Torture May Have Slowed Hunt

Some witnesses say the best information came before the torture. Once the pain started the subjects would just make stuff up.

U.S. tax burden at lowest level since '58

Both USA Today and McClatchy point out that our taxes are historically low. Low taxes don't encourage investment. They just all power and money to become concentrated in fewer hands. Higher taxes will push that money into productive economic activity rather than raw accumulation of power.

Kucinich looking to a different state

In http://The Hill there is more speculation about Dennis coming to the new Washington 10th Congressional District. State Party chair, Dwight Pelz, poo-poo's it. From where I sit, that practically confirms it. Dwight is, shall we say, experienced in dissembling.

More U.S. Oil Drilling Won't Lower Gas Prices

Never waste a crisis. Especially, if you can use it to make more money for your campaign donors. When the price at the pump goes up it's used as an excuse for more pointless drilling. This is what addiction looks like, a death spiral to destruction. More drilling without a plan to achieve sustainable energy production just makes the inevitable adjustment worse later. But then, those making the decisions today won't be around to reap the consequences. Our grandchildren will curse us.

Afghan Taliban and Al Qaeda

Here's a bit of hope. With Bin Laden dead, portions of the Taliban may feel more inclined to renounce violence and join the Afghan civil process.

Obama at Ground Zero

I much prefer Obama's method to a flight suit on a carrier deck.

Humans enter Fukushima unit for first time

In one of the stricken reactors, radiation levels have been reduced enough for humans to enter. The plan is to send shifts of workers in to construct better ventilation so levels go down even further. Eventually it should be low enough for workers to build a permanent solution to keeping the reactor cool.

Portable drinking water and power

An unusual alloy could provide a method of producing both power and potable water from contaminated fresh or salt water. It's made of aluminum, tin, gallium, and indium. Indium is extracted from zinc ores and gallium is extracted from bauxite, an aluminum ore. No specific new mining is needed for them. Indium is 3 times more prevalent in the Earth's crust than silver. Basically, when the alloy is immersed in water, spontaneous hydrolysis occurs. A power unit would include a reactor and a fuel cell. Poor water in one end and hydrogen gets channeled to the fuel cell which produces power and potable water. Over time the alloy converts to aluminum hydroxide which is non-toxic and can be recycled.

A Paper Computer

Looking beyond tablets and smartphones, a computer with paper-like displays has been demonstrated. Notebook computers will really begin to look like notebooks.

Transistors reinvented

This is huge. A totally new generation of semiconductors is coming. Chips can now go 3-D with more power and more efficiency.

Goldman Sachs Fights the Volcker Rule

If Goldman-Sachs is fighting it, the Volcker rule must be a good thing.

Small Business Owners Renounce Bush Tax Cuts

So often ignored by the Republican fat cats who take their name in vain, small businesses really don't benefit from the Bush cuts. The tax cuts don't help small businesses, more money in the middle class helps small businesses.

Hastings hearts Big Oil

When the vote was taken on who loves Big Oil, Hastings raised his hand. Actually it was more like raising his hand and jumping up and down saying, "Oo, oo, I do!!!"

The real reasons for the dollar's decline

Take note. It's due to long-term global changes, not the deficit. The world has more options for good currencies and American workers are just paid too much relative to their global competition. This isn't good news for workers in the short term but eventually there should be better global demand for American products as the devaluation continues.

The Ryan individual mandate

This may not be talked about much but the Ryan health care proposal contains an individual mandate just like the PPACA. It has too for the thing to work at all. Oh, Hello? Tea Party? Is anyone listening?

JSF Alternate Engine Undead

Rising from the legislative tomb, the unneeded and unwanted alternate fighter jet engine makes an appearance in the House Armed Services Committee budget. In the House you have to kill the pork again and again before it finally dies.

Dennis Kucinich in the Washington State 10th District

Could Kucinich be making a move to the evergreen state?

Pundits Usually Wrong

But some, like Paul Krugman, are right quite often. Chortle.

Analyzing the debt

Lory Montgomery has a good piece on how we went from surplus to the current deficit. In her words:

The biggest culprit, by far, has been an erosion of tax revenue triggered largely by two recessions and multiple rounds of tax cuts. Together, the economy and the tax bills enacted under former president George W. Bush, and to a lesser extent by President Obama, wiped out $6.3 trillion in anticipated revenue. That’s nearly half of the $12.7 trillion swing from projected surpluses to real debt. Federal tax collections now stand at their lowest level as a percentage of the economy in 60 years.

Obama’s 2009 economic stimulus, a favorite target of Republicans who blame Democrats for the mounting debt, has added $719 billion — 6 percent of the total shift, according to the new analysis of CBO data by the nonprofit Pew Fiscal Analysis Initiative. All told, Obama-era choices account for about $1.7 trillion in new debt, according to a separate Washington Post analysis of CBO data over the past decade. Bush-era policies, meanwhile, account for more than $7 trillion and are a major contributor to the trillion-dollar annual budget deficits that are dominating the political debate.

Obama Succeeded Where Bush Failed

Here is a good litany of all the ways the Bush administration fumbled the ball.

Ironically, Obama’s announcement came eight years to the day after Bush famously and prematurely declared "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq after landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier.