"Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence." -Napoleon Bonaparte
Only about a quarter of eighth graders showed solid performance or better in U.S. history, civics and geography in 2014, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress released today. About one-third knew that “the government of the United States should be a democracy” is a political belief shared by most people in the U.S..
McDonald's has cut the Deluxe Quarter Pounder burger, six chicken sandwiches, and the honey mustard and chipotle barbecue snack wraps from their menu, Bloomberg reports, after six straight quarters of same-store sales declines in the U.S.. In an effort to tweak the menu and drive sales, its menu has grown 42.4% in the past seven years, to 121 items from 85 items in 2007, according to The Wall Street Journal, and has dramatically slowed down customer service. The chain's average drive-thru wait is 3 minutes, 9.5 seconds, which is the longest average wait time in at least 15 years.
The plan is to simplify the menu and speed up service.
Only about a quarter of eighth graders showed solid performance or better in U.S. history, civics and geography in 2014, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress released today. About one-third knew that “the government of the United States should be a democracy” is a political belief shared by most people in the U.S..
McDonald's has cut the Deluxe Quarter Pounder burger, six chicken sandwiches, and the honey mustard and chipotle barbecue snack wraps from their menu, Bloomberg reports, after six straight quarters of same-store sales declines in the U.S.. In an effort to tweak the menu and drive sales, its menu has grown 42.4% in the past seven years, to 121 items from 85 items in 2007, according to The Wall Street Journal, and has dramatically slowed down customer service. The chain's average drive-thru wait is 3 minutes, 9.5 seconds, which is the longest average wait time in at least 15 years.
The plan is to simplify the menu and speed up service.
What is.....thorn þ?
Budweiser
said it had stopped making Bud Light beer cans with a label that says,
“The perfect beer for removing ‘no’ from your vocabulary for the night”
after social media protests. Can you imagine the ad man who thought that
a good idea?
Steven Jay Gould, the biologist, has had his reputation scrutinized of late, most recently by Robert Trivers:
"His most celebrated book (The Mismeasure of Man) starts with a takedown of Samuel George Morton. Morton was a scientist in the early 19 th Century who devoted himself to measuring the human cranium, especially the volume of the inside, a rough estimate of the size of the enclosed brain. He did so meticulously by pouring first seeds and then ball bearings into skulls until they were full and then pouring them out and measuring their volume in a graduated cylinder. He was a pure empiricist. He knew brain size was an important variable but very little about the details (indeed, we do not know much more today). He thought his data would bear on whether we were one species or several, but in any case he was busy creating a vast trove of true and useful facts."
Gould did not like his conclusions, which could have racial implications.
"He came across distressingly objective data of Morton, and by introducing biased procedures (no sample size below four) he was able to get appropriately biased results. And by misrepresenting the frequency of Nordic vs Amerindian subpopulations, he was able to create an illusion of bias where none existed, by mere emphatic assertion (no one bothered to check).
Richard Milner, Gould's editor at Natural History—had some choice comments in defense of Stephen. Gould acted with “complete conviction and integrity” (that is, with full self-deception). “He was a tireless crusader against racism in any form.” (In what way is misrepresenting the true facts about population differences—and then hiding this misrepresentation—a contribution to anti-racism?) And then, fully in flight, he says that any bias was “on the side of the angels”. Who of us is in any position to say what is on the side of the angels? We barely know what is in our own self-interest."
Steven Jay Gould, the biologist, has had his reputation scrutinized of late, most recently by Robert Trivers:
"His most celebrated book (The Mismeasure of Man) starts with a takedown of Samuel George Morton. Morton was a scientist in the early 19 th Century who devoted himself to measuring the human cranium, especially the volume of the inside, a rough estimate of the size of the enclosed brain. He did so meticulously by pouring first seeds and then ball bearings into skulls until they were full and then pouring them out and measuring their volume in a graduated cylinder. He was a pure empiricist. He knew brain size was an important variable but very little about the details (indeed, we do not know much more today). He thought his data would bear on whether we were one species or several, but in any case he was busy creating a vast trove of true and useful facts."
Gould did not like his conclusions, which could have racial implications.
"He came across distressingly objective data of Morton, and by introducing biased procedures (no sample size below four) he was able to get appropriately biased results. And by misrepresenting the frequency of Nordic vs Amerindian subpopulations, he was able to create an illusion of bias where none existed, by mere emphatic assertion (no one bothered to check).
Richard Milner, Gould's editor at Natural History—had some choice comments in defense of Stephen. Gould acted with “complete conviction and integrity” (that is, with full self-deception). “He was a tireless crusader against racism in any form.” (In what way is misrepresenting the true facts about population differences—and then hiding this misrepresentation—a contribution to anti-racism?) And then, fully in flight, he says that any bias was “on the side of the angels”. Who of us is in any position to say what is on the side of the angels? We barely know what is in our own self-interest."
One half of women over 50 will fracture a bone because of osteoporosis.
Comet
67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko update: Recent analysis of data beamed back to Earth
from the robotic Rosetta spacecraft has shown that water being
expelled by 67P has a significant difference with water on Earth,
indicating that Earth's water could not have originated from ancient
collisions with comets like 67P. Additionally, neither Rosetta nor its
Philae lander detected a magnetic field around the comet nucleus,
indicating that magnetism might have been unimportant in the evolution of the early Solar System.
Thomas
De Quincey wrote a satirical essay, "Murder as One of the Fine Arts,"
in three installments in 1827 that was the "impulse for an innovative
art form cum aesthetic ... that pointed the way toward the work
of Poe and Baudelaire, of Wilde and Borges, of Robbe-Grillet and Eco,
of Hitchcock and De Palma. " (Joel Black, The Aesthetics of Murder).
There are currently an estimated 70 million empty high rise apartment units in China
"It’s
just wrong that, you know, a hedgefund manager pays a lower tax rate
than a nurse, or a trucker, or an assembly worker." This from Mrs.
Clinton. It is a funny line because it is indeed wrong; hedge fund
managers do not pay a lower tax rate than other people. But that, of
course, is not what she wanted to convey. She wanted to convey the
untruth, i.e. the lie, and take a moral stand against it. Building straw
windmills to attack.
Fossil
hunters in Chile have unearthed the remains of a bizarre Jurassic
dinosaur that combined a curious mixture of features from different
prehistoric animals. The evolutionary muddle of a beast grew to the size
of a small horse and was the most abundant animal to be found 145
million years ago, in what is now the Aysén region of Patagonia. The
discoverers, geologists, named the beast Chilesaurus diegosuarezi after their 7-year-old son, Diego, who found the first fossil.
"One
out of 10 births in the U.S. is to an illegal immigrant mother,” Jon
Freere said at a House Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security
hearing titled “Birthright Citizenship: Is It The Right Policy For
America?”
Ye: An article and a pronoun. definite article: The. pronoun: You, (orig. pl.). ETY: For definite article: Alteration of Old English þe (the). Earliest documented use: before 12th century. For pronoun: From Old English ge. Earliest documented use: before 13th century.
The
article ‘ye’ is an archaic spelling of our modern ‘the’. The article
was earlier spelled with the character thorn þ, a letter in the Old
English, Gothic, Old Norse and modern Icelandic alphabets, as well as
some dialects of Middle English. In the Old English alphabet "the'" was
written "þe." Because of the similarity of shapes, eventually printers
began to use the letter y to represent the character thorn þ. Nowadays,
the word ‘ye’ is used to give an old-fashioned appeal in naming, such
as: Ye Olde Bookshoppe.
The pronoun ‘ye’ is a plural of ‘thou’ (you, singular), but these days it is used for both plural and singular.
The pronoun ‘ye’ is a plural of ‘thou’ (you, singular), but these days it is used for both plural and singular.
Sarah
Josepha Hale (1788-1879) worked to establish Thanksgiving as a
national holiday, was the first person to advocate women as teachers
in public schools, the first to advocate day nurseries to assist
working mothers, and the first to propose public playgrounds. She was
also the author of two dozen books and hundreds of poems, including
“Mary Had a Little Lamb.”
The trade playing field is tilted badly against America. U.S. markets are almost entirely open – the average tariff we
levy on imports is just 1.4% — while the countries we trade with have
average import duties that are three or four times as high on average
(and in some key situations much higher still). But on top of that,
their businesses are not saddled with the same labor and and
environmental standards that ours are.This causes American CEOs to do
something in their shareholders’ interest that they might rather not:
shift good jobs abroad, both for the lower labor costs and to avoid the higher tariffs.
According
to Obama, speaking on the recent Baltimore problems, the police alone
can't solve the problems of "communities where there are no fathers who
can provide guidance to young men; communities where there's no
investment, and manufacturing has been stripped away; and drugs have
flooded the community." Now if these are the problems--and these are theories, not proven--, and of course the
police can not solve it, what is the next step? Where are fathers,
investment, manufacturing and abstinence going to come from?
The Shanghai stock market closed up another 2.4%, meaning that it is now 114% above its level of just 9 months ago.
One
thinks that what we are now is refined from what we were then,
individually and as a species. So dexterity would have been an advantage
in the development of our ancestors. Judgment, planning, insight--all
these too. But what does art come from? What is its evolutionary
advantage? And, particularly, what does technical art come from? The
violin is recent; what is the origin of those skills? Here is someone to
ponder, Emily Bear, who started the piano at 3 and played at the White
House at 6. She is now 13. She is also a composer. Where did she come
from? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhjzNG0wSGY
The day following the first night of riots in Baltimore: The data mining firm that found between 20 and 50 social media accounts in Baltimore linked to the violence in Ferguson, Mo. is now reporting a spike in message traffic in Washington D.C., Philadelphia and New York City, with “protesters” trying to get rides to Baltimore for Tuesday night. The firm, which asked to remain anonymous because it does government work, said some of the suspect social media accounts in Baltimore are sending messages to incite violence. While it is possible to spoof an account, to make it look like someone is one place and really is in another, that does not fully explain the high numbers.
The day following the first night of riots in Baltimore: The data mining firm that found between 20 and 50 social media accounts in Baltimore linked to the violence in Ferguson, Mo. is now reporting a spike in message traffic in Washington D.C., Philadelphia and New York City, with “protesters” trying to get rides to Baltimore for Tuesday night. The firm, which asked to remain anonymous because it does government work, said some of the suspect social media accounts in Baltimore are sending messages to incite violence. While it is possible to spoof an account, to make it look like someone is one place and really is in another, that does not fully explain the high numbers.
Golden oldie:
Privilege--specialness
before the law--creates an inherent inequality that is filled with
potential abuse. So the policeman, a special character in society, is
given privilege with the hope he will restrain himself. And a farmer's
subsidy by its nature harms the consumer with higher prices, even if he
sold his produce at cost.
In the hours after the funeral of Freddy Gray, a community center and apartment complex that local leaders expected to serve as a catalyst for the rebuilding of a long blighted East Baltimore neighborhood went up in flames. The $16 million Mary Harvin Transformation Center was being built in a part of town where half the properties are vacant buildings or barren lots, where unemployment rates reach 25% and poverty and despair is rampant. The project was to include about 60 senior citizen apartments and a community center. In the works for eight years, the center was to provide behavioral health counseling, support services for people and families with HIV and AIDS, employment training, home and credit counseling, and ex-offender re-entry services, according to documents filed with the state of Maryland.
In the hours after the funeral of Freddy Gray, a community center and apartment complex that local leaders expected to serve as a catalyst for the rebuilding of a long blighted East Baltimore neighborhood went up in flames. The $16 million Mary Harvin Transformation Center was being built in a part of town where half the properties are vacant buildings or barren lots, where unemployment rates reach 25% and poverty and despair is rampant. The project was to include about 60 senior citizen apartments and a community center. In the works for eight years, the center was to provide behavioral health counseling, support services for people and families with HIV and AIDS, employment training, home and credit counseling, and ex-offender re-entry services, according to documents filed with the state of Maryland.
Richard Lovelace was a courtier, soldier, and gentleman-poet, a member
of the "Sons of Ben," a group of young poets who idolized and drank with
Ben Jonson. He was always in trouble for his Royalist leanings and was
periodically in and out of prison. As a poet he was not well regarded
although wrote some famous poems with famous lines: "Stone walls do not
a prison make,/ Nor iron bars a cage;/ Minds innocent and quiet
take/That for an hermitage;" and "Yet this inconstancy is such/ As
you too shall adore;/ I could not love thee (Dear) so much,/ Lov'd I not
Honour more."
He underwent political and financial decline and this is
from a biographer: "He became very poor in body and purse, was the
object of charity, went in ragged clothes (whereas when he was in his
glory he wore cloth of gold and silver) and mostly lodged in obscure and
dirty places, more befitting the worst of beggars and poorest of
servants.... He died in a very mean lodging in Gunpowder Alley, near
Shoe Lane."
Monica Spear, 29, the 2004 Miss Venezuela and a soap opera actress, and her husband Thomas Berry, 39, were attacked after their car broke down at night on a highway in central Venezuela last year. As a tow truck operator tried to help, a group of gunmen opened fire on the vehicle, killing the couple. The pair's five-year-old daughter Maya survived, but took a bullet in her leg.
Ten people were involved in the attack.
AAAAaaaaaaannnnnndddddddd.............a chart:
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