But, they have the keys

It's time for another link dump. The Demikins have lost the House to the Republicrats. Both make major mouth noises about change, but I'll bet that the only difference will be in the nomenclature. Freshmen from the recent election already have the plump and self-satisfied, all that remains is a back room with attached office. In other news; Colorado District Attorney Mark Hurlbert has dropped hit and run charges against a Morgan Stanley "wealth manager" who nearly killed a biker in a hit-and-run accident over the summer, citing concern a conviction could hurt the former's earning potential. While the legal industry has always been a pay to play game, I can't remember any participant actually admitting it on paper and personally signing off. In a related story, the TSA has decided the only way to protect our freedoms is with a full body scan or a cavity search. A perusal of the order's language reveals the gropers have legal immunity and the gropees are assumed terrorists until they submit. The loophole, and there's always a loophole, involves government officials, judges, and people that can purchase an expedited boarding arrangement. If you have to check your bank balance before writing a check with more than six zeros, you'll be in the slow line. Forcing the pilots to go through the same procedure seems a bit daft. (unless it's punishment for asking too many questions) A pilot doesn't have to smuggle a bomb aboard, he or she has the keys. As security ritual, pilot searches going beyond biometric I.D. confirmation, have a few logical flaws: as a power ritual... all loyalty to the big Kahuna, he will protect us from *insert current talking point here*. Dang it, I had really hoped that the future would feature jetpacks or transporters, not a distopian scramble for crumbs. I guess I should have read between the lines in history class.

On to the round-up. The first is a bit referring to another search at will plan. The next link might be profitably be compared to Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent from the supposed opposite side of the ideological spectrum. Number three is Larison’s take on the winners of the election.

• War on Commuters: So the probability of an attack just went down, and we can all rest a little easier, right? Wrong! The fact that the FBI was able to bamboozle this fellow into participating in a non-existent scheme has led Metro transit cops to seriously consider riffling through commuters' stuff.
• The Infinitesmial Fraction: Patrick’s recognition of the limits of voting, however, is a spot-on observation that deserves real attention. He describes what Eric Voegelin pithily called the “swindle of consent” and what one of my agrarian heroes, Ralph Borsodi scoffed at as an “infinitesimal fraction.” Patrick’s call for the “common good” puts me in mind of my dream of restoring something resembling a Country Party.
• Leadership They Deserve: The midterm results didn’t represent a dramatic shift in the overall public’s views, but they did confirm that rank-and-file Republicans and movement conservatives are quite happy to enable a party that badly disappoints them every time it is given an opportunity to govern. Four years ago, movement conservatives were looking for the exits and claiming that they as conservatives had nothing to do with those unpopular Republicans. Today, Republican triumph is taken as conservative vindication, and the deeply dysfunctional, unhealthy identification of conservatism with the cause of the GOP has become stronger than ever.

The next set of links fall into the economic pile.

• Control Fraud: Control fraud theory was developed in the savings and loan debacle. It explained that the person controlling the S&L (typically the CEO) posed a unique risk because he could use it as a weapon. ..Link to Black's Paper - .pdf
• How the Founding Fathers Taxed ..: Here’s the shorter: in 1775, the Continental Congress authorized the first issue of Continental dollars. This was to be a true fiat currency, backed only by the faith and credit of the embryonic state. Franklin actually opposed this – arguing instead that the notes should either pay interest or be borrowed back in loans that promised some return. But he was overruled, and then, as he predicted, each run of the printing presses pushed the currency lower.
• The Fall of Meritocracy: That would be fine if Ms Applebaum's portrait of the meritocracy, with universities welcoming high IQ types and allocating them to productive jobs in a thriving society, were accurate. But in fact this triumphalism is oddly timed, to put it mildly. The past few years have seen the best and brightest, obsessed by clever academic models, wreaking havoc in one area after another.

The following are about who the coercion engineers are working for. (jeez, if that doesn’t sound like some sophomore rhetoric, I don’t know what does. This city must be rubbing off on me)

• Shareholder Action?: House and Senate candidates had raised a combined $1.7 billion, and spent $1.4 billion. Fundraising by parties and spending by outside groups brought the total dollar amount raised to $3.2 billion in a time when our nation suffers from an unemployment rate of 9.2% and where the impacts of the near-devastating economic downturn are still being felt.
• Conflict of Interest This study analyzes the conflict of interest that exists when academic financial economists, acting in their roles as presumed objective experts in the media and academia on topics, such as financial regulation, fail to report their private financial affiliations. To conduct the study, we analyze the linkages between academia, private financial institutions and public institutions of nineteen academic financial economists who are members of two groups who have put forth proposals on financial reform. (.pdf)
• Comment on Above: Better to leave the Lights Off

And last, two hacks. One food related and one a RFID trick you might be able to use.

• It has to be illegal: Before the law, refined coumarin was commonly added to commercial foods like cream soda, and used in synthetic vanillin. Extreme concentrations caused liver problems in rats (how unappetizing), and a rather overreaching ban on even natural sources of the compound was put in place. Coumarin has since been found to occur naturally in cinnamon, lavender, licorice, and a host of other commonly eaten plants—all of which would seem to be illegal under the regulation. Coumarin also accounts for the particular smell of fresh-cut grass and of fresh-dried hay.
• RFID Transplantation: As a general note, transplanting RFID chips is a much cleaner solution from both the legal and technical perspective versus cracking the security and programming your own RFID to be compatible with the existing payment system. While many of the security systems used in RFID are already broken or have serious known vulnerabilities, I can’t think of any country where the authorities would take kindly to you doing it.