Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Cab Thoughts 9/24/14

Some people have a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to lower the powerful to their own level, and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom. I believe that it is easier to establish an absolute and despotic government amongst a people in which the conditions of society are equal, than amongst any other; and I think that, if such a government were once established amongst such a people, it would not only oppress men, but would eventually strip each of them of several of the highest qualities of humanity. Despotism, therefore, appears to me peculiarly to be dreaded in democratic times.--deTocqueville
 
 
A recent book called "Soft Edge" investigates the less quantifiable elements of success, factors in success that are not "technique." Two suggestions are Purpose and Grit. The author calls our current economy "The Great Sorter" as it will separate people with good work habits from people with bad.  
 
Joan Rivers: A staff member at Manhattan's Yorkville Endoscopy clinic told investigators that the doctor, who has not been publicly identified, took a selfie photo in the procedure room while Rivers was under anesthesia. Never forget: The future is always watching.
 
A worrisome idea: "Obama’s fecklessness is so unique that our adversaries and enemies surely realize they will never face a weaker president. They must assume the next commander in chief will take a more muscular approach to America’s interests and be more determined to forge alliances than the estranged man who occupies the Oval Office now.
So Vladimir Putin, Iran, China, Islamic State, al Qaeda and any other number of despots and terrorists know they have two years to make their moves and advance their interests, and that resistance will be token, if there is any at all."--from a recent editorial in the Post by Michael Goodwin. 
 
Less than 15% of high school kids have ever had a job. Those who did do better after graduation. Other factors in success is math ability and working well with others.
 
An instructive problem. Here the Mets, a struggling team, have shepherded a number of talented young developing players but, because of the rules aimed at homogenizing baseball, they cannot keep them all. Sandy Alderson essentially said Monday that he cannot protect all of the prospects in December’s Rule 5 draft that he would like to shield because of a 40-man roster crunch.
 
The Department of Agriculture got 28 Billion dollars to increase their efficiency. 14% of it can not be found.


ersatz: adj. Being an imitation or a substitute, usually an inferior one; artificial: "ersatz coffee made mostly of chicory."  1875, from German Ersatz "units of the army reserve," literally "compensation, replacement, substitute," from ersetzen "to replace," from Old High German irsezzen, from ir-, unaccented variant of ur + setzen "to set". As a noun, from 1892.
 
40% of car loans are sub-prime.
 
Spacecraft Rosetta continues to approach, circle, and map Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The robot ship has crossed the inner Solar System for ten years to reach the vicinity of the comet last month. Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko spans about four kilometers in length. In about two months, Rosetta is scheduled to release the first probe ever to attempt a controlled landing on a comet's nucleus. The project, led by the European Space Agency (ESA). The Europeans.
 
Who is....Sandy Berger?
 
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary Raymond Maxwell, one of four placed on administrative leave after Benghazi and then reinstated, told former CBS investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson, now at the Daily Signal, of a weekend operation in a State Department basement office to filter out and hide any damaging documents from the Benghazi Accountability Review Board that might put the State Department and its top diplomat, Hillary Clinton, in a bad light.
 
Siga Technologies Inc., the biological warfare defense firm supplying the only smallpox drug for the U.S. strategic stockpile, filed for bankruptcy to avoid paying a court bond after losing a contract lawsuit and to preserve its ability to make the medicine. The filing allows Siga to challenge an expected damages award to competitor PharmAthene Inc. (PIP) of as much as $232 million without posting the bond, Siga said in a Chapter 11 petition.
 
The U.N. climate summit in New York is turning into less than successful for President Obama. Aussie PM Tony Abbott, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Angela Merkel have all declined. And the U.S. is not getting a lot of nations to join up with the military indignation aimed at ISIS. One would think a guy with a background in community organizing could get some participation going.
 
Golden oldie:
 
Chelsea Manning, nee Bradley Edward Manning, the U.S. soldier currently serving a 35-year prison sentence for leaking government documents to WikiLeaks, somehow got hired to do an article for The Guardian. It criticizing Obama's approach to ISIS. "Based on my experience as an all-source analyst in Iraq during the organization's relative infancy, ISIS cannot be defeated by bombs and bullets," she writes. Can we consider her opinion trustworthy?
 
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said authorities obtained intelligence about a "demonstration killing" -- a killing, Australian media reported, in which alleged assailants planned to kidnap a member of the public, behead the victim and then drape him or her in an ISIS flag. Civilized society has, historically, always been protected from lunatics because lunacy precludes groupings. Crazy people can not bond; the loss of empathy, inclusiveness, brotherhood has been a hallmark--a characteristic--of madness until now.
 
A new report has found nearly 1 in 10 Americans are showing up to work high on marijuana. Mashable.com conducted the survey in partnership with SurveyMonkey, and found 9.7 percent of Americans admitted to smoking cannabis before showing up to the office. According to separate data from Employers, a small-business insurance company, 10 percent of small businesses reported that employees showed up in 2013 under the influence of at least one controlled substance, with marijuana coming in at 5.1 percent. 



AAAAAaaaannnnddddd......the comet and Rosetta's proposed landing site:
After a 10-year chase taking it billions of miles across the solar system, the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft became the first probe to orbit a comet after arriving at its destination on August 6. The spacecraft recently took this image of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. In November, Rosetta will deploy a robotic lander to the comet's surface -- something that also has never been done before. The box on the right shows where the lander will touch down.

No comments: