Africa's Amazing Rise and What it Can Teach the World - G. Pascal Zachary - International - The Atlantic

Let's hope this continues and continues to expand. Having rapid growth when you're starting near zero doesn't mean much. It will take decades to pull Africa out. The key is to keep despotic governments at bay and to move from strength to strength. Right now, the greatest chance of sabotaging this growth lies with Africans themselves. All continents have faced the same pressures. The countries that move up and out of poverty are the ones that keep despots out of government. That was true in Europe (Spain, Greece offered as counter examples), Asia (almost everyone for decades), and Central and South America.

Instapundit

DOCUMENTS: Lightsquared Shaping Up As The FCC’s Solyndra. I think we’re going to find that every federal department has its own Solyndra.

Why does this remind me of...

...In a way, all of us have an el Guapo to face some day. For some, shyness might be their el Guapo. For others, a lack of education might be their el Guapo. For us, el Guapo is a big dangerous guy who wants to kill us.

I’m OK–You’re OK | Scott Johnson | Power Line

"Mitt is an inspirational candidate. The problem is that what he inspires is intense apathy..."

Lovely quote.

I don't know why exactly, but I really like their logo:

Interesting privacy points here.

The site itself of course is here.

Even Critics of Safety Net Increasingly Depend on It - NYTimes.com

You don't see a Lindstrom byline very often!

Unfortunately, the article's a piece of &^%$

And here's Powerline's take on the same piece.

I took this picture while driving down Highway 14 outside of Madison. Why?

A blow-up explains it:

As they say in the bird books, "unmistakable"

Sad eyed greens bemoan Obama energy remarks « Hot Air

I love this quote:

The pouting continues for some time, going on to blame the GOP for “hyperventilating” and “pounding the administration” over the failures at Solyndra. (Apparently things at the solar panel plant would have been just fine had it not been for you meddling conservative kids, Shaggy.) He then goes on to re-run the mantra that solar, wind and geothermal are ripe and ready to solve all of our problems if only Obama would act “forcefully and decisively” enough. (I assume some amount of clapping until Tinkerbell comes back to life will also be involved, but the author doesn’t specify.)

Some numbers:

$22,050	Poverty line for a family of 4.
$ 5,048	Earned Income Tax Credit for family of 4 making $22,050
$ 3,000	Estimated annual Food Stamps for Family of 4 making $22,050 ($250/month)
$ 1,080	School lunch benefit @ $3/day for 2 kids and 180 school days.
$ 7,951	Average employee contribution to health care for family of 4 (Medicaid benefit)
$39,129	Total effective income of family of 4 with $22,050 in wages.

And that's not counting eligibility for Section 8 housing vouchers. (The program has waiting lists and can be hard to get into.)

So, a family of 4 making $22,050 can have an effective income of 77% more than that amount, or $17,000 more. In fact, the median household income in the US is $31,111, so the "poverty line" denotes families which can make $8,000 more than the median.

Baby doesn't mind the cold...

Cops Believe North Carolina Inmate Hid 10-Inch Revolver In His Rectum. Luckily, It Was Unloaded.

You know, I don't believe it. This is a case where the simplest explanation is probably the right one. Which is more likely, the above scenario or that the jail was lazy, that everyone who checked him in assumed that the other guy had taken care of the search, and that the thing just slipped through the security system?

I wrote both of my senators and my representative about the copyright bills now before the Congress. Here's Diane Feinstein's response:

I received your letter expressing opposition to the "Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act," commonly known as the "PROTECT IP Act." I appreciate knowing your views on this matter.

The "PROTECT IP Act" (S. 968) gives both copyright and trademark owners and the U.S. Department of Justice the authority to take action against websites that are "dedicated to infringing activities." These are websites that have "no significant use other than engaging in, enabling, or facilitating" copyright infringement, the sale of goods with a counterfeit trademark, or the evasion of technological measures designed to protect against copying.

The bill does not violate First Amendment rights to free speech because copyright piracy is not speech.

America's copyright industry is an important economic engine, and I believe copyright owners should be able to prevent their works from being illegally duplicated and stolen. The protection of intellectual property is particularly vital to California's thriving film, music, and high-technology industries.

I understand you have concerns about the "PROTECT IP Act." While I voted in favor of this bill when it was before the Senate Judiciary Committee, I have also been working with California high-technology businesses to improve the bill and to address the concerns of high-tech businesses, public interest groups and others. I recognize the bill needs further changes to prevent it from imposing undue burdens on legitimate businesses and activities, and I will be working to make the improvements, either by working with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) or through amendments on the Senate floor.

On May 26, 2011, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed the "PROTECT IP Act" for consideration by the full Senate. Please know I will keep your concerns and thoughts in mind should the Senate proceed to a vote on this legislation. As you may be aware, Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX) has introduced similar legislation, the "Stop Online Piracy Act" (H.R. 3261), in the House of Representatives.

Once again, thank you for sharing your views. I hope you will continue to keep me informed on issues of importance to you. If you have any additional questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact my Washington, D.C. office at (202) 224-3841.

Wishing you a happy 2012.

Sincerely yours,

Dianne Feinstein
United States Senator

Skiing: Is this the best ski season ever? - Telegraph

So that's where all the snow has gone! With the kids getting a 4-day weekend this week, we usually go skiing. But all the snow seems to be falling in Europe instead.

Dan Mitchell at his "International Liberty" blog showed a graph charting education spending with achievement of 17-year-olds since 1970. The original graph was from a blog post by Andrew Coulson at Cato's "Cato@Liberty" blog. Here's the graph:

The steep blue line represents all education spending. The flat little lines at the bottom shows the percentage change in achievement. For all the spending, we got bupkis...except for the steep dotted line. That's the percentage increase in the number of education employees.

The bottom line numbers are:

Spending on Ed: +140%
Math scores: 0%
Reading scores: 0%
Science scores: -3%
Ed Employees: +75%

Our schools are the same or worse, but they employ more people than ever. Increasing proof that the national education system isn't about education, it's a jobs machine.

(Cross Posted from Square Dots.)

Haker Park - Located at 4335 South 36th Street (3.25 acres) - Visit Our Parks - City of Greenfield, Wisconsin

It's about 6 miles northwest of Mitchell airport. I had no idea that there was a Haker Park in Milwaukee.

The EPA's Mercury Madness - Investors.com

Good point.

How Democrats Fooled California’s Redistricting Commission - ProPublica

This was always a stupid idea. It always meant that the groups with the best organization (i.e. unions) would rule. In the article, they said demographics should have resulted in Republicans holding the seats they had. Instead Democrats are expected to pick up half a dozen.

What emerges is a portrait of skilled political professionals armed with modern mapping software and detailed voter information who managed to replicate the results of the smoked-filled rooms of old.

The losers in this once-a-decade reshaping of the electoral map, experts say, were the state’s voters. The intent of the citizens’ commission was to directly link a lawmaker’s political fate to the will of his or her constituents. But as ProPublica’s review makes clear, Democratic incumbents are once again insulated from the will of the electorate.

What goes up, must come down. This time tragically. A girl shot in the head when a gun that was being cleaned 1.5 miles away fired accidentally.

SOPA and the oblivious

It’s bizarre and entertaining to hear people who yesterday were all about allegedly benign and intelligent government interventions suddenly discovering that in practice, what they get is stupid and vicious legislation that has been captured by a venal and evil interest group.

The bill allows the government to censor the internet.

Christopher Hitchens has died. Very sad.