Issue Some small California cities obtain government services from larger public entities under contracts. These cities are known as Lakewood plan cities or contract cities. It appears that some of these cities are “ripped off” by larger public entities. For example, in 2002 and 2003, a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy committed (and was convicted…
When I wrote my prior post, I wondered if Chris Csikszentmihalyi was related to Mike. A little web searching confirmed that Chris is Mike’s son. In college, I took an introductory sociology class taught by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. He started his first class with “Call me Mike.” He is one of the more interesting speakers and…
At the bottom of this blog page, the Haitian PersonFinder website is embedded. NPR and the Associated Press reported (See http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122735241 ) that Tim Schwartz, an artist and programmer in San Diego, helped build http://www.haitianquake.com as a social networking tool for finding Haitian earthquake victims. Christopher Csikszentmihalyi of the Center for Future Civic Media at…
Image via Wikipedia Union members who work for the government now outnumber privately employed union members in the United States, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Overall union membership is now 15.3 million; 51.5 percent of these members are government workers. As of December 2009, the U.S. non-farming private workforce had 108.4 million workers;…
Image via Wikipedia Corporations, unions, and lobbying groups are fictions created by governments. They are constructs deserving of contractual and statutory privileges, duties, and protections. They are not individual human beings deserving of rights. The Supreme Court‘s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ( See http://supremecourtus.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-205.pdf ) essentially expands the election financing process…
It’s the flickering that’s the culprit. Oftentimes, replacing the magnetic ballast with an electronic ballast will solve the problem (it reduces the modulation depth – see http://lrt.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/21/1/11 ). Alternatively, remove the lighting and replace it with incandescent task lighting or, if feasible, natural light through windows or sky lights.
A paper describing circumstances wherein welfare is increased by suppressing information that generates excess volatility in the price of an asset or currency around its long run valueis available at: http://research.stlouisfed.org/wp/2010/2010-001.pdf . Apparently, the author, a Federal Reserve Bank vice president, doesn’t accept the notion of inequity aversion or behavioral economics in general. I hope…
Image by Getty Images via Daylife Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder is an inspiring book about Dr. Paul Farmer, Haiti, Partners in Health, and Farmer’s belief that “the only real nation is humanity.” The book’s title is taken from the Haitian proverb ,”Beyond mountains there are mountains.”–as soon as one problem is solved, another…
In general, it is a crime in California to record a communication (wherein there was a reasonable expectation of privacy) without the consent of all parties. See California Penal Code Sections 630 – 638 ( http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/waisgate?WAISdocID=2039854621+2+0+0&WAISaction=retrieve). Here is a link to state-by-state summaries regarding privacy-related laws (see http://www.rcfp.org/taping/states.html).