"I'm not sure I'm ready to have fun yet."--child on sideline of tennis camp
Forgiveness
is quite the rage. Confessions and apologies, with the appropriate
accepting forgiveness, are mandatory with everything from social error
to homicide. The prisons are alive with efforts to reintroduce criminals
into a society that is expected to look past their previous behavior.
So, how come Ray Rice doesn't get a second chance?
Peter
Stolypin a minister under Czar Nicholas II undertook agrarian reform in
1906. His program was to dissolve peasant communes and buy land from
the nobility, then to divide the land among the peasants. These private landholders were called Kulaks (from the word "fist", perhaps connoting "tightfistedness.") This actually
increased efficiency and boosted food production in the country-side by
over 40%. Stolypin felt that by making peasants actual owners of the
land and the product of their labor they would take a keener interest in
land improvement and productivity. During the Russian Civil War
(1918-21) the Kulaks generally supported the White Russians who were
fighting to restore the Czarist regime--and were opposed to the
communists who would take their land away again. Stalin blamed the
Kulaks for the famine following the revolution and sent as many as he
could to Siberia where they were just abandoned. Literally millions of
Kulaks died. The exact number is not known, but estimates range from 4
to 8,000,000.
Vengeance: Elizabeth
Lauten, the GOP staffer who resigned Monday morning after calling
President Obama's teenage daughters classless, was arrested when she was
17 for shoplifting, according to the Smoking Gun.
A recent lecture on 3-D Printing: Really interesting technology with a fascinating social and economic history. The lecturer said that all the tech was developed by Americans who did not know the next step to take. The patents have since expired and the tech has been exploited by the Brits and the Germans. The few American companies that have survived had a brief flurry of success but recently have done very poorly.
More than 30% of Americans get their news from Facebook.
The WSJ has an article on wind power and subsidies entitled, "Wind Power is Intermittent, But Subsidies Are Eternal."
Over four centuries ago, the Dutch East India Company made history as the world’s first IPO. Known as VOC in the Netherlands, the company was one of the most successful ventures in the last several hundred years. When adjusted for inflation, its highest market capitalization would be worth over $7 TRILLION today (i.e. ten times the size of Apple). While the British East India Company is usually more famous nowadays, VOC had almost twice as many ships and moved five times more cargo than its British rivals. The company was so successful over the long-term that that it paid an astonishing 18% annual dividend to its shareholders for over 200 years.
Who is....Cotton Mather?
A recent lecture on 3-D Printing: Really interesting technology with a fascinating social and economic history. The lecturer said that all the tech was developed by Americans who did not know the next step to take. The patents have since expired and the tech has been exploited by the Brits and the Germans. The few American companies that have survived had a brief flurry of success but recently have done very poorly.
More than 30% of Americans get their news from Facebook.
The WSJ has an article on wind power and subsidies entitled, "Wind Power is Intermittent, But Subsidies Are Eternal."
Over four centuries ago, the Dutch East India Company made history as the world’s first IPO. Known as VOC in the Netherlands, the company was one of the most successful ventures in the last several hundred years. When adjusted for inflation, its highest market capitalization would be worth over $7 TRILLION today (i.e. ten times the size of Apple). While the British East India Company is usually more famous nowadays, VOC had almost twice as many ships and moved five times more cargo than its British rivals. The company was so successful over the long-term that that it paid an astonishing 18% annual dividend to its shareholders for over 200 years.
Who is....Cotton Mather?
Total US debt is now over $18 trillion. Debt held by the public on January 20, 2009, Obama's inauguration day, was $6.3 trillion. It is now $12.9 trillion, a 105% increase.
The Social Security and Medicare Trust Fund trustees estimate the two program's combined long-term unfunded liabilities — the estimated amount the government will have to pay in benefits above what it expects to receive — at about $49 trillion.
From the
Department of As If We don't Have Enough To Worry About: Steven Hawking
was interviewed by BBC using his new computer-generated voice. Prof
Hawking says the primitive forms of artificial intelligence developed so
far have already proved very useful, but he fears the consequences of
creating
something that can match or surpass humans. "It would take off on its
own, and re-design itself at an ever increasing rate,"
he said. "Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn't
compete, and
would be superseded."
Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, was born in America but hasn’t lived in the U.S. since age 5, but the IRS seeks to tax the sale his U.K. home. He has never given up his citizenship so is a duel citizen. The American government does not really tax income, it taxes people and everyone is fair game.
Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, was born in America but hasn’t lived in the U.S. since age 5, but the IRS seeks to tax the sale his U.K. home. He has never given up his citizenship so is a duel citizen. The American government does not really tax income, it taxes people and everyone is fair game.
One-third
of millennials (ages 18-31) who, because of the economy's sluggishness
in the sixth year of recovery, are living with their parents.
Lame
Duck literally refers to a duck which is unable to keep up with its
flock, making it a target for predators. Generally it means any disabled
or vulnerable person or thing. It first appeared in the Eighteenth
Century at the London Stock Exchange to mean a stockbroker who
defaulted on his debts. Also in naval use for "an old, slow ship." Its
first political use was during the 1860s but was first attributed to
Lincoln. Therefore....Anatine: 1. resembling a duck. 2. of or pertaining
to the family Anatidae, comprising the swans, geese, and ducks. Anatine comes from the Latin word for "duck," anas. It entered English in the mid-1800s.
Golden oldie:
There
is a new book, Stalin, by Stephen Kotkin, the first of a planned three
volume study. I am not sure how I feel about this, the academic
dissection of a man responsible for 66 million deaths (not including the
war deaths.) Seeing the broad tableau of Stalin is like starting a
biography of Jack the Ripper with his school days. I know, I know.
Stalin was probably distorted by his family, his father or the Church.
(He was a seminarian.) But at some point the homicidal psychopaths of
the world give up their right to objective study and consideration.
As part of the Treaty of Utrecht, Britain received a thirty-year trade agreement (an asiento)
from Spain which permitted British merchants to trade up to 500 tons of
goods per year in the Spanish colonies as well as sell an unlimited
number of slaves. The Spanish felt the agreement was being abused and
began stopping and searching British ships (and torturing their
crews.) Parliament declared war on Spain on October 23, 1739. The
conflict was called "The War of Jenkins' Ear" from Captain Robert
Jenkins who had his ear cut off by the Spanish Coast Guard in 1731.
Asked to appear in Parliament to recount his tale, he reputedly
displayed his ear during his testimony.
"We can break our dependence on oil…and become the first country to have one million electric vehicles on the road by 2015,” President Obama said in his January 2011 State of the Union address. But right now, one month from 2015, there are less than 180,000 plug-ins on U.S. roads today. ( Worldwide, there are only 400,000.) Less than 70,000 Leafs, 71,00 Volts. And Fisker is bankrupt. Treason? Gridlock?
All the hope and subsidies in the world cannot overcome the physics of energy density: Hydrocarbons--oil--store 40X the energy pound for pound than does the electrochemistry of batteries. The engine-battery system of a Leaf is 1000 pounds more than the engine+gas tank of a Mustang. And the Mustang can run all day.
In 1740, James Thompson's Masque, Alfred the Great, was first performed. Thompson never became very well known but this play contains one song that became an immortal anthem of Great Britain:
When Britain first at Heaven's command
Arose from out the azure main,
This was the charter of her land,
And guardian angels sung the strain:
Rule, Britannia! Britannia rules the waves!
Britons never shall be slaves!
And why are the Greeks opposed to education? Between 8,000 and 10,000 people earlier marched through central Athens in solidarity with Nikos Romanos, a young anarchist convicted of involvement in an armed bank robbery. He has refused food for the past three weeks after authorities said they wouldn't let him attend lectures at an Athens university, where he was admitted after being allowed to sit entry exams in prison.
AAAAaaaaannnnnnddddddd.......a picture of Machu Picchu before any intervention:
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