Displaying post 1 to 26 of 26
from
mefi
Terry Bressi's long saga
"I was stopped, threatened with lethal force, dragged out of my vehicle, and detained for several hours for no reason - other than requesting to know what law authorized the police to stop me and demand ID after admitting I wasn't suspected of violating any law and I wasn't being detained. Instead of answering my inquiries, the 'peace officers' preferred to initiate force against me."
posted to MetaFilter by trharlan
at 10:33 AM on April 12, 2005
(59 comments)
High school kids. Doing drugs!
A 23-year-old female undercover agent posed as a student at Milford High School. The investigation culminated Friday with the arrest of 16 students on drug-trafficking charges. Twelve are juveniles.
Public opinion is running 20 - 1 in favor of the sting.
Sandy Howdyshell, a 34-year-old Milford graduate who has an elementary school student in the district, said she was undecided on the school district's $108.6 million bond issue that will appear on ballots May 3 - until she heard about the undercover investigation... "I think it was a brilliant idea to put an undercover cop in the high school," Howdyshell said. "This event certainly has made an impact in my eyes. Now I know I'll be voting to support Milford schools."
posted to MetaFilter by trharlan
at 1:29 PM on April 8, 2005
(93 comments)
NORML Releases "Most Comprehensive Analysis Of US Marijuana Arrest Data To Date"
Among the reports' findings:
* The enforcement of state and local marijuana laws annually costs US taxpayers an estimated $7.6 billion, approximately $10,400 per arrest.
* While adult African Americans account for only 8.8% of the US population and 11.9% of annual marijuana users, they comprise 23% of all marijuana possession arrests in the United States.
posted to MetaFilter by trharlan
at 8:37 AM on March 15, 2005
(33 comments)
The Death of a Muslim Woman
In many cases, fathers -- and sometimes even mothers -- single out their youngest son to do the killing, Boehmecke said, "because they know minors will get lighter sentences from German judges."
posted to MetaFilter by trharlan
at 5:58 AM on March 3, 2005
(56 comments)
Harry Frankfurt's "On Bullshit"
One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted.... I propose to begin the development of a theoretical understanding of bullshit, mainly by providing some tentative and exploratory philosophical analysis.
posted to MetaFilter by trharlan
at 6:33 AM on February 1, 2005
(17 comments)
The Fall of Fannie Mae
This is not your ordinary accounting fraud. Yes, there's the matter of $9 billion in overstated earnings. But the fight over Fannie is a nasty political showdown where everyone has his own agenda. And it's not over yet.
posted to MetaFilter by trharlan
at 2:11 PM on January 25, 2005
(9 comments)
Cut-Rate Diplomas
Laura L. Callahan was very proud of her Ph.D... and she never let her employees at the Labor Department, where she served as deputy chief information officer, forget it.
To get her Ph.D., Callahan merely had to thumb through a workbook and take an open-book exam. The whole correspondence course-which includes instruction on business ethics-takes about five hours to complete. A 2,000-word paper (shorter than this article) counts as a dissertation.
posted to MetaFilter by trharlan
at 12:41 PM on January 11, 2005
(73 comments)
This .pdf
(accessible to laypersons) from the labor-backed Economic Policy Institute suggests that a falling dollar is probably very bad news for Europe.
The euro area is one of the slowest growing economic areas in the world, yet it will bear much of the burden of relieving the pressure of the U.S. trade deficits. This will deprive the euro area of demand for domestic products at a time when such demand is necessary to forestall a full-blown recession.Via Marginal Revolution.
posted to MetaFilter by trharlan
at 8:18 PM on November 28, 2004
(38 comments)
How to think about prescription drugs.
Malcolm Gladwell's latest piece in
The New Yorker
The emphasis of the prescription-drug debate is all wrong. We've been focussed on the drug manufacturers. But decisions about prevalence, therapeutic mix, and intensity aren't made by the producers of drugs. They’re made by the consumers of drugs.
posted to MetaFilter by trharlan
at 9:03 PM on October 31, 2004
(20 comments)
The Industrial Revolution, past and future:
The entire human race is getting rich, at historically unprecedented rates. The economic miracles of East Asia are, of course, atypical in their magnitudes, but economic growth is not the exception in the world today: It is the rule.
Nobel Prize winner
Robert Lucas discusses wealth redistribution and the world economy.
posted to MetaFilter by trharlan
at 4:11 PM on June 13, 2004
(9 comments)
A Frank and Sobering interview with Milton Friedman
In fact, all of the progress that the US has made over the last couple of centuries has come from unemployment. It has come from figuring out how to produce more goods with fewer workers, thereby releasing labor to be more productive in other areas. (via
Econlog)
posted to MetaFilter by trharlan
at 1:05 PM on September 17, 2003
(50 comments)
