The economy is saved!

After years of being told by economists and business elites that middle class Americans should move away from manufacturing (because they are outsourcing your job) and instead they should go into the knowledge industry (before the Tech bust) and the service industry.  The American economy is saved!  The middle class misery is over because McDonald's has announced it will be hiring 50,000 new employees! 

Negative U.S. Credit Rating outlook

S&P warns about lowering the AAA rating of the United States.  See S&P Cuts U.S. Ratings Outlook to Negative.  This is extremely drastic as most students in American finance and business are taught that the US treasuries are essentially risk-free.  One thing that article does not mention is that last week a Congressional report came out that blamed the credit agencies S&P and Moody's for initiating the financial crisis of 2007-2010 when they started to correct the outlandishly high ratings that they had given to asset-backed securities.

Central Asia Institute donation

The Daily Beast article Is Three Cups of Tea Writer Greg Mortenson a Fraud? on a 60 Minutes report is disturbing in the sense that President Obama gave this guy part of his Nobel prize monetary award without first checking that the Central Asia Institute (CAI) was legitimate.  It says the CAI had only filed filed tax returns once in 14 years.  That Obama's people could not even do a basic check such as this before making a public donation is ridiculous.  I seriously question the competency of his inner circle.

cellphone tapping

I came upon this interesting article from 2006 that the microphone of certain (all?) cellphones can be activated remotely.  And a call can then be initiated to transmit surrounding sound without any indication to the owner that it is currently on a call (eg, the screen does not turn on).

Star Trek actors

I'm not a big Star Trek fan but I did see the Star Trek reboot which I enjoyed very much.  Anyway, I came upon this photo at Gothamist of the original Star Trek actors visiting the Enterprise Space Shuttle.  Only Capt Kirk (William Shatner) is missing.  Prior to this, I had never see a photo of the actors outside of the TV studio.  This photo is absolutely fantastic:  the wonderful and strange clothing of the time, Spock has a beaming smile, "Bones" McCoy and DeForest Kelly are one and the same, Gene Rodenberry seems to be in a Star Trek uniform and pose, Chekhov's "this space vehicle is primitive".

Tyrannies are doomed

This WSJ interview Tyrannies are Doomed with Bernard Lewis, a preeminent Islam scholar, is very interesting and what he says directly and between the lines is what I have come to believe in recent years:  1. democracy is not the ideal government for all, 2. democracy is not necessary nor sufficient for a functional and productive society, 3. conflict between Islam and the world will not end until one or the other gives up, and 4. the New York Times is full of liberal art majors (I remember reading an article on an African pygmy named Ota Benga and exhibited in a cage with an orangutan at the Bronx zoo in 1906, the NY Times declared this was an example of evolution).