Jts5665

Update:  This post may be unfair, as discussed here.  I am not fully convinced, though.

I won't repeat what I wrote before, but several months ago I wrote a long article about my suspicions that Yelp was using its review recommendation system to disappear reviews its corporate sponsors and their attorneys did not like.   My evidence was based on my actual experience writing a detailed, fact-based negative review of an insurer, only to have it disappear from the site and be left out of the insurer's overall score.

It took me a long time to find the review, along with dozens of others, in a purgatory of "not recommended" reviews reachable from a near invisible link that doesn't even look like a link.  I won't retype the whole post but my evidence was in part:

• Yelp says it is sending reviews to not-recommended purgatory because they are of lower quality or have reviewers with less reviewing history on Yelp.  But a scan of the reviews in my case showed no such pattern.  Not-recommended reviews were at least as (and arguably more) detailed than recommended reviews, and there was no discernible difference in reviewer experience.  The not recommended reviews were also no less moderate, as there was immoderate language (and horrible grammar) in accepted reviews while there were calm and reasoned reviews that were rejected.
• What the not-recommended reviews had in common was that they tended to be more negative on average than the recommended ones (which is hard to do because the recommended reviews average to about 1.5 stars)
• Looking at several local independent restaurants, I saw no or few not-recommended reviews and pages and pages of recommended reviews, a ratio that was reversed for the major insurer which presumably has far more resources to intimidate or buy off Yelp.  For the insurer, there were two not-recommended reviews for every one recommended one.
• I knew this insurer to be willing to litigate against bad reviews, since they have sued me for libel to remove my review.  Presumably, they would not hesitate to threaten Yelp as well.
• Yelp already has a review quality system driven by upvoting by customers based on the usefulness of the review.  So why the need for an entirely parallel review-rating system unless that rating system was for an entirely different purpose than quality control.

Yelp got a lot of grief a while back accusing it of deleting reviews, so its CEO has pledged on multiple occasions that it doesn't do so.  I believe them.  Instead, it looks like Yelp disappears reviews in a way that the CEO can truthfully say they were not deleted, but they are for all intents and purposes invisible to the public.

Anyway, all this was spurred by the following trailer sent to me with this article from a reader.  Apparently a film called Billion Dollar Bully is being made about Yelp, and from the hints in the trailer it appears that they will be taking on many of the issues I listed above and frankly have only been able to guess at rather than prove.  Brava!

News comes this morning that Beijing has been awarded the 2022 Winter Olympics, beating out Almaty, Kazakhstan. Which touches on a point I made in this morning’s Boston Herald: 

Columnist Anne Applebaum predicted a year ago that future Olympics would likely be held only in “authoritarian countries where the voters’ views will not be taken into account” — such as the two bidders for the 2022 Winter Olympics, Beijing and Almaty, Kazakhstan.

Fortunately, Boston is not such a place. The voters’ views can be ignored and dismissed for only so long.

Indeed, Boston should be celebrating more than Beijing this week. A small band of opponents of Boston’s bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics beat the city’s elite – business leaders, construction companies, university presidents, the mayor and other establishment figures – because they knew what Olympic Games really mean for host cities and nations:

E.M. Swift, who covered the Olympics for Sports Illustrated for more than 30 years, wrote on the Cognoscenti blog a few years ago that Olympic budgets “always soar.”

“Montreal is the poster child for cost overruns, running a whopping 796 percent over budget in 1976, accumulating a deficit that took 30 years to repay. In 1996 the Atlanta Games came in 147 percent over budget. Sydney was 90 percent over its projected budget in 2000. And the 
Athens Games cost $12.8 billion, 60 percent over what the government projected.”

Bent Flyvbjerg of Oxford University, the world’s leading expert on megaprojects, and his co-author Allison Stewart found that Olympic Games differ from other such large projects in two ways: They always exceed their budgets, and the cost overruns are significantly larger than other megaprojects. Adjusted for inflation, the average cost overrun for an Olympics is 179 percent.

Bostonians, of course, had memories of the Big Dig, a huge and hugely disruptive highway and tunnel project that over the course of 15 years produced a cost overrun of 190 percent.

Read the whole thing.

The Spin Cycle is a reoccurring feature based upon just how much the latest weather or climate story, policy pronouncement, or simply poo-bah blather spins the truth. Statements are given a rating between 1-5 spin cycles, with less cycles meaning less spin. For a more in-depth description, visit the inaugural edition.

—

The first paragraph of EPA’s 1500+ page Clean Power Plan, released on August 3, says this:

These final emission guidelines…will lead to significant carbon dioxide (CO2) emission reductions from the utility power sector that will help protect human health and the environment from the impacts of climate change.

This isn’t simply an exaggeration, a misstatement or a sophomoric rhetorical flourish.  It is simply not true.

The operative claim is that EPA’s  plan “will help protect human health and the environment from the impacts of climate change.” 

It will do no such thing.  The EPA’s own policy analysis model, called MAGICC*, tells us how much global warming will be prevented by the new plan:  0.019°C by the year 2100 (based on procedures similar to those we detailed here).  That’s the amount of temperature change a person will experience in about every second of life. It is simply impossible to detect this change in any global temperature history.

Even that is an overestimate of the actual impact of the plan.  The EPA has also published a “base case” which includes emissions reductions expected from existing state and federal regulations.  The difference between the plan and the base—i.e., the future temperature savings directly attributable it drops to 0.009°C—let’s be generous and call that 0.01°C.  

It is global warming that causes the “climate change” that we will be “protected” from.  So, if the amount of saved warming can’t be detected (the cause), there will be no detectable alteration in the trajectory of related climate change (the effect).

For that, we award the Clean Power Plan a “Heavy Duty” spin cycle award.

  

Heavy Duty. Government regulations or treaties claiming to save the planet from certain destruction, but which actually accomplish nothing. Can also apply to important UN climate confabs, such as Copenhagen 2009 (or, quite likely, the upcoming 2015 Paris Summit), that are predicted to result in a massive, sweeping, and world-saving new treaty, followed by self-congratulatory back-patting. Four spin cycles.

 *Model for the Assessment of Greenhouse-Gas Induced Climate Change

 

The Spin Cycle is a reoccurring feature based upon just how much the latest weather or climate story, policy pronouncement, or simply poo-bah blather spins the truth. Statements are given a rating between 1-5 spin cycles, with less cycles meaning less spin. For a more in-depth description, visit the inaugural edition.

—

President Obama is keen on calling carbon dioxide emitted from our nation’s fossil fuel-powered energy production, “carbon pollution.” For example, last week, when introducing EPA’s Clean Power Plan—new regulations limiting carbon dioxide emissions from the power plants that currently produce 67 percent of the country’s electricity—he used the term “carbon pollution” ten times. For example:

Right now, our power plants are the source of about a third of America’s carbon pollution. That’s more pollution than our cars, our airplanes and our homes generate combined. That pollution contributes to climate change, which degrades the air our kids breathe. But there have never been federal limits on the amount of carbon that power plants can dump into the air. Think about that. We limit the amount of toxic chemicals like mercury and sulfur and arsenic in our air or our water – and we’re better off for it. But existing power plants can still dump unlimited amounts of harmful carbon pollution into the air. [emphasis added]

Clearly, he is trying to paint a picture for the American public whereby carbon dioxide emissions are thought of as dirty, noxious substances that invade the air we breathe and make us sick. Who wouldn’t support regulation to try to limit such a menace?

But, this is scientifically inaccurate and, no doubt, intentionally misleading. It reflects poorly on the president and on his scientific advisors.

First and foremost, carbon dioxide is a colorless, odorless gas that is non-toxic to humans at concentrations below some tens of thousands of parts per million (ppm). The current carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere is 400 ppm and even worst case projections by the end of the century only put the concentration at 800-1000ppm. This is still some 5-6 times below the government’s recommended exposure limits. No one breathing open, well-mixed air* has ever been sickened from breathing carbon dioxide—nor ever will be.

Secondly, far from being sickened, the planet’s plant life is invigorated by carbon dioxide—the more the merrier. High concentrations (~1,000ppm) of carbon dioxide are routinely used in commercial greenhouses to produce faster growing and more robust plants. Scientific studies have shown that as carbon dioxide concentrations rise, plants become more resilient to environmental stressors, more efficient in their use of water, and more productive. A recent estimate has pegged the economic contribution of human carbon dioxide emissions to date, acting via increased crop production, at $3.2 trillion over the past 50 years and estimates an additional $10 trillion by mid-century. Pretty good for a “harmful” pollutant.

Thirdly, referring to carbon dioxide as “carbon pollution” is just plain scientifically inaccurate.

A carbon dioxide molecule is made up of two atoms of oxygen and one atom of carbon. Under the president’s apparent logic, wouldn’t it be twice as apt to term carbon dioxide “oxygen pollution”? But, we think, everyone would agree that would be deeply misinformative. So, too, everyone should agree, is applying the term “carbon pollution.”

In fact, carbon pollution already exists—it is more commonly called “soot,” the tiny elemental carbon particles that result from incomplete combustion. Soot is black, dirty, and oily, and not only makes an environmental mess, but is also dangerous to breathe. It is just what you expect a “pollutant” to be. And, it is already highly regulated by the EPA. So Obama’s statement that “existing power plants can still dump unlimited amounts of harmful carbon pollution into the air” is factually incorrect.

And finally, the carbon dioxide emitted from power plants is part and parcel of the chemistry of combustion. It is not some sort or gas or particle that is produced as a result of impurities in the fuels and can be separated from the process—it IS the process. Adding heat to hydrocarbons, such as fossil fuels (like coal, natural gas, or oil) in the presence of oxygen starts a chemical reaction that releases more heat (in excess of what was original applied) along with carbon dioxide and water (CO₂, and H₂O)**. Consequently, the power plants that the President refers to as being able to “dump unlimited amounts of harmful carbon pollution into the air” aren’t so much polluting as simply doing their job, the one that we ask of them—to produce the power that drives modern society and our way of life.

By calling carbon dioxide emissions “carbon pollution” President Obama and his EPA seek not to be scientifically accurate, but rather to sway public opinion in support of voluminous regulations aimed to restrict energy choice, not only here, but through his leadership aspirations, abroad (e.g., at the upcoming UN climate conference this December in Paris). For this, we award him 2.5 spin cycles—somewhere between Slightly Soiled and Normal Wash—in other words, the standard modus operandi of the federal government.

*There have been documented, although quite rare, occurrences of sudden carbon dioxide outgassing events associated with volcanic activity that have led to high fatalities in affected areas.

** In fact, it is similar to the process your body uses to power itself (in this case metabolism rather than combustion), breaking apart carbohydrates into carbon dioxide and water and liberating energy. Just as power plants emit H₂O and CO₂ into the air, so do you. The biggest difference, from a climate standpoint anyway, is that the carbohydrates you ingest were taken out of the air recently by plants (via photosynthesis), while the hydrocarbons ingested by power plants were taken out of the air by plants millions of years ago (and have been geologically converted and stored in the form of fossil fuels). Consequently, the collective breath of humanity does not lead to a build-up of CO₂ in the atmosphere, whereas the collective breath of fossil fuel-powered electricity generating facilities does.

Letter to Editor PREDICTED COLORADO EPA SPILL One Week Before Catastrophe=> So EPA Could Secure Superfund Status. Typical Obama administration. If there isn’t a problem, create one so you can use it to get your way.

A reader sent me this:  A recent McKinsey study looked at large infrastructure projects (over $1 billion).  In the introduction they observe:

Rail projects, for example, go over budget by an average of 44.7 percent, and their demand is overestimated by 51.4 percent.

We actually can combine these two numbers and find that the total cost per user of these systems was over-estimated by 117%, meaning the cost per user was on averagemore than double what was promised when these projects are sold to the taxpayers.

At the end of the day, the first segment of the line cost $75,000 per round trip daily raider.  We could have bought every regular rider a prius and a lifetime of gas and still saved money.

Is the distracted citizenry beginning to wake up? We can only hope so. Giving hope to Americans everywhere, after covering the usual local news, Orlando-area news anchor John Brown was transitioning into a segment about one of the Kardashian daughters recently naming her new pet rabbit "Bruce," he stood up and walked off set exclaiming, "I am having a good Friday, so I refuse to talk about the Kardashians today, you are on your own, Amy. I can’t do it." As the program’s co-host storms off set, he can be heard off-screen shouting, "I’ve had enough Kardashians. I can’t take any more Kardashian stories on this show." A message many may start to heed...

 

See full clip here...

 

As TheAntiMedia.org reports,

How many people do you know that would agree with the following statement? “I’ve had enough of the Kardashians…I’m sick of this family! (They’re) a non-story!” I believe most of us, including myself, would shout “amen” at the top of their lungs like it’s a Sunday in the South if we heard someone in the media utter those words. Well, get ready to holler.

 

The above exclamations are actually direct quotes spoken by Orlando-area news anchor John Brown during a live broadcast of “Good Day Orlando” on Friday.

 

After covering the usual local news, the show began to transition into a segment about one of the Kardashian daughters recently naming her new pet rabbit “Bruce.” (Just typing that sentence made me want to launch my fist into the computer screen where my pupils are currently fixated. Rest assured, I’m still typing, so I obviously mustered up all of the self-control in my being and refrained.) That’s when Brown interrupted the correspondent reporting the “story” in mid-sentence:

 

“I am having a good Friday, so I refuse to talk about the Kardashians today,” said Brown. “You are on your own, Amy. I can’t do it.”

 

As the program’s co-host storms off set, he can be heard off-screen shouting, “I’ve had enough Kardashians. I can’t take any more Kardashian stories on this show.”

 

After a replacement anchor rushes in to fill the void left on the morning show’s couch, the fed-up Brown — whose microphone stays on despite walking off set — can be heard continuing his rant away from the cameras: “I don’t care about this family. I’m sick of this family. It’s a non-story!”

 

The initial member of the news team that introduced the story agreed with Brown’s sentiments, but continued to talk about the Kardashians anyway.

 

Brown later posted video of his outburst on Facebook, saying, “Sorry I lost my mind a bit, although it was partially in jest!... I did feel better though after I was done though.”

 

All-in-all, I would say Mr. Brown kept his composure and handled the situation better than most people given the task of reading celebrity gossip disguised as news for a living.

*  *  *

Kaibab squirrel, North Rim, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, October 4, 2011

Kaibab squirrel (Wikipedia)

The Kaibab squirrel (Sciurus aberti kaibabensis) is a tassel-eared squirrel that lives in the Kaibab Plateau in the Southwest United States, in an area of 20 by 40 miles (30 by 60 km). The squirrel’s habitat is confined entirely to the ponderosa pine forests of the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park and the northern section of Kaibab National Forest around the town of Jacob Lake, Arizona.

This squirrel is not found anywhere else in the world. In 1965, 200,000 acres (800 km²) of Kaibab squirrel habitat within Grand Canyon National Park and Kaibab National Forest were declared the Kaibab Squirrel National Natural Landmark.

My headline is probably the most accurate description of how China's devaluation of the yuan yesterday affects this country.  But I bet you will not see it portrayed that way in any other media.  What you are going to see, particularly as the Presidential election races heat up, are multiple calls to bash China in some way to punish it for being so generous to American consumers.  Why?  Because the devaluation of the yuan will negatively affect the bottom line of a few export sensitive companies.  And if we have learned anything from the Ex-Im battle, things that GE and Boeing like or hate are much more likely to affect policy than things that benefit 300 million consumers.  Make no mistake, protectionist measures are the worst sort of cronyism, benefiting a few companies and workers and hurting everyone else (look up concentrated benefits, dispersed costs).

By the way, aren't the worldwide competitive devaluation sweepstakes amazing?  If everyone is doing it, then devaluations have no substantive effect on trade (except to perhaps decrease its magnitude in total), which just adds to the utter pointlessness of the game.  And it is hilarious to me to see US elected officials criticizing China for "manipulating" its currency, as if the US Fed hasn't added several trillion dollars to its balance sheet over the last few years in a heroic attempt to manipulate the value (downwards) of our own currency.

Today is Milton Friedman’s birthday — he was born on July 31 in 1912 and would have been 103 years old today. Unfortunately, Milton died on November 16, 2006 when he was 94 years old. In an editorial in the Wall Street Journal following Professor Friedman’s death, they reported his loss with the same tribute Milton used when Ronald Reagan died, saying “few people in human history have contributed more to the achievement of human freedom.” In honor of his legacy and birthday, here are some of my favorite Milton Friedman quotes:

1. There is nothing as permanent as a temporary government program.

2. Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.

3. Inflation is caused by too much money chasing after too few goods.

4. Sloppy writing reflects sloppy thinking.

5. All learning is ultimately self-learning.

6. I’m in favor of legalizing drugs. According to my values system, if people want to kill themselves, they have every right to do so. Most of the harm that comes from drugs is because they are illegal.

7. Nobody spends somebody else’s money as carefully as he spends his own. Nobody uses somebody else’s resources as carefully as he uses his own. So if you want efficiency and effectiveness, if you want knowledge to be properly utilized, you have to do it through the means of private property.

8. The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.

9. The Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy.

10. The high rate of unemployment among teenagers, and especially black teenagers, is both a scandal and a serious source of social unrest. Yet it is largely a result of minimum wage laws. We regard the minimum wage law as one of the most, if not the most, anti-black laws on the statute books.

11. Industrial progress, mechanical improvement, all of the great wonders of the modern era have meant relatively little to the wealthy. The rich in Ancient Greece would have benefited hardly at all from modern plumbing: running servants replaced running water. Television and radio? The patricians of Rome could enjoy the leading musicians and actors in their home, could have the leading actors as domestic retainers. Ready-to-wear clothing, supermarkets — all these and many other modern developments would have added little to their life. The great achievements of Western capitalism have redounded primarily to the benefit of the ordinary person. These achievements have made available to the masses conveniences and amenities that were previously the exclusive prerogative of the rich and powerful.

12. President Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.”… Neither half of that statement expresses a relation between the citizen and his government that is worthy of the ideals of free men in a free society. “What your country can do for you” implies that the government is the patron, the citizen the ward. “What you can do for your country” assumes that the government is the master, the citizen the servant.

13. On the difference between public vs. private education: “Try talking French with someone who studied it in public school. Then with a Berlitz graduate.”

14. ‘Fair’ is in the eye of the beholder; ‘free’ is the verdict of the market. The word ‘free’ is used three times in the Declaration of Independence and once in the First Amendment to the Constitution, along with ‘freedom.’ The word ‘fair’ is not used in either of our founding documents.

15. What most people really object to when they object to a free market is that it is so hard for them to shape it to their own will. The market gives people what the people want instead of what other people think they ought to want. At the bottom of many criticisms of the market economy is really lack of belief in freedom itself.

16. The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus. Einstein didn’t construct his theory under order from a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn’t revolutionize the automobile industry that way. In the only cases in which the masses have escaped from grinding poverty, the only cases in recorded history are where they’ve had capitalism and largely free trade. If you want to know where the masses are worst off, it’s exactly in the kinds of societies that depart from that, so that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear: that there is no alternative way so far discovered of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by a free enterprise system.

17. The problem of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm; capitalism is that kind of a system.

18. With some notable exceptions, businessmen favor free enterprise in general but are opposed to it when it comes to themselves.

19. The case for prohibiting drugs is exactly as strong and as weak as the case for prohibiting people from overeating.

20. The government has no more right to tell me what goes into my mouth [including illegal drugs] than it has to tell me what comes out of my mouth.

Bonus: You’ll find a great collection here of more than 30 Milton Friedman videos (the “Milton Friedman Speaks” lectures) on a variety of topics including “What is America?”, “Is Capitalism Humane?”, free trade, energy policy, the role of government in a free society, education and vouchers, the rights of workers, consumer protection, equality and freedom, and the future of our free society.

The post Happy 103rd birthday, Milton Friedman appeared first on AEI.

Problem: Long waits at the DMV

Solution: Triple the size of the waiting room

God forbid anyone would rethink an incredibly dysfunctional process.

Last year, when Congress did a 1-year renewal of legislation governing public recreation and fee policies (FLREA) they left out a tiny provision that discouraged government agencies from taking back tasks they had privatized.  With that gone, parts of the USFS immediately began to move to bring certain operations back in house, even when doing so required that they both spend more tax money AND reduce services levels to the public.  Such is the strength of incentives in any government bureaucracy to expand their scope, staffing, and budget, even when it makes no sense for the public.

This week in an article at PERC, I tell one such story in depth. Here is an excerpt:

Consider one example: The Tahoe National Forest in California recently took the operation of some of their parks out of private hands, ending a nearly 30-year partnership with one of our competitor companies.

Did the Forest Service do it to save money? The private concessionaire operated entirely with the user fees paid by visitors, using no taxpayer money, and even paid rent back to the government. The agency’s in-house operating plan for running these campgrounds requires at least $2 million in taxpayer money over the next five years to supplement user fees.

Did they do it to improve service? The private concessionaire employed more than 60 paid workers living on site, with managers who worked weekends and holidays. The Forest Service plan calls for half this number of paid employees, and none will live on site or work weekends—the busiest time for recreation.

Did they do it to address some egregious for-profit abuse? The agency is actually planning to replace dozens of paid private workers with volunteers. At the same time that the federal government is mandating higher minimum wages for campground concessionaires, the Forest Service is replacing paid workers with unpaid labor.

Did the Forest Service do it to keep user fees low? The original stated reason for kicking out the private operator was the concessionaire’s request to increase user fees in response to recent increases in California’s minimum wage. In the end, however, the Forest Service raised fees even higher than those proposed by the concessionaire.

John Scalzi tries to explain privilege to non-SJW-types by saying that being a white male is like playing life on "easy" difficulty.

I'll grant I benefited from a lot of things growing up others may not have had.  I had parents that set high standards, taught me a work ethic, taught me the value of education, had money, and helped send me to Ivy League schools (though the performance there, I would argue, was all my own).

Well, for those of you concerned about living down a similar life of privilege, I have a solution for you: start a business.  Doing so instantly converted me into a hated abused underclass.  Every government agency I work with treats me with a presumption of guilt -- when I get called by the California Department of Labor, I am suddenly the young black man in St. Louis called out on the street by an angry and unaccountable cop**.  Every movie and TV show and media outlet portrays me as a villain.  Every failing in the economy is somehow my fault.   When politicians make a proposal, it almost always depends on extracting something by force from me -- more wages for certain employees, more health care premiums, more hours of paperwork to comply with arcane laws, and always more taxes.

Postscript:  I will add an alternative for younger readers -- there is also a way to play college on a higher difficulty:  Try to be a vocal male libertarian there.  Write editorials for the paper that never get published.  Sit through hours of mindless sensitivity training explaining all the speech limitations you must live with on campus.  Learn how you can be charged with rape if your sex partner regrets the sex months later.  Wonder every time you honestly answer a question in class from a libertarian point of view if you are killing any chance of getting a good grade in that course.  Live every moment in a stew of intellectual opinion meant mainly to strip you of your individual liberties, while the self-same authoritarians weep and cry that your observation that minimum wage laws hurt low-skilled workers somehow is an aggression against them.

 

** OK, this is an exaggeration.  I won't likely get shot.  I don't want to understate how badly abused a lot of blacks and Hispanics are by the justice system.   I would much rather be in front of the DOL than be a Mexican ziptied by Sheriff Joe.  But it does give one the same feeling of helplessness, of inherent unfairness, of the unreasoning presumption of guilt and built-in bias.

The post The pen appeared first on Fredo and Pidjin. The Webcomic..

It isn’t every day that a person can go to his or her job, work, not participate in any criminal activity, and still get a prison sentence. At least, that used to be the case: the overcriminalization of regulatory violations has unfortunately led to the circumstance that corporate managers now face criminal—not just civil—liability for their business operations’ administrative offenses.

Take Austin and Peter DeCoster, who own and run an Iowa egg-producing company called Quality Egg. The DeCosters plead guilty to violating certain provisions of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act because some of the eggs that left their facilities contained salmonella enteritidis, a bacterium harmful to humans. They were sentenced to 90 days in jail and fined $100,000 for the actions of subordinates, who apparently failed, also unknowingly, in their quality-control duties.

In other words, the “crime” that the DeCosters were convicted of didn’t require them to have put eggs with salmonella into interstate commerce, or even to have known (or reasonably been able to foresee) that Quality Egg was putting such eggs into interstate commerce. It didn’t even require the quality-control operator(s) most directly involved in putting the contaminated eggs into interstate commerce to have known that they were contaminated.

Nearly a century of jurisprudence has held that imprisoning corporate officers for the actions of subordinates is constitutionally suspect, given that there’s neither mens rea (a guilty mind) nor even a guilty act—the traditional benchmarks of criminality since the days of Blackstone. Yet there are about 300,000 regulations that can trigger criminal sanctions. These rules are too often ambiguous or arcane, and many lack any requirement of direct participation or knowledge, imposing strict liability on supervisors for the actions (or inactions) of their subordinates.

In United States v. Quality Egg, the district court ruled that courts have previously held that “short jail sentence[s]” for strict-liability crimes are the sort of “relatively small” penalties that don’t violate constitutional due process.  Such a sentence has only been imposed once in the history of American jurisprudence, however, and for a much shorter time on defendants with much more direct management of the underlying bad acts. Additionally, prison is not the sort of “relatively small” penalty—like a fine or probation—that the Supreme Court has allowed for offenses that lack a guilty mind requirement.

Joining the National Association of Manufacturers, Cato points out in an amicus brief supporting the DeCosters’ appeal that this case presents an opportunity for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit to join its sister court, the Eleventh Circuit, in holding that prison sentences constitute a due-process violation when applied to corporate officers being charged under a strict-liability regulatory regime.

Submitted by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

On January 31, 1940, the very first Social Security check ever delivered went to Ms. Ida May Fuller, a former legal secretary who had recently retired.

 

Ms. Fuller had spent just three years paying into the system, contributing a total of $24.75 to Social Security.

 

Yet her first check was for nearly that entire amount. Quite a return on investment.

 

She went on to live past 100, collecting a total of $22,888.92, over 900 times the amount she contributed to the program. Her story is quite the metaphor.

If you’re not familiar, Social Security is comprised of two primary trust funds: Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) and Disability Insurance (DI).

Essentially, all of the taxes paid in to Social Security end up in one of these two trust funds.

The trust funds then ‘manage’ the money to generate a rate of return, and then pay out distributions to program recipients.

Now, the funds are overseen by a Board of Trustees which is obliged to submit an annual report on the fiscal condition of the program. It ain’t pretty.

The Disability Insurance (DI) fund is particularly ugly. In fact, the trustees themselves wrote in the 2015 annual report that

“[T]he DI Trust Fund fails the Trustee’s short-range test of financial adequacy. . .”

 

and,

 

“The DI Trust Fund reserves are expected to deplete in the fourth quarter of 2016…”

In other words, one of the two Social Security trust funds is just months away from insolvency.

When people think about Social Security, they think that all the problems are decades away.

Wrong. This is next year.

The other trust fund, OAS, is projected to “become depleted and unable to pay scheduled benefits in full on a timely basis in 2034.”

Which means that if you’re 47 or younger, you can kiss Social Security goodbye.

Bear in mind, these aren’t my calculations. Nor are they any wild assertions. They’re direct quotes from the trustees themselves.

And, just who are these trustees? The Secretary of the Treasury of the United States of America. The Labor Secretary. The Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Some of the most senior officials in the US government sign their name to an official report stating that these funds are nearly insolvency– one of them even NEXT YEAR.

Not to worry, though. Congress is on the case.

Late last week, several dozen members of Congress introduced the “One Social Security Act”, HR 3150, to solve this problem.

And let me tell you, their solution is bold. Fearless. And brilliant.

HR 3150 attacks the looming insolvency of Disability Insurance by eliminating the fund altogether.

So instead of having two separate funds for two distinct purposes of Social Security, the legislation aims to combine them into one unified fund.

That way, with just one fund, there won’t be any separate reporting about DI’s insolvency.

It’s genius! They make the problem go away by eliminating the requirement to report it.

There’s just one small issue. Legally, they have a word for this. It’s called fraud.

You and I would go to prison if we commingled funds like this. But in the hallowed halls of Congress, this is what passes as a solution.

This is so typical– solving problems by pretending that they don’t exist and destroying any element of transparency and accountability.

This pretty much tells you everything you need to know about government.

Look, it’s a hard reality to swallow. But the government’s own data show that these programs are not going to be there for you.

And the story smacking us in the face right now demonstrates precisely how politicians intend on ‘solving’ the problems.

These people aren’t the solution. They’re the problem.

And don’t think that ‘voting the bums out’ will affect anything. Elections merely change the players, not the game.

The only way forward is to invest in yourself, particularly in your business and financial education. Make plans based on the assumption that Social Security doesn’t exist.

And if, by some miracle, it’s still there by the time you retire, you won’t be worse off for having built a larger nest egg thanks to the financial acumen you developed.

(photo illustration; original by Balansboy)

Elio Motors announced earlier this week that it has received “non-binding indications of interest” valued over $25MM through its initial crowdfunding campaign on StartEngine. To date, the company has received $25,436,650 from 6,773 people, averaging $3,755 per person, and will continue to take additional expressions of interest while working with the SEC on next steps. It will eventually proceed with filing an offering statement and will begin to make a formal stock offer to interested investors after approval. 

The Arizona-based company will partner with Fiat subsidiary, Comau, to build its three wheeled vehicles that are expected to retail for $6,800 and achieve up to 84 MPG at a former General Motors factory located in Shreveport, LA. Elio plans to employ around 1,500 people and will start building the cars for the public in 2016. Over 43,000 reservations for the vehicle have been made so far.

Elio’s crowdfunding campaign was made possible on June 19, when Reg A+ of the JOBS Act Title IV went into effect, enabling private companies to raise capital of up to $50 million from both accredited and non-accredited investors. The company, however, ran into issues during its campaign when it started noticing several potential investors it deemed suspect based on newly created email addresses and dollar amounts.  

The unconventional design of the vehicle places it under the US government’s motorcycle classification, and even though the company has successfully lobbied in most states to alter regulations that would otherwise require drivers to wear a helmet, you’d still need to wear one in Nebraska, Missouri, Mississippi, West Virginia, and North Carolina – mainly because those states want you to look even more ridiculous while straining the car’s three-cylinder, 55 HP engine down the highway. 

[original]

EquityNet | Business Angel Investor Portal

The "shoot first, ask for immunity later" mentality of today's law enforcement officers is perfectly highlighted in this story about a US military veteran finding himself on the receiving end of a military-style raid… all because a "helpful" neighbor reported him for being in the "wrong" apartment. (via Amy Alkon)

Alex Horton, an Iraq war veteran, was having some work done on his apartment. During the repairs, his landlord put him up in a "model unit." He fell asleep in an apartment otherwise known to be unoccupied. A passing neighbor apparently saw him in the apartment through the cracked door and reported this to the police. What happened next was standard operating procedure -- both for the US military and US law enforcement.

I got home from the bar and fell into bed soon after Saturday night bled into Sunday morning. I didn’t wake up until three police officers barged into my apartment, barking their presence at my door. They sped down the hallway to my bedroom, their service pistols drawn and leveled at me.

It was just past 9 a.m., and I was still under the covers. The only visible target was my head.

In the shouting and commotion, I felt an instant familiarity. I’d been here before. This was a raid.

I had done this a few dozen times myself, 6,000 miles away from my Alexandria, Va., apartment. As an Army infantryman in Iraq, I’d always been on the trigger side of the weapon. Now that I was on the barrel side, I recalled basic training’s most important firearm rule: Aim only at something you intend to kill.

The militarization of police goes far beyond simply arming them with the military's leftover vehicles and weapons. It also informs their tactics. But law enforcement only cherry-picks what it likes about the military. Horton's article for the Washington Post points out that law enforcement officers don't handle their weapons like military members do. Soldiers are taught that guns are deadly and should only be pointed at targets the soldier intends to kill. Police officers are taught to use their guns for intimidation, without nearly as much attention paid to drilling home the point that guns are deadly and should be respected -- especially by the ones wielding them.

[Erik] Rhoads, the Fairfax County police lieutenant, was upfront about this mind-set. He explained that it was standard procedure to point guns at suspects in many cases to protect the lives of police officers. Their firearm rules were different from mine; they aimed not to kill but to intimidate. According to reporting by The Washington Post, those rules are established in police training, which often emphasizes a violent response over deescalation. Recruits spend an average of eight hours learning how to neutralize tense situations; they spend more than seven times as many hours at the weapons range.

This is what turns a report of a squatter in an apartment into a fully-armed raid. It didn't have to be this way. This "situation" could have been defused at any point before the officers rushed into the apartment with weapons drawn. The security guard at the complex could have been asked about the person in the model apartment. The apartment's owner and management could have provided helpful information as well. But no one -- not even Shift Commander Erik Rhoads -- even considered arming police officers with additional information. They had guns and the authority to use them. That was enough.

When I later visited the Fairfax County police station to gather details about what went wrong, I met the shift commander, Lt. Erik Rhoads. I asked why his officers hadn’t contacted management before they raided the apartment. Why did they classify the incident as a forced entry, when the information they had suggested something innocuous? Why not evaluate the situation before escalating it?

Rhoads defended the procedure, calling the officers’ actions “on point.” It’s not standard to conduct investigations beforehand because that delays the apprehension of suspects, he told me.

It also delays the apprehension -- the violent apprehension, I might add -- of non-suspects, as was the case with Horton. It instead expedites the sort of stupidity that would be comical if it weren't so dangerous for everyone involved. The willful ignorance of situations, explained away by the "need" to swiftly apprehend criminals, leads to more death and violence. And not just for "suspects." It makes the situation more dangerous for cops as well. It's as if modern law enforcement agencies view the "fog of war" as a tactical advantage, even though nothing about the history of that terms suggests it has ever been viewed that way by actual combatants.

This is an astounding admission. Rhoads, a commanding officer, is willing to purposefully endanger his own officers in the pursuit of a few more busts. His officers, apparently, are more than willing to be abused in this fashion, as long as it means they can dress up in tactical gear and yell a lot while pointing guns at people. Beyond that, though, he's willing to willfully endanger the public by purposefully avoiding any information-gathering that might make these interactions safer for both his officers and those they seek.

Rhoads' statement explains why flashbang grenades get tossed into toddlers' cribs. In the haste to bust someone responsible for $50 worth of drug sales, facts were withheld and investigative reconnaissance of the residence kept to a minimum. It allowed the raiding officers to operate with a minimum of concern for the occupants. All they had to know was "no-knock" and "drug dealer." Everything else was irrelevant.

Deployed troops are put into extremely dangerous situations every day and yet they are expected to maintain relationships with the people in the areas they patrol and not assume every tense situation can only be defused by gunfire. Back in the US where the streets are infinitely safer, the opposite is true. Force and aggression are the favored tactics and an officer's life is valued above all others. This isn't how policing is supposed to work and it betrays the public these officers are supposed to serve.

I understood the risks of war when I enlisted as an infantryman. Police officers should understand the risks in their jobs when they enroll in the academy, as well. That means knowing that personal safety can’t always come first. That is why it’s service. That’s why it’s sacrifice.

Here in the US, it's the public that's expected to make these sacrifices. A "civilian" is expected to die before an officer does and collateral damage is not only to be expected, it's wholly encouraged by those with the same mentality as Lt. Erik Rhoads.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

This KLM pilot nails it at Schipol airport in Amsterdam—and any passengers who refused to stash their stuff were likely nailed by their iPads during rapid corrections in 60MPH cross-winds. Read the rest

Still no time to blog, but I drew a monster truck driving manatee ramming a rocket sled pulled by a chainsaw wielding velociraptor.

And then Jack makes it look good.

I tend to agree. As state and local money gets tighter, something is going to give. And one of those things is going to be the public schools, because kids don't vote and elderly Boomers are much more concerned about keeping the public money flowing in their direction than they are about the future:

Public education is losing ground. It is being undermined at every turn. This is due to more than the Christian contingent. People everywhere are taking control of their children’s education. The Internet is making this possible. As time marches on, tools and information will be even more accessible. This trend will not be reversed.

Why not? Funding. The system takes gobs of money. Gobs. It inhales taxpayer money and then wastes it like any other bureaucratic welfare-state system does.

Resources flee over time from those individuals and institutions that misallocate capital. Competition eats them alive. Resources also flee over time from individuals and institutions that break God’s law. By giving the state jurisdiction over the education of our children, this is exactly what we have done over the last 300 years. We have already paid for that choice. We have more to pay. In the meantime, the institution is coming to an end.

Sometimes, good things happen for bad reasons. The end of the 18th century indoctrination system imported from Germany is an idea whose time has long past. Technology and economics are in the process of killing it.

Automattic, the company behind blogging platform Wordpress, continues to prove that just because the issuing of DMCA takedown notices has largely been handed over to automated processes, the response doesn't need to be similarly robotic.

Its latest transparency report shows it has rejected 43% of the DMCA notices it has received as either incomplete or abusive. Contrast this to almost any other platform where the initial response is to take down content/links first and work backwards from there. (Contrast this further to services like YouTube and Soundcloud, where content is subjected to automated pre-screening that seems to result in just as many illegitimate "removals.")

Automattic's DMCA process is anything but.

We carefully review each notice to ensure it’s formally complete, and includes all information required by the DMCA, before taking action. Notices that don’t meet the requirements of the statute are included in ‘notices rejected as incomplete.’

We also may decline to remove content if a notice is abusive. “Abusive” notices may be formally complete, but are directed at fair use of content, material that isn’t copyrightable, or content the complaining party misrepresents ownership of a copyright.

In an effort to keep the worst abusers "honest" (or at least warn others performing the same intermediary functions), Automattic continues to maintain a "Hall of Shame" highlighting issuers of bogus takedown notices.

So, there's at least one major platform that has its users' backs -- something it has taken as far as the filing of lawsuits against serial abusers. And it's one of the few that will actually try to determine whether or not the usage of the disputed content falls under fair use. Automattic seems to have learned from its past mistakes, and now it's attempting to hold rightsholders and their representatives to the same standard it applies to itself. If content is going to be removed, the person(s) making these demands need to hold up their end of the bargain.

DMCA abuse isn't likely to stop anytime soon. The process to issue notices continues to become more streamlined, which puts even more non-infringing content at risk. On top of that, the automated processes used to compile lists of "infringing" URLs continues to be error-prone. This wouldn't be an issue if the companies providing these services to rightsholders spent a little (or any) time giving the notices a once-over before sending them out. The failure to do so not only has the potential to remove non-infringing content, but also to screw the same people they're supposed to be protecting -- not just in terms of reputation, but also financially.

A brief perusal of DMCA notices issued to Google finds multiple examples of non-infringing content being targeted by flaky automated processes. It also shows rightsholders are being billed for largely useless takedown requests filled with URLs covered in previous requests by the same company.

This recent request by IFPI Latin America contains 237 URLs --- 236 of which were already delisted in response to earlier requests.


This is far from uncommon and pretty much amounts to double billing. Even in cases where rightsholders pay a monthly or yearly fee rather than per DMCA takedown, it's still wasted money. While it's obviously easier to let machines do the work and humans to collect the paychecks, nothing about an automated copyright takedown notice process contributes anything towards healthier respect for the idea itself, or the creations protected by it.

Automattic, on the other hand, will continue to gather respect from its users and potential customers around the world simply by refusing to lay out a WELCOME mat for our new DMCA robot overlords.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

(Don Boudreaux)

Tweet

morganovich e-mailed me after reading my most-recent note in response to Aaron the Aaron.  Here’s the bulk of morganovich’s e-mail, shared here with his kind permission (original emphasis):

If I may, I’d like to propose another line of reasoning:

It is precisely the fact that (as all seem to agree) that these academics “have no skills to run a business” that renders them unqualified to render judgements about the monopsony power of such businesses.

It seems we have 2 possible states of the world:

1.      Academics understand business, its decisions, its challenges, and what the world looks like from a CEO or a HR chair.  in such a case, they would seem qualified to speak to the power such a business has around hiring.  however, also in such a case, they can (justly) be taken to task for failing to put their money where their mouth is.  if this great opportunity exists and they understand the space well enough to see it, then failing to do something about it (even if it’s just consulting or joining a board) does seem to render the sincerity of their claims highly suspect.

2.      Academics do not understand business, its challenges etc and have NO IDEA what the world looks like from the operating side.  in such a case, they are speaking of something they have just admitted they do not understand.  their beliefs about monopsony may well be utterly sincere, but there is no reason why we ought to give them much credence.  they have already told us these are the beliefs of someone who does not understand the subject matter.  I may have some very sincere beliefs about how to remove a tumor.  but, before taking my advice, any sane individual might ask “have you ever performed surgery?”  and upon receiving my response in the negative, quite reasonably choose to heavily discount my advice and instead rely upon someone with actual experience.

Last minute evidence that completely turns a legal case on its head doesn't come about all that often -- despite what you see in Hollywood movies and TV shows. The discovery process in a lawsuit generally reveals most of the evidence revealed to everyone pretty early on. And yet... in the high profile lawsuit over the copyright status of the song "Happy Birthday," the plaintiffs "Good Morning to You Productions" (who are making a documentary about the song and are arguing that the song is in the public domain) have popped up with a last minute filing, saying they have just come across evidence that the song is absolutely in the public domain.

And, here's the real kicker: they discovered this bit of evidence after two questionable things happened. (1) Warner/Chappell Music (who claims to hold the copyright for the publishing, if it exists) suddenly "found" a bunch of relevant documents that it was supposed to hand over in discovery last year, but didn't until just a few weeks ago, and (2) a rather important bit of information in one of those new documents was somewhat bizarrely "blurred out." This led the plaintiffs go searching for the original, and discover that it undermines Warner Music's arguments, to the point of showing that the company was almost certainly misleading the court. Furthermore, it definitively shows that the work was and is in the public domain.

If you haven't been following the issue closely, there is actually a lot of evidence, much of it put together by Robert Brauneis, that the song really should be in the public domain. There are all sorts of questions raised about how it became covered by copyright in the first place. Everyone agrees the song was originally written as "Good Morning to All" in the late 1800s, but from there, there's lots of confusion and speculation as to how it eventually was given a copyright in 1935, granted to the Clayton F. Summy company. People have argued that the 1935 copyright was really just on a particular piano arrangement, but not the melody or lyrics to Happy Birthday To You -- which had both been around long before 1935.

Warner/Chappell has long argued that Summy Co never published or allowed anyone else to publish the lyrics to Happy Birthday, but that seems undone by this new evidence. And, again, it seems a bit odd that magically Warner/Chappell suddenly "found" a bunch of new evidence. As Good Morning to You Productions notes:

On July 13, 2015, Defendants gave Plaintiffs access to a database of approximately 500 pages of documents, including approximately 200 pages of documents they claim were “mistakenly” not produced during discovery, which ended on July 11, 2014, more than one year earlier.

So over a year later, and just weeks before the court was likely to rule on the matter, suddenly Warner finds stuff that was missing before? Okay. But it gets even stranger. Because one of the things in this very late data dump is a 1927 publication of the song Happy Birthday in "The Everyday Song Book." And, as the plaintiffs in the case note, there's a line right under the title song that "is blurred almost beyond legibility -- curiously it is the only line in the entire PDF that is blurred in that manner." Hmmm. Here's the image: Here's a closeup of the title and the "blurred line" right beneath the title: The plaintiffs found this odd and went on a search for the original copy of the Everyday Song Book, finding the edition that was shown in the documents (the 15th edition) as well as a few earlier editions, and a much clearer version: From there, you can see that the "blurred" line says that the song is published via:

Special permission through courtesy of The Clayton F Summy Co.

As the plaintiff notes, this is evidence that there is no copyright on the song. They also went back and found that this particular edition was not the first one in which the song appeared. Instead, it first appeared in the 4th edition, published in 1922, well before 1935. The key issue: the lack of a copyright notice. Today that wouldn't matter. But under the 1909 Copyright Act it matters quite a bit.

Under Section 9 of the 1909 Copyright Act, “any person entitled thereto by this Act may secure copyright for his work by publication thereof with the notice of copyright required by this Act” affixed to all copies of the work.... At a minimum, Section 18 of the 1909 Copyright Act required the notice to include the word “Copyright,” the abbreviation “Copr., ” or the “©” symbol as well as the year of first publication and the name of the author of the copyrighted work.... If the strict notice requirements of the 1909 Copyright Act were not met, the “published work was interjected irrevocably into the public domain.” Twin Books Corp. v. Walt Disney Co., 83 F.3d 1162, 1165 (9th Cir. 1996) (emphasis added). None of these notice requirements was met for the Good Morning and Birthday Song included in the fourth edition of The Everyday Song Book published in 1922.

In other words, it appears that the song was put into the public domain by 1922 at the latest. The plaintiffs argue that the lack of a copyright notice on the work shows that Patty Hill (who wrote the song) likely put the work into the public domain years earlier:

Publication of the Good Morning and Birthday Song in The Everyday Song Book in 1922 and thereafter, with Summy’s authorization but without a copyright notice, is fully consistent with Plaintiffs’ position that the Happy Birthday lyrics had been dedicated to the public many years before then. Because the lyrics were in the public domain, there was no reason for a copyright notice to be set forth in the song book. Moreover, the authorized publication of the Good Morning and Birthday Song in 1922 without a copyright notice also is fully consistent with Plaintiffs’ position that the 1935 copyrights (E51988 and E51990) covered only the specific piano arrangements written by Summy’s employees Orem and Forman (as well as the second verse written by Forman). Since the lyrics were already in the public domain long before 1935, there was nothing else to be copyrighted other than the new work that Summy’s employees contributed when those copyrights were registered.

The filing also notes that while the copyright on the compilation for the 1922 and 1927 publications could only cover the overall compilation, rather than the individual works, even so both copyrights have long since expired, so Warner/Chappell can't even claim that the copyrights for either compilation now lead to the copyright today.

In other words, there's pretty damning conclusive evidence that "Happy Birthday" is in the public domain and the Clayton Summy company knew it. Even worse, this shows that Warner/Chappel has long had in its possession evidence that the song was at least published in 1927 contrary to the company's own claims in court and elsewhere that the song was first published in 1935. We'll even leave aside the odd "blurring" of the songbook, which could just be a weird visual artifact. This latest finding at least calls into question how honest Warner/Chappel has been for decades in arguing that everyone needs to pay the company to license "Happy Birthday" even as the song was almost certainly in the public domain.

It's been reported for years that the company brings in somewhere around $2 million per year off of the song -- and it's looking like none of that money should have been paid.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story