You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus."
– Mark Twain
In 1979, only 20% of U.S. households received more in transfer payments than they paid in total federal taxes; 80% of households had a net positive contribution to federal expense. In 2009 sixty percent of U.S. households received more in the value of transfer payments than they paid in total federal taxes; only 40% of U.S. households in 2009 were making a net positive contribution to total federal expenditures (according to the Congressional Budget Office).
Carbon dioxide dissolves in rain water and sea water. The end solution of this is heavier than pure water. Limnic eruptions are rare episodes where heavy concentration of CO2 dissolved in water comes out of solution and is suddenly released into the air. Some stimulus allows some of the saturated water to drift higher in the lake, where the pressure is insufficient to keep the CO2 in solution. Bubbles start forming and the water is lifted even higher in the lake, where even more of the CO2 comes out of solution. This process forms a column of gas. At this point the water at the bottom of this column is pulled up by suction, and it too loses its CO2 in a runaway process. This eruption pours CO2 into the air and can also displace water to form a tsunami. As CO2 is heavier than air, air is displaced upward and CO2 floods the landscape. Engines stop. Then every living O2 processing animal suffocates.
Democrats think they can obtain more tax revenue by increasing tax rates on a smaller base, while Republicans expect more tax revenue can be generated by flattening tax rates on a broader base, creating faster growth and more revenue. What if they are both wrong?
Psychologist, thinking outside the box and Occam's Razor: In his book Clinical vs. Statistical Prediction: A Theoretical Analysis and a Review of the Evidence, psychoanalyst Paul Meeh evaluated the predictive results of student grades comparing the opinions of child psychologists to algorithms. Algorithms did considerably better. This is an old book and has prompted a lot of response. Further studies show about 60% significantly better accuracy for the algorithms with the other comparisons scoring a tie in accuracy--important because algorithms are cheaper than counselors. These findings were duplicated in other diverse studies comparing expert opinion to algorithms in disease survival rates, interest rates prediction, suitability of foster parents, wine prices, recidivism, and sports competitions, Why are experts inferior to algorithms? One possible reason is that experts try to be clever, think outside the box, and consider complex combinations of features in making their predictions. Complexity may work in the odd case, but more often than not it reduces validity. Simple combinations of features are better. And humans are terribly inconsistent. Experienced radiologists who evaluate chest X-rays as 'normal' or 'abnormal' contradict themselves 20% of the time when they see the same picture on separate occasions.
Who is.....Mary Mallon?
According to the Washington Post, Pennsylvania gas production is up 50% and will reach a stunning 3.2 trillion cubic feet this year. That is almost 13% of the nation's gas production. Pennsylvania will likely end 2013 as America's second biggest natural gas producing state, behind Texas but ahead of Louisiana.
Richard Nixon had two brothers, one especially able. Both died of tuberculosis
and it is said Nixon began to carry the burden of three lives.
There is a book out saying that the world will turn on design and gives this as an example: There are sixty designers on the staff of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The dictator Batista came from poverty, the revolutionary Castro from money. Castro was a dashing, imposing young man at university. He also murdered three men as a youth.
The strength of magnetic fields are measured in "teslas." A small reward. Tesla invented motors that worked on alternating electric current (AC) and he proved, in a long battle with Edison, that it was better to supply electrical energy using AC than direct current. By increasing the services that electrical utilities could offer, power supplied using AC allowed companies to increase the size of their systems and pursue economies of scale. But he was a visionary, not an entrepreneur, and never experienced much financial success. He eventually devoted all of his physical and emotional resources to proving electricity could be transmitted wirelessly. He and it failed and he went bankrupt. Then he had a nervous breakdown. He lived isolation in hotel rooms (the famous Room 3327) and was unproductive for the next forty years.
Golden Oldie:
Jimmy Carter put them up. Ronald Reagan took them down in 1986. Now 27 years later, Barack Obama is putting solar panels again on the White House, according to the Washington Post. One wonders if these people see these acts as symbolic of great, unspoken moment.
Persi Diaconis, professor of statistics at Stanford University, describes extremely unlikely coincidences as embodying the “blade of grass paradox.” If you were to stand in a meadow and reach down to touch a blade of grass, there are millions of grass blades that you might touch. But you will, in fact, touch one of them. The a priori fact that the blade you touch will be any particular one has an extremely tiny probability, but such an occurrence must take place if you are going to touch a blade of grass. This is the lottery argument: Someone is going to win.
Keynes did not have a doctorate in economics; he actually did not have a degree in economics.
Health officials say they've confirmed three cases of dengue fever contracted in central Florida.
Dengue
fever is a viral disease transmitted by mosquitoes. Millions of cases
are reported worldwide each year, but it's rare for anyone to contract
it in the United States. The Florida Department of Health says the three
patients are residents of Martin and St. Lucie counties. Officials say
the patients acquired dengue from mosquitoes in Rio, near Jensen
Beach. None have traveled internationally recently. St. Lucie County
hasn't had any cases of locally acquired dengue until now. There was
one case in Martin County in 2011.
Dengue
is sometimes called "break bone fever" because of the severe joint
pain it causes in extreme cases. Other symptoms include high fever,
severe headache and a rash.(AP)
Founding Fathers Honey Trap. Alexander Hamilton, one of the greatest of the nation's
founding fathers and the principal
architect of the country's highly innovative and successful financial
systems, stumbled in 1791 into a liaison with a young and married
prostitute, twenty-three-year-old Maria Reynolds. What evolved, with
Hamilton a respected, responsible man and married to a well regarded
woman, was an affair complicated by blackmail (which Hamilton paid) by
the woman and her husband and eventually Hamilton's public confession to
an amazed nation.
His confession describes his first encounter where the woman presents herself as destitute and abandoned: "I took the bill out of my pocket and gave it to her. Some conversation
ensued, from which it was quickly apparent that other than pecuniary
consolation would be acceptable."
AAAAAAaaaaannnnnnndddddd.....a picture of Tesla:
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