Somebody beat my grandma’s record

Check out this dude on bangornews. He leased a rotary phone at $4.45 per month for 50 years. If he’d put that money into a tax-deferred portfolio earning 10% he’d have $77,093.54 after the 50 years.  I thought my grandma held the record on phone leasing, but I guess not.  She leased the same touchtone phone at $7 per month for 26 years. If she’d put that money into a tax-deferred portfolio earning 10% she would have had $10,348.35 after the 26 years.

PBS, NPR, etc. retain their public funding

Via CNN:

The House on Wednesday evening overwhelmingly rejected President Bush’s plan to eliminate the $420 million federal subsidy for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

The 357-72 vote demonstrated the enduring political strength of public broadcasting. The outcome was never in doubt, unlike a fight two years ago when Republicans tried but failed to slash public broadcasting subsidies.

R.I.P. Fifth Amendment

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/07/20070717-3.html?1

Fifth Amendment:

“No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”

From the Executive Order, assets will be seized from people who, according to “the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense”, have committed one of the acts mentioned in the order.

Three appointed members of the cabinet get together and decide amongst themselves that someone has committed a crime, and seize all their assets. And do what with them, exactly? And return them when? At what point does the person receive ANY due process? AFTER everything is seized? That’s not due process.

Oh but it gets even worse. From the order:

Lewd and Lascivious Exhibition Act author arrested for Lewd and Lascivious Behavior

Via Miami Herald:

Representative Bob Allen (R-Florida), author of the failed “Lewd Or Lascivious Exhibition Act,” was arrested yesterday for soliciting sex from a male undercover cop.

Well of course he was.

The mass of our galaxy? The answer is 42.

Via The Australian:

AFTER pondering the weighty question of the mass of the Milky Way galaxy, astronomers have come up with an answer: 42.

That is, our galaxy weighs three times 10 to the power of 42 kilograms – a number written as 3 followed by 42 zeroes, which has echoes of author Douglas Adams’s fictional answer to the question of life, the universe and everything in his series Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

It seems esoteric but knowing the weight [correction: mass] of the galaxy – the amount of matter it contains – is key to solving important astronomical problems.