Cab Thoughts 3/5/14

"I am just going outside and may be some time" Lawrence Oates, leaving his tent to die on Scott's return from his doomed South Pole expedition.


There have been only four Rube-publican amendments to laws voted on in the Senate since June of 2013.

In 1959 in the Ural Mountains nine Russian hikers were camped in tents. The tents were found abandoned with long slashes, some from the inside. All the campers were found dead up to half a mile away. Six died of hypothermia--half dressed and without shoes. Three had crush injuries to the chest and head. Several articles of clothing had radiation exposure. Authorities have blamed "an unknown compelling force."

In the last five years nearly 27% of domestic equity funds, 24% of international equity funds and 19% of fixed income funds have merged or liquidated.

Ink was originally made mixing ferrous oxide mixed with ground oak nut (gall), carbon for blackness, sucrose for shininess, sometimes wine as preservative.

Christine Eibner, the senior economist at Rand in Arlington, speaking on The Affordable Care Act: "We don't have experience with this kind of major change in health policy. There are so many moving parts.' On modelling, she says, "Policy decisions have to be made without data--there are no data yet. That's why models are useful." Decisions without data. That's why models are useful.

If regulations are so important, why are there no consequences they are broken, e.g. the Madoff scandal?

Who are ......Selous scouts?

After World War II the Americans turned their focus to the Soviet threat but the British were focused upon Zionist terrorists who began an extensive bombing campaign that included the Colonial Office in London. In this effort, Zionist terrorist Yaacov Elias invented the "letter bomb."

Lee Harvey Oswald was a posthumous child.

I recently went to Spaghetti Warehouse for a meal and waited for about fifteen minutes to be seated. The huge lobby had an old phone booth that had been decommissioned but the booth had been left intact for nostalgia. A number of kids, lower teens and younger, gathered around, ducked in and out and eventually returned to their parents for an explanation. They did not know what a phone booth was.

The statistical estimates are that after earning 75 thousand dollars in the U.S., incentive to earn more is lost because of taxes and loss of benefits.

Golden Oldies:
http://steeleydock.blogspot.com/2013/05/obama-wishes-americans-well.html

Norway's Magnus Carlson, age 22, won the world chess tournament in India. He is the world's highest ranked player and, on a historical basis, is ranked above Fischer. Since Big Blue's victory over Kasparov in 1997, chess scores have risen and the number of high scores have risen. It was expected the computer's success would discourage players but the opposite has happened.

The legendary investor Benjamin Graham lost 70% of his investments in the 1929 recession.

In 1948, the Peoples Liberation Army lay siege to Changchun in Manchuria and, according to Communist commander Lin Biao, turned "Changchun into a city of death." 160,000 civilians died. Those are Hiroshima numbers. To solidify the provinces .2% of the population was arbitrarily killed. Colors were applied to people, reactionary black, revolutionary red, based on the estimate of "class."

There is 2.3 trillion dollars in the banks, not lent because of low rates.

Studies on people who believe in conspiracies show those who believe in one will likely believe in others. Paul Thagard believes it is the result of an extreme need for coherence in life. Arguments usually come against the conventional explanation rather than an argument for an alternative.

According to a Rand study, of the 900 billion dollars spent on Medicare, 166 billion to 304 billion is unnecessary.

Chronicle: A list of events in the order they happened. A history. From the Greek Chronos, the ancient personification of Time, like Father Time. The source of chronometer, chronology and chronic. Not related to the titan Chronus.


AAAAAAAaaaaaaaannnnnnnddddddd......a graph: