tricorder into more than a pipedream. “We launch X-Prizes when we think the technology is at a tipping point,” says X Prize CEO Peter Diamandis.’  It’ll work by aggregating massive amounts of patient data to correlate with symptoms.  This […]

Daily Links From Glimpse From a Height

• Congress and Spending…
  The classic Avoider Syndrome.  Can, kicked down the road.
• Political Class Unworthy of the Moment
  Joel Kotkin argues that far from decline, the 21st Century offers another American moment, but that our political class is blowing it, each party for its own reasons.  Democrats oppose growth policies on principle, Republican too often in practice.
• More Planets Than Stars?
  Turns out there could be more planets than stars in the Milky Way, possibly trillions of planets, and billions of them inhabitable.  So let’s get working on the starships, already.