Having just been in Chicago, one of the most prevalent subject of conversation (despite the football season of course) is the ever-rising number of tickets being given to drivers. The Daley administration first made Chicago the most expensive parking city in the country with a corrupt deal that bordered on the criminal. The city was also accused of corrupt dealings with the company handling red-light ticking. However, none of this has curtailed the city contractors and officials clipping motorists for revenue in the form of endless ticketing. The latest outrage was the city reducing the time of yellow lights — a small tweak of a second that resulted in nearly $8 million in new tickets. Drivers are being treated as sources for revenue and hit with the equivalent of speed traps and short lights to generate more and more tickets.
US health experts and scientists are pushing for any interesting change in packaging information — the extent of exercise needed to burn off the calories of a product. If you buy a bottle of coke, for example, the table would show that the soft drink would require a 4.2 mile run or a 42 minute walk to break even. Research shows that teenagers better understand that measurement than just a calorie count
We have previously discussed the criminalization of every element of American society. A new case in Lenoir City, Tennessee is the latest such example. Like many Americans, Karen Holloway has failed to keep her yard work up. Few Americans however have ended up in jail like Holloway after her failure to maintain her yard was turned into a criminal matter. It appears the above garden would be more in line with those wishing to avoid time in the slammer for their overgrown yards.
Continue reading “Tennessee Woman Jailed Over Poor Yard Work”
We previously discussed how the White House opened admitted that it was delayed the increasingly unpopular immigration plan until after the election. Now it appears that another radioactive issue is being slow marched until after the election. The Army has completed its investigation into Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s disappearance from his base in Afghanistan five years ago. However, Pentagon sources have said that any release will have to come after the election and there is no guarantee that the findings will be made public.
Continue reading “Bergdahl Report Delayed Until After The Election”
Our final day in Sicily was spent in Syracuse and then Catania. We arrived in Catania in the early evening at our hotel Hotel Liberty near the center of town. Catania seems a city that embodies the principle that you should not judge a book by its cover. It is a city without much of the natural beauty of a Syracuse or the charming streets of an Agrigento. Indeed, when you drive through the city you recoil a bit due to the trash and the graffiti. While we stayed at Catania to be close to the airport for our flight, we ventured out and found some interesting sights.
One of the stories making the news here in Italy is the arrest of Daniela Poggiali, 42, a nurse who is accused of killing at least 38 of her patients because she found them or their relatives to be annoying. She was initially charged in the death of an elderly patient and now police believe that she is a serial killer.
Continue reading “Italian Nurse Accused Of Killing As Many As 38 Patients”
The Credit Suisse global wealth report (pdf), is out and it has some surprising findings on the world wealth distribution. The report says that the richest 1% of the world’s population is not only getting wealthier but owns more than 48% of global wealth. The bottom half of the world population owns less than one percent of the world’s wealth.
Continue reading “Wealth Gap: Just $3,650 Puts A Person In Top Half of Wealth In The World”
Sicily is an island filled with hidden jewels waiting for those with the curiosity and effort to find them. One of the greatest jewels is Ortigia, the small island at the center of the city of Syracuse, Sicily. Known as Città Vecchia (Old City), Ortigia is breathtaking in its beauty and its history. I cannot imagine how anyone can come to Italy and not spend time in Ortigia. I promise you: if you spend a day in Ortigia, you will spend a lifetime returning to this enchanting city.
Continue reading “Day 7: The Gem of Syracuse (Ortigia, Sicily)”
There is a sad story out of London that is a commentary on the mutating influence of anonymity on the Internet. Brenda Leyland killed herself after being confronted about her online abuse of the parents of the missing girl Madeleine McCann. Sky News tracked her down as the troll responsible for thousands of hate filled messages to Kate and Gerry McCann, whose three-year-old daughter went missing in Portugal in 2007. Continue reading “Death of a Troll: Suicide Highlights The Perils and Prosecution of Anonymous Speech”
Let me put this day into five simple ten words: I was almost eaten by a wild pack of dogs. But more on that later. The day started with our saying farewell to Cianciana, the birthplace of my maternal grandparents. We watched the blessing of the bread for women gathered before the statue of St. Anthony. On the way out of town, I was called over by a group of elderly men who said that they had heard that I was a descendent of the town and that my grandfather was Dominick Piazza. One of the men was a Piazza and was named Domenico. We compared family names though it was not clear if we were related. It was a wonderful conversation as the men asked in broken English about my grandparents and America. After saying goodbye, we made our way to Agrigento and the Valley of the Temples.
Today we bid farewell to lovely Cianciana and our radii familiari. It has been a wonderful three days in the village of my grandparents and I truly leave with a heavy heart. For those who want a truly authentic experience, Cianciana (population 3300) is the place to be. You can walk the streets at night filled with the sounds of children and men talking in coffee clutch circles. It is a different world that you can only see by traveling deep into Sicily and staying in one of these small villages.
We have often discussed tax policy on this blog. I am in the minority here on tax policies, particularly the high rate imposed in various countries for top earners. I am admittedly more inclined to a Chicago-school view of such high tax rates than many on this blog. This story caught my eye for obvious reasons. The French government is reporting a 20 percent increase in one year of high earners in leaving the country. We have previously discussed how such taxes produce emigration by rational actors from markets. French President Francois Hollande ran on a pledge to soak the rich in tax increases, a popular political platform but a disastrous economic plan. The result has been predictable. The French economy is in terrible condition and thousands of French families are leaving the country for England, the United States, and other countries. Now, Hollande’s government has announced that it will rescind the tax increase. Hollande and his socialist allies refused to accept the obvious impact of such a tax and now, a few years later, it will remove the tax after losing a huge amount of high earner tax dollars.
There is an interesting, if somewhat off-putting, story out of Richmond where the Southside Cremation Services building was set ablaze during a cremation in its attempt to cremate an 800 pound man. Fire crews had to extinguish the flames caused by the excessive heat and oil from the cremation. The story stood out from an insurance stand point. I am not sure how such risks are addressed in standard insurance and liability plans. While the fire did not spread, it would have made for a fascinating proximate causation case. Presumably, the over-sized cremated man is at no liability risk.
Continue reading “Cremation of 800-Pound Body Burns Crematoria In Richmond”
Today, Leslie and I drove from Cianciana to the coastal city of Sciacca, a gorgeous city famous for its ceramics and its seafood. It is about 50 minutes from Cianciana (unless you get lost as we did), but it is worth the trip.
By Mark Esposito, Weekend Blogger
Can religious beliefs actually retard our intuitions for justice and fairness? Research seems to suggest it might well. The Christian religion has imbued Western thought with the fundamental belief that God presides over a just world – one where sin is punished and rightly-held beliefs and actions are rewarded. We see this attitude in every aspect of human interaction. Today, in some sparkling sports stadium an earnest athlete is bound to thank his deity of choice for the good fortunes that befell his team or his game changing performance. By extension, the loser ( a value loaded word if ever there was one) will decry his lack of luck. From the Book of Job to Pinocchio and Cinderella, this belief in what some psychologists call “immanent justice” or “The Just Word Hypothesis” seeks to explain our plight and our success. It also hardens our attitudes about the poor, victims of crimes and those folks either buoyed or sunk by pure chance.
The Book of Job gets us into the mindset. A saintly man if ever there was one as the Bible itself acknowledges, God allows Satan to test Job with all manner of suffering to determine his worthiness. Stripped of his wealth, prestige and power, Job then loses his children and ultimately his health and vigor. Still, Job endures and never ever curses his fate – or his God. He does consult his friends for some inkling as to the cause of his travails. Their answer, which comes like a thunderclap is: “Behold,” one of them declares, “God will not cast away an innocent man, neither will he uphold evildoers” (Job 8:20). Classic “Blame the Victim” mentality from this coterie of advisers.
Puzzled but resolute, Job however concludes that despite his worldly righteousness, he can never know divine justice and according to the story prostrates himself silent before his Master’s “Just World.’ For that, he is rewarded with the resumption of his wealth and status. He even replaces his children with seven new ones. The clear message to the world however is the same: God handles the world’s justice and we are powerless to exact our own except on only the most superficial level.
Jesus himself gets in on the act in the New Testament. Addressing the multitude in the Sermon on the Mount, he has two distinct things to say about justice and our expectations of it: Blessed are…..those who hunger and thirst for righteousness: for they will be filled. (Matt. 5:6) and Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matt. 5:10). In modern speak, “Don’t worry God will handle it in his own way and, if you let him do so, you’ll get the whole enchilada. The pearly gates, the mansions, those singing and harp-playing cherubim … you, my faithful believer, get it all.”
Continue reading “Religion, Justice and The Just World Hypothesis”