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