Bar Titzvah?

Sunday, a yoga teacher in Scottsdale, Arizona, allegedly invited seven boys aged 11 to 15 while attending a boy’s bar mitzvah party, to stroke her new enlarged breasts.

Lindsey Radomski, 32, reportedly got drunk at the party on Saturday for 100 people, then showed her breasts to five adults and some boys near the swimming pool, before she was told to “sleep it off’ in a bedroom.

Hours later, on Sunday morning, she allegedly asked the seven boys if they wanted to come in the bedroom and fondle her breasts. After the boys had their fill and left, one 15-year-old remained behind. Radomski allegedly performed a sex act on him. His parents later reported her to the Scottsdale Police Department.

Radomski was arrested Tuesday evening, and though she admitted exposing her breasts, she said being drunk wiped out her memory of anything else. Sgt. Ben Hoster called the case “bizarre,” adding, “We haven’t had a woman allowing herself to be fondled by multiple juveniles before.”

Story here.

New Economic Paradigm?

Wealthy tech founders and the automation of middle-class jobs are often blamed for increasing concentrations of wealth in fewer hands. But a 26-year-old MIT graduate student, Matthew Rognlie, is making waves for an alternative theory of inequality: the problem is housing.

Rognlie is attacking the idea that rich capitalists have an unfair ability to turn their current wealth into a lazy dynasty of self-reinforcing investments. This theory, made famous by French economist Thomas Piketty, argues that wealth is concentrating in the 1% because more money can be made by investing in machines and land (capital) than paying people to perform work (wages). Because capital is worth more than wages, those with an advantage to invest now in capital become the source of long-term dynasties of wealth and inequality.

Rognlie’s blockbuster rebuttal to Piketty is that “recent trends in both capital wealth and income are driven almost entirely by housing.” Software, robots, and other modern investments all depreciate in price as fast as the iPod. Technology doesn’t hold value like it used to, so it’s misleading to believe that investments in capital now will give rich folks a long-term advantage.

Land/housing is really one of the only investments that give wealthy people a long-term leg up. According to the Economist, this changes how we should rethink policy related to income inequality.

I have problems calling income inequality a problem at all. When Mary poured perfume over Jesus head, Judas complained that the money could have been spent on the poor instead. Jesus replied "The poor you will always have with you..." (Mark 14:7).

There will always be people who have more money than others. Some are just better managers of whatever they have. Some are are smarter, or they work harder, or are on the right side of good fortune, or they inherited it ... or they stole it. Socialism will not cure that, it will only put everyone in the same misery zone and leave a ruling elite to truly enjoy the labor of others.

Rather than taxing businesses and wealthy investors, “policy-makers should deal with the planning regulations and NIMBYism that inhibit housebuilding and which allow homeowners to capture super-normal returns on their investments.” In other words, the government should focus more on housing policy and less on taxing the wealthy if it wants to properly deal with the inequality problem.

More here.

Hunting Diesel Subs

From the UK Daily Mail:

The US Navy is set to unleash an army of 'ghost drones' to scour the coasts for enemy submarines. They hope to end the growing threat of quiet, diesel powered enemy submarines enters American waters undetected.

The robot boats will go to sea for us to three months at a time.

The project began in 2010, when the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, announced that they were building a 132-foot autonomous boat to track quiet, diesel-powered submarines.

The program was dubbed Anti-submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel, or ACTUV.

In six weeks of tests along a 35-nautical mile stretch of water off of Mississippi earlier this year, testers at engineering company Leidos and DARPA put the ACTUV's systems through 100 different scenarios.

The test boat was able to tail a target boat at 1 kilometer's distance, something military bosses say is a major step forward.

More at DARPA and here.

I wonder how easy it is to detect and destroy these 'ghost drones'? Are they capable of evasion or self defense? It sounds like the technology is not mature and will take a bit more development before it is truly mission capable.

Do The Math

The democrats seek political advantage by allowing millions of illegals to swarm into the US while preaching that they do the jobs that Americans refuse to do.

At the same time, manufacturing jobs are disappearing across the country.

[...]"Advanced robotics are changing the calculus of manufacturing," says Harold Sirkin, a senior partner at the management consulting firm.

A handful of nations, including the U.S. and China, are poised to reap the biggest benefits of the automation wave.

About 1.2 million additional advanced robots are expected to be deployed in the U.S. by 2025, BCG says. Four industries will lead the shift — computer and electronics products; electrical equipment and appliances; transportation; and machinery — largely because more of their tasks can be automated and they deliver the biggest cost savings.

About 10% of all manufacturing functions are automated, a share that will rise to nearly 25% in a decade as robotic vision sensors and gripping systems improve, BCG says.

Meanwhile, costs are tumbling. The cost to purchase and start up an advanced robotic spot welder has plunged from $182,000 in 2005 to $133,000 in 2014, with the price forecast to drop another 22% by 2025.

That's prodding manufacturers to replace workers. BCG says manufacturers tend to ratchet up their robotics investment when they realize at least a 15% cost savings compared with employing a worker. In electronics manufacturing, it already costs just $4 an hour to use a robot for a routine assembly task vs. $24 for an average worker.

So what happens when the jobs that Americans refuse to do disappear? How many bean pickers do we need? How many people on economic support programs can this country maintain before it all falls apart? 

Behind The Scenes

The reason for Obama's fury at Israel is uncovered. Netanyahu spilled the secret beans that Obama was cooking with Iran.

From Legal Insurrection:

The Obama administration has vented its fury at Israel based on Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress, and pre-election statements.

None of those issues justified the complete fury coming from the administration. It just didn’t add up.

Now The Wall Street Journal reveals the back story — one in which the Israelis found out about secret negotiations and secret details concealed from Congress, and told Congress. Now the administration is promising long-term damage to Israel that will last beyond this administration.

It also becomes obvious that the meme that Netanyahu has been acting to help his reelection is wrong. There is a long history of Israel trying to stop a disastrous deal being negotiated in secret. Netanyahu’s opposition has been based on security concerns for years, not the recent election.