In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. --Michael Crichton
Dodd-Frank has 400 regulations; 77 have been enacted. It is estimated that 58 million man hours have been spent to comply with a cost/benefit of 376/1. The cost is estimated at 15.4 billion dollars this year.
Lamarck is famous in science for proposing a clever, wrong idea: the inheritance of acquired characteristics. A giraffe gets a longer neck, this is passed on to his progeny. But Darwin explains that the longer necked giraffe survives preferentially, therefor his long-necked progeny survive. Now there is some suggestion that some acquired phenotypic changes can be passed to a child. One is obesity in the father. Most neo-Darwinians consider such inheritance mechanisms to be little more than a specialized form of phenotypic "plasticity," with no potential to introduce evolutionary novelty into a species lineage. But it does appear as if immunological advantage acquired during life can be passed to a child.
Cleveland Clinic has cut 330 million dollars out of its budget. And the Federal Reserve is beginning to lengthen its debt maturities. What do you suppose these tidbits mean?
Car pooling has dropped from a high of 20% to 10%. 5% of people take public transportation.
Some interesting things about this word, "conspiracy" (plural conspiracies): The act of two or more persons, called conspirators, working secretly to obtain some goal, usually understood with negative connotations; (law) An agreement between two or more persons to break the law at some time in the future; A group of ravens.
From late 14c., from Old French conspirer (14c.), from Latin conspirare "to agree, unite, plot," literally "to breathe together," from com- "together" (see com-) + spirare "to breathe" (see spirit (n.)). Or perhaps the notion is "to blow together" musical instruments, i.e., "To sound in unison."
A newly released report finds that a number of American writers avoid or are considering avoiding controversial topics for fear of government surveillance.
94% of Chinese workers hate their jobs. Economic success does not always come with equal portions of contentment. But only a portion of citizens are working at all so they have a greater tolerance one would think.
Why do we have the right to make demands on Iran's way of developing energy--or even military--products? It seems to be assumed that our restrictions are reasonable. Could we make the same demands on France? We made similar demands on North Korea and they ignored them without a response. Will we be as measured with Iran? If we have the right to make these demands on other nations, can we make the same demands regarding a country's carbon output?
89% of on-line gamblers lose money.
Historically, college educated women had the lowest marriage rate, now they have the highest. This is in the U.S., not Pakistan where Malala Yousafzai's book, I Am Malala, has been banned "because it carries the content which is against our country's ideology and Islamic values," the chairman of All Pakistan Private Schools Federation, Kashif Mirza said. The group represents 40,000 private schools across the country. Yousafzai drew international attention to Pakistan's educational system after the Taliban shot her in the head last year for advocating education rights for women.
Golden oldies:
43% of 108 million people on welfare are not destitute, they have chosen to go on welfare because the benefits work out to about $15/hr and compete successfully with their regular job wages. They left the private world for a governmental support they felt was more lucrative and more safe. With all the financial pressures on government programs, why do they feel government programs more safe?
Who were....Pampinea, Filomena, Neifile, Fiammetta, Elissa, Lauretta, and Emilia?
The recent Kenneth Branagh "Macbeth" screening looked like a retiree convention. It is unlikely anyone there was under 50. There is probably not another great play in English so hostile to a short attention span. Maybe "Duchess of Malfi."
Loose money, i.e. quantitative easing, creates things. Money is available for things. The business community has decided they will not invest the money but instead buy back stock. $1.2 trillion, TRILLION, dollars have been used for buyback stock purchases. Why did they do that rather than invest the money in retooling and expansion? The government is furious that the loose money did not result in increased jobs. But the companies decided their own stock was the best investment they could make.
A 35 year old female employee was killed this weekend by a wildcat at an Oregon animal sanctuary, The WildCat Haven, home to more than 60 neglected, abandoned, and abused wildcats born into captivity. Among the types of cats housed there are tigers, bobcats, cougars, and lynx. In February, a 24-year-old Washington state woman interning at a California wild cat park was killed by a lion while she was cleaning the cage.
The 2013 deficit was $680 billion, or 4.1% of GDP, down from nearly $1.1 trillion and 6.8% of GDP a year earlier. In five years President Obama has borrowed roughly $5.7 trillion, which is more than the entire gross federal debt as recently as the year 2000. Debt held by the public as a share of GDP has nearly doubled in those five years to 76% from 40% in 2008.
AAAAAnnnnndddddd....a chart, an important one implying relentless growth in the U.S.. A question to ask is, why does the '22-'21 recession look so much worse than the Great Depression? Another way, why was the Great Depression so bad when the earlier one looks so much more severe, but wasn't?:
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