K4V.net BLOG

* Meg Whitman proves that a smart person can always get out of jury duty, is dismissed after five-hour ordeal.

Go here to read the rest:
California Roundup: Teachers Union Warns of Technopocalypse Under New Obama Admin. Testing Plan

“[T]he most striking thing when you start to look into the bullet train is how little planning or thought has gone into the thing,” a great man once said .

Read the original:
SF Chron: Put a Bullet In This Train!

According to preliminary news reports a non-producing oil platform run by Mariner Energy is burning about 80 miles off the coast of Louisiana in about 2500 feet of water.

See the original post:
Explosion on Another Oil Platform in Gulf of Mexico

A roomful of supporters of a California Republican candidate got their money’s worth from Carly Fiorina tonight as the former Hewlett-Packard CEO and Republican Senate nominee faced off for the first (and apparently only) time against Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer.

Read more from the original source:
Repubs Like Outcome of Boxer-Fiorina Debate

I’ve written before about the “professional courtesy” problem, where police officers let fellow officers off the hook for driving while intoxicated (see here , here , and here ). The latest example comes from Indianapolis, where on August 6, Officer David Bisard struck two motorcycles stopped at a red light , killing one person and critically injuring two others. Police reports initially blamed the bikers for the accident, though subsequent reports confirm that the motorcyclists were doing exactly what they’re supposed to do when an emergency vehicle approaches.

Excerpt from:
“Professional Courtesy” May Help Indy Cop Escape Hard Time

…and the things that some of them think are cool are really gross and nerdy ! Alternet enforces the lefty thoughtcrime mode on “singularity”/transhumanist/futurist/extropian thinking, on the grounds that…well, it’s really strange and people like Peter Thiel, Bryan Caplan, and Reason ’s own science reporter Ron Bailey are weirdos and “the thought of living forever among narcissistic libertarian cyborgs makes death’s cold embrace seem more like a squishy hug from the Easter Bunny.” Of course, the connection with this sort of thinking and libertarianism qua libertarianism is more a sociological accident; there is nothing inherently “libertarian” about that stuff, in a political sense, though it certainly will be liberatory for all humans, left, right, libertarian, whoever, the more we master those techniques of life extension and consciousness control.

See more here: 
Libertarians Are Icky…

Today in The Wall Street Journal , there’s some decent analysis on new proposed rules that would restrict eligibility for federal aid dollars to for-profit higher ed career programs, cutting off programs whose grads have low debt repayment rates and high debt-to-income ratios. (I wrote about the new rules in detail here .) Here are two sets of less-then-impressive statistics from the piece: “Even with this more challenging student population,” concludes a study released in March by the Parthenon Group, a consulting firm, “the private sector generates superior education outcomes as evidenced by a 65% graduation rate (compared to only a 44% graduation rate at community colleges).” And: The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that since 1995 nearly 40% of students at for-profit career colleges have defaulted on federal loans

See original here:
Battle of the Sucky School Stats

Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), one of the authors of ObamaCare, says he didn’t bother to read the entire bill, either. “I don’t think you want me to waste my time to read every page of the health care bill

Read the original post:
And by Experts He Means Lobbyists

Seventeen state attorneys general are demanding that Craigslist abolish its “Adult Services” section, which used to be called “Erotic Services” and still features ads for full-body massages, sexy blond hotties, and busty brunettes. Evidently some of these advertisers are actually prostitutes

Originally posted here: 
Attorneys General Demand That Craigslist Stop Offending Them