Avani Mehta Sood writes for Los Angeles Times, December 23, 2014
Although 96% of U.S. respondents surveyed say that coercive techniques should be used only to retrieve information that could prevent future harm, I have found that people are actually more likely to endorse the use of harsh interrogation if they think the target “deserves” to be punished.
Steven Weissman quoted in San Francisco Business Times, December 19, 2014
Weissman … says the California Legislature “in its wisdom,” decided not to make the agency subject to stricter California rules regarding “back-channel” communications between other state agencies and those they regulate.
Stephen Rosenbaum interviewed by KPCC, December 19, 2014
Stephen Rosenbaum … said it’s up to Congress to increase spending. “They’ve never come close to doing it, so this became the bane of everyone, from administrators to parents to the students themselves.”
Steven Weissman quoted in E&ENews PM, December 18, 2014
“Basically, they’re saying you could level over 160 acres’ worth of trees before you reach any level of significance, or burn 25 million pounds of coal,” he said. “It’s all very interesting because there’s no particular number that’s magical here; this is just an effort to set a benchmark [to prevent] too much attention on projects that would have smaller effects.”
Stanley Lubman writes for The Wall Street Journal, December 17, 2014
The campaign is intended to increase discipline within the party as well as to target corruption. Recent media reports suggest, however, that the anticorruption campaign is hampered by both bureaucratic resistance and the limited effectiveness in general of political campaigns in today’s China.
Steven Davidoff Solomon writes for The New York Times, December 16, 2014
Companies are going from zero to billion-dollar valuations faster than ever before, despite a lack of revenue and, perhaps, even a market plan. In the frenzy, ideas that once were discarded as failures are being recycled into billion-dollar start-ups.
Eric Stover quoted in The Huffington Post, December 16, 2014
While the contractors could be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court, it’s extremely unlikely that will happen, said Eric Stover. … If it decides to take action at all, the court is more likely to go after the high-level officials who authorized the torture, rather than the contractors who carried it out. “They usually go after those most responsible for the most serious crimes,” Stover said.
Avani Mehta Sood and Kevin Carlsmith study cited in The Huffington Post, December 15, 2014
Kevin Carlsmith and Avani Mehta Sood argue that the effectiveness of torture, as measured in terms of genuine intelligence collected, may in fact not be the key issue at all. Instead, much more important might be the desire to harm those who have attacked us (or those who are associated with them), and humiliate those who have made us feel vulnerable.
Megan McCracken quoted in The Tennessean, December 14, 2014
“Generally speaking, a trend we see is states attempting to enhance the secrecy surrounding their execution procedures,” McCracken said. “That is a real problem for condemned prisoners, but also for the public, because without disclosure of the information, there’s no way to analyze the procedures and ensure they comport with the Constitution.”
Ethan Elkind writes for Daily Journal (registration required), December 12, 2014
“When it comes to analyzing transportation impacts, the current regime perversely penalizes transit-oriented infill projects and instead rewards outlying sprawl projects.”