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  • Bigger Businesses Pay Higher Wages

    On 04.15.10 10:00 AM posted by Jason Richwine

    <ahref="http://blog.heritage.org/wp-content/uploads/BigBusinessWages.jpg"></p>Looking for a raise during these tough economic times? You may want to try working for a larger company. Though largely unpublicized, the fact that wages rise with firm size is a well established result in labor economics. We might call this the “Big Business wage premium,” which exists even when we compare workers with the same observable skills and experience.

    Imagine that you work at a tiny business that employs fewer than 10 people. Now imagine a veritable clone of yourself—someone of the same race, gender, and marital status as you, working in the same occupation, living in the same area, and having the same education and experience. If your clone works at a business that employs between 10 and 24 people, then the clone likely makes $1.03 for every dollar that you earn. As we place your clone in larger and larger companies, the premium continues to grow. Businesses with over 1000 workers will pay your clone $1.16 for each dollar of your salary.

    The table below summarizes the impact of the Big Business wage premium. The second column takes a person making $50,000 annually at a small business and shows how the salary would rise if he moved to a bigger company. The third column shows the corresponding percentage gain in salary. A person who makes $50,000 at a small company has a counterpart with the same skill profile making $58,090 at a large company, an increase of 16.2 percent.<spanid="more-31392"></span>

    Why do bigger businesses pay more? Economists have advanced several theories, but no single answer exists. Perhaps workers tend to dislike the anonymity or lack of control at a large company, and they demand higher wages to work there as a consequence. Or maybe working at a small company is like an investment, with workers promised higher salaries as soon as the business takes off. It’s also possible that workers have more bargaining power when their potential employer needs to hire a large number of people.

    Whatever its cause, the existence of a Big Business wage premium is somewhat ironic. In today’s political climate, Big Business is often depicted as cold and uncaring—even villainous—while small businesses enjoy popularity as pillars of social responsibility. The fact that people can earn higher wages at Walmart compared to a local mom-and-pop store is not at all consistent with this view. When politicians support tax breaks and other perks for small businesses, they may think they are taking the side of “the little guy,” but they are implicitly favoring lower wages for workers.

    Of course, the real test of a company’s worth in a capitalist system is not how much it pays its employees, but whether it satisfies its customers. Firms should be free to set wages and prices as they see fit, and neither small nor large businesses should be favored by government policy. But perhaps knowing about the Big Business wage premium will give small business boosters, eager to dispense government largesse, some pause in the future.

    http://blog.heritage.org/2010/04/15/…-higher-wages/

  • VIDEO: Tax Day By The Numbers

    On 04.15.10 09:30 AM posted by Brandon Stewart

    </p>Today is tax day, the day when taxes are due and Americans send in their money to the federal government. These taxes go to fund a government that is addicted to spending and borrowing and is in desperate need of reform. Our <ahref="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHxDmjKIdsY">latest video reveals some of the numbers behind our tax policy to make the case for fundamental change.

    More and more people are becoming aware of the burden these taxes place on them and many Americans have had enough. Today tea parties across the country will be holding tax day protests to voice their concerns about the growing size of government and its impact on ordinary Americans. Use today, when more Americans are thinking about taxes than any other day of the year, to inform your friends, relatives and coworkers about the urgent need for a new direction.*Visit <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Issues/Taxes">our tax page for free market solutions to return us to fiscal sanity.

    http://blog.heritage.org/2010/04/15/…y-the-numbers/

  • START Ratification: Transparency is Necessary

    On 04.15.10 09:00 AM posted by Dan Holler

    <ahref="http://blog.heritage.org/wp-content/uploads/constitution031210.jpg"></p>Americans always deserve a fully transparent and deliberative legislative process. The current Congress has thoroughly abused Senate and House rules. Furthermore, Congress breached the trust of the American people by passing Obamacare, which the American people vigorously opposed. Let us all hope that the ratification of the new START treaty follows a different path. Americans ought to have an opportunity to participate in the ratification debate, including open Congressional hearings, amendments and extended debate.

    Many Americans are rightly concerned the new START treaty will undermine our national security and, in the process, reject Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy principle of “Peace through Strength.” Thanks to the foresight of our Founding Fathers, the substance of the treaty will be thoroughly debated. Article 3, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution states:<spanid="more-31385"></span>

    He [the President] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur;

    The new START treaty will not become the law of the land unless 67 senators vote in favor of the treaty. Our Constitution reserves a two-thirds requirement for only the most consequential of actions: impeachment, veto overrides, constitutional amendments, presidential succession, and treaties.

    The Founders clearly understood that entering into a treaty with a foreign nation was an extraordinary circumstance deserving of the utmost scrutiny. As such, the process for ratifying a treaty differs significantly from the regular legislative process. Understanding the process, as well as the substance, is essential when Americans participate in ratification process.

    The START treaty is likely to follow the below timeline:

    1. President signed the treaty (April 8, 2010);
    2. Treaty and supporting documents submitted to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (expected in early May);
    3. Committee begins consideration of the treaty (mid-May);
    4. Committee reports the treaty to the full Senate – favorably, unfavorably or without action (June or July);
    5. Treaty is placed on the Senate’s Executive Calendar;
    6. Senate will move into Executive Session;
    7. Senate can amend the actual text of the treaty;
    8. Senate will then consider and vote on a resolution of ratification – the formal mechanism by which it provides “advice and consent” to the President; and finally,
    9. If 67 senators vote in favor of the resolution, the treaty may be exchanged with the Russian Federation and takes on the force of law as a ratified treaty.

    Before Americans can feel like members of the Foreign Relations Committee have addressed their concerns, the Committee must conduct a transparent hearing process. Treaty opponents should be given equal time to make the case against ratification. Conservatives should use every procedure in the Senate rulebook to slow walk the process, so the American people have time to understand the treaty and the potential consequences of its ratification.

    The nature of the treaty ratification process is very complex, even for the Senate. There are no expedited procedures in the Senate for treaty ratification, meaning full Senate consideration of a treaty could take more than a month. If proponents abuse the spirit of the rules and try to force the treaty through the Senate, the American people should push back.

    The START treaty could severely undermine missile defense, national security interests and American sovereignty. Any attempt to rush process or avoid discussing important details of the treaty should be resisted by all Senators who value the idea of maintaining a strong national defense to preserve America’s relative peace in the nuclear era.

    The bottom line is that this process needs to be transparent and far different from the strong arm tactics used to pass the President’s health care bill. Americans deserve to know if this treaty is good or bad for the country. Conservatives need assurances that this treaty will not weaken the framework and infrastructure President Obama’s predecessors put in place to keep America safe.

    http://blog.heritage.org/2010/04/15/…-is-necessary/

  • Justice Stevens’s Record on Law Enforcement Issues

    On 04.15.10 08:00 AM posted by John Park

    <ahref="http://blog.heritage.org/wp-content/uploads/Stevens-John-Paul-10-4-12.jpg"></p>The argument that constitutionalists should not object if President Obama replaces a liberal justice with another liberal (for 30 more years?) is absurd for several reasons, including that such simple political labels don’t fit what most judges do. More to the point, while Justice Stevens’s decisions frequently disappointed those who understand that the original meaning of the Constitution is the only legitimate guide to its interpretation, there are some areas of law in which Justice Stevens departed from the more predictably activist views of Justices Brennan, Marshall, Souter and Ginsburg. My colleague highlighted <ahref="http://blog.heritage.org/2010/04/12/justice-stevens-voter-id-laws-and-the-future-of-the-supreme-court/">Stevens’s important ruling in the voter ID case, and this post explores another vital area of law.

    With respect to criminal law and procedure, Justice Stevens’s decisions were a mixed bag. He frequently ruled against the people’s interests with respect to death penalty and habeas corpus cases. Yet, at the arrest stage, Stevens wrote some notable opinions and cast votes in the search and seizure context that sided with law enforcement concerns and opposed justices who rarely saw a criminal defendant whose “rights” were not violated.<spanid="more-31399"></span>

    The heat and light associated with search and seizure issues have waned with time. In the 1960s, conservatives criticized the “liberal Warren Court” and its criminal law decisions. Richard Nixon ran for President as a law-and-order candidate, and, as members of the Warren Court departed, Chief Justice Burger and Justices Blackmun, Rehnquist, and Powell replaced them. Justice Stevens was nominated by President Ford, and, more significantly, he succeeded Justice Douglas. By the early 1980s, the Court’s composition was significantly different, and, in a number of cases, the Court found ways to limit some of the more serious rulings of the Warren Court. That was true in the search and seizure context, and issues like the scope of automobile searches and the degree to which police officers could rely on a judicially-issued search warrant.

    In Illinois v. Caballos (2005), for example, the Court held that the use of a well-trained narcotics-detection dog to sniff the exterior of a lawfully stopped vehicle does not violate the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures. Justice Stevens wrote the 6-2 opinion for the Court, with Justices Souter and Ginsburg in dissent, and Chief Justice Rehnquist not participating. He wrote, “A dog sniff conducted during a concededly lawful traffic stop that reveals no information other than the location of a substance that no individual has a right to possess does not violate the Fourth Amendment.”

    Justice Stevens also distinguished the decision in Kyllo v. United States (2001), in which the Court, with Justice Scalia writing the opinion, held that the use of thermal imaging technology to measure the heat emanating from a house was a search. Justice Stevens had written a dissent in the thermal imaging case, which was joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices O’Connor and Kennedy. In that dissent, Justice Stevens wrote that the thermal readings, which were produced by observing the exterior of the house, did not invade any constitutionally protected privacy interest.

    In the 1980s, Justice Stevens wrote opinions and cast votes in search and seizure cases that sometimes put him on the opposite side of Justices Brennan and Marshall. In Michigan v. Summers (1981), the Court, with Justice Stevens writing, held that police officers who were executing a warrant to search a citizen’s home were authorized to detain the occupants while the search was being conducted. He noted the interests of law enforcement in preventing flight and in controlling the situation to minimize the risk of harm. Justice Stewart, joined by Justices Brennan and Marshall, dissented. In United States v. Ross (1982), the Court, with Justice Stevens writing and Justice White, joined by Justices Brennan and Marshall, in dissent, the Court held that police officers who had lawfully stopped an automobile and had probable cause to search it could search the containers and packages within it that might contain the object of the search. Justice Stevens wrote that the officers could “conduct a search of the vehicle that is as thorough as a magistrate could authorize in a warrant ‘particularly describing the place to be searched.’”

    Finally, in California v. Ciraolo (1986), Justice Stevens joined the opinion of the Court written by Chief Justice Burger, in which the Court held that the warrantless aerial observation of the fenced-in backyard that was within the cartilage of a home was not an unreasonable search. Justice Stevens’s vote was critical, because the Court split 5-4 with Justices Brennan, Marshall, and Blackmun joining a dissent written by Justice Powell.

    Reasonable people may disagree with Justice Stevens’s views in these cases. In fact, Justice Scalia sometimes sided with the criminal defendant when Justice Stevens would not. The point is not so much that Justice Stevens was always right, but that he was not as uniformly hostile to law enforcement interests as Justices Brennan, Marshall, Souter, and Ginsburg seem to have been. Furthermore, much of the light and heat is gone from the search and seizure issue because of these very decisions he helped craft over the years.

    As Justice Stevens comes to the end of his tenure on the Court, it is worth reminding ourselves that there are some in the legal profession who seem less open minded or even hostile to law enforcement concerns. Most people may have forgotten the days of the Warren Court, but the Administration and the Senate would do so at our peril.

    http://blog.heritage.org/2010/04/15/…cement-issues/

  • Nexus One ‘is a profitable business,’ Google says

    Google Nexus One

    The success of the Google Nexus One has been up for debate since the phone first launched in January. Google adopted a non-traditional way of selling the phone, opting to solely sell it online at Google.com/phone and not making it available in any brick and mortar store, even as a dummy device for consumers to try. And so stories arose from analysts who said the Nexus One wasn’t selling as many units as anticipated. While we still have no official numbers, Google did give the following statement during this afternoon’s Q1 earnings call:

    "It is a profitable business for us. … We are driving the business to be a profitable business from the get-go."

    Added VP of engineering Jeff Huber during the Q&A session:

    "We’re not disclosing the specific number … We are very happy with the device uptake and the kind of impact that it’s had across the industry."

    Huber refused to answer if Google had any plans to change its sales model for the Nexus One.

    Take all that however you want. And we may never know just how profitable the Nexus One is, or what Google’s own expectations were.

  • Spirit Airlines tries to laugh off public’s anger over baggage fees

    Spirit Airlines, the brand that brought you a "MILF" promo and a "MUFF" promo for divers, is attempting to employ its irreverent brand positioning to counter the noxious buzz it incurred after airing plans to charge a $45 fee for carry-on luggage. The point man for this obfuscation is president/CEO Ben Baldanza, who explains in this video that the fees were implemented to address flight delays and long lines prompted by overstuffed overhead bins. With Orwellian logic, Baldanza concludes that the new fees will reduce ticket prices for the average passenger. To make the point, the initial shot shows Baldanza delivering his spiel while positioned sideways in a cramped space. A reveal completes the visual joke: The exec has crammed himself into one of the overhead bins (though it’s unclear what’s going on with his legs). Will humor deflect the bad PR? Well, Chuck Schumer, for one, isn’t amused.

    —Posted by Todd Wasserman

  • Eyeballs still don’t pay the bills

    Ning is laying off 40% of its staff and dumping free versions of its service. That’s a shitty day for the people who lost their job and the folks left behind without their coworkers. I went through a few rounds back in the dotcom days and fun it was not.

    But I can’t help but be puzzled by the coverage of this. Here’s TechCrunch on the situation:

    While the massive layoffs are obviously a big hit to the company, it isn’t all bad news for Ning: the service is still seeing its traffic grow according to comScore. But traffic growth is no longer good enough for the company — it needs to start generating some serious revenue, and advertising clearly isn’t cutting it.

    Are you kidding me? The company has blown through $120MM of VC funding over six years, built up massive traffic, yet just had to slash and burn, and you’re saying that “traffic growth is no longer good enough”. How the hell was it ever good enough?

    Ning’s problem is not a lack of eyeballs but its inability to turn them into cash money to pay the bills. Getting more of something that’s a net-negative is not going to make up for it.

    That was always their problem. From day one. Just like it’s any other business’ problem. Acting all shocked and surprised now is just incredibly ignorant of our industry’s very recent past.

    This is the same kind of ignorance that goes on to celebrate so-called businesses successes before they posted black numbers on the balance sheet. Until that happens it’s all conjecture and possible maybes.

    The just-give-it-away-for-free-and-they-will-come-and-we’ll-be-rich automatron is as broken now as it was in 2001.

  • Android Market now has 38,000 ‘apps’

    Android Market

    The Android Market now has 38,000 applications available for download, Jeff Huber, Google’s senior VP of engineering, said during this afternoon’s Q1 earnings call. It’s not often we get even semi-official numbers out of Mountain View, but there you go.

    Also, we put quote marks around "apps" because as we all know, there are a goodly number of ringtones, skins, wallpapers and any number of other things in the Market that we wouldn’t normally consider apps. So there you go.

  • Toyota reportedly testing all of its SUV’s stability control systems

    Filed under: , , , , ,

    2010 Lexus GX460 – Click above for high-res image gallery

    Further proof that Toyota is taking Consumer Reports’ recent test and subsequent Do Not Buy rating of its Lexus GX 460 sport utility vehicle seriously is a report from AutoWeek that the Japanese giant is testing all of the stability control systems used on every single one of its SUV models.

    Toyota took the decisive action of issuing a stop sale on its new Lexus GX 460 here in the United States (also in the Middle East and Russia) after CR found that it was possible to coax the big ‘ute into a massive sideways slide when the throttle is lifted mid-corner, seemingly defeating the standard stability control in the process. Under certain situations, the tall, heavy vehicle could potentially roll over.

    According to Toyota, none of the 5,400 or so owners here in the States have reported any issues with their GX 460’s handling characteristics, but that doesn’t mean the issue isn’t serious. Click here to read our own explanation as to what might be prompting the errant handling woes and expect to hear plenty more on these SUV handling issues in the coming weeks and months.

    Gallery: 2010 Lexus GX460

    [Source: AutoWeek]

    Toyota reportedly testing all of its SUV’s stability control systems originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 15 Apr 2010 16:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

    Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

  • 2010 Ducati Multistrada 1200: Pure Moto Porn

    The above TV ad is in Italian and it lacks subtitles, but who cares? It’s supposed to say something like, “When I was a child, they told me the world can’t change by simply pushing a button. But they were wrong; today, with just a click, I can change the world.” Honestly, it could say “Please spit in my pasta before you drag it across the filth-laden floor, then cop a feel from my wife before you punch me in the face” and I wouldn’t care. When a bike looks this good, all rational thought goes out the window. How could they get this bike so right, when the original Multistrada looked like a beluga whale riding a bicycle?

    The 2011 Ducati Multistrada 1200 features four power delivery and suspension settings that are electronically rider adjustable. These range from Sport (full-hoon), through Touring, Urban and finally, Enduro, which is meant for the loose stuff. In addition, the rider can choose electronic weight settings based on whether he’s solo, solo with luggage, with a passenger, or with a passenger and luggage. The Multistrada 1200’s v-twin motor puts out 150 horsepower, and the bike has a dry weight of just 417 pounds. If the new Multistrada is as functional as it is beautiful, BMW’s got their work cut out for them in the dual purpose segment.


  • 2011 Buick Excelle compact sedan spotted hanging out undisguised

    Following the Buick Regal, GM’s next plans for the brand consist of a compact sedan based on the Buick Excelle XT, which itself is based on the Opel Astra. The model is scheduled to make its Chinese debut next week at the 2010 Beijing Motor Show, but you can always count on the Internet for an earlier preview.

    Click here for prices on the 2010 Buick LaCrosse.

    The new 2011 Buick Excelle sedan was caught totally uncovered hanging out somewhere out there in the world.

    We’ll have more details next week but expect the Buick Excelle to be available only with 4-cylinder engines (at least one turbocharged versions). No word on when the compact Buick will make its way to the United States.

    2011 Buick Excelle (Leaked Images):

    – By: Kap Shah

    Source: AutoHome (via CarScoop)


  • Here’s How To Watch The Crucial UK Debate Live

    The UK debate is being shown live, via Justin TV:

     


    Watch live video from Election uktv 2010 on Justin.tv

    Join the conversation about this story »

  • Microsoft Talks Kin Phone, Tightens Twitter Ties, Dominates Human-Computer Interactions—A Redmond Roundup

    Microsoft
    Gregory T. Huang wrote:

    It has been a busy week indeed in Microsoft land. While the man on the street has been scrambling to file his taxes, the Redmond, WA, company has been making headway in smartphones, real-time search, and other important areas. Let’s get right to the highlights:

    Microsoft talks up Kin “social phone”
    This is a phone specifically designed for heavy social network users. (In other words, something I won’t be buying anytime soon.) The interface emphasizes your contacts and supposedly makes it easy to do things like share photos and Web information, and stream music and video. It’s coming out in May. You can read some local writeups of the Kin by the Seattle Times, TechFlash, and mocoNews.

    Bing incorporates Twitter updates
    Microsoft’s search engine is amping up its partnership with Twitter, providing up-to-the-minute results from the Twitter stream in its main search results. The Bing team is currently testing the new features with a subset of its users and search queries, so it’s not quite prime-time yet. But it’s the latest move in the increasingly important battle over “social search” between Microsoft and Google, which really only started last year.

    Microsoft outsources IT to InfoSys
    Infosys Technologies said it will be managing internal IT services for Microsoft worldwide. The three-year deal amounts to the Indian company providing employee help desk services and managing applications, devices, and databases for Microsoft in 450 locations across 104 countries. This seems like a pretty big deal, and probably is a way for Microsoft to save a lot of money. The impact on Microsoft’s inner workings and product development remains to be seen.

    Microsoft Research dominates at CHI conference
    At the big international human-computer interaction expo this week (CHI 2010 in Atlanta), Microsoft presented 38 technical papers, or about 10 percent of all papers accepted by the conference. They ranged from a telepresence project to help employees communicate with remote colleagues to efforts in interactive touch displays, pen and touch interfaces, and studying how changing Web content affects people’s interactions with the Web.

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  • Judge: Natl Day Of Prayer Unconstitutional

    The National Day of Prayer, honored in the United States for more than a half-century, is unconstitutional, a federal judge in Wisconsin has ruled.

    In a 66-page opinion issued Thursday, U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb said the holiday violates the “establishment clause” of the First Amendment, which creates a separation of church and state.

    “I understand that many may disagree with that conclusion and some may even view it as a criticism of prayer or those who pray,” Crabb said in her opinion. “That is unfortunate. A determination that the government may not endorse a religious message is not a determination that the message itself is harmful, unimportant or undeserving of dissemination. Rather, it is part of the effort to ‘carry out the Founders’ plan of preserving religious liberty to the fullest extent possible in a pluralistic society.’ … The same law that prohibits the government from declaring a National Day of Prayer also prohibits it from declaring a National Day of Blasphemy.”

    The opinion comes in a case filed by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a Wisconsin-based group of self-described “atheists” and “agnostics.”

    Crabb said her ruling is based on “relevant case law,” and it does not prevent religious groups from organizing prayer services or prevent the President from discussing his views on prayer.

    “The only issue decided in this case is that the federal government may not endorse prayer in a statute,” Crabb said.

    The Justice Department would not say whether it expects to appeal Crabb’s ruling.

    “We are reviewing the court’s decision,” a Justice Department spokesman said.

    The National Day of Prayer was first established by Congress in 1952, with a more specific date for the holiday set in 1988. It is now observed on the first Thursday in May.

    On the holiday last year, President Obama issued a statement saying Americans have always “come together in moments of great challenge and uncertainty to humble themselves in prayer.”

    “In 1775, as the Continental Congress began the task of forging a new Nation, colonists were asked to observe a day of quiet humiliation and prayer,” the statement said. “Almost a century later, as the flames of the Civil War burned from north to south, President Lincoln and the Congress once again asked the American people to pray as the fate of their Nation hung in the balance.”

  • NEWS RELEASE: Water Shortages Put Asian Power Sector at Risk

    More than half of existing and planned power plants in South and Southeast Asia are located in areas currently considered water scarce or stressed, according to findings in a report released today by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and HSBC’s Climate Change Centre of Excellence.

    The new report, Over Heating: Financial Risks from Water Constraints on Power Generation, analyzes water-related risks facing thermal and hydroelectric power plants in India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. These plants require large amounts of water for cooling and generation.

    WRI mapped the water stress level across the region and the location of more than 150 existing and planned facilities of the largest power-generation companies in the region. The analysis found that water shortages pose the highest risk for power generation companies in India.

    “Water-related risks are hard to quantify, yet they present a growing risk to power generation,” said Piet Klop, acting director of WRI’s Markets and Enterprise Program. “The next step is to take our analysis to specific companies and their exposure and response to those risks. On the upside, investors have investment opportunities that can come from better understanding water-related risks.”

    In India, approximately 62 percent of existing and 79 percent of planned thermal and hydroelectric power plants of the three largest power generation companies (NTPC, Tata Power, and Reliance Infrastructure) are located in water scarce or stressed areas. The country’s water demand is expected to outgrow supply by 50 percent by 2030 and estimates by the World Bank indicate that all available water supplies will be exhausted by 2050.

    “The power sector investors and analysts are making long-term bets on water that, in the future, might no longer be reliable,” said Amanda Sauer, a senior associate at WRI. “They need to start assessing their exposure to water-related risks when considering long-term investment strategies.”

    The report’s findings suggest that project delays due to water-permitting problems and general shortages may be costly. As part of the study, HSBC’s analysts found that a 12-month delay in commercial operation could lower the rate of return on investment by 1.5 percent. Furthermore, each 5 percent drop in power production due to water shortages could result in nearly a 0.75 percent drop in the project’s rate of return.

    “The projected expansion of power generation – whether coal, hydro or gas – is exposed to growing water stress,” said Nick Robins, head of the Climate Change Centre of Excellence (C3E) at HSBC.

    Roshan Padamadan, a HSBC analyst at the Centre said, “Investors need to understand how companies are managing these risks, including the specific steps to optimize water use at the plant level.”

    Over heating is the second report in a three-part series. The first report, Weeding Risk, looks at climate change and water scarcity impacts on the food and beverage sector in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. The third report, Surveying Risk, Building Opportunity, assesses environmental risks to commercial real estate in the region.

  • THIS Is Why Cities Are Going Broke

    Allen Texas Football Stadium 10It’s no secret that in the midwest and southern parts of the United States, high school football is HUGE.

    So that is why Allen, Texas, a town that’s seen explosive growth in the past few decades, is building a $59.6 million football stadium for its high school. The high school is the only one in the district and is over 600,000 square feet and accommodates to 3900 students.

    The stadium is scheduled to open in late 2012 and will feature a video scoreboard, four concession stands, 12 restrooms, and 18,000 seats. 

    Of course, the town has to raise money to build the stadium.  And, lucky for us, there’s a batch of photos in their bond proposal showing how it will look once completed.

    Check out the town’s bond presentation >

    Image: Rivals.com

    Image: Rivals.com

    Image: Rivals.com

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    Image: Rivals.com

    Image: Rivals.com

    Image: Rivals.com

    Image: Rivals.com

    Image: Rivals.com

    Image: Rivals.com

    Image: Rivals.com

    Join the conversation about this story »

  • Fear of science will kill us – CNN.com

    Fear of science will kill us – CNN.com

    – Michael Specter, CNN, April 13, 2010. Watch video
    American denialism threatens many areas of scientific progress, including the widespread fear of vaccines and the useless trust placed in the vast majority of dietary supplements quickly come to mind.
    It doesn’t seem to matter how often vaccines are proved safe or supplements are shown to offer nothing of value. When people don’t like facts, they ignore them.
    Nowhere is that unwillingness to accept the truth more evident than in the mindlessly destructive war that has been raging between the proponents of organic food and those who believe that genetically engineered products must play a role in feeding the growing population of the Earth. This is a divide that shouldn’t exist.
    All the food we eat — every grain of rice and kernel of corn — has been genetically modified. None of it was here before mankind learned to cultivate crops. The question isn’t whether our food has been modified, but how.
    I wrote “Denialism” because it has become increasingly clear that this struggle threatens progress for us all. Denialists replace the open-minded skepticism of science with the inflexible certainty of ideological commitment. It isn’t hard to find evidence: the ruinous attempts to wish away the human impact on climate change, for example. The signature denialists of our time, of course, are those who refuse to acknowledge the indisputable facts of evolution.
    Nowhere has the screaming been louder, however, than in the fight over how we grow our food. If you are brave enough to set a Google Alert for the phrases “genetically modified food” and “organic food,” you will quickly see what I mean.
    The anxiety is certainly understandable. When it comes to food — the way we produce it and particularly the way we consume it — we have a lot to worry about.
    One third of American children are overweight or obese; for adults, the numbers are higher. Our addiction to mindless consumption has made millions sick and costs this country billions of dollars. The financial toll comes in terms of time lost at work and money spent treating and supporting people with diabetes, heart disease and many cancers, who, had they followed a better diet, would never have fallen ill.
    Nonetheless, better eating habits have nothing specific to do with organic food, which provides no nutritional advantage over more conventionally raised products. Opponents of genetically modified food constantly argue that it is unsafe. There has, however, never been a single documented case of a human killed by eating genetically modified food.
    If every American swallowed two aspirin right now, hundreds of us would die today. Does that mean we ought to ban aspirin? Of course not. It simply means that there are risks and benefits associated with everything we do and with every decision we make.
    When people say they prefer organic food, what they often seem to mean is they don’t want their food tainted with pesticides and their meat shot full of hormones or antibiotics. Many object to the way a few companies — Monsanto is the most famous of them — control so many of the seeds we grow.
    Those are all legitimate complaints, but none of them have anything to do with science or the way we move genes around in plants to make them grow taller or withstand drought or too much sun. They are issues of politics and law. When we confuse them with issues of science, we threaten the lives of the world’s poorest people.
    We are doing that now. By 2050, we are going to have 9 billion people to feed, a huge increase over today’s 6.8 billion. It’s not a figure about which there is much dispute. To feed that many will require nearly 50 percent more food than we produce now.
    It’s not enough to simply say we waste food and consume too many calories, so that if we distributed it more intelligently everyone could eat just fine. Not in sub-Saharan Africa, where drought is nearly permanent.
    Many of those people subsist on cassava, the basic potato-like staple in the region. It lacks most protein, nutrients and vitamins.
    You cannot survive for long without them, so a team of international scientists funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is engineering vitamins and micronutrients into cassava.
    They are engineering success into a failed crop. It will save and prolong many lives; that is farming and genetic modification at their best. Who could be opposed to that?
    —
    Michael Specter is a staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of “Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet and Threatens our Lives.” TED, a nonprofit organization devoted to “Ideas Worth Spreading,” hosts talks on many subjects and makes them available through its Web site, http://www.ted.com/
    Reproduced in full in the Public Interest

  • New music recommendation: The National-High Violet

    Lynne Kiesling

    It’s been too long since we’ve done any decent music recs here at KP, and last Sunday’s release of The National’s new album High Violet is a good reason to do one now. I’ve heard a couple of songs from it, including “Bloodbuzz Ohio” that they are offering as a free download, and they are great. Lush, layered, sophisticated, interesting. I think I will frequent my local indie record shop tomorrow and get the deluxe CD …

  • Larry King Doesn’t Have A Prenup

    Chi-Ching! Let that cash register ring: Larry King and wife Shawn Southwick – who both filed for divorce on Wednesday – did sign a prenupital agreement when they wed in a Los Angeles hospital room almost 13 years ago, which means the bespectacled host of CNN’s Larry King Live is going to lose some mayjah moolah if he wants to ditch the old ball and chain.

    “She is a tall, good-looking blonde and that pretty much explains it,” a source says of why the 76-year-old didn’t protect his empire before tying the knot for the eighth time.

    Larry’s net worth is an estimated $144 million and his current CNN contract is reportedly worth $56 million over 4 years. Did we mention that The Kings are residents of California: a community property state where all monies earned during a marriage are split right down the middle?

    Shawn is the mother of Larry’s two youngest sons Chance and Cannon and his seventh wife (Arlene Atkins married King twice in the 1960s). Perhaps the most explosive allegation in Southwick’s divorce filing is the former singer’s assertion that the TV titan has been secretly sleeping with her younger sister Shannon Engemann.

    The pair reportedly fought bitterly for years over Shawn’s belief that King was having an affair with Shannon, 46.
    King spent $1 million on Engemann and lavished her with gifts, including a $160,000 car.

    Both Engemann and King deny the affair allegations.

  • Mini Ice Cream Cookie Cups win the 44th Pillsbury Bake-Off!

    Mini Ice Cream Cookie Cups

    The 44th Pillsbury Bake-Off ended yesterday morning, with one lucky baker walking away $1,000,000 richer. Last time around, I was lucky enough to attend the big event and spent some time blogging about it, both about the experience of attending and about what goes into making those recipes so great. The cooks there are talented, and don’t let the fact that there are some required ingredients for the contest let you think otherwise!

    This year, the million-dollar grand prize went to Sue Compton of Delanco, NJ, for her Mini Ice Cream Cookie Cups (pictured above). I love this recipe because it seems so simple, yet when all those flavors come together, it really hits the nail on the head in terms of great flavors. It’s a sugar cookie crust baked in a mini muffin pan, rimmed with chocolate and walnuts, filled with a little bit of jam, then topped off with ice cream and fresh raspberries. This would definitely be easy to throw together for summer parties!

    Cooking with Amy was at the Bake Off, along with a number of other bloggers. There is also an official Bake-Off Blog. All are worth checking out. The contest is so big that it takes two years to get to the next round, but that is just enough time to experiment in your own kitchen and come up with your own million-dollar recipe!