1
N.Y. / Region
New York Judge Denies Request to Extend Legal Rights to 2 Chimps
The Nonhuman Rights Project had sought to free a pair of research animals from a university on Long Island, in the group’s latest attempt to establish apes as “legal persons."
"But while Justice Jaffe took the case seriously — her 33-page decision cited the long history of habeas corpus
and included references to discrimination against women and
African-American slaves — she could not quite see Hercules and Leo as
people in the eyes of the law.
“For
the purpose of establishing rights, the law presently categorizes
entities in a simple, binary, ‘all or nothing,’ fashion,” the justice
wrote, noting: “Persons have rights, duties, and obligations. Things do
not.”"
The case moves to federal courts as a fourteenth amendment argument.
The apes are slaves.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
The apes have the rights of minor children.
Additionally:
The political and religious rights of corporations
lie in ruins.
2
World
Dominican Resort’s Fate at Center of Debate Over Haitians and Immigration
Haitians, who had brought new life to an abandoned seaside hotel, face ejection under new laws and conflict with their island neighbors.Neither Haiti or Dominica has developed effective politics.
As a result the people war all against all.
I am not an anarchist.
3
N.Y. / Region
Using DNA to Fight Dog Owners’ Discourtesy in Brooklyn
Appeals to decency have failed, so the operators of a condominium in Brooklyn Heights turned to science to combat dog waste in the halls and elevators.Do what works.
There is no special entitlement, "no royal road".
4
World
Debris Alone May Not Solve Mystery of Malaysia Flight 370, Experts Caution
Even if the debris is authenticated as coming from the Malaysia Airlines jet, it may not help in locating the plane’s wreckage, experts said.Finding some wreckage resolves most of the mystery.
The plane ended up in the depths of the Indian Ocean.
There are no survivors.
The plane ended there by a pilots intention.
5
Travel
On Prince Edward Island, a Seafood-Dining Excursion
Catching, cooking and eating all that the province’s surrounding waters have to offer, including oysters, clams, cod, lobster and mussels.I liked PEI when I visited thirty years ago.
I will happily visit again.
6
Fashion & Style
Fashion World Reacts to the Killing of Cecil
Outrage at Dr. Walter J. Palmer’s hunt and its tragic conclusion spread to models, editors and others in the industry.Hunters and guides have no special entitlement to animals in the wild or semi-wild.
7
World
Myanmar Frees Loggers From China Amid a Broader Amnesty
After a strong pushback from Beijing, more than 150 citizens who were sentenced to life in prison were suddenly released."U Mong Gwang, a liaison officer with the Kachin Independence Organization, which controls part of the State, said on Thursday that the Chinese had been freed and deported. “People in the town are surprised at the news,” Mr. Mong Gwang said. “They were just sentenced eight days ago.”"
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/31/opinion/paul-krugman-chinas-naked-emperors.html
China’s Naked Emperors
"Politicians who preside over economic booms often develop delusions of competence. You can see this domestically: Jeb Bush imagines
that he knows the secrets of economic growth because he happened to be
governor when Florida was experiencing a giant housing bubble, and he
had the good luck to leave office just before it burst. We’ve seen it in
many countries: I still remember the omniscience and omnipotence
ascribed to Japanese bureaucrats in the 1980s, before the long
stagnation set in.
This
is the context in which you need to understand the strange goings-on in
China’s stock market. In and of itself, the price of Chinese equities
shouldn’t matter all that much. But the authorities have chosen to put
their credibility on the line by trying to control that market — and are
in the process of demonstrating that, China’s remarkable success over
the past 25 years notwithstanding, the nation’s rulers have no idea what
they’re doing.
Start
with the fundamentals. China is at the end of an era — the era of
superfast growth, made possible in large part by a vast migration of
underemployed peasants from the countryside to coastal cities. This
reserve of surplus labor is now dwindling, which means that growth must
slow.
But China’s economic structure is built around the presumption of very rapid growth. Enterprises, many of them state-owned, hoard their earnings
rather than return them to the public, which has stunted family
incomes; at the same time, individual savings are high, in part because
the social safety net is weak, so families accumulate cash just in case.
As a result, Chinese spending is lopsided, with very high rates of
investment but a very low share of consumer demand in gross domestic product.
This
structure was workable as long as torrid economic growth offered
sufficient investment opportunities. But now investment is running into
rapidly decreasing returns. The result is a nasty transition problem: What happens if investment drops off but consumption doesn’t rise fast enough to fill the gap?
What
China needs are reforms that spread the purchasing power — and it has,
to be fair, been making efforts in that direction. But by all accounts
these efforts have fallen short. For example, it has introduced what is
supposed to be a national health care system, but in practice many workers fall through the cracks.
Meanwhile,
China’s leaders appear to be terrified — probably for political reasons
— by the prospect of even a brief recession. So they’ve been pumping up
demand by, in effect, force-feeding the system with credit, including
fostering a stock market boom. Such measures can work for a while, and
all might have been well if the big reforms were moving fast enough. But
they aren’t, and the result is a bubble that wants to burst.
China’s response has been an all-out effort to prop up stock prices.
Large shareholders have been blocked from selling; state-run
institutions have been told to buy shares; many companies with falling
prices have been allowed to suspend trading. These are things you might
do for a couple of days to contain an obviously unjustified panic, but
they’re being applied on a sustained basis to a market that is still far
above its level not long ago.
In
part, they may be worried about financial fallout. It seems that a
number of players in China borrowed large sums with stocks as security,
so that the market’s plunge could lead to defaults. This is especially
troubling because China has a huge “shadow banking” sector that is essentially unregulated and could easily experience a wave of bank runs.
But
it also looks as if the Chinese government, having encouraged citizens
to buy stocks, now feels that it must defend stock prices to preserve
its reputation. And what it’s ending up doing, of course, is shredding
that reputation at record speed.
Indeed,
every time you think the authorities have done everything possible to
destroy their credibility, they top themselves. Lately state-run media
have been assigning blame for the stock plunge to, you guessed it, a foreign conspiracy
against China, which is even less plausible than you may think: China
has long maintained controls that effectively shut foreigners out of its
stock market, and it’s hard to sell off assets you were never allowed
to own in the first place.
So
what have we just learned? China’s incredible growth wasn’t a mirage,
and its economy remains a productive powerhouse. The problems of
transition to lower growth are obviously major, but we’ve known that for a while.
The big news here isn’t about the Chinese economy; it’s about China’s
leaders. Forget everything you’ve heard about their brilliance and
foresightedness. Judging by their current flailing, they have no clue
what they’re doing."
8
N.Y. / Region
Report Reveals New York City Paid $138 Million in Settlements Related to Potholes on Roadways
The highest number of incidents caused by potholes happened in the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, the Grand Central Parkway and the Belt Parkway.Keeping up the pavement is a city responsibility.
The city is cheaping out.
9
Sports
Donald Trump Drops In on Women’s British Open; Hyo-Joo Kim Leads
Kim was compiling a 65 in the first round when Trump, a presidential candidate, landed in a helicopter to begin a two-day visit at his Turnberry resort in Scotland.Donald Trump will never be elected president.
10
U.S.
Cleveland: Transit Officer on Desk Duty After Pepper Spray Was Used
A transit police sergeant who deployed pepper-spray into a crowd in Cleveland has been placed on administrative duty until an investigation of the incident is completed, officials said.The officer was probably doing his duty.
The arrest was impolitic.
13
N.Y. / Region
Award in Lead Paint Lawsuit Can’t Be Tied to Ethnicity, Judge Rules
A landlord’s lawyer argued that a Hispanic child’s higher education chances were low, so the damages awarded to his family should be reduced.The landlord’s lawyer made an impermissible argument.
The appeal was properly denied.
14
Education
The Real Skinny on Freshman Year
The stuff you’ve been told all summer about the first year of college is well intentioned. But there’s a huge amount of misinformation out there. Here’s some of it."This article is for college freshmen. If you are not a freshman, kindly read something else."
Happily.
15
N.Y. / Region
Families of 2008 Crane Collapse Victims Are Awarded $48 Million
A jury found James F. Lomma, the owner of a crane company, responsible for the deaths of two people killed when a tower crane collapsed in Manhattan seven years ago.I have nothing to contribute.
16
U.S.
Through Lens of Video, a Transformed View of Police
The recording of encounters between the police and the public have begun to alter public views of the use of force and race relations, experts and police officials say.As was our intention.
18
N.Y. / Region
4 N.J. Transit Conductors Sold Stolen Tickets, Prosecutors Say
The suspects are accused of turning the monotony of the commute on New Jersey Transit trains into a windfall.This is why there are trials.
19
Business Day
Chinese Trade Rules Put South Korea’s Kimchi Industry in a Pickle
South Korea is not permitted to export Kimchi, fermented cabbage, to China, but cheaper Chinese kimchi flows freely into South Korea, competing with the domestic product.http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/31/opinion/paul-krugman-chinas-naked-emperors.html
China’s Naked Emperors
"Politicians who preside over economic booms often develop delusions of competence. You can see this domestically: Jeb Bush imagines
that he knows the secrets of economic growth because he happened to be
governor when Florida was experiencing a giant housing bubble, and he
had the good luck to leave office just before it burst. We’ve seen it in
many countries: I still remember the omniscience and omnipotence
ascribed to Japanese bureaucrats in the 1980s, before the long
stagnation set in.
This
is the context in which you need to understand the strange goings-on in
China’s stock market. In and of itself, the price of Chinese equities
shouldn’t matter all that much. But the authorities have chosen to put
their credibility on the line by trying to control that market — and are
in the process of demonstrating that, China’s remarkable success over
the past 25 years notwithstanding, the nation’s rulers have no idea what
they’re doing.
Start
with the fundamentals. China is at the end of an era — the era of
superfast growth, made possible in large part by a vast migration of
underemployed peasants from the countryside to coastal cities. This
reserve of surplus labor is now dwindling, which means that growth must
slow.
But China’s economic structure is built around the presumption of very rapid growth. Enterprises, many of them state-owned, hoard their earnings
rather than return them to the public, which has stunted family
incomes; at the same time, individual savings are high, in part because
the social safety net is weak, so families accumulate cash just in case.
As a result, Chinese spending is lopsided, with very high rates of
investment but a very low share of consumer demand in gross domestic product.
This
structure was workable as long as torrid economic growth offered
sufficient investment opportunities. But now investment is running into
rapidly decreasing returns. The result is a nasty transition problem: What happens if investment drops off but consumption doesn’t rise fast enough to fill the gap?
What
China needs are reforms that spread the purchasing power — and it has,
to be fair, been making efforts in that direction. But by all accounts
these efforts have fallen short. For example, it has introduced what is
supposed to be a national health care system, but in practice many workers fall through the cracks.
Meanwhile,
China’s leaders appear to be terrified — probably for political reasons
— by the prospect of even a brief recession. So they’ve been pumping up
demand by, in effect, force-feeding the system with credit, including
fostering a stock market boom. Such measures can work for a while, and
all might have been well if the big reforms were moving fast enough. But
they aren’t, and the result is a bubble that wants to burst.
China’s response has been an all-out effort to prop up stock prices.
Large shareholders have been blocked from selling; state-run
institutions have been told to buy shares; many companies with falling
prices have been allowed to suspend trading. These are things you might
do for a couple of days to contain an obviously unjustified panic, but
they’re being applied on a sustained basis to a market that is still far
above its level not long ago.
In
part, they may be worried about financial fallout. It seems that a
number of players in China borrowed large sums with stocks as security,
so that the market’s plunge could lead to defaults. This is especially
troubling because China has a huge “shadow banking” sector that is essentially unregulated and could easily experience a wave of bank runs.
But
it also looks as if the Chinese government, having encouraged citizens
to buy stocks, now feels that it must defend stock prices to preserve
its reputation. And what it’s ending up doing, of course, is shredding
that reputation at record speed.
Indeed,
every time you think the authorities have done everything possible to
destroy their credibility, they top themselves. Lately state-run media
have been assigning blame for the stock plunge to, you guessed it, a foreign conspiracy
against China, which is even less plausible than you may think: China
has long maintained controls that effectively shut foreigners out of its
stock market, and it’s hard to sell off assets you were never allowed
to own in the first place.
So
what have we just learned? China’s incredible growth wasn’t a mirage,
and its economy remains a productive powerhouse. The problems of
transition to lower growth are obviously major, but we’ve known that for a while.
The big news here isn’t about the Chinese economy; it’s about China’s
leaders. Forget everything you’ve heard about their brilliance and
foresightedness. Judging by their current flailing, they have no clue
what they’re doing." 20
U.S.
Greenpeace Activists Dangle From Oregon Bridge for 2nd Day to Protest Arctic Drilling
Thirteen activists have been swaying beneath the St. Johns Bridge in Portland for more than 24 hours in a bid to prevent the departure of an ice-breaker leased by Shell.They can do that until Green Peace goes broke or Shell gives up.
I hope they get tired before either happens.
They are doing good work against great power.
Green Peace must "get a bigger hammer".
Time for work.
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