No good, in fact, will come of a campaign to sustain the unsustainable, which is exactly what the Obama program is starting to look like. In the folder marked "unsustainable" you can file most of the artifacts, usufructs, habits, and expectations of recent American life: suburban living, credit-card spending, Happy Motoring, vacations in Las Vegas, college education for the masses, and cheap food among them. All these things are over. The public may suspect as much, but they can't admit it to themselves, and political leadership has so far declined to speak the truth about it for them -- in short, to form a useful consensus that will allow us to move forward effectively.I'll save you the trouble. 'Usufruct' is the right to use something you won't damage. Like, when a developer builds a building in a public passageway, forcing people to walk through private property? That's a usufruct.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
The 80s called... they want their usufructs back
link via Agora
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Afghanistan is bigger than Iraq
link
So, I'm traveling for business, and I have a rental car. So, I listen to the radio, and to broadcast news. In broadcast news, you just sit and hear whatever some corporation or other feels you should know -- in general, this is pretty bad for democracy, but you do hear things you wouldn't seek out.
NPR told me yesterday that Afghanistan was not only bigger, but more populous than Iraq. I could have told you that Iraq had about 27 million people when we invaded, but that Afghanistan had 32? I would have said around 5. But, no. It's big. Closer to California than Texas in population.
So, I'm traveling for business, and I have a rental car. So, I listen to the radio, and to broadcast news. In broadcast news, you just sit and hear whatever some corporation or other feels you should know -- in general, this is pretty bad for democracy, but you do hear things you wouldn't seek out.
NPR told me yesterday that Afghanistan was not only bigger, but more populous than Iraq. I could have told you that Iraq had about 27 million people when we invaded, but that Afghanistan had 32? I would have said around 5. But, no. It's big. Closer to California than Texas in population.
Obama-era survey on Bush
link
A lot of hay has been made over this C-SPAN survey of 36 historians, which puts Bush 43 not at the bottom and Ronald Reagan -- friend of petroleum and defense interests, enemy of public welfare and education, who turned America into history's largest creditor (while Dubya exacerbated every problem he encountered, he did not create every difficulty he left us with), in the top half. It sort of makes you wonder how much presidents suck in general.
The survey gives us two things to talk about -- movement from the 2000 survey and components. Three if you count the participants, but I don't know anything about historians. The public story is that they moved this one after inauguration so they could do it for Darwin/Lincoln's 200th birthday, but you feel they kind of wanted to get the end of Shrub's episode; Clinton was rated 21st in the last year of his administration before the Marc Rich pardon. Now, he's rated 15th.
The Clinton movement is pretty interesting. In 2000, there were people who thought the internet bubble wouldn't all end in tears, NAFTA might work out, and NEWCAG was a genius. The biggest things weighing him down were military actions in Kosovo and Somalia, and some personal peccadilloes. I guess we've decided that presidents are entitled to their little invasions here and there, and all we ask is moderation, as well as the idea that integrity and capability in your role as a public servant don't have a lot to do with whether or not you cheat on your wife. 8 years of a teetotaler with no known record of adultery and a military service record have warmed us up to Bubba, although even his successor beat him on moral authority. It turned out our signifiers were all wrong.
Americans are taught as children that the slavery compromise in The Constitution made the Civil War inevitable, but apparently adults blame it on James Buchanan. I don't have a personal opinion on what caused the Civil War, but it's bad and he's the scapegoat, but shouldn't Bush 43 be at best second worst? Anyway, it's Carter that chaps my ass -- he's ranked under Cleveland, Taft and McKinley! And going down!
I find it hard to talk about the breakouts because they seem a little crazy. "Pursued Equal Justice for All" is Guantanamo George's, best known before running for President for condemning the retarded to death, best ranking. If he's 24th in that, what should we think of the bottom 18*? "Performance within context of times" still damns Buchanan as worst, but 43's ranking is the same as his overall. Apparently, historians don't buy this "historical context" hogwash, except to say that JFK had it easy: he's 6th overall and 12th in context. George W. Bush even beats Buchanan (and Hoover, which I could see) on economic management, so I'm thinking there's some anti-Buchanan bias around. You'd think if we can rehabilitate McCarthy, we could do a little work on Buchanan, but no. He only beats our former President in International Relations -- Nixon's, as you'd expect, best rank at 11, down from 8 in 2000.
64 historians participated. The methodology's not super clear, but I think each historian rated each president as a percentile in each of ten categories, and C-Span used massive parallel supercomputers to average them. Then, they summed the average for a total score (the methodology, averaging the input then summing, suggest they didn't get responses back from all historians in all areas. So, there's some hidden bias.)
* -- As Cleveland served twice, 85-89 and 93-97, there are 43 presidencies, but only 42 presidents.
A lot of hay has been made over this C-SPAN survey of 36 historians, which puts Bush 43 not at the bottom and Ronald Reagan -- friend of petroleum and defense interests, enemy of public welfare and education, who turned America into history's largest creditor (while Dubya exacerbated every problem he encountered, he did not create every difficulty he left us with), in the top half. It sort of makes you wonder how much presidents suck in general.
The survey gives us two things to talk about -- movement from the 2000 survey and components. Three if you count the participants, but I don't know anything about historians. The public story is that they moved this one after inauguration so they could do it for Darwin/Lincoln's 200th birthday, but you feel they kind of wanted to get the end of Shrub's episode; Clinton was rated 21st in the last year of his administration before the Marc Rich pardon. Now, he's rated 15th.
The Clinton movement is pretty interesting. In 2000, there were people who thought the internet bubble wouldn't all end in tears, NAFTA might work out, and NEWCAG was a genius. The biggest things weighing him down were military actions in Kosovo and Somalia, and some personal peccadilloes. I guess we've decided that presidents are entitled to their little invasions here and there, and all we ask is moderation, as well as the idea that integrity and capability in your role as a public servant don't have a lot to do with whether or not you cheat on your wife. 8 years of a teetotaler with no known record of adultery and a military service record have warmed us up to Bubba, although even his successor beat him on moral authority. It turned out our signifiers were all wrong.
Americans are taught as children that the slavery compromise in The Constitution made the Civil War inevitable, but apparently adults blame it on James Buchanan. I don't have a personal opinion on what caused the Civil War, but it's bad and he's the scapegoat, but shouldn't Bush 43 be at best second worst? Anyway, it's Carter that chaps my ass -- he's ranked under Cleveland, Taft and McKinley! And going down!
I find it hard to talk about the breakouts because they seem a little crazy. "Pursued Equal Justice for All" is Guantanamo George's, best known before running for President for condemning the retarded to death, best ranking. If he's 24th in that, what should we think of the bottom 18*? "Performance within context of times" still damns Buchanan as worst, but 43's ranking is the same as his overall. Apparently, historians don't buy this "historical context" hogwash, except to say that JFK had it easy: he's 6th overall and 12th in context. George W. Bush even beats Buchanan (and Hoover, which I could see) on economic management, so I'm thinking there's some anti-Buchanan bias around. You'd think if we can rehabilitate McCarthy, we could do a little work on Buchanan, but no. He only beats our former President in International Relations -- Nixon's, as you'd expect, best rank at 11, down from 8 in 2000.
64 historians participated. The methodology's not super clear, but I think each historian rated each president as a percentile in each of ten categories, and C-Span used massive parallel supercomputers to average them. Then, they summed the average for a total score (the methodology, averaging the input then summing, suggest they didn't get responses back from all historians in all areas. So, there's some hidden bias.)
* -- As Cleveland served twice, 85-89 and 93-97, there are 43 presidencies, but only 42 presidents.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Obama-era polls on Bush
link
I'm in a hotel in South Bend, Indiana, and they bring me USA Today. My rewards profile says to bring me the Journal, but they bring USA Today, which always makes me feel like I'm on the business end of a misinformation campaign.
But, USA Today didn't ask. It sort of tried to make a frame in which everyone was OK with illegality as long as Oceania was at war with Eastasia. But, we weren't. We just weren't asked. So, the headlne should maybe be
I'm in a hotel in South Bend, Indiana, and they bring me USA Today. My rewards profile says to bring me the Journal, but they bring USA Today, which always makes me feel like I'm on the business end of a misinformation campaign.
Close to two-thirds of those surveyed said there should be investigations into allegations that the Bush team used torture to interrogate terrorism suspects and its program of wiretapping U.S. citizens without getting warrants. Almost four in 10 favor criminal investigations and about a quarter want investigations without criminal charges. One-third said they want nothing to be done.Of course, what do you want to know when you read a public opinion poll? You want -- and it's not like I can see into your heart from here, everybody wants this -- to know how that's changed. But, USA Today isn't going to tell you, because it didn't know. I would have answered 'yes' to the question "Should the Bush Administration be investigated for probably illegal practices?" in 2002, and frankly for most of 2001. I'd guess that between 30 and 70 per cent of the American public felt a special prosecutor should be appointed at any given moment in the Bush 43 Presidency.
Even more people want action on alleged attempts by the Bush team to use the Justice Department for political purposes. Four in 10 favored a criminal probe, three in 10 an independent panel, and 25% neither.
But, USA Today didn't ask. It sort of tried to make a frame in which everyone was OK with illegality as long as Oceania was at war with Eastasia. But, we weren't. We just weren't asked. So, the headlne should maybe be
Newspapers try to reingratiate themselves with American People after totally abdicating their responsibilities
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Unmotivated
there's no link
I'm trying to explain why I'm not posting. And, you know, here's the problem. If the Zeitgeist is with me, I've got nothing to say. A year ago, I could say, "Our economy based on retail spending fueled by a ludicrous expectation of eternally accelerating increase in real home values will detonate, obliterating the fantastical idea that 'innovative finance' was anything more than theft by the well-connected" and have some disagreement. Now, people just say, "Obviously. But, how do we get back on track?" It's sad. Over the past, say, twelve years we've been living on imaginary money, and that's got to balance out over the next few decades. This is neither a fun nor an interesting thing to say. There's an interesting drama playing out, where possible stakeholders in our future world of finance are (at least) one of two things: complicit or clueless. That is, anybody who can speak comfortably of the milieu of modern finance is probably partly responsible for its problems. The problem with talking about how this process plays out is that it's all behind the scenes. There's nothing to link to -- I'd become a source of information myself, and I'm really happier as an analyst.
WARFism is also arising on the climate change front. We've gone from people who don't really feel they have a stake in whether human life gets wiped out -- this was the kind of odd impression the Bush 43 administration made on me -- to people who, as they grapple with the issues, will come to understand that We Are Royally Fucked. Even if American meets my challenge to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions from electricity production by July 17, 2018, humankind has at best even chances to make it to the end of the century.
I could talk about what 200% inflation is going to be like, but 'unpleasant' really sums it up.
It's not like people don't know there's trouble. What is there left to say? The current presidential administration wasn't elected on a platform of perfidy, or reelected after assuring the people that he'd had the epiphany that his job was 'hard work.'
The people who were enforcing the central lies of our lives have had it blow up in their faces. They're either begging for TARP money or registering for jobs as lobbyists, so I don't feel like I have to argue against them strenuously. I'm not officially hanging up the laptop, but....
I'm trying to explain why I'm not posting. And, you know, here's the problem. If the Zeitgeist is with me, I've got nothing to say. A year ago, I could say, "Our economy based on retail spending fueled by a ludicrous expectation of eternally accelerating increase in real home values will detonate, obliterating the fantastical idea that 'innovative finance' was anything more than theft by the well-connected" and have some disagreement. Now, people just say, "Obviously. But, how do we get back on track?" It's sad. Over the past, say, twelve years we've been living on imaginary money, and that's got to balance out over the next few decades. This is neither a fun nor an interesting thing to say. There's an interesting drama playing out, where possible stakeholders in our future world of finance are (at least) one of two things: complicit or clueless. That is, anybody who can speak comfortably of the milieu of modern finance is probably partly responsible for its problems. The problem with talking about how this process plays out is that it's all behind the scenes. There's nothing to link to -- I'd become a source of information myself, and I'm really happier as an analyst.
WARFism is also arising on the climate change front. We've gone from people who don't really feel they have a stake in whether human life gets wiped out -- this was the kind of odd impression the Bush 43 administration made on me -- to people who, as they grapple with the issues, will come to understand that We Are Royally Fucked. Even if American meets my challenge to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions from electricity production by July 17, 2018, humankind has at best even chances to make it to the end of the century.
I could talk about what 200% inflation is going to be like, but 'unpleasant' really sums it up.
It's not like people don't know there's trouble. What is there left to say? The current presidential administration wasn't elected on a platform of perfidy, or reelected after assuring the people that he'd had the epiphany that his job was 'hard work.'
The people who were enforcing the central lies of our lives have had it blow up in their faces. They're either begging for TARP money or registering for jobs as lobbyists, so I don't feel like I have to argue against them strenuously. I'm not officially hanging up the laptop, but....
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Relativity for Kids
there's no link.
A friend sent me this email regarding her son:
A friend sent me this email regarding her son:
This was my reply. I'll point her here if you'd like to chime in with supplements.
Hi there. I need help with a question that Max just asked.
If someone is traveling at the speed of light, could they see themselves in a mirror?
Well, that's very similar to the question that Einstein asked -- what happens if you run as fast as a beam of light -- and to answer it, you have to change the way you think about the world. Fundamentally.
The speed of light isn't a speed you can go. It's just the end of what 'fast' is. A fuel tank has a gauge, it reads 'empty' to 'full.' For speed, 'Empty' is analogous to not moving. 'Full' is the speed of light. It doesn't make sense to talk about speeds past that any more than it would make sense to add gas to a full tank.
So, OK. The speed of light is the end of acceleration. You can't go the speed of light, because if you could, you could just juice it a little more and go faster, which wouldn't make any sense. You can only approach the speed of light. Acceleration gets harder and harder the closer you get.
Now, what does speed mean? If I leave my house, and trot along at 3 MPH, I'm moving at 3 MPH relative to my house. But, what about when I can't see my house? How would I know how fast I was moving? There's a bunch of other stuff in my neighborhood that moves at the same speed as my house, and I can choose one of those things to measure myself against. But, I have to choose something. And, as I measure it, I'm really measuring how fast that thing is moving relative to me. I really never move, from my perspective, right? We're all the center of our worlds, just like it feels.
Those are two points.
(1) I don't ever actually move. Things move relative to me.
(2) Those things never go as fast as the speed of light.
I forget how old Max is. Ah... you got married in, what, 1993? So, he was born in 1994? He's 14? Einstein was 16, you know. Anyway, I'm not going to muddy the waters with quantum dynamics. I'm not super sure I resolve them off the top of my head, anyway -- I think there's some outstanding paradox; I believe there was some news in recent years, but I didn't follow.
Clearly, there are some implications for time, here, and resolving that has some implication for linear distance. But, I'll let Max work those out for himself.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Liberals
link
Hee, hee.
Hee, hee.
Now added to the pantheon of "liberal" dogma is the shrill, ideological belief that high government officials must abide by our laws and should be treated like any other citizen when they break them. To believe that now makes you not just a "liberal," but worse: a "liberal score-settler." Apparently, one can attain the glorious status of being a moderate, a centrist, a high-minded independent only if one believes that high political officials (and our most powerful industries, such as the telecoms) should be able to break numerous laws (i.e.: commit felonies), openly admit that they've done so, and then be immunized from all consequences. That's how our ideological spectrum is now defined.You tell 'em, Glenn.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Patent and Trademark Giveaway cartoons
link
If you're still angry about the Boston Garden being renamed the 'Failed Bank Auditorium for Sports,' or whatever it is, this is a pretty funny series of cartoons. Don't miss Frito Lay the Verizon Middletown City Council meeting.
If you're still angry about the Boston Garden being renamed the 'Failed Bank Auditorium for Sports,' or whatever it is, this is a pretty funny series of cartoons. Don't miss Frito Lay the Verizon Middletown City Council meeting.
Thursday, January 08, 2009
Two Words: Forest Fire
link at 1:02
That's not what that means. If a crisis is of your own making, you have to change your patterns of behavior and responses to events -- that's hard. Not to be not hopeful, but I'm not tracking the rhetoric.
Now, the very fact that this crisis is largely of our own making means that it's not beyond our ability to solve.
That's not what that means. If a crisis is of your own making, you have to change your patterns of behavior and responses to events -- that's hard. Not to be not hopeful, but I'm not tracking the rhetoric.
Foreskin
link
So, I was just coming to this blog to post this apology; I typed 'Male' into Firefox's address bar and hit 'enter.' I got the Google search for 'male', which included this fascinating page on foreskins, which I know almost nothing about. I'm sure I've seen them, but I've never noted one outside the movies.
They sound like great things.
So, I was just coming to this blog to post this apology; I typed 'Male' into Firefox's address bar and hit 'enter.' I got the Google search for 'male', which included this fascinating page on foreskins, which I know almost nothing about. I'm sure I've seen them, but I've never noted one outside the movies.
The foreskin performs several important functions. Most of these functions center on making sex more enjoyable, not only for just one, but for both partners.
Protection
Makes sex feel better
Lubricates during intercourse
Lubricates during masturbation
Reduces the drop insensitivity through age
Allows the erection to grow
Increases sensitivity slowing intercourse
They sound like great things.
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Manhattan Exceptionalism draws to a close
link
Still, if you can borrow at 5.1 % ... say prices deflate 2%/year over the next two years before 20% inflation hangs around for another eight years. Prices will have gone up (.98)^2(1.2)^8 - 1 = 313%. If the real value of your house is half what it is now, the nominal value will still have more than doubled, or gone up 7.2 % a year. So, you're borrowing at 5.1% to get a 7.2% return. That's like free money.
Sticking with our assumption that the next two years will have 2 % deflation and ten years from now your house will have half its real value, you'd break even if years three through ten were at 16.6 %. If you expand the time horizon to 15 years (and your house will probably hang steady at half it's Q109 real value), you could let years three through fifteen be at 12 % inflation. You've got to agree that a twelve per cent inflation rate from 2011 to 2024 is a pretty conservative estimate. Paying off a 5.1% fixed interest loan on a depreciating asset will feel airy and light!
In Manhattan, the inventory of apartments listed for sale rose almost 40 percent from a year ago to 9,081 units. Apartments sat on the market for an average 159 days before selling in the fourth quarter, up 21 percent from a year earlier, Miller Samuel and Prudential said.
...
Almost no new contracts were signed on condominiums in the quarter, said Miller.
...
New Yorkers paid less for smaller apartments. The median price of a studio fell 8.5 percent to $420,000, according to Miller Samuel. One bedroom prices were $715,000, down 4.5 percent.
Prices rose 9.1 percent for two-bedroom apartments to a median of $1.62 million. Three bedroom apartments slid 6.4 percent to $4.05 million, Miller Samuel said.
...
In the luxury market, defined as the top 10 percent of sales by price, the median fell to $4.13 million in the fourth quarter from $4.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2007. Inventory rose 26 percent to 1,730 apartments. Luxury units stayed on the market 169 days, 52 more days than the same period a year earlier.
...
“Foreign investors are having a real tough time getting mortgage money, and a lot of those young affluent buyers aren’t so affluent any more,” [Pam] Liebman, [chief executive officer of Corcoran in Manhattan] said.
Still, if you can borrow at 5.1 % ... say prices deflate 2%/year over the next two years before 20% inflation hangs around for another eight years. Prices will have gone up (.98)^2(1.2)^8 - 1 = 313%. If the real value of your house is half what it is now, the nominal value will still have more than doubled, or gone up 7.2 % a year. So, you're borrowing at 5.1% to get a 7.2% return. That's like free money.
Sticking with our assumption that the next two years will have 2 % deflation and ten years from now your house will have half its real value, you'd break even if years three through ten were at 16.6 %. If you expand the time horizon to 15 years (and your house will probably hang steady at half it's Q109 real value), you could let years three through fifteen be at 12 % inflation. You've got to agree that a twelve per cent inflation rate from 2011 to 2024 is a pretty conservative estimate. Paying off a 5.1% fixed interest loan on a depreciating asset will feel airy and light!
Sunday, January 04, 2009
iPod Platelet
link
To review, I started accumulating platelet donation points in the interest of getting an iPod Nano 3G at 2600 points.
I bought an iPod Nano.
I had the NYPD write my driver's license number on it with indelible ultraviolet ink.
I went to a Yankees game and lost the iPod. The police said that to even file the thing as missing, I'd have to go back to the Bronx. How could I have ever thought going to a baseball game was going to work out for me?
I've reached 2200 points in platelet donations. On January 11th, I'll reach 2550 points (100 pts + 100 pts for Sunday, 100 pts for a triple and 50 points for a critical period.) So close.
So... they don't offer the iPod 3G any more. The 4G looks suckier, doesn't power by firewire, and won't fit the various 3G paraphernalia* I own. The big problem with it is that it's 4044 points -- another 15 100 point donations (or 5 300 point donations) after Sunday.
Well, OK. I can accept that I get punished for cheating. But, I'm going back to Maya-land at the end of March. My last trip to Cobá kept me from donating for 6 months, as it's malarial, and not donating for 6 months invalidates all of my points.
Apparently, I'm in a race against the clock.
* -- A win for Firefox's spell checker. Apparently, I've been incorrectly dropping the second 'r' from that word my whole life.
To review, I started accumulating platelet donation points in the interest of getting an iPod Nano 3G at 2600 points.
I bought an iPod Nano.
I had the NYPD write my driver's license number on it with indelible ultraviolet ink.
I went to a Yankees game and lost the iPod. The police said that to even file the thing as missing, I'd have to go back to the Bronx. How could I have ever thought going to a baseball game was going to work out for me?
I've reached 2200 points in platelet donations. On January 11th, I'll reach 2550 points (100 pts + 100 pts for Sunday, 100 pts for a triple and 50 points for a critical period.) So close.
So... they don't offer the iPod 3G any more. The 4G looks suckier, doesn't power by firewire, and won't fit the various 3G paraphernalia* I own. The big problem with it is that it's 4044 points -- another 15 100 point donations (or 5 300 point donations) after Sunday.
Well, OK. I can accept that I get punished for cheating. But, I'm going back to Maya-land at the end of March. My last trip to Cobá kept me from donating for 6 months, as it's malarial, and not donating for 6 months invalidates all of my points.
Apparently, I'm in a race against the clock.
* -- A win for Firefox's spell checker. Apparently, I've been incorrectly dropping the second 'r' from that word my whole life.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Powell Aide Lawrence Wilkerson backs me up
link
I haven't received the general agreement I expected to my assertion that Sarah Palin was "George Bush without Connections." But, here's something.
I haven't received the general agreement I expected to my assertion that Sarah Palin was "George Bush without Connections." But, here's something.
Lawrence Wilkerson, top aide and later chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, said that as a new president, Bush was like Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee whom critics said lacked knowledge about foreign affairs.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Conventional Wisdom Update on Climate Change
link via TalkingPointsMemo
Could the time for Happy Talk be drawing for a close? It seems like sections of the government are forgetting Shrub is still president. One of my prospective brothers-in-law was saying the other day that Bush 43 had been a disastrous president -- it always makes me anxious to hear the President being spoken of in the past tense. He's still there, doing terrible things, and to forget that renders us blind to the danger.
Anyway, the USGS, who you'd think would be out trying to find kleptocrats to turn over mining rights to (just kidding, I know that's the Bureau of Land Management,) released a study announcing climate change was happening faster than they'd previously been willing to admit.
Are you ready for what the Federal Government now believes? This is from the [PDF] executive summary:
So, there you are. The main point here is that scientists continue to discount the impending global tsunamis predicted by this blog. They laughed at me! I should build a giant robot, or something.
Could the time for Happy Talk be drawing for a close? It seems like sections of the government are forgetting Shrub is still president. One of my prospective brothers-in-law was saying the other day that Bush 43 had been a disastrous president -- it always makes me anxious to hear the President being spoken of in the past tense. He's still there, doing terrible things, and to forget that renders us blind to the danger.
Anyway, the USGS, who you'd think would be out trying to find kleptocrats to turn over mining rights to (just kidding, I know that's the Bureau of Land Management,) released a study announcing climate change was happening faster than they'd previously been willing to admit.
Are you ready for what the Federal Government now believes? This is from the [PDF] executive summary:
Based on an assessment of the published scientific literature, the primary conclusions presented in this report are:
• Recent rapid changes at the edges of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets show acceleration of flow and thinning, with the velocity of some glaciers increasing more than twofold.... Inclusion of these processes in models will likely lead to sea-level projections for the end of the 21st century that substantially exceed the projections presented in the IPCC AR4 report (0.28 ± 0.10 m to 0.42 ± 0.16 m rise)....
• [S]ubtropical aridity is likely to intensify and persist due to future greenhouse warming. This projected drying extends poleward into the United States Southwest, potentially increasing the likelihood of severe and persistent drought there in the future...
• The strength of the [northward flow of warm, salty water in the upper layers of the Atlantic, and the southward flow of colder water in the deep Atlantic, {which} plays an important role in the oceanic transport of heat from low to high latitudes.] will decrease over the course of the 21st century in response to increasing greenhouse gases, with a best estimate decrease of 25-30%.... [RFM: this means the lower latitudes will heat up much faster than the upper latitudes, and New York City, to choose a place at random, may even get colder for some time.]
• A... doubling of northern high latitudes CH4 emissions[RFM:, a much more intense greenhouse gas that Carbon Dioxide,] could be realized fairly easily. However, since these models do not realistically represent all the processes thought to be relevant to future northern high-latitude CH4 emissions, much larger (or smaller) increases cannot be discounted.
So, there you are. The main point here is that scientists continue to discount the impending global tsunamis predicted by this blog. They laughed at me! I should build a giant robot, or something.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Hope
link
I popped open my Christmas Kindle today to get the paper, and what did I see?
I do think it's too late to stop a catastrophic collapse of civilization. However! I've been wrong before -- as, uh, regular readers know -- and I'm very open to being wrong about this. It's really nice to see government being set up to respond in powerful ways. I don't even know how to respond, other than positively. Gobama!
I was 11 years old when Reagan took office, and we've just been in a world of shit since then. I'm giddy about the prospect of good governance.
I popped open my Christmas Kindle today to get the paper, and what did I see?
John P. Holdren, a physicist and environmental policy professor at Harvard, will serve as the president’s science adviser as director of the White House Office of Science and Technology. Jane Lubchenco, a marine biologist from Oregon State University, will lead the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which overseas ocean and atmospheric studies and performs much of the government’s research on global warming.It struck me that maybe our perceived cynicism about politics was because bad things kept happening to us, and our apathy was because we didn't seem to be able to do much about it. I'm ready for good things to happen.
Dr. Holdren will also be a co-chairman the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology along with the Nobel Prize-winning cancer research Dr. Harold Varmus, a former director of the National Institutes of Health, and Eric S. Lander, a genomic researcher.
I do think it's too late to stop a catastrophic collapse of civilization. However! I've been wrong before -- as, uh, regular readers know -- and I'm very open to being wrong about this. It's really nice to see government being set up to respond in powerful ways. I don't even know how to respond, other than positively. Gobama!
I was 11 years old when Reagan took office, and we've just been in a world of shit since then. I'm giddy about the prospect of good governance.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Congress Catches On
link
Mel Watt, a Representative from Charlotte, North Carolina, asks Interim Assistant Treasury Secretary Neel Kashkari what I think is a key question: Is Goldman Sachs running this country? Ah... this isn't going to end well. Still, I guess it's better to know the truth.
Update: Apparently my fact-checking team failed to confirm which state Charlotte was in. It's updated from South Carolina.
Mel Watt, a Representative from Charlotte, North Carolina, asks Interim Assistant Treasury Secretary Neel Kashkari what I think is a key question: Is Goldman Sachs running this country? Ah... this isn't going to end well. Still, I guess it's better to know the truth.
Update: Apparently my fact-checking team failed to confirm which state Charlotte was in. It's updated from South Carolina.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Prosperity is just around the corner
link
The Simpsons features a bratty child, and starts every episode with him repeatedly writing upon a chalkboard some assertion that an authority figure wants him to internalize, like "I will not [do some prank.]" This episode, he writes "Prosperity is just around the corner."
Ah, adulthood. I can repeatedly warn you about stagdeflation, and a depression which will compare to the Great Depression like World War II did to World War I, and I still get supper. Heck, I could have dessert if I wanted it.
Ha!
The Simpsons features a bratty child, and starts every episode with him repeatedly writing upon a chalkboard some assertion that an authority figure wants him to internalize, like "I will not [do some prank.]" This episode, he writes "Prosperity is just around the corner."
Ah, adulthood. I can repeatedly warn you about stagdeflation, and a depression which will compare to the Great Depression like World War II did to World War I, and I still get supper. Heck, I could have dessert if I wanted it.
Ha!
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Inflation on and after 2006
link
So, to quote Nephos, who linked to a very pretty picture
Look, I made a plot.
The four post WWI years 1930 - 1933 had a lot of deflation, and it took ten years to undo them. Using this as a precedent, buying a house could still be an extremely sucky investment. However, I think the path of inflation will be the one we'll follow.
So, to quote Nephos, who linked to a very pretty picture
An interesting example is looking at US inflation around WW1: Inflation skyrocketed at the end of the war as the US invested in sending its work force toward futile engagement in the trenches. And then deflation skyrocketed once they came home. The average over this period was probably somewhere in the vicinity of something small.Using the linked table -- and there's a line between quoting and stealing I'm never sure when I cross, but I make you click in to the table -- inflation in the year 1924 was zero, so we'll treat that as a turning point (even though the year before was positive, at 1.8%) and end in 1923. Inflation jumps from 1% in 1914 and 1915 to 7.9% in 1916, so we'll start in 1916. This gives us inflation rates of 7.9, 17.4, 18, 14.6, 15.6, -10.5, -6.1 and 1.8 per cent per year, which add up to a 1915 dollar being worth 93 cents at the end of 1916 and 59 cents at the end of 1923. Deflation starts in again about half-way through 1926 -- remember that's supposed to be the middle of a great economic boom -- so the 1915 dollar bottoms out at 58 cents in 1926 before zooming back up to 78 cents (nearly its 1917 value) after 1933. In 1943, it's back to 58 cents.
Look, I made a plot.
The four post WWI years 1930 - 1933 had a lot of deflation, and it took ten years to undo them. Using this as a precedent, buying a house could still be an extremely sucky investment. However, I think the path of inflation will be the one we'll follow.
More on the Pessimism Bottom
link
This is from a[nother] reader of Agora Financial's Five-Minute Forecast. As you know, I like to make obvious points seem more credible by having someone else repeat them.
This is from a[nother] reader of Agora Financial's Five-Minute Forecast. As you know, I like to make obvious points seem more credible by having someone else repeat them.
“Barton Biggs is no doubt a great moneyman,” writes a reader in response to a Biggs essay we published last Tuesday . “His assertion... ‘We must be pretty close to maximum bearishness’ sound[s] like... cheerleading, to me.”
...
“We’ve hit the point of maximum pessimism? The point of maximum pessimism can only be known in hindsight. People will get more and more pessimistic as their personal conditions/news get worse. If you are saying it’s not possible for people to be more pessimistic than they are now, I disagree. Whether or not they do become more pessimistic is another argument and will depend on what happens to them. (I have a couple of friends who left Liberia at the start of the civil war. They were really pessimistic then. In fact, I was so concerned, I recommended counseling, but they still felt they would be back in Monrovia before Christmas. Ha. Somewhere over the next five years, they hit their point of maximum pessimism.)
Monday, December 08, 2008
I'm now eligible for a Pulitzer
link
The Pulitzers wouldn't be the Pulitzers without the Christian Science Monitor to give them to. With the CSM going online-only, this means...
The Pulitzers wouldn't be the Pulitzers without the Christian Science Monitor to give them to. With the CSM going online-only, this means...
Pulitzer Administrator Sig Gissler told E&P that "we are expanding the Pulitzers to include many text-based newspapers and news organizations that publish only on the Internet." At the same time, they are "stressing" that all entered material should come from news outlets that publish material at least weekly, "are primarily dedicated to original news reporting, are dedicated to coverage of ongoing stories and that adhere to the highest journalistic principles."Which leaves the door open for yours truly.
Saturday, December 06, 2008
Maybe it is time to buy
link
It may be, actually, a good time to buy a house. I think yesterday, I realized that hyperinflationary policies -- where you lose a lot of money by not lending or investing -- are a tack the Obama Administration may very well try to get the credit markets unfrozen.
Say you buy a $500K house that has some platonic, abstract value of $250K in a universe where housing prices are tied to rents and incomes. After 5 years of 15 % inflation, you haven't lost anything -- you have a $500K house again. If you have a 15 year morgage, ten years later you own a $2M house. While it seems like you've made nothing in real terms, if you've only been paying 4.5% on this, you're golden.
Update: I also wanted to comment on this in the column itself, [A]s it does with the stock market, the [bottom to the housing market] will probably arrive when everyone is feeling the most pessimistic. I hear this sort of thing now and then. Isn't that kind of stupid? Not only is pessimism harder to measure than even prices, but you can always get more pessimistic -- prices have a soft bottom at 0 (you could pay people to take stuff away, which is why I don't say 'hard bottom'), but I don't think pessimism is even strictly a scalar quantity. The statement is an implicit suggestion that you replace your inability to predict the shape of a hard-to-measure trend with your inability to predict the shape of a harder-to-measure-and-hard-even-to-define trend. I don't see what you gain.
“The Changing Prospects for Building Home Equity,”[PDF] tries to predict where today’s first-time buyers in the 100 biggest metropolitan areas may actually have less home equity by 2012 as a result of continued price declines. The verdict was that buyers in 33 of the markets could see a decline by 2012, including potential six-figure drops on an average home in the New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle metropolitan areas.
It may be, actually, a good time to buy a house. I think yesterday, I realized that hyperinflationary policies -- where you lose a lot of money by not lending or investing -- are a tack the Obama Administration may very well try to get the credit markets unfrozen.
Say you buy a $500K house that has some platonic, abstract value of $250K in a universe where housing prices are tied to rents and incomes. After 5 years of 15 % inflation, you haven't lost anything -- you have a $500K house again. If you have a 15 year morgage, ten years later you own a $2M house. While it seems like you've made nothing in real terms, if you've only been paying 4.5% on this, you're golden.
Update: I also wanted to comment on this in the column itself, [A]s it does with the stock market, the [bottom to the housing market] will probably arrive when everyone is feeling the most pessimistic. I hear this sort of thing now and then. Isn't that kind of stupid? Not only is pessimism harder to measure than even prices, but you can always get more pessimistic -- prices have a soft bottom at 0 (you could pay people to take stuff away, which is why I don't say 'hard bottom'), but I don't think pessimism is even strictly a scalar quantity. The statement is an implicit suggestion that you replace your inability to predict the shape of a hard-to-measure trend with your inability to predict the shape of a harder-to-measure-and-hard-even-to-define trend. I don't see what you gain.
Friday, December 05, 2008
First Big Problem with President Elect Obama
link referred by TPM
Now, I've spoken a lot about how I entered the Shrub presidency with optimism and an open heart, and was quickly disabused. And, it's my intent to do that with 44, except for the disabusing part. I want to be perfectly clear that it is not my intent to find fault with President Obama until I decide he's another good-for-nothing wastrel driving the world towards doom. But, Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel-prize-winning former World Bank President -- should have a prominent place in his cabinet.
Now, I've spoken a lot about how I entered the Shrub presidency with optimism and an open heart, and was quickly disabused. And, it's my intent to do that with 44, except for the disabusing part. I want to be perfectly clear that it is not my intent to find fault with President Obama until I decide he's another good-for-nothing wastrel driving the world towards doom. But, Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel-prize-winning former World Bank President -- should have a prominent place in his cabinet.
Stiglitz denounced Rubin's support for repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which separated commercial from investment banking for precisely the reasons we are now witnessing on Wall Street.... Stiglitz became the most prominent voice in Washington to say plainly that free-market absolutism, which began with the Reagan revolution and continued under Clinton (who upon being elected declared the era of "big government" was over), was ill-founded theoretically and disastrous practically....All I could come up with when asked who should be on Obama's economic team was Elizabeth Warren. But, Joseph Stiglitz should definitely be up there.
As far back as 1990, Stiglitz argued in a paper (it can be found on The Economist's Voice Web site at www.bppress.com) against securitizing mortgages and selling them
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
That's how they get you
link
There are a lot of pundits I generally agree with, but they all have some fatal flaw -- like Professor Krugman's pro-NAFTA Clintonism and Joshua Micah Marshall's failure to appreciate just how unstable our political and economic systems are -- that reassure me that I have some need for independent thought.
This guy, Glenn Greenwald, though, is pretty tight. I'm really tempted to outsource all of my opinion-forming to him. Remember Anna Karenina?
Update:Just as we enter the last month, I think Nephos and I have developed the word of the year: Arkadyevitchizing from Arkadyevitchize, to replace one's opinion-forming capacity with preformed editorial content, used of media. It's developed in the comments of this post, but I moved it into the body so that it would be searchable, as it's now in this blog's header.
There are a lot of pundits I generally agree with, but they all have some fatal flaw -- like Professor Krugman's pro-NAFTA Clintonism and Joshua Micah Marshall's failure to appreciate just how unstable our political and economic systems are -- that reassure me that I have some need for independent thought.
This guy, Glenn Greenwald, though, is pretty tight. I'm really tempted to outsource all of my opinion-forming to him. Remember Anna Karenina?
Stepan Arkadyevitch took in and read a liberal paper, not an extreme one, but one advocating the views held by the majority. And in spite of the fact that science, art, and plitics [sic.] had no special interest for him, he firmly held those views on all these subjects which were held by the majority and by his paper, and he only changed them when the majority changed them--or, more strictly speaking, he did not change them, but they imperceptibly changed of themselves within him.I've always felt like this was my eventual fate, to be a superfluous man. And Glenn Greenwald's getting me closer.
Update:Just as we enter the last month, I think Nephos and I have developed the word of the year: Arkadyevitchizing from Arkadyevitchize, to replace one's opinion-forming capacity with preformed editorial content, used of media. It's developed in the comments of this post, but I moved it into the body so that it would be searchable, as it's now in this blog's header.
Monday, December 01, 2008
News From Antartica
link
Well, there goes the Wilkins Ice Sheet.
And, hey, they found a mountain range. WIth really big lakes.
Well, there goes the Wilkins Ice Sheet.
New rifts have developed on the Wilkins Ice Shelf that could lead to the opening of the ice bridge that has been preventing the ice shelf from disintegrating and breaking away from the Antarctic Peninsula.
...
If the ice shelf breaks away from the peninsula, it will not cause a rise in sea level since it is already floating.
And, hey, they found a mountain range. WIth really big lakes.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Samantha Power back in Obama's good graces
link
Phew. I don't know why Samantha Power called Senator Clinton a monster. But, I was distressed to see her dropped from the campaign. Now, she's back, working for Mrs. Clinton herself. That's got to be a little awkward, but Hillary Clinton was running in some part on her thick-skinned-ness.
Phew. I don't know why Samantha Power called Senator Clinton a monster. But, I was distressed to see her dropped from the campaign. Now, she's back, working for Mrs. Clinton herself. That's got to be a little awkward, but Hillary Clinton was running in some part on her thick-skinned-ness.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
5 days left in Hurricane Season
link
And then we'll no longer be hearing things like
And then we'll no longer be hearing things like
A LARGE AREA OF DISTURBED WEATHER CONTINUES OVER THE SOUTHWESTERNNot because it won't be happening, but because there'll be noone staffing the National Hurricane Center.
CARIBBEAN SEA IN ASSOCIATION WITH A BROAD AREA OF LOW PRESSURE. THIS
SYSTEM REMAINS POORLY ORGANIZED AND FURTHER DEVELOPMENT...IF ANY...
IS EXPECTED TO BE SLOW TO OCCUR. HEAVY RAINS AND LOCALIZED FLOODING
OVER PORTIONS OF PANAMA...COSTA RICA...NICARAGUA...AND EASTERN
HONDURAS ARE LIKELY DURING THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS AS THE SYSTEM
DRIFTS WESTWARD.
Monday, November 24, 2008
One problem solved
link
One big confusion I've had with the Bush Administration was the secrecy of presidential papers. I remember this as being the first hugely damaging thing the Bush Administration did to my optimism and positivity regarding our 43rd president, and the Caribou scandal the last, destroying it completely. But, they seemed to be in different orders. The opening of this Washington Monthly article sets me straight.
Update: I guess some of you may not have given up on the Bush Administration until later than I did, maybe not even until the second half of 2001 -- maybe when he was AWOL for three days after 9/11? That was good for Rudy Giuliani, but maybe not so much for the country. Anyway, here's a link to a story on my aforementioned last straw, the Caribou scandal: http://articles.latimes.com/2001/oct/19/news/mn-59151
One big confusion I've had with the Bush Administration was the secrecy of presidential papers. I remember this as being the first hugely damaging thing the Bush Administration did to my optimism and positivity regarding our 43rd president, and the Caribou scandal the last, destroying it completely. But, they seemed to be in different orders. The opening of this Washington Monthly article sets me straight.
Ronald Reagan was the first chief executive to whom the Presidential Records Act applied, and his papers were due to be turned over to Carlin at the beginning of Bush’s term.So, that's that.
Gonzales wanted Carlin to delay the release until June. His letter didn’t say why, but Carlin agreed. Then in June, Carlin got another memo from Gonzales—Bush’s attorney now wanted until the end of August. Carlin agreed again. The extensions continued until November, when Bush issued an executive order: effective immediately, the release of presidential records would require the approval of both the sitting president and the president whose records were in question, rather than just the former.
Update: I guess some of you may not have given up on the Bush Administration until later than I did, maybe not even until the second half of 2001 -- maybe when he was AWOL for three days after 9/11? That was good for Rudy Giuliani, but maybe not so much for the country. Anyway, here's a link to a story on my aforementioned last straw, the Caribou scandal: http://articles.latimes.com/2001/oct/19/news/mn-59151
Sunday, November 23, 2008
I am the stone the the builder refused
link
What came to mind? Psalm 118, or the Boondocks Television show?
I'm embarrassed to admit that I didn't realize The Boondocks had a second season. This, I guess, is the downside of not having a TV -- you miss all the good shows. Anyway, it did. And it's now at the top of my NetFlix queue.
What came to mind? Psalm 118, or the Boondocks Television show?
I'm embarrassed to admit that I didn't realize The Boondocks had a second season. This, I guess, is the downside of not having a TV -- you miss all the good shows. Anyway, it did. And it's now at the top of my NetFlix queue.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Yo! I’m a recycling bin
link
Before I was an MIT graduate, I was a RUCCAS graduate. And I think I've mentioned enough MIT research that I should give a shout out to the Alma Mater.
Before I was an MIT graduate, I was a RUCCAS graduate. And I think I've mentioned enough MIT research that I should give a shout out to the Alma Mater.
Sean Duffy, an assistant professor of psychology at Rutgers–Camden... notes. “We began noticing a pattern: regardless of the receptacle’s label, recycling bins with little holes in the lids contained recyclables and almost nothing else, while those that lacked such holes were basically used as trash cans, even though they were recycling bins.”
The heroic hole in question measures about 6 inches in circumference, large enough for bottles made of glass or plastic. In the research team’s one-month study they observed 10 waste stations in a five-story academic building. Each station consisted of three container types: commingled glass, plastic, and aluminum; trash; and paper. Not only did the little hole increase recycling rates, but it lowered the amount of contaminants entering the recycling stream by 95%.
WayLay finally speaks to me
link
I'm not a huge Carol Lay fan, but today's is pretty good. I guess today's blogs are about managed insanity. On top of my mild PTSD, I have the occasional suspicion that I only think I'm still in the reality I know.
Once you admit the possibility of alternate universes -- the stoner's view of quantum physics -- you have to ask the question, "How do I know I'm still in mine?" And it's super hard to tell.
Long time readers will recall what is now my second* most popular article ever on TheSpoof.com, Evidence found for dimensional annealling. And the idea there was, that these universes tend to come back together. You could probably make an energy minimization argument for it -- every time you branch, you add a universe's worth of energy. Nature being what it is, there'd probably be some process to undo that. So, they cleave. And maybe they don't anneal perfectly, but just swap elements. Like you, or the brothiness of chile relleno.
But, you've got to be in the mood. When someone nearby notices something off kilter, and tries to get you to validate that stuff's not normally like that, it can be really annoying. Try to keep in mind that everybody's a little worried they'll become dimensionally unstuck.
* -- That last one was really well received. Kick John McCain while he's down! It's hard to imagine that my writing has gotten better -- I'm using 'super' as an adverb! And I've got to say I'm a big fan of Dick Cheney is in your apartment now.
I'm not a huge Carol Lay fan, but today's is pretty good. I guess today's blogs are about managed insanity. On top of my mild PTSD, I have the occasional suspicion that I only think I'm still in the reality I know.
Once you admit the possibility of alternate universes -- the stoner's view of quantum physics -- you have to ask the question, "How do I know I'm still in mine?" And it's super hard to tell.
Long time readers will recall what is now my second* most popular article ever on TheSpoof.com, Evidence found for dimensional annealling. And the idea there was, that these universes tend to come back together. You could probably make an energy minimization argument for it -- every time you branch, you add a universe's worth of energy. Nature being what it is, there'd probably be some process to undo that. So, they cleave. And maybe they don't anneal perfectly, but just swap elements. Like you, or the brothiness of chile relleno.
But, you've got to be in the mood. When someone nearby notices something off kilter, and tries to get you to validate that stuff's not normally like that, it can be really annoying. Try to keep in mind that everybody's a little worried they'll become dimensionally unstuck.
* -- That last one was really well received. Kick John McCain while he's down! It's hard to imagine that my writing has gotten better -- I'm using 'super' as an adverb! And I've got to say I'm a big fan of Dick Cheney is in your apartment now.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
You can't just release the Guantanamo inmates
link
To some extent this is probably because I haven't looked for the answer at his campaign web site or change.gov, but I'm not sure what the President Elect means when he says he is going to close Guantanamo Bay. However, we can look at these five gentlemen ordered released today for some clues as to what to do.
It's easy to feel that the vast majority of inmates fall into this camp, but they're not even combatants, much less enemy ones.
Like any good liberal, I believe that nearly all the inmates in Guantanamo are this innocent. But, you can't just let them go.
If you know anyone who's been in therapy, they probably don't plan on coming out soon. Once you've gone crazy, I think you just manage it. I think I'm suffering a little PTSD from sky-diving, and I don't know how I'd uncrazy that. So, we've driven these guys crazy, and we have to give them the tools to manage their craziness before we wash our hands of them. They're going back to their wives and families. We have enough experience with our own combat vets coming back and doing damage, and these guys have been through a lot more.
I'm not sure what the answer is -- Illegally Detained American Prisoner Recuperation Centers throughout the Middle East? -- but I'd like to hear the question addressed. It's too bad the people who caused the problem aren't tasked with solving it, but they were incompetent anyway.
To some extent this is probably because I haven't looked for the answer at his campaign web site or change.gov, but I'm not sure what the President Elect means when he says he is going to close Guantanamo Bay. However, we can look at these five gentlemen ordered released today for some clues as to what to do.
It's easy to feel that the vast majority of inmates fall into this camp, but they're not even combatants, much less enemy ones.
President George W. Bush said in 2002 the six men had been planning a bomb attack on the U.S. embassy in Sarajevo. But Justice Department attorneys said last month they no longer would rely on those accusations to justify the continued detention of the six men.One guy planned to go fight, and he's still in the clink. You know what the military term is for people who plan to go fight? Civilians.
However they argued the Algerians should be held because they planned to go to Afghanistan in late 2001 to fight U.S. forces.
In ordering the release of the five men, Leon said the allegation was based on only one unnamed source and he did not have enough information to judge the source's reliability or credibility.
He ruled the government did provide enough evidence that one of the detainees, Belkacem Bensayah, supported al Qaeda and planned to fight against the United States in Afghanistan.
Like any good liberal, I believe that nearly all the inmates in Guantanamo are this innocent. But, you can't just let them go.
When we last saw Saber in November, he was in his sixth month of solitary confinement. Since August, he has seen us, his legal team, twice and a psychiatrist on three brief occasions. For a few minutes each day, he sees the camp guards who bring his meals. He has had no other human contact. The glaring lights in his cell are on 24 hours a day, seven days a week. When we left the cell, we could hear Saber shouting -- brief, truncated cries. We could not understand what he was saying.They have gone crazy. The Rumsfeld Process was to unload every mind-breaking interrogation technique the CIA had studied on these guys. But, they didn't have anything to say. It's not like they're all criminal masterminds who knew what was on Al Qaeda's schedule for 2009. I think they were mostly just resisting the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq -- they're POWs from wars we declared won. These guys weren't even that. And, now we've driven them crazy.
If you know anyone who's been in therapy, they probably don't plan on coming out soon. Once you've gone crazy, I think you just manage it. I think I'm suffering a little PTSD from sky-diving, and I don't know how I'd uncrazy that. So, we've driven these guys crazy, and we have to give them the tools to manage their craziness before we wash our hands of them. They're going back to their wives and families. We have enough experience with our own combat vets coming back and doing damage, and these guys have been through a lot more.
I'm not sure what the answer is -- Illegally Detained American Prisoner Recuperation Centers throughout the Middle East? -- but I'd like to hear the question addressed. It's too bad the people who caused the problem aren't tasked with solving it, but they were incompetent anyway.
Lost Again
link
An actor? Seriously? I'm less sexy than an actor? What kind of topsy-turvy dreamworld are we living in?
Oh, well. Next year.
An actor? Seriously? I'm less sexy than an actor? What kind of topsy-turvy dreamworld are we living in?
Oh, well. Next year.
Happiness
link
Turns out to be well-correlated with not watching TV. I guess I could have guessed that, but, again, it's nice to have data.
As long as I'm passing on New York Times' tidbits, I like Zappos.com, but given my strict regimen of only buying things on deep clearance, I've found them a little frustrating. They've had like one style of shoes that I liked deeply discounted enough for me. It's never made sense. Well! The Times outed them today. They have a whole separate discount site! I'll see if I can't get by with some Lumiani 3554s.
Turns out to be well-correlated with not watching TV. I guess I could have guessed that, but, again, it's nice to have data.
As long as I'm passing on New York Times' tidbits, I like Zappos.com, but given my strict regimen of only buying things on deep clearance, I've found them a little frustrating. They've had like one style of shoes that I liked deeply discounted enough for me. It's never made sense. Well! The Times outed them today. They have a whole separate discount site! I'll see if I can't get by with some Lumiani 3554s.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Deposit Rates and Inflation
link
So, the Wall Street Journal goes on an on about how great CD rates are.
Really? If you put away $100 today, next year you can buy $99 of goods with your savings. Incited?
So, the Wall Street Journal goes on an on about how great CD rates are.
The average rate of 2.61% on a one-year certificate of deposit as of Wednesday is up from 2% in early May, according to Bankrate.com, a North Palm Beach, Fla., financial-data provider. The jump comes despite Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts that have reduced the fed-funds rate to 1%. Such cuts usually lead to lower deposit rates.So, the poor little banks are getting squeezed by having to offer competitive interest rates -- they can't pay for it with bailout funds, because those are all going to pay dividends to their investors. We therefore get super-high interest rates on our savings. Like 3.93 %. Inflation in September was 4.94 %. I don't want to get all tied up in fancy Economic theory, but that's more.
...
Unlike previous periods of turbulence, the Fed's rate-chopping campaign isn't relieving the pressure this time. In the past, reductions in the federal funds rate have helped level off interest rates on CDs and savings accounts, according to Market Rates Insight Inc., which tracks pricing trends for financial institutions. "This time around, it's much more fierce," says Dan Geller, executive vice president of the San Anselmo, Calif., firm.
Really? If you put away $100 today, next year you can buy $99 of goods with your savings. Incited?
Brazen acts of courtesy
link
Now, never mind why, but I was reviewing the Centered Writing Practice web site, and saw that Oprah Winfrey had invited a gentleman who'd come up with 25 rules of considerate conduct on her television program. The author's selling it as a book, so given that I have started blogging about civil behavior more, I wondered, "how can I get these rules for free?"
Well... The CIVITAS Initiative at Western Wyoming Community College also has 25 rules of considerate conduct, which they considerately post for free (pdf). There's some overlap. Is this really acknowledging others (both lists #2), respecting others' opinions (both lists' #10) or respecting others' time(both lists are exactly the same, it turns out. This is #14)?
I'm going to think the best (#3,) but this is the state that elected Richard Bruce Cheney to the House of Representatives. And it seems to have stolen the name 'CIVITAS Initiative' as well -- there's apparently no other reference to a 'CIVITAS Initiative' on any web site related to the great state of Wyoming, so I can't tell if they mean it to mean 'CIty-VITAlity-Sustainability,' which you'd think would be CiVitaS, anyway.
Now, never mind why, but I was reviewing the Centered Writing Practice web site, and saw that Oprah Winfrey had invited a gentleman who'd come up with 25 rules of considerate conduct on her television program. The author's selling it as a book, so given that I have started blogging about civil behavior more, I wondered, "how can I get these rules for free?"
Well... The CIVITAS Initiative at Western Wyoming Community College also has 25 rules of considerate conduct, which they considerately post for free (pdf). There's some overlap. Is this really acknowledging others (both lists #2), respecting others' opinions (both lists' #10) or respecting others' time(both lists are exactly the same, it turns out. This is #14)?
I'm going to think the best (#3,) but this is the state that elected Richard Bruce Cheney to the House of Representatives. And it seems to have stolen the name 'CIVITAS Initiative' as well -- there's apparently no other reference to a 'CIVITAS Initiative' on any web site related to the great state of Wyoming, so I can't tell if they mean it to mean 'CIty-VITAlity-Sustainability,' which you'd think would be CiVitaS, anyway.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Online Procrastination Quiz
link
I was signing up for free online marriage counseling, and they offer a procrastination quiz. I can just imagine these guys reviewing the aggregate data and scratching their heads. "What are we doing wrong? Clearly, if our results were correct, the country couldn't function. Maybe we're somehow selecting for pathological procrastinators? How can we design an online procrastinations quiz that doesn't... Ohhhhh."
I was signing up for free online marriage counseling, and they offer a procrastination quiz. I can just imagine these guys reviewing the aggregate data and scratching their heads. "What are we doing wrong? Clearly, if our results were correct, the country couldn't function. Maybe we're somehow selecting for pathological procrastinators? How can we design an online procrastinations quiz that doesn't... Ohhhhh."
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
It's hard to reclaim a mansion
link
I often look at houses converted into apartments and wonder how hard it would be to convert them back. Turns out? Really hard.
I often look at houses converted into apartments and wonder how hard it would be to convert them back. Turns out? Really hard.
Each tenant will receive $75,000, with the exception of one elderly tenant, who will receive $175,000.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
How rational is your exuberance?
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So, stocks were definitely overvalued on December 5, 1996, when NEWCAG called us out for irrational exuberance.
That was a 6,381.94 close. We'd have to lose another 26 % to get back there. If we all work together, we can do it.
So, stocks were definitely overvalued on December 5, 1996, when NEWCAG called us out for irrational exuberance.
That was a 6,381.94 close. We'd have to lose another 26 % to get back there. If we all work together, we can do it.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Theft
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While Congress was distracted by the bailout, Treasury Secretary Paulson changed a rule giving a lot of tax money to his industry.
I really feel that the time for removing George W. Bush from the Presidency has passed. It'd be hard to get it done in the two months remaining in his term. But, if he retains the power of the pardon in January, how will these people end up in prison?
While Congress was distracted by the bailout, Treasury Secretary Paulson changed a rule giving a lot of tax money to his industry.
"Did the Treasury Department have the authority to do this? I think almost every tax expert would agree that the answer is no," said George K. Yin, the former chief of staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation, the nonpartisan congressional authority on taxes.
...
Section 382 of the tax code was created by Congress in 1986 to end what it considered an abuse of the tax system: companies sheltering their profits from taxation by acquiring shell companies whose only real value was the losses on their books. The firms would then use the acquired company's losses to offset their gains and avoid paying taxes.
...
The Jones Day law firm... released a widely circulated commentary that concluded that the change could cost taxpayers about $140 billion. Robert L. Willens, a prominent corporate tax expert in New York City, said the price is more likely to be $105 billion to $110 billion.
...
Lee A. Sheppard, a tax attorney who is a contributing editor at the trade publication Tax Analysts[, said] "We're left now with congressional Democrats that have spines like overcooked spaghetti. So who is going to stop the Treasury secretary from doing whatever he wants?"
I really feel that the time for removing George W. Bush from the Presidency has passed. It'd be hard to get it done in the two months remaining in his term. But, if he retains the power of the pardon in January, how will these people end up in prison?
Sunday, November 09, 2008
Every so often, I'm reminded the idea that the world makes sense is an enforced delusion
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Professional clogs? In what sort of a profession can you wear clogs?
On October 10, Connecticut became the third fair marriage state. They're actually now the second, but that's beside the point. Two weeks later, on October 24, I got engaged. And now, two weeks more hence, I'm browsing REI online to fill out my gift registry. And it's offering me professional clogs.
On the one hand, I feel like I'm having trouble embracing my yuppiness when I wonder what's so special about $15 running socks. I mean, sure you get two (one for each foot,) but c'mon. Other the other hand, I'm wondering where that $1200 stroller from The Office is. I know we should ask for strollers in the baby shower, but the earlier you hit people, the better. I've only got enough invites for family, anyway. And we're Scot-Irish -- as cheap as the Scots, but without the money. We're the race that keeps Appalachia down, recall. This article in Salon suggested our backwardness would give Hillary Clinton the Democratic Nomination. And if you look at a county-by-county result, you'll see we went for McCain.
Professional clogs? In what sort of a profession can you wear clogs?
On October 10, Connecticut became the third fair marriage state. They're actually now the second, but that's beside the point. Two weeks later, on October 24, I got engaged. And now, two weeks more hence, I'm browsing REI online to fill out my gift registry. And it's offering me professional clogs.
On the one hand, I feel like I'm having trouble embracing my yuppiness when I wonder what's so special about $15 running socks. I mean, sure you get two (one for each foot,) but c'mon. Other the other hand, I'm wondering where that $1200 stroller from The Office is. I know we should ask for strollers in the baby shower, but the earlier you hit people, the better. I've only got enough invites for family, anyway. And we're Scot-Irish -- as cheap as the Scots, but without the money. We're the race that keeps Appalachia down, recall. This article in Salon suggested our backwardness would give Hillary Clinton the Democratic Nomination. And if you look at a county-by-county result, you'll see we went for McCain.
Wrote a heartwarming Christmas Story
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My friend Jeremy Handleman is promoting a production of Alan Ayckbourn's Season's Greetings, November 20 - December 7 at the McGinn/Cazale theater on Broadway. He asked me to contribute my "funniest true story about something that went horribly wrong during a past holiday celebration," so I gave it a shot. Let me know what you think
My friend Jeremy Handleman is promoting a production of Alan Ayckbourn's Season's Greetings, November 20 - December 7 at the McGinn/Cazale theater on Broadway. He asked me to contribute my "funniest true story about something that went horribly wrong during a past holiday celebration," so I gave it a shot. Let me know what you think
Friday, November 07, 2008
Thursday, November 06, 2008
24 days left in hurricane season
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Paloma? Have you ever met anyone named Paloma? Wait, let's look on Facebook... Apparently, there was a Chilean girl on Survivor Gabon by that name. Or, is. I don't know if Survivor is still being made, if it's currently in season, or if Gabon is this year. But, that's not germane. The point is, there are people named Paloma. And the people who name hurricanes watch a lot of TV.
Anyway, Paloma is about to crush Cuba under her glittery jackboot heel.
I don't feel good about making predictions about when the hurricanes will actually start coming, as I don't have any model for doing so, and wouldn't put data in it if I had. But, life's not about feeling good. And I feel like we're going to have another late December, early January stormfest.
Paloma? Have you ever met anyone named Paloma? Wait, let's look on Facebook... Apparently, there was a Chilean girl on Survivor Gabon by that name. Or, is. I don't know if Survivor is still being made, if it's currently in season, or if Gabon is this year. But, that's not germane. The point is, there are people named Paloma. And the people who name hurricanes watch a lot of TV.
Anyway, Paloma is about to crush Cuba under her glittery jackboot heel.
I don't feel good about making predictions about when the hurricanes will actually start coming, as I don't have any model for doing so, and wouldn't put data in it if I had. But, life's not about feeling good. And I feel like we're going to have another late December, early January stormfest.
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Some luck at choosing nail biters
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I've been watching election results using the TPM widget. Select 'Minnesota/Senate' or 'New York/House of Representatives' and choose Staten Island (NY-14 -- the far left extent of that Long Island shaped thingie at the bottom) for the two races I was interested in.
Staten Island was a blowout. It was just interesting to watch it go Democratic, athough given the particular dynamics of this cycle (by which I don't mean Obamania -- Staten Island has its own drama,) it was pretty clear it would.
Minnesota is still not called. Franken trails by 572 votes. Maybe I choose my nail biters too well. I have go live my post-election life!
Update: Incidentally, I had trouble finding out how Cynthia was doing all night. We garnered 0.1 % nationally, I was one of 140,702 votes.I know it's ironic when we whine about Nader splitting our vote, but we're trying to support local candidates!
I've been watching election results using the TPM widget. Select 'Minnesota/Senate' or 'New York/House of Representatives' and choose Staten Island (NY-14 -- the far left extent of that Long Island shaped thingie at the bottom) for the two races I was interested in.
Staten Island was a blowout. It was just interesting to watch it go Democratic, athough given the particular dynamics of this cycle (by which I don't mean Obamania -- Staten Island has its own drama,) it was pretty clear it would.
Minnesota is still not called. Franken trails by 572 votes. Maybe I choose my nail biters too well. I have go live my post-election life!
Update: Incidentally, I had trouble finding out how Cynthia was doing all night. We garnered 0.1 % nationally, I was one of 140,702 votes.I know it's ironic when we whine about Nader splitting our vote, but we're trying to support local candidates!
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
NYC Marathon Pace Between 12 and 14 minutes per mile
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Except for two segments -- the first 5 KM where I was below 11 minutes/mile, and the 30 - 35 and 35 - 40 -- I was in that range.
OK, I mistitled that left one. But, the point is, if I'd kept running I would eventually have reached a winning pace ;)
Except for two segments -- the first 5 KM where I was below 11 minutes/mile, and the 30 - 35 and 35 - 40 -- I was in that range.
OK, I mistitled that left one. But, the point is, if I'd kept running I would eventually have reached a winning pace ;)
Barack Obama Votes, possibly for Cynthia McKinney
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Hey, absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.
You may've heard about the statutory rape convictee running for State Senate in Vermont. In the first place, I am totally behind letting convicts run for office. Dismissing someone's candidacy because he or she has gone to prison just gives the government another tool for supressing its critics. In the second place?
Hey, absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.
You may've heard about the statutory rape convictee running for State Senate in Vermont. In the first place, I am totally behind letting convicts run for office. Dismissing someone's candidacy because he or she has gone to prison just gives the government another tool for supressing its critics. In the second place?
Pearse Corcoran, 22, of Burlington, who cast his vote last week at Burlington City Hall, said he didn't vote for Forney.Wasn't Dubya supposed to be the Jackie Robinson of drunk drivers?
"I had heard about him. I heard it was circumstantial and all that, but I think that's irrelevant. Plus, there's the DUI thing," he said.
So glad we don't have e-voting
there's no link
I got to vote today. I even got to take a camera in -- apparently, the guard I spoke with hadn't read the big sign on the wall (once I did, I... well, I let it have run out of batteries.)
I was really relieved to see levers in there. I always panic that New York will switch over without telling me, and I'll end up inadvertently voting for Armeggedon and the Rise of the Antichrist.
Election Day's always painful for the political junkie, as the only thing you want to know -- how the Green Party (or whatever ticket you're following) is doing, district by district -- is not available to you until the late evening. And the campaigns themselves are just hanging out doing not very interesting things.
As a side note, I try not to spend a lot of time condoling public figures. But, you have to imagine that as his Grandmother was his primary care giver when he was a child, Senator Obama turned to her for guidance through his adult life -- I know I go to my mother on questions well outside her areas of expertise. Besides the normal mourning, he loses her on the eve of his being elected president, which he probably feels would have pleased her. In addition, though, he's entering a phase of his life where he's going to need a lot of guidance, and only have interested parties to offer it. That's got to add some to the wistfulness.
So, hard hearted as I am, I do want to express a little compassion for our presumptive president elect.
I got to vote today. I even got to take a camera in -- apparently, the guard I spoke with hadn't read the big sign on the wall (once I did, I... well, I let it have run out of batteries.)
I was really relieved to see levers in there. I always panic that New York will switch over without telling me, and I'll end up inadvertently voting for Armeggedon and the Rise of the Antichrist.
Election Day's always painful for the political junkie, as the only thing you want to know -- how the Green Party (or whatever ticket you're following) is doing, district by district -- is not available to you until the late evening. And the campaigns themselves are just hanging out doing not very interesting things.
As a side note, I try not to spend a lot of time condoling public figures. But, you have to imagine that as his Grandmother was his primary care giver when he was a child, Senator Obama turned to her for guidance through his adult life -- I know I go to my mother on questions well outside her areas of expertise. Besides the normal mourning, he loses her on the eve of his being elected president, which he probably feels would have pleased her. In addition, though, he's entering a phase of his life where he's going to need a lot of guidance, and only have interested parties to offer it. That's got to add some to the wistfulness.
So, hard hearted as I am, I do want to express a little compassion for our presumptive president elect.
Rainfall, Autism May Be Linked
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So... the higher incidence of autism is due to increased density in the Pacific Northwest?
So... the higher incidence of autism is due to increased density in the Pacific Northwest?
The finding may have... to do with... the need to stay indoors more.So, just thought you'd like a note as to what's preventing your children from leading full and emotionally enagaged lives. Please don't act on it. Thanks!
...
"I strongly believe it's not the precipitation itself," [Michael Waldman, PhD, the study's lead author and the director of the Institute for the Advancement of Economics at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y] tells WebMD. "My sense is, if truly there is an environmental trigger, my guess is it is one of the factors related to indoor activity..." such as... TV viewing....
In the past 30 years, the rates of autism have increased from about one in 2,500 children to one in 150.
...
The findings, he adds, should not be taken as a reason to... ban television viewing.
Monday, November 03, 2008
Feedback
there's no link
I'm just thinking...
Apparently, "When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail," is meant to be a warning, not a guideline.
I'm just thinking...
| First year of first Bush (43) Administration: | 9/11 |
| Policy Response: | Invade Iraq |
| Result | 2002 GOP Sweep, 2004 Reelect |
| First year of second Bush (43) Administration: | Katrina |
| Policy Response: | ... ... ... Keep Occupying Iraq |
| Result | 2006 GOP Decimation, 2008 Non-credible GOP Candidate |
Apparently, "When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail," is meant to be a warning, not a guideline.
Just Ask Yourself This
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Do you want to vote for someone Noam Chomsky is not voting for?
Do you want to vote for someone Noam Chomsky is not voting for?
In private emails with campaign supporters this week, the respected social critic noted that he had voted Green in 2004, and would be voting for the party ticket next Tuesday, as well.Although... that doesn't really sound like it was for attribution.
A particularly fatal marathon
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After finishing the New York Marathon yesterday, I had a forty-five minute walk to 81st Street. It was less than a mile, but West Drive was choked with tens of thousands of other people who had just run a marathon*. I survived this ordeal. Two people didn't.
There were also two heart attacks en route.
* --the left side of the road was all UPS trucks with baggage we were picking up. We finished, got a bag of food and drink, a finisher's mylar blanket, and then began the slow march past the baggage trucks before being released at 81st Street, at which point we had to walk back downtown a little to get our chips removed.
After finishing the New York Marathon yesterday, I had a forty-five minute walk to 81st Street. It was less than a mile, but West Drive was choked with tens of thousands of other people who had just run a marathon*. I survived this ordeal. Two people didn't.
There were two fatalities among the 37,899 finishers of Sunday’s New York City Marathon, according to the New York Road Runners, the organizer of the event.
One was a 58-year-old man who was pronounced dead at Lenox Hill Hospital after completing the race on Sunday afternoon. The Road Runners did not release any details on the other death besides the fact that he died on site after reaching the finish line.
There were also two heart attacks en route.
There were two other heart attacks reported by the Fire Department on Sunday. It said that a 59-year-old man was treated by emergency medical services after collapsing on the Queensboro Bridge before 1 p.m. He was revived to a steady pulse with a defibrillator and rushed to Weill Cornell Medical Center.I saw the guy at 107th Street getting a heart massage. This is not something that particularly picks you up when you have 3 1/2 miles left to go. It's too late to say that he's OK
A 41-year-old man also had a heart attack at 107th Street and Fifth Avenue at about 3 p.m. He was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital.
The race director Mary Wittenberg said that both were still alive Monday morning.
The following day, the 50-year-old research scientist Matthew P. Hardy suffered a coronary artery blockage and died at home having completed his 12th New York City Marathonp[in 2007]but it's good to hear he's alive.
* --the left side of the road was all UPS trucks with baggage we were picking up. We finished, got a bag of food and drink, a finisher's mylar blanket, and then began the slow march past the baggage trucks before being released at 81st Street, at which point we had to walk back downtown a little to get our chips removed.
Ralph Nader is running under Natural Law
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The link is to the 'Vote Hemp' voters' guide. And, you'll see that, from this perspective at least, Cynthia McKinney outstrips Barack Obama.
But, the interesting thing is that Ralph Nader is running in the Natural Law Party. Like everyone else, I haven't been paying attention to Ralph Nader at all this cycle. Having his presidential candidacy as a standard was salutary in 1996 and 2000. When he broke away in 2004, we ran party activist David Cobb. This did not turn out as well, although in 2004 we also suffered from scape-goating by the 2000 Gore Campaign.
In any case, Nader's initial success and later abandonment left us feeling like we should have a celebrity presidential candidate, and without having one.
And, now we have Cynthia McKinney. She has much better name recognition than Peter Cobb, but is far more controversial than Ralph Nader. Everybody loves Ralph Nader, except for Scapegoating 2000 Gore Campaigners and retired GM executives. But, since leaving the Green Party, his presidential campaigns have been ludicrous. And now Natural Law?
Natural Law is the transcendental meditation party. I thought about voting Natural Law in 1992, before I decided that Bill Clinton's promise to institute a BTU tax made him good enough for me to go ahead and vote for the winner, with all the attendant culpability. NL was the only candidate running a physicist for president.
But, I do not believe that Ralph Nader bounces when he meditates. It doesn't seem like a natural fit. I don't even understand why he keeps running. I don't know of anyone who does. Ach, Ralph.
The link is to the 'Vote Hemp' voters' guide. And, you'll see that, from this perspective at least, Cynthia McKinney outstrips Barack Obama.
But, the interesting thing is that Ralph Nader is running in the Natural Law Party. Like everyone else, I haven't been paying attention to Ralph Nader at all this cycle. Having his presidential candidacy as a standard was salutary in 1996 and 2000. When he broke away in 2004, we ran party activist David Cobb. This did not turn out as well, although in 2004 we also suffered from scape-goating by the 2000 Gore Campaign.
In any case, Nader's initial success and later abandonment left us feeling like we should have a celebrity presidential candidate, and without having one.
And, now we have Cynthia McKinney. She has much better name recognition than Peter Cobb, but is far more controversial than Ralph Nader. Everybody loves Ralph Nader, except for Scapegoating 2000 Gore Campaigners and retired GM executives. But, since leaving the Green Party, his presidential campaigns have been ludicrous. And now Natural Law?
Natural Law is the transcendental meditation party. I thought about voting Natural Law in 1992, before I decided that Bill Clinton's promise to institute a BTU tax made him good enough for me to go ahead and vote for the winner, with all the attendant culpability. NL was the only candidate running a physicist for president.
But, I do not believe that Ralph Nader bounces when he meditates. It doesn't seem like a natural fit. I don't even understand why he keeps running. I don't know of anyone who does. Ach, Ralph.
Green Party Rising
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A lot of what I do on this blog is, I come up with an idea, wait for some more accountable figure in the media to say it, and then link to him or her.
As I expect to be right, and the correct way of thinking is bound to occur to somebody eventually*, this works out pretty well. And so, we have today's Krugman.
Our task is to be ready to absorb them.
* -- This can take a while. But, the actual future is always consistent with that subset of known facts that happens to be true, so careful thinkers frequently happen upon it.
A lot of what I do on this blog is, I come up with an idea, wait for some more accountable figure in the media to say it, and then link to him or her.
As I expect to be right, and the correct way of thinking is bound to occur to somebody eventually*, this works out pretty well. And so, we have today's Krugman.
[T]he G.O.P.’s long transformation into the party of the unreasonable right, a haven for racists and reactionaries, seems likely to accelerate as a result of the impending defeat.However, American really likes being a two-party nation. And, so I expect that there'll be huge internal struggle between the corporatist Clintonista democrats and the progressives. And since the Republican party won't be welcoming to the Rightist Democrats, the Leftist ones will be the ones to leave. And they'll need somewhere to flee to.
Our task is to be ready to absorb them.
* -- This can take a while. But, the actual future is always consistent with that subset of known facts that happens to be true, so careful thinkers frequently happen upon it.
Obama Against Luggage Surcharges
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It looks like you can safely vote Green, as there's no chance that McCain will pull it out. And, this is not just in New York -- there are states like Arizona where it's still possible the GOP could upset, but it's pretty safe to say that
(1) Either Barack Obama will win the presidency, or
(2) Widespread electronic vote fraud will bring down the government.
We'll hope it's (1). Cynthia's competitive nowhere. The WSJ poll not only lumps third party voters together, but then lumps those in with 'undecided.' I've decided!
However, as we did when Shrub was installed, we have to look for a silver lining. Some way that an Obama Presidency is a good thing. And, here's one:
It looks like you can safely vote Green, as there's no chance that McCain will pull it out. And, this is not just in New York -- there are states like Arizona where it's still possible the GOP could upset, but it's pretty safe to say that
(1) Either Barack Obama will win the presidency, or
(2) Widespread electronic vote fraud will bring down the government.
We'll hope it's (1). Cynthia's competitive nowhere. The WSJ poll not only lumps third party voters together, but then lumps those in with 'undecided.' I've decided!
However, as we did when Shrub was installed, we have to look for a silver lining. Some way that an Obama Presidency is a good thing. And, here's one:
It was 1988, and Mary Andersen was at the Miami airport checking in for a long flight to Norway to be with her husband when the airline representative informed her....All of which is to suggest that a President Obama would be a little more opposed to luggage surcharges. Luggage surcharges are a necessary and wonderful thing, but it would be nice to have a president senstive to their possible excesses.
-You’ll have to pay a 103 dollar surcharge if you want to bring both those suitcases to Norway , the man behind the counter said.
Mary had no money. Her new husband had travelled ahead of her to Norway , and she had no one else to call.
...
As tears streamed down her face, she heard a “gentle and friendly voice” behind her saying, “That’s okay, I’ll pay for her.”
...
Who was the man?
Barack Obama.
Saturday, November 01, 2008
Roubini: Global Stagflation in sight
there's no link
Greetings from RGE Monitor!I just like the "Greetings! You're running headlong to your own doom!" format.
The financial wildfire has turned around the stagflationary trends seen earlier this year into a vicious cycle of global deflation in debt, assets, wages, and goods. Headline consumer inflation has peaked in most of the developed and emerging world, except in places where food/fuel subsidies were recently rolled back or post-Q3 data are still unavailable. According to the IMF’s October World Economic Outlook, the world’s average consumer prices have increased 6.2% y/y Q2 2008. JPMorgan expects world CPI inflation to slow to 2.6% y/y Q2 2009. Lower commodity prices subdued headline inflation and are expected to continue doing so on slackening global demand. Core inflation has yet to show a significant decline but a feedback loop of debt deflation, asset deflation, commodity deflation, wage deflation, and slower global growth will likely lead to flat or lower headline and core consumer and producer prices in Q4 2008 through 2009. But in the short- to medium-term, stag-deflation seems the most likely scenario for the world economy.
Friday, October 31, 2008
New York Homeowners -- Smarter?
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So... a New Yorker's first reaction to this plot is smugness. We're 50th in terms of oweing more or nearly as much as the equity in our homes. But, 50th is 6 %. That's more than one in every seventeen people -- if you look to your left, and you look to your right, and none of the eight homeowners on either side are underwater, you are.
This is something that should roughly never happen, in a world of responsible lending. Tax arrears are really the only thing that should put you here. But, it's more common than the flu.
If 6 % of the homeowners nationally were underwater or near underwater, we'd be in crisis. But, that's the state minimum by state.
Update: And, this should be said
So... a New Yorker's first reaction to this plot is smugness. We're 50th in terms of oweing more or nearly as much as the equity in our homes. But, 50th is 6 %. That's more than one in every seventeen people -- if you look to your left, and you look to your right, and none of the eight homeowners on either side are underwater, you are.
This is something that should roughly never happen, in a world of responsible lending. Tax arrears are really the only thing that should put you here. But, it's more common than the flu.
If 6 % of the homeowners nationally were underwater or near underwater, we'd be in crisis. But, that's the state minimum by state.
Update: And, this should be said
But Wyss said this could change as financial market upheaval transforms Wall Street. This month, New York City Comptroller William Thompson estimated that the city alone might lose 165,000 jobs over two years.
"We're going to see home prices coming down pretty significantly in New York," Wyss said. "A lot of people are losing jobs, and won't be getting their usual bonuses, and that leaves less money for housing."
I'm trying not to be self-concious about the fact that I have roughly the same marathon goal as a woman twice my age
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But, you know, she's got a natural advantage, not having been born fat and ungainly.
Update: Joy Johnson did win her age bracket. Bertha McGruder came in more than an hour later. I did beat Ms. Johnson, but much respect is due all five runners in the bracket. An 80-year-old man beat me by more than an hour. Results here.
But, you know, she's got a natural advantage, not having been born fat and ungainly.
Update: Joy Johnson did win her age bracket. Bertha McGruder came in more than an hour later. I did beat Ms. Johnson, but much respect is due all five runners in the bracket. An 80-year-old man beat me by more than an hour. Results here.
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