World trade is falling much faster now than in 1929-30 (Figure 3). This is highly alarming given the prominence attached in the historical literature to trade destruction as a factor compounding the Great Depression.

naked capitalism: World Economy Falling Faster Than in 1929-1930

Here, Cynthia publicized her opinions about Coalinga by posting the Ode on MySpace.com, a hugely popular internet site," the 5th District Court of Appeal wrote. "Cynthia's affirmative act made her article available to any person with a computer and thus opened it to the public eye. Under these circumstances, no reasonable person would have had an expectation of privacy regarding the published material.

Legislation is required here - putting something on your MySpace page, where people have to go there in order to see it and few people outside of a small circle usually do, is not the same thing as printing it in the newspaper - where it is intentionally pushed out to a large number of people. Privacy is something which exists in degrees.

Daniel Solove has written extensively about this.

MySpace Diatribe Brought Death Threats | Threat Level from Wired.com

This is an excerpt from my friend Nancy's blog. Her baby was born premature, under a pound in fact, but thanks to Vanderbilt, itty bitty Becca is thriving today. Nancy is walking in the March of Dimes this year to raise money for vital research on premature birth. Check out Nancys blog, and then link over the the March of dimes - every bit makes a difference!

Thanks

Marie

This week marks one year from that awful day on which we received our baby girl’s awful prognosis. Dr. Fines’ exact words were, “I think we need to be prepared to lose this baby.” I was crushed. After calling John (who was in Costa Rica at the time) and stopping at Mejier to buy some pink sleepers, I took a nap. Here’s an excerpt of how I described that afternoon on this blog:

“The thing about taking a nap is that life doesn’t really change while you’re asleep. That whole “While You Were Sleeping” concept - not so much. When I woke up that afternoon - and for the next several mornings - I experienced that moment that many people who go through some kind of tragedy often describe. For about 30 seconds after I woke up, I thought everything was okay. And then I remembered. ‘I think we need to be prepared to lose this baby.’ Those next few days were some of the hardest of my life.”

Tonight, after countless perinatalogists visits, 121 days in the NICU, and 5 wonderful months at home together, our precious little Becca is sleeping in one of those pink sleepers, just down the hall from me.

As you know, our family has been touched by the March of Dimes mission to prevent birth defects, premature birth and infant mortality. That’s why we have formed Itty Bitty Becca’s Team to raise money and participate in March for Babies. Since you were a part of the team that cheered her through our darkest days, we want you to officially be part of Itty Bitty Becca’s Team! There are two ways you can join: by walking with us on Sunday, April 19, or by sponsoring our event with a financial contribution.
Contributing to our team online is fast, easy and secure. You can donate directly from my personal webpage with a credit/debit card or PayPal. If you prefer, I can also accept cash or check. Just click the appropriate box on my webpage. My March for Babies webpage is http://www.marchforbabies.org/BeccaHill .

Or, if you prefer and are able to do so, we would love to have you walk with us in the March for Babies! We are participating in the Nashville walk on Sunday, April 19 at 2:00 at Cenntennial Park. If the weather is good and the germs remain at bay, Litte Miss Becca will be “walking” with us, too! (Of course, you can walk AND contribute, too!) You can also sign up to walk with us on the website.

Our family knows firsthand the challenges associated with prematurity. It is important to find out why premature birth happens and what can be done to prevent it. By rai... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

March of Dimes

America and Britain have the highest intergenerational correlations between the social status of fathers and sons.

As a result, talent is being neglected... Since the better-off can afford to keep their children in higher education and the poor cannot, breaking out of the cycle is hard.

Perhaps Americans put up with this system because they have unrealistic expectations of their chances of success... Just over half of those earning $75,000 a year think they will become very well off, but experience suggests that only 12-17% will make it.

Health outcomes too are decidedly unequal; the gap between the life expectancy of the top and bottom 10% respectively rose from 2.8 years to 4.5 between 1980 and 2000.

A special report on the rich: An end to inequality? | More or less equal? | The Economist

"Provide for licensing and certification of cybersecurity professionals." What the hell is this? The bill would require "...a professional licensing and certification program for cybersecurity professionals similar to those required for other major professions." So in order to do security functions you'll have to go to Security School and pass your boards? I suppose if you do something unapproved, like the wrong kind of research, your license can be revoked. I don't like where this part is going.

I strongly agree with this sentiment. There many be many good ideas wrapped up in this bill but professional licensure of security professionals is a terrible idea. You know its time for a career change when the common denominator in your profession gets to decide who is and is not allowed to practice it.

The Proposed Federalization of the Computer Security Field

Yeast cells feeding on the glucose in human blood might one day power implants such as pacemakers. A living source of power that is able to regenerate itself would eliminate the need for regular operations to replace batteries.

Oh how silly. The obvious application for this technology is robots that eat people. Duh.

Yeast-powered fuel cell feeds on human blood - tech - 01 April 2009 - New Scientist

Ok boys and girls,

It's that time of year again. Summercon 2009 will be in Atlanta (again) this year. The call for papers has just been posted. Please pass thing along to anyone that might be interested. SummerCon

SummerCon: home

A Zero Hedge exclusive:

And the conspiracy thickens.

During Jan/Feb AIG would call up and just ask for complete unwind prices from the credit desk in the relevant jurisdiction. These were not single deal unwinds as are typically more price transparent - these were whole portfolio unwinds. The size of these unwinds were enormous, the quotes I have heard were "we have never done as big or as profitable trades - ever".

AIG, knowing it would need to ask for much more capital from the Treasury imminently, decided to throw in the towel, and gifted major bank counter-parties with trades which were egregiously profitable to the banks, and even more egregiously money losing to the U.S. taxpayers, who had to dump more and more cash into AIG, without having the U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner disclose the real extent of this, for lack of a better word, fraudulent scam.

What this all means is that the statements by major banks, i.e. JPM, Citi, and BofA, regarding abnormal profitability in January and February were true, however these profits were a) one-time in nature due to wholesale unwinds of AIG portfolios, b) entirely at the expense of AIG, and thus taxpayers, c) executed with Tim Geithner's (and thus the administration's) full knowledge and intent, d) were basically a transfer of money from taxpayers to banks (in yet another form) using AIG as an intermediary.

For banks to proclaim their profitability in January and February is about as close to criminal hypocrisy as is possible. And again, the taxpayers fund this "one time profit", which causes a market rally, thus allowing the banks to promptly turn around and start selling more expensive equity (soon coming to a prospectus near you), also funded by taxpayers' money flows into the market. If the administration is truly aware of all these events (and if Zero Hedge knows about it, it is safe to say Tim Geithner also got the memo), then the potential fallout would be staggering once this information makes the light of day.

This wholesale manipulation of markets, investors and taxpayers has gone on long enough.

AIG Was Responsible For The Banks' January & February Profitability

If you think "Russia" when you hear "oligarchy", think again.

By now, the princes of the financial world have of course been stripped naked as leaders and strategists -- at least in the eyes of most Americans. But as the months have rolled by, financial elites have continued to assume that their position as the economy’s favored children is safe, despite the wreckage they have caused.

Even leaving aside fairness to taxpayers, the government’s velvet-glove approach with the banks is deeply troubling, for one simple reason: it is inadequate to change the behavior of a financial sector accustomed to doing business on its own terms, at a time when that behavior must change.

Only decisive government action -- exposing the full extent of the financial rot and restoring some set of banks to publicly verifiable health -- can cure the financial sector as a whole.

This may seem like strong medicine. But in fact, while necessary, it is insufficient. The second problem the U.S. faces -- the power of the oligarchy -- is just as important as the immediate crisis of lending. And the advice from the IMF on this front would again be simple: break the oligarchy.

Jules Dupuit:

It is not because of the few thousand francs which would have to be spent to put a roof over the third-class carriage or to upholster the third-class seats that some company or other has open carriages with wooden benches ... What the company is trying to do is prevent the passengers who can pay the second-class fare from traveling third class; it hits the poor, not because it wants to hurt them, but to frighten the rich ... And it is again for the same reason that the companies, having proved almost cruel to the third-class passengers and mean to the second-class ones, become lavish in dealing with first-class customers. Having refused the poor what is necessary, they give the rich what is superfluous.

Peter Schiff:

I think things are going to get very bad.

From the recent archive:

After jokingly asking "Time to buy gold, huh?", there was a pregnant pause. Then came the response: "Buy ammunition".

The Quiet Coup

An assistant principal, enforcing the school’s antidrug policies, suspected her of having brought prescription-strength ibuprofen pills to school. One of the pills is as strong as two Advils.

I don't really think reasonable people can disagree about this case. I am amazed that the Supreme Court picked it up. The 9th's ruling that this was unconstitutional should have held. Does the Supreme Court intend to overturn it?

Strip-Search Case Tests How Far Schools Can Go - NYTimes.com