for life and liberty

Philadelphia Borrows $50 Million So Its Schools Can Open on Time

"Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. said the $50 million was necessary to provide the minimum staffing needed for the basic safety of the district’s 136,000 students. In June, the district closed 24 schools and laid off 3,783 employees, including 127 assistant principals, 646 teachers and more than 1,200 aides, leaving no one even to answer phones. For a number of years, Mayor Michael A. Nutter and the City Council have been working, with some success and a fair amount of taxpayer pain, to shore up the city’s finances, which have been troubled by mounting debt, a shrinking tax base and unfunded pension and health care obligations to retirees." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingPhiladelphia Borrows $50 Million So Its Schools Can Open on Time

This is What Budget Cuts Have Done to Detroit … And It’s Freaking Awesome

"If our public servants are right, then chaos, anarchy and lawlessness should reign in Detroit now, right? Well, not exactly. Dale Brown and his organization, the Threat Management Center (TMC), have helped fill in the void left by the corrupt and incompetent city government. TMC now has a client base of about 1,000 private residences and over 500 businesses. Law enforcement isn't the only 'essential government service' that the private sector is taking over. The Detroit Bus Company (DBC) is a private bus service that began last year and truly shows a stark contrast in how the market and government operates." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingThis is What Budget Cuts Have Done to Detroit … And It’s Freaking Awesome

This is What Budget Cuts Have Done to Detroit … And It’s Freaking Awesome

"If our public servants are right, then chaos, anarchy and lawlessness should reign in Detroit now, right? Well, not exactly. Dale Brown and his organization, the Threat Management Center (TMC), have helped fill in the void left by the corrupt and incompetent city government. TMC now has a client base of about 1,000 private residences and over 500 businesses. Law enforcement isn't the only 'essential government service' that the private sector is taking over. The Detroit Bus Company (DBC) is a private bus service that began last year and truly shows a stark contrast in how the market and government operates." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingThis is What Budget Cuts Have Done to Detroit … And It’s Freaking Awesome

Carl Icahn, Takeover Man: 60 Minutes

"At age 76, Carl Icahn is still shaking up corporate boards, criticizing management and demanding board seats. His hedge fund was one of the top performers in 2011 and has a long term track record of approximately 30%pa. His conglomerate Icahn Enterprises, invests in rail cars, retail, gaming, energy and automotive. He insists that most public companies around the world are very inefficient and most can be improved with the correct strategies. A Princeton drop out he is now one of the longest standing and most successful corporate take over artists in the world." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingCarl Icahn, Takeover Man: 60 Minutes

A different world

"Official Tweets from the Seattle Police Department twitter feed: SPD Chief Jim Pugel was just driving down 4th Ave when he spotted a 79 Chevy w/fake pot leaves hanging from its rearview. Driver looked lost. That’s when Chief Pugel’s 30 years of policing experience kicked in. After stopping the car (which had out of state plates), Chief Pugel asked everyone in the car if they needed directions to Hempfest. Turns out they did." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingA different world

Mellow mood at first Seattle Hempfest since pot legalization

"In the mid-1990s, McPeak recalled, police at Hempfest conducted undercover buy-and-bust operations, periodically slapping handcuffs on vendors of pot brownies and removing them from the premises. But this year, instead of writing tickets for public pot smoking — which remains forbidden in the state — police were handing out about 1,000 bags of Doritos tortilla chips bearing information on the state’s pot laws. 'It feels great that instead of issuing citations for public smoking, the police are issuing Dorito bags,' McPeak said. 'That seems like a big deal.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingMellow mood at first Seattle Hempfest since pot legalization

Area 51 does exist and there were strange goings on admit CIA

"Its existence has been a badly kept secret for decades and it has fuelled the imaginations of conspiracy theorists and UFO hunters around the world. Now the existence of Area 51 has been officially acknowledged by the Central Intelligence Agency and its exact location revealed in Nevada. President Dwight Eisenhower approved 'this strip of wasteland, known by its map designation as Area 51, to the Atomic Energy Commissions Nevada test site and training range.' It then became central in the development of the U-2 spy plane. There are, however, some mentions of Area 51 that remain blanked out." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingArea 51 does exist and there were strange goings on admit CIA

Beam me over, Scotty? A quantum leap in quantum teleportation.

"Recently, researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETHZ) used entanglement to teleport information across a quarter inch. That sounds easy. After all, the internet sends information thousands of miles in fractions of a second. But this time, the information wasn't carried through the intervening space. Quantum computers are still only theoretical, but if engineering catches up with theory, then they could process enormously large datasets with blinding speed. This could make extraordinary things possible – even time travel, at least according to one hypothesis." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingBeam me over, Scotty? A quantum leap in quantum teleportation.

Fukushima scientists brace for riskiest nuclear fuel clean-up yet

"The operation, to remove 400 tons of highly irradiated spent fuel beneath the plant’s damaged Reactor No. 4, could set off a catastrophe greater than any we have ever seen, independent experts warn. An operation of this scale, says plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company, has never been attempted before. An uncontrolled leak of nuclear fuel could cause more radiation than the March 2011 disaster or the 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe. Here’s what needs to be done: more than 1,300 used fuel rod assemblies, packing radiation 14,000 times the equivalent of the Hiroshima nuclear bomb, need to carefully be removed from their cooling pool." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingFukushima scientists brace for riskiest nuclear fuel clean-up yet

Scientists emerge after 4 months of space-cooking for simulated Mars mission

"The team lived in a mock-up of a Mars vehicle that was positioned on the side of a Hawaiian volcano, where they experimented with different instant foods and other provisions. For 118 days, Vermeulen and his five team members experimented with a variety of non-perishable ingredients and kept detailed journals of their health, well-being, weight and body mass to determine what foods would be best for a manned Mars mission. NASA recently awarded a $125,000 grant to a researcher who is exploring the possibilities of 3-D printing as a means of producing nutritious, non-perishable foods." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingScientists emerge after 4 months of space-cooking for simulated Mars mission