Under a Gibbous Moon

Hat tip to Straight Forward in a Crooked World.

Matthew has brought attention to the recently signed Executive Order 13525. While it does not seem to give INTERPOL agents carte blanche to act against American citizens, it does effectively remove them oversight by our own law enforcement agencies.

The ramifications of this could be very disturbing. An excellent analysis of this Executive Order can be found at ThreatsWatch.

There is a bit of interesting math from Nate Silver over at FiveThirtyEight.

He pulls some statistics from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics and uses them to compute the odds of being on a flight on which a terrorist event occurs. Oddly enough, this is the same thing (with less hard numbers) I was trying that I’ve been trying to explain to my in-laws.

According to Bloomburg.com, retailers are making the most jack assed argument against the new credit card regulations that are about to go into effect. The new line goes that it will cost retailers $9 billion (yes 9 zeros) in sales.

Because the new regulations will help prevent credit card companies from screwing people over, they have been taking the natural action of denying credit, lowering limits and closing the accounts of those whose credit scores don’t warrant the cards that they were given.

This culling is where the previously mentioned $9 billion is coming from.

So, yes, the new credit rules may very well cost retailers $9 billion in sales but its $9 billion dollars consumers didn’t have to spend and couldn’t afford to begin with.

From The Oatmeal: