blog of bile

Ian Freeman of Free Talk Live protests paying property taxes by doing so in $1 bills

bile — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 02:43:12 +0000

Ian Banard of Free Talk Live battles with the city of Keene, NH over property taxes
Ian Bernard (Freeman) of Free Talk Live arrested and sentenced to jail for 90+ days
The Boston Globe: The appeal of ‘Live free or die’ – Antigovernment activists putting down roots in N.H.

Massachusetts steals $25 from innocent drivers

beetlbumjl — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:20:07 +0000

Jeffrey McCob went to Gardner District Court this week with a $100 ticket hanging over his head. A month earlier, he had been pulled over on Route 2 for obstructing an emergency vehicle.

After making his case to Clerk Magistrate Whitney J. Brown, the Leominster resident was found not responsible and the ticket was dismissed. By challenging the ticket, Mr. McCob lost a couple of hours in travel and court time. It was certainly preferable, however, to paying the $100 and related insurance surcharges.

“If these types of tickets only came with a fine, maybe I’d have let it go,” Mr. McCob said. “But you’re paying a lot more than the fine.”

Armed with the knowledge that more than 250,000 tickets for civil motor vehicle infractions were challenged in the state last fiscal year, legislators have voted to charge drivers $25 for such hearings. The budget Gov. Deval L. Patrick signed into law this week includes the change, which took effect yesterday, according to Trial Court spokeswoman Joan Kenney.

Here’s an idea… have the issuing police department pay the judge AND the innocent party for their time in issuing bogus tickets.

CEI claims EPA suppressed internal study which contradicted administration policy

bile — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:47:23 +0000

http://cei.org/…

Washington, D.C., June 26, 2009 – The Competitive Enterprise Institute is today making public an internal study on climate science which was suppressed by the Environmental Protection Agency. Internal EPA email messages, released by CEI earlier in the week, indicate that the report was kept under wraps and its author silenced because of pressure to support the Administration’s agenda of regulating carbon dioxide.

The report finds that EPA, by adopting the United Nations’ 2007 “Fourth Assessment” report, is relying on outdated research and is ignoring major new developments. Those developments include a continued decline in global temperatures, a new consensus that future hurricanes will not be more frequent or intense, and new findings that water vapor will moderate, rather than exacerbate, temperature.

New data also indicate that ocean cycles are probably the most important single factor in explaining temperature fluctuations, though solar cycles may play a role as well, and that reliable satellite data undercut the likelihood of endangerment from greenhouse gases. All of this demonstrates EPA should independently analyze the science, rather than just adopt the conclusions of outside organizations.

The released report is a draft version, prepared under EPA’s unusually short internal review schedule, and thus may contain inaccuracies which were corrected in the final report.

“While we hoped that EPA would release the final report, we’re tired of waiting for this agency to become transparent, even though its Administrator has been talking transparency since she took office. So we are releasing a draft version of the report ourselves, today,” said CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman.

Chinese government limits use of virtual currencies

bile — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:20:19 +0000

http://kotaku.com/…

In addition to its ongoing crackdown on Internet porn, the Chinese government has declared that virtual currency cannot be traded for real goods or services.

Virtual currency, as defined by Chinese authorities, includes “prepaid cards of cyber-games,” according to a joint release issued by China’s Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Commerce on Friday.

“The virtual currency, which is converted into real money at a certain exchange rate, will only be allowed to trade in virtual goods and services provided by its issuer, not real goods and services,” the Ministries said.

The Chinese government estimates that trade in virtual currency exceeded several billion yuan last year, a figure that it claims has been growing at a rate of 20% annually. One billion yuan is currently equal to about $146 million.

The ruling is likely to affect many of the more than 300 million Internet users in China, as well as those in other countries involved in virtual currency trading. In the context of online role playing games like World of Warcraft, virtual currency trading is often called gold farming.

The most popular form of virtual currency in China is called “QQ coins,” a form of virtual credit issued by Tencent.com.

Tencent.com, which has about 220 million registered users — about as many as Facebook — is quoted in the Chinese government news release as “resolutely” supporting the new rule. The government justifies its ban on virtual currency trading as a way to curtail gambling and other illegal online activities.

The Chinese government, however, appears to be uninterested in regulating sales of in-game items for real cash. A report in the English-language China Daily says that in-game gear is not considered virtual currency, so selling virtual items can be expected to continue.

The trading of virtual currency for real cash employs hundreds of thousands of people worldwide and generates between $200 million and $1 billion annually, according to a 2008 survey conducted by Richard Heeks at the University of Manchester.

He estimates that between 80% and 85% of gold farmers are based in China.

“[M]any online games have a virtual economy and an in-game currency,” he states in his survey. “Gold farmers can play in-game to make some currency. They then sell that for real money — typically via a Web site and using the PayPal payment system — to other players of the game.”

Game companies typically forbid gold farming but committed virtual currency traders find ways around such rules. Some game companies have recognized the futility of trying to ban the practice and have built virtual commerce into their game infrastructure.

Lots of people are against gold farming and the trading of virtual for real goods yet these nearly half a million Chinese gold farmers and virtual traders are doing it because it pays better then any local, real job. If you want to improve the conditions of those individuals… allow open and free trade, enforce private property rights and contracts.

As real, legal tender, fiat currencies fall governments attack voluntarily used virtual ones.

For those not plugged in enough to blog of bile

bile — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:47:50 +0000

I recently started using Twitter to gain a larger audience. Both for the blog and personally. I have been meaning to create a shared RSS reader feed for sometime for those other things which aren’t necessarily blog worthy but catch my eye and since Xaq Fixx reminded me of it during PorcFest… here it is. It’s also displayed in the sidebar here on the blog. If others would like to contribute to the feed just let me know what your personal feed is.

Chicago suburb removes red light cameras, find no safety advantage

bile — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 13:52:28 +0000

http://arstechnica.com/…

There are many reasons for Chicagoans to poke fun at the northwest suburb of Schaumburg, but the existence of red light cameras soon won’t be one of them. Officials expect to get rid of Schaumburg’s sole red light camera in July after the local police department has determined that it provides no appreciable safety benefits.

The city originally installed the camera at a busy intersection near the ever-popular Woodfield Mall sometime last year as a testing ground before the city installed more cameras. According to Schaumburg Mayor Al Larson, the city had been sold on pitches from red light camera companies claiming that the devices would help prevent serious accidents.

Like other municipalities, Schaumburg began issuing $100 tickets in November to those found blowing the red light, generating some 7,000 tickets by the end of 2008, according to the Daily Herald. By February, that number climbed to over 10,000 and $1 million in revenue. Apparently very few accidents were prevented, however, and the city got numerous angry phone calls from citizens and tourists alike, resulting in the camera being switched off in February.

“The result is very few crashes at any of our major intersections have been the result of traffic signal violations,” Police Chief Brian Howerton told the Herald. He reiterated that other cities may want to change driver behavior by using tickets to force drivers to stop, but Schaumburg’s goal was always to prevent collisions. As a result, Howerton is recommending the city take down the camera and not install any more. “It was not our intent to use them as a revenue generator,” Mayor Larson added.

Schaumburg’s decision stands in stark contrast with most other municipalities that have installed the devices, including the city of Chicago. In many of these cases, data showing that red light cameras increase safety is conveniently missing, as exemplified by a high-profile case in Denver earlier this year. Instead, cities love raking in the ticket revenue while hiding behind the thin veil of safety, even though it has been argued that the surest way to increase safety at red lights is by extending the yellow period. The state of Mississippi, however, has bucked this trend by banning red light cameras on the state level earlier this year. While we hardly expect the entire state of Illinois to follow suit, it’s nice to see smaller cities like Schaumburg eschew such a lucrative revenue source because the product simply doesn’t do what it claims to do.

Let the veil fall.

A case of the forgets: Ben Bernanke questioned by Dan Burton on BOA/Merrill Lynch merger

bile — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:40:07 +0000

This is a few days old but I’m just catching up on news after PorcFest and this goes well with “Fed engaged in “cover-up” of BofA-Merrill deal-lawmaker.”

Game theory researchers misuse rationality, again, in simplistic tests

bile — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 02:03:22 +0000

http://arstechnica.com/…

Game theory has provided researchers in a variety of fields, from psychology to economics, an opportunity to test human behaviors under controlled conditions. It allows big questions—are humans rational actors when money’s on the line, for example—to be tested in situations where behaviors that deviate from expectations are easy to detect. The Ultimatum Game is one example of these experiments, and it has been used to show that humans aren’t purely rational when it comes to monetary decisions, as they appear willing to make financial sacrifices in order to punish others in the name of fairness. A paper that will appear at PNAS this week takes things a step further and shows that people will still reject unfair monetary offers, even when the only one they punish is themselves.

The basic rules of the Ultimatum Game are simple. One person is given a stack of cash, and told to divide it between themselves and a second party. That second party is then given the chance to accept or reject the offer; if it’s rejected, neither of them get any money. Clearly, any of this free money should be better than nothing, so under assumptions of strictly rational behavior, you might expect all offers to be accepted.

They’re not.

…

David Jaglowski provided a good comment:

… Demonstrate that the Private Impunity Game reflects maladaptive behavior in an anthopolical setting, past or modern, and that’ll be something truly significant. In the meantime, it looks like the offerees are simply ‘failing’ to disregard well ingrained rules in the face of an overly simplistic test.

In addition to David’s comments I’d add that as typical the researchers are creating their own definition of ‘rational’ and then trying to understand the data based on the artificial conclusion. It is the same error those who believe in centrally controlled economies. That other’s behavior is predictable, fully understandable and overall the same.

The whole idea of rationality should be divided up. New words derived. If you read Mises’ Human Action you’ll get one well defined definition of ‘rational’ and ‘irrational.’ If others can’t agree with that or another clear definition they should move on to something that is. Utility, as defined by a 3rd party, is not a component of the definition of rational behavior.

These tests are short sighted and subjective and not the work of serious scientists.

Look into praxology.

Paul Krugman calls those against Waxman-Markey climate change bill treasonous against the planet

bile — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 23:36:15 +0000

http://www.nytimes.com/…

So the House passed the Waxman-Markey climate-change bill. In political terms, it was a remarkable achievement.

But 212 representatives voted no. A handful of these no votes came from representatives who considered the bill too weak, but most rejected the bill because they rejected the whole notion that we have to do something about greenhouse gases.

And as I watched the deniers make their arguments, I couldn’t help thinking that I was watching a form of treason — treason against the planet.

To fully appreciate the irresponsibility and immorality of climate-change denial, you need to know about the grim turn taken by the latest climate research.

I keep fairly up to date on the latest information regarding climate change and I’m still not convinced of the extent to which humans have influenced the climate. The lists of scientists which oppose the politically correct version of anthropogenic global warming climate change grows larger and larger all the time. Regardless of whether or not global climate change is man made the solution is more freedom and property rights protection rather then less. It is fascism and collectivism which has lead to the increase in pollution and use of oil. The government is the largest polluter, excuses other polluters and subsidizes organizations which the free market likely wouldn’t had invested in.

Service Nation asks for your opinion, lets give it to them

bile — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:14:06 +0000

From: Alan Khazei <info@bethechangeinc.org>

Dear bile,

I just returned from this year’s National Conference on Volunteering and Service in San Francisco, an outstanding event where more than 4,000 service leaders gathered to celebrate our achievements and plan the path forward.

This is an extraordinary moment for our movement, with a new law on the books promising unprecedented federal resources for service; people across the country becoming more engaged in their communities than we’ve seen in a long time; and a President and First Lady in the White House who come from the service world, and who want service and civic engagement to become a part of every American’s life.

So many terrific ideas came out of the event, and you’ll be hearing more about them in the weeks and months to come. But before that, we need you to become a part of this discussion.

Our supporters on the ground are the ones who powered us from the beginning. And today, it’s your input and your ideas that will carry us forward as we plot out the next steps for this organization – and for the service movement as a whole.

Please fill out this short survey – your feedback will help shape the future of ServiceNation:

http://www.servicenation.org/survey

If you didn’t make it to the Conference, there’s a lot to fill you in on. Here are a few of the highlights from the event:

-    The crowd gave a hero’s welcome to Michelle Obama, the keynote speaker, who talked passionately about the White House’s commitment to service and the need to find innovative ways to expand it.

-    I had the honor of interviewing Maria Shriver, the First Lady of California, about her path-breaking efforts to strengthen service in that state. (More to come about that interview in a follow-up message.)

-   The Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF) announced a week-long October campaign to promote service on all the major TV networks. This is a big opportunity to get new people involved in service, and it’s something we’ll all be hearing much more about in the months ahead. As part of the announcement, we were treated to a terrific concert from Jon Bon Jovi, a longtime friend of the service community who came to the Conference as a representative of EIF.

-    ServiceNation also was proud to host a luncheon for hundreds of service champions. Melody Barnes, President Obama’s chief domestic policy advisor, spoke movingly about the future of service in America, and all the attendees participated in a strategy discussion led by Arianna Huffington, EIF’s Lisa Paulsen, and Colin Jones, a current AmeriCorps VISTA serving with the program BUILD in San Francisco.

With so many people across the country spending time this week to talk about what’s next for the service movement, it’s absolutely essential that you get involved in the discussion. We want to know more about you, your impressions of the work we’ve done so far, and your thoughts on where we should go from here.

Please fill out the survey today:

http://www.servicenation.org/survey

Thanks – we’ll be following up with more takeaways from the Conference soon.

Alan

The multiple choice sections are limited but there are opened ended areas to let Alan and friends know that we don’t appreciate the move toward national servitude.