From BBC News on the US stimulus package:

About one-third of the package being considered is composed of tax relief, with the rest devoted to spending on infrastructure projects.

Broadly, Republicans want more tax relief and less spending, and they complain that some projects would do little to stimulate the economy or create jobs.

To the ( Read more... )

Let this be a warning to those who lose their luggage while traveling: Just because you've passed the date where your luggage is considered lost forever doesn't mean you'll get a full reimbursement if the luggage turns up again. Of the about DKK 20000 we spent replenishing our suitcase which arrived almost three months late, our insurance company ( Read more... )

I hain't posted for ages, but that doesn't mean I've died and joined the hordes of the zombies. I have merely been in the Good Ole U S of A[tm]. Even if it's only Somewhat Ok these days. But let's not get me started on that. Instead, let's talk about the weather. It's quite a change to come from the Danish summer/fall to the Midwest and ( Read more... )

Just saying that things are pretty good here in Winfield. The weather has been crazy mild, hardly even shorts-weather, but seems to be returning towards the more common 30+ degrees. I'm trying my best to get a reasonable interpolation of measurements at irregularly placed points working, but my Voronoi diagrams are being annoying, and all the other ( Read more... )

New executive order just in: The fifth amendment has been suspended. Apart from its blatant unconstitutionality, it's interesting because it employs recursion: It affects a group of persons, including those who provide logistical or technical support for or act on behalf of anybody in the group. So if you work at a bank or a post office or a ( Read more... )

In a move guaranteed to make headlines everywhere, Bush recently signed a law allowing the President to impose martial law in the USA. Removing the barrier to immediate action that is asking consent from the state governor enables much faster response times to natural disasters, terrorist acts and seditious political activity. No more shall the ( Read more... )

An interesting semi-technical article on ArsTechnica describes how to use technology to steal an election. In many different ways. Undetectably. My favorite quote:

To have confidence in the results of an election using DREs, you no longer have to put your trust solely in the security practices at the Board of Elections. Now, you have to have ( Read more... )