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Impact Wrenches:

Ingersoll Rand 231C – Via Amazon: “The classic 231 is the most popular tool in its class. Introduced over 25 years ago and continuously refined, it offers the sheer power and performance features to tackle the toughest jobs with ease – as well as proven durability and economy.” Echoes pretty much everything I see on the forums…..

HTPC Notes

Gadgets 2 Watch
HABEY’s BIS-6540HD mini HTPC

Streaming:

Netflix
Hulu
Epix

Websites:

http://htpctek.com/
http://www.avsforum.com/

General Guides:
Anandtech: How To: Build An HTPC (With Windows 7)

Remote Control:
FireFly

Media Connections:
ATI: TV Wonder HD 650
Hauppauge: Big Selection

CPU Requirements:
Netflix tech-support says a dual core is needed with Silverlight 2.
Silverlight 3 helps w/ GPU support but still skips on a AMD Barton 2500+
AMD 45W Athlon II X3 Great deal for the money.

Zotac Ion boards are nice but too many complaints about them not being able to handle the whole protected path thing… Will Wait till the Intel Atom or AMD Fusion (eta 2011). VIA CoreFusion could be a contender as well.

Mobo:
Wait till AMD 800 series comes out December 2009.

Audio:
Anandtech: Understanding 8-channel LPCM over HDMI: Why it Matters and Who Supports it

Books and Those That Recommend Them

Volokh Consipracy
Ilya Somin

Megan McArdle and Tony Woodlief give their answers to an interesting question: What three books would you recommend to a thoughtful person who disagrees with you politically, in the hopes that reading them will change their mind?

My recommendations would depend a lot on whether the person in question disagrees with me from the right or from the left, and also on the extent of their previous knowledge of social science. Let’s assume, however, that the person is well to the left of me, and that they are an intelligent layperson rather than a scholar or public policy professional. In that case, I would probably pick Thomas Sowell’s Knowledge and Decisions – an excellent summary of the reasons why private sector institutions generally process information and make decisions better than government; William Mitchell and Randy Simmons’ Beyond Politics: Markets, Welfare, and the Failure of Bureaucracy — a good, accessible exposition of the economic shortcomings of government relative to markets; and Richard Epstein’s Simple Rules for a Complex World, which explains how simple, libertarian legal systems are likely to work better than complex ones with more statism and regulation. The biggest area of disagreement between libertarians and liberals is over the role of government in controlling the economy. These three books focus on that issue. I have also picked books that try to persuade by analysis and evidence rather than emotional appeals — even though I have to admit that the latter are often more effective.

There is much less in the way of libertarian literature specifically directed at persuading conservatives. However, F.A. Hayek’s classic essay “Why I am Not a Conservative” is surely relevant for reasons I elaborated here.

Little Green Footballs
The Black Book of Communism

Sources
Volokh Conspiracy, Books I Would Recommend to those Who Disagree With Me, Ilya Somin • October 25, 2009 3:06 am

Terrorist Watch List

From the very young:
http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/2009/10/my-daughter-the-terror-suspect.html

(law professor 3 yo)

To the very established:
(Former marine Ivy League Professor)

Walter F. Murphy, the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, Emeritus, at Princeton University, attempted to check his luggage at the curbside in Albuquerque before boarding a plane to Newark, New Jersey. Murphy was told he could not use the service.

To the very inclusive
(> 1.3 million estimated)

ACLU Terrorist watch list counter

Sources:
The Raw Story, Professor who criticized Bush told added to terrorist ‘no-fly’ list Michael Roston, Published: Monday April 9, 2007

Climate Behavioral Control

Controlling peoples behavior in attempt to control the climate:

Climate chief Lord Stern: give up meat to save the planet,
Times Online, October 27, 2009
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6891362.ece

Owning a Pet Worse than Driving a SUV — Carbonwise, Reuters, Thursday, 22 Oct 2009
http://www.cnbc.com/id/33429555

NORMAN BORLAUG dies

Via Instapundit:

NORMAN BORLAUG, the man who saved more human lives than any other, has died.

This article by Gregg Easterbrook is worth reading. Borlaug may have saved a billion lives, yet he’s barely known. The lives he saved were poor people, and he saved them with science. Doesn’t fit the narrative.

Interesting quote from the man:

“One of the greatest threats to mankind today is that the world may be choked by an explosively pervading but well camouflaged bureaucracy.”

Source:
http://reason.com/blog/show/136043.html
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/97jan/borlaug/borlaug.htm

HealthCare

For Private:

Via NYT’s:

The A.M.A., with about 250,000 members, is America’s largest physician organization. … “The A.M.A. does not believe that creating a public health insurance option for non-disabled individuals under age 65 is the best way to expand health insurance coverage and lower costs. The introduction of a new public plan threatens to restrict patient choice by driving out private insurers, which currently provide coverage for nearly 70 percent of Americans.”

odd, as that’s not what you hear from NPR…

Kenneth Anderson via Volokh:

Hoover Senior Fellow Scott Atlas on Why American Health Care
is not as bad as you might have thought and, as it happens, has important advantages. (I ran across this in the latest Hoover Digest, and then found it had been making the rounds.) Dr. Atlas is also head of the neuroradiology department at Stanford Medical School. (Full disclosure: I’m also affiliated with Hoover). Dr. Atlas walks through a list of ten:

Krugman vs Canadians

http://eyeblast.tv/public/video.aspx?v=GduznzqGaG

For Government:

Via NYT’s:

The A.M.A., an umbrella group for 180 medical societies, does not speak for all doctors. One group, Physicians for a National Health Program, supports a single-payer system of insurance

Clearly a minority, again, not what you hear from NPR…

Dean Kamen, the most prolific medical inventor of all time:

We spent in all branches of all our pharmaceutical suppliers, $260 billion. … Last year what did we spend supporting professional sports? $409 billion.

Now if somebody in this country wants to explain to me that we ought to be spending about twice as much supporting sports as on all of our pharmaceuticals, then stop spending. You don’t like that drug? You don’t want to cure this disease? Don’t buy it. But don’t make villains out of people so that we can turn what is a real social responsibility issue into a political debate.

Sources:
Doctors’ Group Opposes Public Insurance Plan, New York Times, ROBERT PEAR, June 10, 2009
Obama wants to kill your grandma, Five right-wing myths about healthcare reform, and the facts, Salon, Mike Madden
Popular Mechanics, Inventor Dean Kamen Says Healthcare Debate “Backward Looking”, By The Editors, Published on: August 6, 2009
Reuters, French government to tackle surging health care deficit, Mon Sep 7, 2009
BBC New, French healthcare is ‘badly run’, Friday, 23 January

The Country’s Economy is in Good Hands….

“I don’t know anything about cars,” – Edward E. Whitacre Jr.

Warren buffets economic advice is:”straightforward: distrust debt; build in a margin of safety; be in there for the long term; don’t invest in something you don’t understand.”

Sources:
bloomberg.com, Whitacre Vows to ‘Learn About Cars’ as GM Chairman (Update1) , Amy Thomson and Katie Merx, June 10, 2009 17:36 EDT

guardian.co.uk, Inside the mind of a colossus, As we enter a global recession, the life of Warren Buffett, the world’s richest – and thriftiest – man, is more salutary than ever, Ruth Sunderland, The Observer, Sunday 26 October 2008

Control – “they hope to save you from yourself”

From NPR

All are devotees of behavioral economics — a school of economic thought greatly influenced by psychological research — which argues that the human animal is hard-wired to make errors when it comes to decision-making, and therefore people need a little “nudge” to make decisions that are in their own best interests.

And that is exactly what Obama administration officials plan to do: By taking account of human psychology, they hope to save you from yourself.

This is the story of how obscure psychological research into human decision-making first revolutionized economics and now appears poised to remake the relationship between the government and its citizens.

Goes along with this quote by Michelle Obama:

Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed

Pajamas TV VIDEO on why this is a bad idea.

Sources:
Using Psychology To Save You From Yourself, Alix Spiegel, All Things Considered

New York Times, OP-ED COLUMNIST, Spock at the Bridge, MAUREEN DOWD, Published: March 1, 2009

Running from Taxes

1/3 of Maryland Millionaires Missing
The WSJ notes that since the state of Maryland imposed its new millionaire tax last year, one-third of all millionaires in the state have disappeared. No doubt a good part of that is economic related, but many have also picked up and left the state.

On those missing returns, the government collects 6.25% of nothing. Instead of the state coffers gaining the extra $106 million the politicians predicted, millionaires paid $100 million less in taxes than they did last year — even at higher rates.

Taxes To Move Microsoft Jobs Overseas

Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Officer Steven Ballmer said the world’s largest software company would move some employees offshore if Congress enacts President Barack Obama’s plans to impose higher taxes on U.S. companies’ foreign profits.

“It makes U.S. jobs more expensive,” Ballmer said in an interview. “We’re better off taking lots of people and moving them out of the U.S. as opposed to keeping them inside the U.S.”

Oil Companies Hoping To “stay out of reach of Barack Obama” Move To Switzerland

Reuters: The tidy towns and mountain vistas of Switzerland are an unlikely setting for an oil boom.

Yet a wave of energy companies has in the last few months announced plans to move to Switzerland — mainly for its appeal as a low-tax corporate domicile that looks relatively likely to stay out of reach of Barack Obama’s tax-seeking administration.

Sources:
The Wall Street Journal, MAY 27, 2009, Millionaires Go Missing
Maryland’s fleeced taxpayers fight back.
Bloomburg, Ballmer Says Tax Would Move Microsoft Jobs Offshore (Update3) , Ryan J. Donmoyer, June 3, 2009 16:12 EDT
reuters Corporate oil booms in low-tax Switzerland, Wed Mar 11, 2009 9:50pm EDT, Sam Cage