What a strange illusion it is to suppose that beauty is goodness. -Leo Tolstoy, novelist and philosopher (1828-1910)
The White House this week celebrated Nowruz, the Persian New Year most often observed by Iranians. First Lady Michelle Obama praised the holiday in remarks at the executive mansion Wednesday. The event featured a Persian dinner and a dance troop’s performance. “For more than 3,000 years, families and communities in the Middle East, Asia and all around the world — including here in the United States — have celebrated this holiday to mark the renewal of the Earth in springtime,” she said. Nowruz marks the start of both spring and the beginning of the Persian calendar each year. A central facet of Nowruz celebrations are “Haft Sin,” or “the seven S’s” in Persian. Participants display seven items (all beginning with “S” in Persian) as symbols of new hopes for the next year. The first lady said Wednesday the White House has its own Haft Sin display this Nowruz.
Who is...Chris Borland?
86: verb. slang: meaning "to decline service to." According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first verifiable use of 86 in the 'refuse service to' sense dates to a 1944 book about John Barrymore, a movie star of the 1920s famous for his acting and infamous for his drinking: "There was a bar in the Belasco building ... but Barrymore was known in that cubby as an 'eighty-six'. An 'eighty-six', in the patois of western dispensers, means: 'Don't serve him.'"
Polar bears are the largest land predators on earth. They can stand more than 11’ high and weigh more than 1,700 lbs.
Israeli Member of Parliament Michael Ben Ari publicly ripped up a copy of the New Testament in the country's Parliament, the Knesset. He then threw it into a rubbish bin after denouncing it as an "abhorrent" book. A second legislator called for Bibles to be burnt. Imagine if he had been Muslim.
Writing as Captain Hercules Vinegar, Henry Fielding summoned poet laureate Colley Cibber to court, charged with the murder of the English language. Fielding was not only a satiric playwright and novelist but a lawyer (soon, a Justice of the Peace) and a notorious wag; his joke would have been popular among London's coffee house wits, most of whom would know of Fielding's enmity for Cibber, if not share it. Cibber was a well-known but second-rate writer and actor in London, most famous for his adaptation of Shakespeare's Richard III, in which there was no "winter of our discontent" or "my kingdom for a horse," but such Cibberisms as "Off with his head -- so much for Buckingham!" Now the shocker: It was the only version of the play acted in England for over 150 years, so popular that attempts to do Shakespeare's original were booed off the stage.
Golden oldie:
Baseball analytics is branching into lineups. The following on lineup optimization from the Hardball Times is based on analysis from “The Book": “In plain English (sort of), we want to know how costly making an out is by each lineup position, based on the base-out situations they most often find themselves in, and then weighted by how often each lineup spot comes to the plate. Here’s how the lineup spots rank in the importance of avoiding outs:
There have been studies comparing malnourished North Korean male refugees to their South Korean counterparts. The average South Korean is three inches taller. This gap has been created quickly, just over a few generations.
In 2008, information from a captured FARC narcoterrorist computer found that Democrat Rep. Jim McGovern sought through an aide to help the terrorists undercut and neutralize the Colombian government, the U.S.' top ally in Latin America, which was then fighting the terrorists.
For almost two centuries, from the time of George Washington's presidency to the election of Ronald Reagan, whites of European descent made up at least 80% of the U.S. population. That share is below two-thirds now, and the white majority is set to become a minority by 2044. Today's Hispanics lag behind whites when it comes to education and wealth. But they are strikingly young, lowering America's median age and offering workers to fill the labor market when other rich countries face greying decline.
After the financial crisis of 2008, jobs in graphic design fell by 19.8 percent over four years, in photography by 25.6 percent over seven years, and in architecture by 29.8 percent over three years. In 1999, recordings generated $14.6 billion in revenue to the music business; by 2012, the figure was down to $5.35 billion. Scott Timberg, writing in “Culture Crash,” sees this as more than a decline in artistic jobs: “The price we ultimately pay is in the decline of art itself, diminishing understanding of ourselves, one another and the eternal human spirit.” Well, that's a lot to say.
According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, in 2011 over 161,000 Israeli citizens, 2.1% of the population, were Christian. About 80% of Christian residents of Israel are Arabs. Of the remainder, around 25,000 are Slavic Christians from the former Soviet Union who came to the country under the Law of Return, which has provided for Israeli citizenship if a person has a Jewish grandparent, and a smaller minority are Assyrians.
The White House this week celebrated Nowruz, the Persian New Year most often observed by Iranians. First Lady Michelle Obama praised the holiday in remarks at the executive mansion Wednesday. The event featured a Persian dinner and a dance troop’s performance. “For more than 3,000 years, families and communities in the Middle East, Asia and all around the world — including here in the United States — have celebrated this holiday to mark the renewal of the Earth in springtime,” she said. Nowruz marks the start of both spring and the beginning of the Persian calendar each year. A central facet of Nowruz celebrations are “Haft Sin,” or “the seven S’s” in Persian. Participants display seven items (all beginning with “S” in Persian) as symbols of new hopes for the next year. The first lady said Wednesday the White House has its own Haft Sin display this Nowruz.
Sometimes the winners of cultural wars are those who do not die of mortification during the sorties.
Who is...Chris Borland?
86: verb. slang: meaning "to decline service to." According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first verifiable use of 86 in the 'refuse service to' sense dates to a 1944 book about John Barrymore, a movie star of the 1920s famous for his acting and infamous for his drinking: "There was a bar in the Belasco building ... but Barrymore was known in that cubby as an 'eighty-six'. An 'eighty-six', in the patois of western dispensers, means: 'Don't serve him.'"
The most widely accepted theory of the term's origin states it derives from a code supposedly used in some restaurants in the 1930s, wherein 86 was a shortform among restaurant workers for 'We're all out of it.' In electrical transmission lines, an 86 device is a lockout breaker. In military lingo, the Allowance Type (AT) coding system is used for logistic purposes. The allowance type code is a single digit numeric that identifies the reason material is being carried in stock. AT-6 (or by similar phonetic, eighty-six) was to be disposed of. Another good explanation is in the Cockney rhyming slang which has created a lot of phrases. "86" rhymes with "nix."
Polar bears are the largest land predators on earth. They can stand more than 11’ high and weigh more than 1,700 lbs.
“She told me, ‘Ray, we are to go through these stacks and pull out anything that might put anybody in the [Near Eastern Affairs] front office or the seventh floor in a bad light,’” says Maxwell. He says “seventh floor” was State Department shorthand for then-Secretary of State Clinton and her principal advisers.“I asked her, ‘But isn’t that unethical?’ She responded, ‘Ray, those are our orders.’ ”
This is the testimony of Raymond Maxwell, May, 2013, to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee about the Clinton camp's effort to sterilize the State Department of any Benghazi evidence that might implicate Hillary. But it was 18 months after the event. Why not come forward earlier?
Israeli Member of Parliament Michael Ben Ari publicly ripped up a copy of the New Testament in the country's Parliament, the Knesset. He then threw it into a rubbish bin after denouncing it as an "abhorrent" book. A second legislator called for Bibles to be burnt. Imagine if he had been Muslim.
Writing as Captain Hercules Vinegar, Henry Fielding summoned poet laureate Colley Cibber to court, charged with the murder of the English language. Fielding was not only a satiric playwright and novelist but a lawyer (soon, a Justice of the Peace) and a notorious wag; his joke would have been popular among London's coffee house wits, most of whom would know of Fielding's enmity for Cibber, if not share it. Cibber was a well-known but second-rate writer and actor in London, most famous for his adaptation of Shakespeare's Richard III, in which there was no "winter of our discontent" or "my kingdom for a horse," but such Cibberisms as "Off with his head -- so much for Buckingham!" Now the shocker: It was the only version of the play acted in England for over 150 years, so popular that attempts to do Shakespeare's original were booed off the stage.
Golden oldie:
Baseball analytics is branching into lineups. The following on lineup optimization from the Hardball Times is based on analysis from “The Book": “In plain English (sort of), we want to know how costly making an out is by each lineup position, based on the base-out situations they most often find themselves in, and then weighted by how often each lineup spot comes to the plate. Here’s how the lineup spots rank in the importance of avoiding outs:
#1, #4, #2, #5, #3, #6, #7, #8, #9
So, you want your best three hitters to hit in the #1, #4, and #2 spots. Distribute them so OBP is higher in the order and SLG is lower. Then place your fourth and fifth best hitters, with the #5 spot usually seeing the better hitter, unless he’s a high-homerun guy. Then place your four remaining hitters in decreasing order of overall hitting ability, with basestealers ahead of singles hitters.”
There have been studies comparing malnourished North Korean male refugees to their South Korean counterparts. The average South Korean is three inches taller. This gap has been created quickly, just over a few generations.
The Davis-Bacon Act was passed in 1931 requiring minimum wages in the construction industry. This was in response to complaints that construction companies with non-union black construction workers were able to underbid construction companies with unionized white workers (whose unions would not admit blacks).
In 2008, information from a captured FARC narcoterrorist computer found that Democrat Rep. Jim McGovern sought through an aide to help the terrorists undercut and neutralize the Colombian government, the U.S.' top ally in Latin America, which was then fighting the terrorists.
For almost two centuries, from the time of George Washington's presidency to the election of Ronald Reagan, whites of European descent made up at least 80% of the U.S. population. That share is below two-thirds now, and the white majority is set to become a minority by 2044. Today's Hispanics lag behind whites when it comes to education and wealth. But they are strikingly young, lowering America's median age and offering workers to fill the labor market when other rich countries face greying decline.
When did Hispanics become "nonwhite" and "non-European in descent?"
After the financial crisis of 2008, jobs in graphic design fell by 19.8 percent over four years, in photography by 25.6 percent over seven years, and in architecture by 29.8 percent over three years. In 1999, recordings generated $14.6 billion in revenue to the music business; by 2012, the figure was down to $5.35 billion. Scott Timberg, writing in “Culture Crash,” sees this as more than a decline in artistic jobs: “The price we ultimately pay is in the decline of art itself, diminishing understanding of ourselves, one another and the eternal human spirit.” Well, that's a lot to say.
One wonders if the remarkable decentralization of almost everything has made what has happened to institutionalized art untrackable.
According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, in 2011 over 161,000 Israeli citizens, 2.1% of the population, were Christian. About 80% of Christian residents of Israel are Arabs. Of the remainder, around 25,000 are Slavic Christians from the former Soviet Union who came to the country under the Law of Return, which has provided for Israeli citizenship if a person has a Jewish grandparent, and a smaller minority are Assyrians.
Chris Borland, a 24 year old rookie linebacker for the 49ers has retired over concerns for his health. He worked his way into the 49ers' starting lineup last season after Pro Bowl linebacker Patrick Willis was sidelined by a persistent toe injury. Borland blossomed in the role and lead the team in tackles. Borland, who is listed as being 5 feet 11 inches tall and weighing 248 pounds, was drafted by the 49ers in the third round out of Wisconsin. He says he hasn't been diagnosed with a concussion in the NFL, but that he did sustain two previously: one while playing soccer in the eighth grade and another playing football in high school. This story got a lot of interest in the ESPN world. Indeed, it is only one guy but he sounds very modern: Did his own research, came to his own conclusions, made an abstract and limiting decision for a theoretical greater good.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) wants hotels to monitor how much time its guests spend in the shower.
The agency is spending $15,000 to create a wireless system that will track how much water a hotel guest uses to get them to “modify their behavior.”
Lindsey Von is astonishing. Crystal globes are the prizes awarded to the best skiers per discipline and overall for an entire World Cup season. Vonn has collected 17 crystal globes during her career. She won six times this campaign, breaking the women’s World Cup career victories mark following two major knee surgeries, and can match another record at the season-ending World Cup Finals in Meribel, France, this week. She’s in position to add to her trophy case this season’s crystal globes for the downhill and super-G. That would give her 19 career season titles, matching the record held by Sweden’s Ingemar Stenmark.Stenmark also holds the overall race victories record of 86, which Vonn may also one day take down. She’s at 65 right now.
According to official government data, the average premium paid by those signing up through the federal Healthcare.gov site this year was $101 a month, after factoring in the subsidies. Last year, however, the average premium, net of subsidies, was $82. That's a 23% increase.
The reason, explains John Graham at the National Center for Policy Analysis, is that the average subsidy went down slightly this year while premiums increased by 5%.Next year is likely to bring more premium pain, if the Congressional Budget Office is right. It says insurance costs will climb 8.5% in 2016, in part because various ObamaCare insurance bailout programs start coming to an end.
Now the Right is furious about this but isn't less federal subsidies what they would theoretically want?
AAAAAaaannnnndddddd.......a picture taken by astronaut Charles Duke from the Apollo 16 mission in 1972 of a snapshot of him, his wife and his children he left on the surface of the moon.
No comments:
Post a Comment