Follow us on TwitterJanuary 23, 2012
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Bon Joviver: You Give Love A Bad Name
Here are three things we absolutely love: Bon Iver, ‘80s rock and song covers. Miracles of Modern Science decided to take Bon Jovi’s classic “You Give Love a Bad Name” and perform it in the style of Justin Vernon’s band. The video they filmed is only a snippet of the song, but here’s hoping if enough people ask for it, we shall receive a full length song. (more...). -
Packers voice Jim Irwin dead at 77
Family, friends, co-workers and sports fans across Wisconsin are grieving the reported loss of a voice who brought the excitement of world champions and favorite athletes into our homes for decades. Hall of Fame announcer Jim Irwin, Newsradio 620 WTMJ's longtime play-by-play voice of the Green Bay Packers, Milwaukee Bucks and Wisconsin Badgers, has passed away. . -
Dan Patrick: Braun ‘may be innocent’
Citing information from "somebody involved in the process," sports commentator Dan Patrick said on his radio show Monday morning that "Ryan Braun may be an innocent man" and "may be exonerated." If this happens, obviously it would be tremendous news for the Brewers and Braun, who tested positive for a banned substance in October and appealed the finding before an arbitration panel in New York last week. It also would make it an even bigger atrocity that news of the positive test was leaked to ESPN, which reported it in early December.. -
Supreme Court: Warrants needed in GPS tracking
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that police must obtain a search warrant before using a GPS device to track criminal suspects. But the justices left for another day larger questions about how technology has altered a person’s expectation of privacy. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that the government needed a valid warrant before attaching a GPS device to the Jeep used by D.C. drug kingpin Antoine Jones, who was convicted in part because police tracked his movements on public roads for 28 days.More » -
On Innovation & Health Insurance
This comment on the story about Google, Apple and other Silicon Valley companies collaborating on no-poaching agreements has bothered me for the last day:
This has nothing to do with slavery or compensation suppression. This has everything to do with the progress, innovation and continuity of the companies. Losing an exec, a PM, or Sr. Dev from a specific project can be detrimental to that project — implications reaching far beyond the project itself. This is a classic “slippery slope” scenario, where, if employees are allowed to jump ship every couple years (months, even!), then the innovation and progress of those companies begin to stagnate. Period.
There’s no shortage of people willing to trade away the freedoms of other people. The tone of this guy’s comment makes me think he’s probably a staunch Republican, but there are just as many self-proclaimed liberals eager to dump the 2nd Amendment or trim the 1st Amendment in the name of “tolerance”.
What kills me about this particular comment is that I imagine this guy would also argue that companies need lower taxes and less regulation in order to have the freedom & incentives necessary for innovation. But of course individuals couldn’t possibly need any kind of incentives and freedom either, could they? I mean, Joe Apple should just be happy to have a job. He couldn’t possibly do a better job if carrots like more pay, better benefits, etc. were dangled in front of him. Ugh.
I’m interested in what drives progress and innovation. It’s a fascinating topic. I was actually already thinking about it in terms of our national health care system. I think the fact that so many of us are tied to this horrible system of employer-provided insurance is a nationwide drain on creativity and innovation. How many talented and creative individuals are unwilling to strike out on their own because they don’t want to lose their health insurance? Oh, to be sure, there are still entrepreneurs and the ObamaCare provision allowing people to stay on their parents’ insurance until they’re 27 helps, but it doesn’t help enough. With the rising costs of health care, potential entrepreneurs aren’t just risking business failure anymore, they’re risking financial ruin or even serious health problems if they or their family get sick.
One of the main arguments against socialism is that you stifle innovation by reducing the potential rewards for greatness and you create a system where too many people can simply “coast” on the effort of others, but I don’t think anything is quite that simple. I think there are cases like this where a little bit of socialism could actually help innovation flourish in the country and enable people who don’t want to coast the ability to set their own course with more reasonable risk. More » -
Cleveland, we have a problem
The other day after Target-gate went down, a reader asked me to go to the Greater Cleveland Aquarium Facebook page to read the public’s outcry to the Aquarium’s temporary ban on strollers. You see, Cleveland has just opened the doors to a new aquarium in an effort to revitalize the downtown area. It’s big and cost a lot of money, but it sounds like a lot of people in Cleveland are excited about it, which is great. Everyone, that is, except the requisite mob of angry tax payers who don’t understand why aquariums are so expensive, and, of course, parents with strollers. More » -
Having a Baby in Year of the Dragon Is Too Lucky to Be Left to Chance
What does every aspiring dragon mother want? A dragon baby. Monday begins the year of the dragon, considered the luckiest of the Chinese lunar years. Some Chinese and Chinese-Americans are so committed to welcoming a child this year that they are getting fertility treatments to boost their chances.. -
The New American Divide
America is coming apart. For most of our nation's history, whatever the inequality in wealth between the richest and poorest citizens, we maintained a cultural equality known nowhere else in the world—for whites, anyway. "The more opulent citizens take great care not to stand aloof from the people," wrote Alexis de Tocqueville, the great chronicler of American democracy, in the 1830s. "On the contrary, they constantly keep on easy terms with the lower classes: They listen to them, they speak to them every day." Americans love to see themselves this way. But there's a problem: It's not true anymore, and it has been progressively less true since the 1960s.More » -
Paul Butler: Jurors Need to Know That They Can Say No
IF you are ever on a jury in a marijuana case, I recommend that you vote “not guilty” — even if you think the defendant actually smoked pot, or sold it to another consenting adult. As a juror, you have this power under the Bill of Rights; if you exercise it, you become part of a proud tradition of American jurors who helped make our laws fairer. The information I have just provided — about a constitutional doctrine called “jury nullification” — is absolutely true. But if federal prosecutors in New York get their way, telling the truth to potential jurors could result in a six-month prison sentence. Earlier this year, prosecutors charged Julian P. Heicklen, a retired chemistry professor, with jury tampering because he stood outside the federal courthouse in Manhattan providing information about jury nullification to passers-by. Given that I have been recommending nullification for nonviolent drug cases since 1995 — in such forums as The Yale Law Journal, “60 Minutes” and YouTube — I guess I, too, have committed a crime.More »
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