Economics is the study of the use of scarce resources which have alternative uses.--Lionel Robbins
The Bruce Jenner interview was two hours, considerably longer than the State of the Union address.
The NYT webpage recently had two articles, “White House wants to explore how climate change makes you sick,” and another, a report on the recent collapse of the long-standing consensus among experts that the typical American’s salt intake poses a threat to human health, “More scientists doubt salt is as bad for you as the government says.”
So, on one page, there are two articles, one trumpeting the consensus of global warming and illness and, another, warning us of the danger of accepting scientific consensus.
On average, Dutch women stand almost 5.6 feet tall, and its men 6 feet. But how the Dutch became the world's tallest people has been somewhat of a mystery. After all they have not always been so Viking-like, two centuries ago they were renowned for being among the shortest. What happened since then?
The U.S. Secret Service has put a senior supervisor on leave and suspended his security clearance after a female employee accused him of assaulting her after work at the agency's headquarters last week, the Washington Post said.
The Bruce Jenner interview was two hours, considerably longer than the State of the Union address.
The NYT webpage recently had two articles, “White House wants to explore how climate change makes you sick,” and another, a report on the recent collapse of the long-standing consensus among experts that the typical American’s salt intake poses a threat to human health, “More scientists doubt salt is as bad for you as the government says.”
So, on one page, there are two articles, one trumpeting the consensus of global warming and illness and, another, warning us of the danger of accepting scientific consensus.
The Norwalk virus or Norovirus (the virus that causes the stomach flu, especially on cruises) can survive on an uncleaned carpet for a month or more.
"You can’t vote yourself rich. It’s an idiotic idea." "Koreans came up from nothing in the auto business. They worked 84 hours a week with no overtime for more than a decade. At the same time every little Korean came home from grade school, and worked with a tutor for four full hours in the afternoon and the evening, driven by these Tiger Moms. Are you surprised when you lose to people like that? Only if you’re a total idiot." " I will say this: I know no wise person who doesn’t read a lot" These are quotes from Charlie Munger in his recent interview.
When people talk shrilly about Class 2b carcinogens, "Class 2b" means that all possible carcinogenic effects haven't been ruled out but that it hasn't been shown to cause a single case of cancer. So it is a carcinogen that has not been shown to be one.
"You can’t vote yourself rich. It’s an idiotic idea." "Koreans came up from nothing in the auto business. They worked 84 hours a week with no overtime for more than a decade. At the same time every little Korean came home from grade school, and worked with a tutor for four full hours in the afternoon and the evening, driven by these Tiger Moms. Are you surprised when you lose to people like that? Only if you’re a total idiot." " I will say this: I know no wise person who doesn’t read a lot" These are quotes from Charlie Munger in his recent interview.
When people talk shrilly about Class 2b carcinogens, "Class 2b" means that all possible carcinogenic effects haven't been ruled out but that it hasn't been shown to cause a single case of cancer. So it is a carcinogen that has not been shown to be one.
On average, Dutch women stand almost 5.6 feet tall, and its men 6 feet. But how the Dutch became the world's tallest people has been somewhat of a mystery. After all they have not always been so Viking-like, two centuries ago they were renowned for being among the shortest. What happened since then?
Golden oldie:
In a study from the University of Texas, three groups of people were given clerical tasks to complete in three different rooms, each painted a different color: red, white, and aqua. All groups made more errors when they worked in the white room.
Bill Clinton was paid more than $100 million for speeches between 2001 and 2013, according to federal financial disclosure forms filed by Hillary Clinton during her years as a senator and as secretary of state. Goldman Sachs, Barclays Capital, Deutsche Bank and Citigroup - collectively have given between $2.75 million and $11.5 million to the charity, which is now called the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation. One example of this behavior is the $610 million sale of 51% of Uranium One to a unit of Rosatom, Russia's state nuclear agency, was approved in 2010 by a U.S. federal committee that assesses the security implications of foreign investments. The State Department, which Mrs. Clinton then ran, is one of its members.
Between 2008 and 2012, the Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative, a project of the Clinton Foundation, received $2.35 million from the Fernwood Foundation, a family charity run by Ian Telfer, chairman of Uranium One before its sale, according to Canada Revenue Agency records.
Between 2008 and 2012, the Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative, a project of the Clinton Foundation, received $2.35 million from the Fernwood Foundation, a family charity run by Ian Telfer, chairman of Uranium One before its sale, according to Canada Revenue Agency records.
Every once in a while the tragic and comedic merge. The term tragicomedy first appeared around the 3rd century B.C. when the Roman comedian Plautus used the Latin tragicomoedia to refer to his play Amphitruo. After this horrible shooting in South Carolina, someone made a sign that read: "This is what democracy looks like."
In 1963, the USS Thresher, an atomic submarine, sunk in the Atlantic Ocean, killing the entire crew. One hundred and twenty-nine sailors and civilians were lost 300 miles off the coast of New England. It was the first of its kind, a new class. A subsequent investigation revealed that a leak in a silver-brazed joint in the engine room had caused a short circuit in critical electrical systems. The problems quickly spread, making the equipment needed to bring the Thresher to the surface inoperable.The disaster forced improvements in the design and quality control of submarines.
The U.S. Secret Service has put a senior supervisor on leave and suspended his security clearance after a female employee accused him of assaulting her after work at the agency's headquarters last week, the Washington Post said.
Jamie Dimon on monetary crisis:
- First, they sell the assets they believe are at the root of the problem.
- Second, they generally look to put more of their money in havens, commonly selling riskier assets like credit and equities and buying safer assets by putting deposits in strong banks, buying Treasuries, or purchasing very safe money market funds.
- Often at one point in a crisis, investors can sell only less risky assets if they need to raise cash because, virtually, there may be no market for the riskier ones.
And what's more, no investor is truly safe in a crisis.
Dimon: "These investors include individuals, corporations, mutual funds, pension plans, hedge funds — pretty much everyone — each individually doing the right thing for themselves but, collectively, creating the market disruption that we've witnessed before. This is the "run-on-the-market" phenomenon that you saw in the last crisis."
What is interesting is that, at some point, no one will accept risky assets so people start selling their best assets. During the 2008 crisis, a group was crowing they bought U.S. Treasuries at 78% of value; the next week they had declined 10%.
Proof that there is no national mens' support group: A report from the Raymond James financial services firm concerning trends in the housing market explains: Increasing numbers of women “are adopting dogs for security and/or companionship,” partly because of “the great education divide.” Really? Dogs substitute for less educated guys?
Obviously some people are born with, and into, advantages, congenital and social. What is dubious is the conclusion that government has the capacity and duty to calibrate, redistribute and equalize advantages. Joy Pullmann, writing at the Federalist, notes: This agenda is incompatible with freedom. Furthermore, although some individuals have advantages they did not earn, “very often someone else did earn them” — by, for example, nurturing children in a stable family. It is hardly an injustice — an invidious privilege — for nurturing parents to be able to confer on their children the advantages of conscientiousness. The ability to do so, says Pullmann, is a powerful motivation for noble behavior that, by enlarging society’s stock of parental “hard work, self-control and sacrifice,” produces “positive spillover effects for everyone else.” (Will)
From the "Just say 'No'" department: According to Billboard, Selena Quintanilla’s family is working with Acrovirt LLC on a hologram of the late singer that would perform with contemporary acts. Billboard reports:Named “Selena The One,” it is being referred to as a “walking, talking, singing, and dancing, digital embodiment” of the Mexican American icon. According to the statement, this hologram of sorts “will release new songs and videos, will collaborate with current hit artists, and aims to go on tour in 2018.”
White House officials announced that President Obama will call for an end to conversion or reparative therapies designed to “fix” LGTBQ youth. Though conversion therapy is supported by some religious organizations, the practice has long been condemned by the American Psychiatric Association. It is thrilling when science has a consensus and things come together.
People as the vehicle: According to website Know Your Meme, which documents viral Internet phenomena, a meme is “a piece of content or an idea that’s passed from person to person, changing and evolving along the way.” Richard Dawkins, the famous evolutionary biologist coined the word “meme” in his classic 1976 book, The Selfish Gene. In The Selfish Gene, Dawkins claimed that humans are “survival machines” for our genes, beings that were more effective as carriers and propagators of genes. So the organism is the carrier of the gene, a sort of chicken-egg thing. Yet, Dawkins explained, genes could not account for all of human behavior, particularly the evolution of cultures. So he identified a second replicator, a “unit of cultural transmission” that he believed was “leaping from brain to brain” through imitation. He named these units “memes,” an adaption of the Greek word mimene, “to imitate.” Dawkins’ memes include everything from ideas, songs, and religious ideals to pottery fads. Like genes, memes mutate and evolve, competing for a limited resource—namely, our attention. Memes are, in Dawkins’ view, viruses of the mind—infectious. The peer-reviewed Journal of Memetics folded in 2005; is anyone surprised?
Moon: The International Astronomical Union (IAU) is the entity tasked with naming every celestial body in the night sky. The naming of the Moon was one of the first things the IAU did when it was formed in 1919, because to quote them, they wanted: “to standardize the multiple, confusing systems of nomenclature for the Moon that were then in use.” The word “Luna” is still very much associated with the Moon (as is “Selene”, to a lesser extent, the Greek Moon goddess). For instance, “Luna” is noted as being the root of words like “lunar” and "lunatic." However, “Luna” as a name for the Moon is still pre-dated by early derivatives of the word moon. The word “moon” can be traced back to Old English, where it is said to have derived from the Proto-Germanic word “menon”, which in turn derived from the Proto-Indo-European “*menses”, meaning “month, moon”.
Moon: The International Astronomical Union (IAU) is the entity tasked with naming every celestial body in the night sky. The naming of the Moon was one of the first things the IAU did when it was formed in 1919, because to quote them, they wanted: “to standardize the multiple, confusing systems of nomenclature for the Moon that were then in use.” The word “Luna” is still very much associated with the Moon (as is “Selene”, to a lesser extent, the Greek Moon goddess). For instance, “Luna” is noted as being the root of words like “lunar” and "lunatic." However, “Luna” as a name for the Moon is still pre-dated by early derivatives of the word moon. The word “moon” can be traced back to Old English, where it is said to have derived from the Proto-Germanic word “menon”, which in turn derived from the Proto-Indo-European “*menses”, meaning “month, moon”.
There is a funny e-mail making the rounds comparing the recent suicidal co-pilot crash of Germanwings Flight 9525 to the Obama administration. The notion is that, like the crash scenario, the American public is locked out of the governing cockpit as Obama, the pilot, does his evil work. Vaguely the idea is that through executive action and treaty negotiations Obama has hijacked the political system. A close examination, of course, shows the analogy--as so many analogies--is a bit of a reach. The pilot is hired, Obama is elected; the co-pilot is nuts, Obama is not; the locked out pilot is in no way like the American electorate in an indirect republic nor is the passive passenger. Nonetheless the notion is a funny one and hangs together enough to be coherent and amusing. But, of course, vituperative debate over the specifics has emerged proving once again the unwritten constitutional requirement that every single wacko notion be taken deadly seriously.
AAAAAAAaaaaaannnnnddddddd.......a graph:
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