Neither side wants to talk about the real lesson of Benghazi: interventionism always carries with it unintended consequences. The US attack on Libya led to the unleashing of Islamist radicals in Libya. … Read More
Koch brothers’ real plan for media domination
Why would anyone want to buy a newspaper these days? This is the question originally raised by my recent Harper’s magazine investigation into the state of the newspaper industry and now resurrected by this weekend’s New York Times report on the possibility of Koch Industries buying the Tribune Company’s eight newspaper properties. The answer is that for all the problems they face, newspapers still offer something extremely valuable to a particular kind of investor – just not what they might publicly admit to because it is more than a bit unseemly.In public, of course, prospective newspaper buyers continue to pretend that they are primarily interested in purchasing newspapers either to 1) preserve a venerated civic institution and objective journalism or 2) to seize an honest, straightforward business opportunity.Continue Reading… … Read More
Koch brothers’ real plan for taking over media
Why would anyone want to buy a newspaper these days? This is the question originally raised by my recent Harper’s magazine investigation into the state of the newspaper industry and now resurrected by this weekend’s New York Times report on the possibility of Koch Industries buying the Tribune Company’s eight newspaper properties. The answer is that for all the problems they face, newspapers still offer something extremely valuable to a particular kind of investor – just not what they might publicly admit to because it is more than a bit unseemly.In public, of course, prospective newspaper buyers continue to pretend that they are primarily interested in purchasing newspapers either to 1) preserve a venerated civic institution and objective journalism or 2) to seize an honest, straightforward business opportunity.Continue Reading… … Read More
Supreme Court Continues to Avoid Eminent Domain Cases Post-Kelo
In his 2005 concurrence in the eminent domain case Kelo v.
City of New London, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy
argued that while the local officials in Connecticut did possess
the lawful authority to seize private property and then hand it
over to a private developer for purposes of so-called economic
revitalization, the government could not simply wield this power
any time it wanted on behalf of its politically-connected friends.
“Transfers intended to confer benefits on particular, favored
private entities, and with only incidental or pretextual public
benefits,” he wrote, “are forbidden by the Public Use Clause.” One
way to identify whether or not “favored private entities” are
getting rich illegally off state power, Kennedy explained, was to
make sure the main private beneficiary of an eminent domain taking
was “unknown at the time the city formulated its plans.”
On Monday, the Supreme Court had a prime opportunity to give
additional force to Kennedy’s words and instead declined to review
a
glaring case of eminent domain abuse from Guam. At issue in
Ilagan v. Ungacta was a land seizure by the government,
ostensibly for “public” purposes, but which in fact appears to have
been carried out for the benefit of one person and one person only,
the local mayor, who owned a residential lot that happened to lack
access to a road. Under the eminent domain proceedings, the mayor’s
neighbor lost a portion of his property and the mayor gained road
access.
It’s hard to imagine a clearer example of the government
exploiting its eminent domain powers on behalf of a “favored”
private entity, but apparently there were not even four
justices—the minimum number of votes needed to hear a case—willing
to take a closer look into the matter.
Nor is this the only time in recent years the Supreme Court has
refused to hear an eminent domain case that tests Kennedy’s
Kelo opinion. In 2010, the Court declined to hear New York
property owner Nick Sprayregen’s powerful challenge to the Empire
State’s use of eminent domain
on behalf of Columbia University. Like the controversy from
Guam, the Columbia case offered a clear example of the government
unleashing its bulldozers on behalf of a politically-connected
private entity.
The ruling in Kelo was bad enough, but allowing these
sorts of naked government land grabs to stand threatens to render
the Takings Clause a dead letter. … Read More
Boston Marathon Bombing: Who Do They Plan To Blame?
While many people might immediately dismiss the concept, any student of true and unadulterated history has to eventually admit this fact: Governments exploit crisis. … Read More
Potential ‘Comet of the Century’: NASA satellite takes new photo
“Comet ISON has the potential to be among the brightest comets of the last 50 years, which gives us a rare opportunity to observe its changes in great detail and over an extended period,” NASA’s official website quoted an astronomer with University of Maryland at College Park (UMCP), Dennis Bodewits, who helped obtain the new image.The photo of Comet ISON was taken at the end of January, but NASA unveiled it two months later.Comet ISON was first discovered in September 2012 by two Russian astronomers Vitali Nevski and Artyom Novichonokm who used the International Scientific Optical Network located near the city of Kislovodsk. The comet’s official designation is Comet C/2012 S1.By tracking the celestial body over the last two months when scanning for the most powerful explosions in the universe, Swift allowed astronomers to learn new details about how large the comet is and how fast it is spewing out gas and dust. SWIFT’s purpose was to determine how much ice is on the comet.”Using images acquired over the last two months from Swift’s Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope (UVOT), the team has made initial estimates of the comet’s water and dust production and used them to infer the size of its icy nucleus,” NASA officials wrote in a statement.NASA’s image of the comet shows it as a bright and fuzzy white ball. On January 29, ISON was about 670 million kilometers away from Earth and 740 million kilometers from the sun.Some scientists predict that ISON could be the “Comet of the Century” as it makes its closest approach to the sun in late November. But a recent analysis found that the comet is not brightening as expected.”It looks promising, but that’s all we can say for sure now. Past comets have failed to live up to expectations once they reached the inner solar system, and only observations over the next few months will improve our knowledge of how ISON will perform,” an astronomer at Lowell Observatory and a member of the Swift team, Matthew Knight, told NASA.As NASA officials have explained, all comets are made of dust and frozen gases that mix together to form a sort of “dirty snowball” in space. Water ice in comets typically stays frozen until the comet approaches within three times the Earth’s distance to the sun, at which time the water ice heats up and changes directly into gas (a process called sublimation), creating jets of material that can make the comet brighter.Swift’s observations revealed that Comet ISON is currently spilling about 51 tons of dust and only about 60 kilos of water every minute. The difference suggests that the comet is still too far away from the sun in order to show its full potential, scientists explain.The main question: whether Comet ISON will live up to its celestial hype or fizzle out in a whimper? The answer is not yet known, but astronomers say it will become clear in the next few months.On the first day of October 2013 the comet will pass within 10.8 million kilometers of Mars, and may be spotted by orbiters around the Red Planet. On November 28 — 58 days after swinging by Mars — Comet ISON will make its closest approach to the sun, flying within 1.2 million kilometers of the star’s surface. Several sun-watching observatories will be tracking the comet at that time, and ISON may even become visible to the naked eye in the daytime sky, NASA officials claimed.The comet will make its closest approach to Earth on December 26, coming with 64.2 million kilometers of the planet.Comet Hale–Bopp (C/1995 O1) was one of the most widely observed comet of the 20th century and one of the brightest seen for many decades. It was visible to the naked eye for a record 18 months, twice as long as the previous record holder, the Great Comet of 1811. … Read More
‘Comet of the Century’: NASA captures new photo of icy wanderer ISON
“Comet ISON has the potential to be among the brightest comets of the last 50 years, which gives us a rare opportunity to observe its changes in great detail and over an extended period,” NASA’s official website quoted an astronomer with University of Maryland at College Park (UMCP), Dennis Bodewits, who helped obtain the new image.The photo of Comet ISON was taken at the end of January, but NASA unveiled it two months later.Comet ISON was first discovered in September 2012 by two Russian astronomers Vitali Nevski and Artyom Novichonokm who used the International Scientific Optical Network located near the city of Kislovodsk. The comet’s official designation is Comet C/2012 S1.By tracking the celestial body over the last two months when scanning for the most powerful explosions in the universe, Swift allowed astronomers to learn new details about how large the comet is and how fast it is spewing out gas and dust. SWIFT’s purpose was to determine how much ice is on the comet.”Using images acquired over the last two months from Swift’s Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope (UVOT), the team has made initial estimates of the comet’s water and dust production and used them to infer the size of its icy nucleus,” NASA officials wrote in a statement.NASA’s image of the comet shows it as a bright and fuzzy white ball. On January 29, ISON was about 670 million kilometers away from Earth and 740 million kilometers from the sun.Some scientists predict that ISON could be the “Comet of the Century” as it makes its closest approach to the sun in late November. But a recent analysis found that the comet is not brightening as expected.”It looks promising, but that’s all we can say for sure now. Past comets have failed to live up to expectations once they reached the inner solar system, and only observations over the next few months will improve our knowledge of how ISON will perform,” an astronomer at Lowell Observatory and a member of the Swift team, Matthew Knight, told NASA.As NASA officials have explained, all comets are made of dust and frozen gases that mix together to form a sort of “dirty snowball” in space. Water ice in comets typically stays frozen until the comet approaches within three times the Earth’s distance to the sun, at which time the water ice heats up and changes directly into gas (a process called sublimation), creating jets of material that can make the comet brighter.Swift’s observations revealed that Comet ISON is currently spilling about 51 tons of dust and only about 60 kilos of water every minute. The difference suggests that the comet is still too far away from the sun in order to show its full potential, scientists explain.The main question: whether Comet ISON will live up to its celestial hype or fizzle out in a whimper? The answer is not yet known, but astronomers say it will become clear in the next few months.On the first day of October 2013 the comet will pass within 10.8 million kilometers of Mars, and may be spotted by orbiters around the Red Planet. On November 28 — 58 days after swinging by Mars — Comet ISON will make its closest approach to the sun, flying within 1.2 million kilometers of the star’s surface. Several sun-watching observatories will be tracking the comet at that time, and ISON may even become visible to the naked eye in the daytime sky, NASA officials claimed.The comet will make its closest approach to Earth on December 26, coming with 64.2 million kilometers of the planet.Comet Hale–Bopp (C/1995 O1) was one of the most widely observed comet of the 20th century and one of the brightest seen for many decades. It was visible to the naked eye for a record 18 months, twice as long as the previous record holder, the Great Comet of 1811. … Read More
