It looks obvious

It is interesting to examine the reaction of different states, and political movements, toward changes in reality. I’m wondering what will be the thing that will make the Californian, and mostly to people who believe that redistribution of wealth through high taxation, to realize that they were wrong.

Facing large migration out from the high tax states it is amazing to read that the reaction isn’t necessarily the logical one. One would assume that in order to stop the fleeing of the competent and able population states, like California, will change their tax philosophy. But it seems that the reaction of the plunders is that they need to squeeze more from those who didn’t leave yet.

What would they do when these people will leave too? I don’t think that they ever spent a minute thinking about it.

Link: Meathead Economics

What’s gone wrong? A big part of the story is a tax and regulatory culture that treats the most productive businesses and workers as if they were ATM machines. The cost to businesses of complying with California’s rules, regulations and paperwork is more than twice as high as in other Western states.
But the worst growth killer may well be California’s tax system. The business tax rate of 8.8% is the highest in the West, and its steeply "progressive" personal income tax has an effective top marginal rate of 10.3%, or second highest in the nation. CalTax, the state’s taxpayer advocacy group, reports that the richest 10% of earners pay almost 75% of the entire income-tax revenue in the state, and most of these are small business owners, i.e., the people who create jobs.
And things may soon get worse, thanks to Rob Reiner, who played the liberal "Meathead" on the "All in the Family" sitcom in the 1970s and now plays the same part in real life. He and his rich Hollywood friends have put an initiative on the state’s June ballot that would add a 1.7-percentage-point income-tax surcharge on "millionaires" with income over $400,000, with the proceeds earmarked for universal pre-school.

When I was a child, growing up in Israel, I often wondered how the holocaust could continue for years before the world waken up. It was easy to believe, mostly after long history of massacres, that the world simply hates the Jews. But as I grew up I realized it didn’t happen because the world hates the Jews. It happened because nobody cared.

We often being enraged after watching movies, such as “Hotel Rwanda” or “Tears of the Sun”, how come the world didn’t stop the killing? How can the world let genocide happen and not stop it?

Well it isn’t the world it is us. It is not the fault of the UN that nobody stopped the genocide in Darfur, although we know about it for years. We know that the UN is worthless organization that at best is only wasting time and money. We know that the UN is a cover for dictators to pretend that they are playing some international democratic game. And, most importantly, we know that people are being killed every day in Darfur and nothing happen.

Are we going to wonder later how did it happen? It is happening now because we don’t stop it.

Link: Refugee Crisis Grows as Darfur War Crosses a Border

"You may have thought the terrible situation in Darfur couldn’t get worse, but it has," Peter Takirambudde, executive director of the Africa division of Human Rights Watch, said in a recent statement. "Sudan’s policy of arming militias and letting them loose is spilling over the border, and civilians have no protection from their attacks, in Darfur or in Chad."

I don’t know how credible this report is but if it is true it is horrifying. I cannot imagine that American citizens are subject for news censorship.

Link: Google Video censors Iraq footage - for US only

Google’s video service appears to be blocking US viewers from seeing an innocuous piece of Iraq footage that Google delivers to internet users in the rest of the world without any problems.

Awhile ago, in a remark to my post “Carrefour don’t buy Danish” Catherine Fletcher suggested looking at the issue as French protectionism. Interestingly enough today’s Wall Street Journal, while covering the latest mergers of utilities companies in Europe, suggested similar observation:

“The efforts to fight off foreign buyers of publicly traded companies come amid a wave of cross-border takeovers in Europe and underscore how nationalism continues to thwart the integration of the Continent’s economy, The Wall Street Journal notes. The moves will test Europe’s commitment to enforcing a free flow of capital and whether Brussels has the means to face down protectionism in two of the European Union’s most powerful capitals, the Journal writes”

Interesting enough that France, one of the initiator of the EU model, is the one fighting to restrict its influence at home. I guess the French were all for it when it present a chance to increase French influence and support its own economy and are less open for European unity when other cultures and countries realizing the same advantage.

As usual you can find more here.

The Claremont Institute published a very interesting review on Stephanie Gutmann’s book: “The Other War: Israelis, Palestinians and the Struggle for Media Supremacy”.
Gutmman’s Analyses mark 3 main reasons for Israel disadvantage in the Media war: Israel’s free society and freedom of speech, the lack of freedom in the Arab world and media convention itself. These present a very hard to win, if not impossible, war.
Gutmman also present two very famous case studies that demonstrate her analysis:

Although it seems that Gutmman believe that Israel’s efforts are successfully reversing the tide I’m much less optimistic.

Doe’s the Origami project mean that Microsoft accepting the Thin-Client approach?

What is the big deal? Jewish women giving answers before any question has been asked for generations. Are years of research and efforts will end up with machine that emulates the Jewish mother?

Link: Quantum computer solves problem without running program

Through clever use of beam splitters and both constructive and destructive interference, the researchers can put each photon in a superposition of taking two paths. Although a photon can occupy multiple places simultaneously, it can only make an actual appearance at one location. Its presence defines its path, and that can, in a very strange way, negate the need for the search algorithm to run.

"In a sense, it is the possibility that the algorithm could run which prevents the algorithm from running," Kwiat said. "That is at the heart of quantum interrogation schemes, and to my mind, quantum mechanics doesn’t get any more mysterious than this."

Things like this making me uneasy; in fact they have nothing to do with freedom of speech. They are only hitchhikers on fashionable trend, trying to make quick buck. They remind me the people selling merchandize near the World Trade Center site. Both represent poor taste and lack of values.

One of my favorite sites is Memri which I visit regularly. Mostly I read translations of articles written by Liberal Arabs, it restore my optimism and my hope for better future in the Middle-East.
My visits in the video section of the site are less frequent only because I prefer articles to video. However since I had some time today I had the chance to find this jewel: this is the link to the video, and this is the link to transcript of the lecture. Beside of commenting that “Tom and Jerry” is not Walt Disney’s creation I’m going to have these links without my comments.

Read the history of the Jews in Europe. This ultimately led to Hitler’s hatred and resentment. As it turns out, Hitler had behind-the-scene connections with the Protocols [of the Elders of Zion].

Tom and Jerry was made in order to display the exact opposite image. If you happen to watch this cartoon tomorrow, bear in mind the points I have just raised, and watch it from this perspective. The mouse is very clever and smart. Everything he does is so cute. He kicks the poor cat’s ass. Yet this cruelty does not make you despise the mouse. He looks so nice, and he is so clever… This is exactly why some say it was meant to erase this image of mice from the minds of European children, and to show that the mouse is not dirty and has these traits.

Unfortunately, we have many such cases in Hollywood shows.