Bloomberg: The unfolding disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant follows decades of falsified safety reports, fatal accidents and underestimated earthquake risk in Japan's atomic power industry.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Thursday, March 17, 2011
The problem with prescriptions for OTC products
WSJ: Patients are demanding doctors' orders for over-the-counter products because of a provision in the health-care overhaul that slipped past nearly everyone's radar. It says people who want a tax break to buy such items with what's known as flexible-spending accounts need to get a prescription first.
...
The IRS eventually decided the cards could be used—as long as the pharmacist labels and processes the over-the-counter item exactly like a prescription.
That had another unintended effect. Thousands of over-the-counter products now must pass behind the pharmacist's counter when the customer pays with the special debit card.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Big Brother in school
Daily Caller: Education Department officials are threatening school principals with lawsuits if they fail to monitor and curb students’ lunchtime chat and evening Facebook time for expressing ideas and words that are deemed by Washington special-interest groups to be harassment of some students.
The leading advocate for the expanded rules is Kevin Jennings, who heads the Education Department’s Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools. Jennings founded the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network advocacy group, and raised at least $100,000 for the Obama campaign in 2008.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Monday, March 14, 2011
Obama’s Social Security Hoax
Krauthammer has a nice explanation of the fictional Social Security "trust fund".
OPEC joins Pimco in cutting US dollars
Bloomberg: Oil-exporting countries are cutting holdings of U.S. government debt as energy prices rise, helping depress the dollar, the worst-performing major currency of the past six months.
Monday stuff
What Pi Sounds Like. (Today is Pi Day)
Gallery of Decorated Gas Tanks.
Infographic: "The Science Behind Traffic Jams"
How to Make a Laser From a Gin and Tonic.
Giant shoe car.
Five things you never knew about Pac-Man.
Science headline of the day. Maybe this will fix the problem.
Gallery of Decorated Gas Tanks.
Infographic: "The Science Behind Traffic Jams"
How to Make a Laser From a Gin and Tonic.
Giant shoe car.
Five things you never knew about Pac-Man.
Science headline of the day. Maybe this will fix the problem.
Evolving Surface of a 3D Fractal.
Thank God for evolution.
In international arms sales news, Lockheed Martin Tried to Trade F-16s for Frozen Chickens.
Export hopes for urine-boiled eggs.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Run, Democrats, run
Dr. Milton Wolf: You’d run too if you had to defend the failures of big government.
"The free market is the most powerful engine of human prosperity in the history of mankind and today’s Democrats stand desperately in its way to appease those who are enriched by big government at the expense of everyone else. It’s not by coincidence that the most prosperous and powerful nation the world has ever known grew out of the cradle of democracy. Freedom, after all, is the core of the free market. It’s the freedom for you to control your own resources and with them, your destiny. It’s the understanding of a simple concept that you can spend your own dollars more effectively than the government can spend them for you."
Water injected into troubled nuclear power plant to avert disaster
Japanese authorities scrambled Sunday to avert a nuclear disaster, injecting seawater into overheating reactors and relieving the pressure inside at a nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture that was hit and shut down by Friday's devastating earthquake.
Salman Khan: Let's use video to reinvent education
Video: Salman Khan talks about how and why he created the remarkable Khan Academy, a carefully structured series of educational videos offering complete curricula in math and, now, other subjects. He shows the power of interactive exercises, and calls for teachers to consider flipping the traditional classroom script -- give students video lectures to watch at home, and do "homework" in the classroom with the teacher available to help.
The White House's Green-Jobs Fantasies
John Stossel: Anyone who understands basic economics already knows that President Obama's $2.3 billion green-jobs initiative was snake oil. Now, thanks to Kenneth P. Green, we have statistics as well as theory to prove it.