“The House Natural Resources Committee’s Majority oversight staff released a report [July 25, 2014] entitled “A Five-Star Folly: An Investigation into the Cost Increases, Construction Delays, and Design Problems That Have Been a Disservice to the Effort to Memorialize Dwight D. Eisenhower.” The current proposal for the Memorial, created by Frank Gehry’s architecture firm, has faced… Continue Reading
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Monthly Archives: August 2014
Transforming Performance Measurement for the 21st Century
Harry P. Hatry – July 2014, Urban Institute “While substantial progress has been made in spreading performance measurement across the country and world, much of the information from performance measurement systems has been shallow. Modern technology and the considerable demand for information on progress in achieving the outcomes of public programs and policies are creating major… Continue Reading
What Does Consistent Participation in 401(k) Plans Generate? Changes in 401(k) Account Balances, 2007–2012
Employee Benefit Research Institute, 2014 Issue Brief #402 – July 2014 “The importance of analyzing a consistent group of participants. The annual EBRI/ICI 401(k) database update report is based on large cross sections of 401(k) plan participants with a wide range of tenure and participation experience. Consequently, meaningful analysis of the potential for 401(k) participants to accumulate… Continue Reading
Pseudo-Classification of Executive Branch Documents
Pseudo-Classification of Executive Branch Documents: Problems with the Transportation Security Administration’s Use of the Sensitive Security Information Designation, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. May 29, 2014. “Under the Air Transportation Security Act of 1974, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) created a category of sensitive but unclassified information, frequently referred to as “Sensitive Security Information” (SSI), and… Continue Reading
How America’s Top Industries Have Changed, 1990-2013 – WSJ
“The U.S.’s most dominant industries look a lot different than they did less than 25 years ago. From 1990 to 2013, the top industries by employment have changed from mostly manufacturing to mostly health-care and social-assistance jobs in the majority of states, according to a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data analysis of its Quarterly Census of Employment… Continue Reading
New on LLRX – Cell phone book club vision excites school librarian Njabulo Tazibona in Zimbabwe
Via LLRX.com – Cell phone book club vision excites school librarian Njabulo Tazibona in Zimbabwe: How he can make it reality A follow-up from David Rothman’s article earlier this month, Cell phone book clubs: A new way for libraries to promote literacy, technology, family and community – he shares that while U.S. librarians mull over LibraryCity’s proposal for… Continue Reading
Vision Correcting Displays for Dashboard GPS and E-Books
Larry Hardesty | MIT News Office – Technology could lead to e-readers, smartphones, and displays that let users dispense with glasses. “Researchers at the MIT Media Laboratory and the University of California at Berkeley have developed a new display technology that automatically corrects for vision defects — no glasses (or contact lenses) required. The technique could lead… Continue Reading
Bob Woodward reviews ‘The Nixon Defense,’ by John W. Dean
Bob Woodward – Washington Post – “President Richard Nixon’s decision to install a secret recording system — and then to retain the tapes — perhaps ranks as the most consequential self-inflicted political wound of 20th-century America. The criminality, abuse of power, obsession with real and perceived enemies, rage, self-focus, and small-mindedness revealed on those tapes left him… Continue Reading
UN – Impacts of Drug Use on Users and Their Families in Afghanistan
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, April 2014 “Afghanistan is the world’s largest producer and cultivator of opium poppies; it produces almost three quarters of the world’s illicit opium. While a significant amount of the opium produced in Afghanistan is trafficked out of the country, in 2009 it was estimated that almost 10 per… Continue Reading
Policy bubbles: What factors drive their birth, maturity and death?
“A policy bubble is a policy overreaction that is reinforced by positive feedback over a relatively long period of time. Policy bubbles impose social costs without producing offsetting benefits. Moshe Maor explores this phenomenon and explains how it may mature as a result of over-optimism and overconfidence among policymakers and the general public, or as a result of human herding and emotional contagion. Policy scholars and practitioners claim that the Eurozone has been, and still… Continue Reading
Preventing Bank Runs
Andolfatto, David and Nosal, Ed and Sultanum, Bruno, Preventing Bank Runs (July 31, 2014). FRB of St. Louis Working Paper No. 2014-021A. Available for download at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2474839 “Diamond and Dybvig (1983) is commonly understood as providing a formal rationale for the existence of bank-run equilibria. It has never been clear, however, whether bank-run equilibria in… Continue Reading
HP Study Reveals 70 Percent of Internet of Things Devices Vulnerable to Attack
“HP Fortify on Demand is pleased to announce the release of its Internet of Things State of the Union Study, revealing 70 percent of the most commonly used Internet of Things (IoT) devices contain serious vulnerabilities. Why we did the study – Late last year, we were hearing a lot about Internet of Things, and a bit about IoT security,… Continue Reading
