Cab Thought 9/1/15

"The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao"--The opening lines of the Tao Te Ching


Pope Francis condemned “the increasing use and power of air conditioning” last week in a market-bashing encyclical, is perhaps unaware of that Carrier Corp. has donated its time, energy and innovative heating, ventilating and air-conditioning equipment to the Vatican's Sistine Chapel for more than a decade.

Nearly half of public school students in New York City speak a language other than English at home.

Cellar Link began operations in 2008 with a new $1 million wine management portal offering clients a revolutionary plan to safeguard and enhance the value of their cellars. "One of the biggest issues that the investment companies in Australia faced was that they never dealt with the liquidation of stock," he says. "But where is your exit strategy when it becomes all about volumes and commissions and stocking wines that have not sold through the retail trade?" To satisfy his clients, Eamonn developed a global multi-currency trading system whereby his client's stocks could be held in storage in any of the three main wine hubs of London, Sydney or Hong Kong (with San Francisco to come). "We don't manage the storage facilities, but we manage the people who do that, but at a much higher level of authentication than most other organizations," he says. Then, through the company's wine management portal, clients can track their wines via city of storage, barcode, bay number, product code, full wine description, tax status, ageing potential and current highs and lows investment value. "The vision is to create a fluid, transparent, auditable, trading environment for wine," Eamonn adds.

In Europe there was no major nomad incursion following the defeat of the Magyars at the Lechfeld in 955 until the Mongols briefly invaded eastern and central Europe in 1240. The following year they withdrew and never returned.

Enervate: verb tr.: To deprive of strength or vitality. adjective: Deprived of strength; Weakened. Ety: From Latin enervare (to weaken), from ex- (out) + nervus (sinew). Earliest documented use: 1603. I always misuse this word. Its use in medicine is that of "supplied by nerves," somewhat different from its general meaning.

Tinder and OK Cupid and Match are all owned by the same company.

The robotic spacecraft Dawn in orbit around Ceres found an unusually tall mountain on the Asteroid Belt's largest asteroid. The exceptional mountain rises about five kilometers up from an area that otherwise appears pretty level. Although origin hypotheses for the mountain include volcanism, impacts, and plate tectonics, clear evidence backing any of these is currently lacking. Also visible across Ceres' surface are some enigmatic light areas: bright spots whose origin and composition that also remain an active topic of investigation.  Although Dawn is expected to continue to orbit Ceres, officially dubbed a dwarf planet, for millions of years, the hydrazine fuel used to point Dawn's communications antenna toward Earth is expected to run out sometime next year.  

Gold and copper were the first metals to be discovered by humans around 5000 B.C. and are the only two non-white-colored metals.

Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm were part of a nationalistic movement in Germany to revive the volk, the authentic voice of the German people. There are several books out on the process the Grimm brothers used in their efforts, with some illuminating and provocative insights into the nature of such work. One thing that is shocking is how the stories were pruned from their sometimes brutal original forms. Some of the stories are almost too much to bear in the original, something the Grimms considered in their anthologies. Did you know that Cinderella's step-sisters in the original story cut their toes off in an effort to fit into the glass slipper? 

Bobby Jindal is a fake Indian, but it’s racist to say an older white woman [Elizabeth Warren] isn’t a real one (the correct term being “Native American,” of course). Nikki Haley is a villain for “suppressing” her Indian roots, but Senator Ted Cruz is a fraud for touting his Cuban roots.

"If only one word had to be used to define this widespread change in the idea of the law, I would say that according to the man on the street the law today is something which must be manufactured, or even pre-fabricated.  That is, it is something produced with the minimum of time and effort judged necessary, according to plans prepared in advance, by the “suitable” people in the “suitable” places (the national legislatures), and presented to those who must obey the laws.  The latter people (we might say the “consumers,” if the word were not misleading for reasons which we shall shortly see) do not have – or are thought not to have – any other role than that of using the product ready made for them, just as they use the automobile or the washing machine."--jurist and political philosopher Bruno Leoni.

$5.3 trillion of government debt trades at subzero interest rates.

John Forbes Nash Jr., the 'Beautiful Mind' mathematician who died along with his wife in a car crash last week had told a friend he had discovered a replacement equation for Einstein's theory of relativity just three days earlier.

Golden oldie:

http://steeleydock.blogspot.com/2012/04/sinister-and-distaff.html

Phil Mickelson wired millions of dollars to a middleman, who then laundered that money as part of "an illegal gambling operation which accepted and placed bets on sporting events," according to an ESPN report. It is reported Mickelson transferred the money to 56-year-old Greg Silveira of La Quinta, Calif., who has pleaded guilty to three federal counts of money laundering as part of a plea deal. Silveira pled guilty to laundering $2.75 million that he says belonged to Mickelson, according to ESPN. I hope this means I won't be asked to worry about him anymore.

The Hill had an informative piece on the recent Supreme Court decision on the ACA. A 1984 Supreme Court case, Chevron U.S.A. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, established a two-step procedure for deciding when courts should yield to executive branch agencies in interpreting regulatory statutes.

Many people expected King v. Burwell to be decided on Chevron grounds. Either the court would decide that the statute was clear and would invalidate the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) interpretation of the statute as allowing subsidies for people getting health insurance from the federal exchange. Or it would say the statute was not clear and that the IRS had a permissible (or non-permissible) construction of the statute. Roberts took neither of these approaches. Instead, he wrote that Chevron did not apply because the issue was of "deep economic and political significance." Such issues are not to be decided by agencies such as the IRS; instead, they were the purview of the courts.
Several noted scholars of administrative law  have noted that Roberts has signaled a general movement away from Chevron and judicial deference to regulatory agencies. If courts do not defer to agencies, then it will be easier for those looking to overturn agency regulations to find a receptive ear in court. Industries looking to overturn future regulations will be sure to cite King v. Burwell in their briefs and argue that the issue they are contesting is of deep significance.
This is of particular importance in EPA regulations.

What’s the difference between absorption and adsorption, besides a turned-around letter b? Absorption is when a substance is completely assimilated by another while in adsorption the substance deposits on the surface of another.

Hobbes is back. Ian Morris has a new book, War! What Is It Good For?. It argues that order is not spontaneous; only after powerful states have been created by war do societies develop productively. Empires are in general a force for good; human flourishing, innovation, and prosperity depend on a strong, active government. In terms of current policy disputes, it means that the United States should enhance its global role rather than pulling back. Historian Stephen Davies has a good review of it in "Reason" that insightfully compares historical periods and suggests the driving and ordering force in the world is rather innovation. He writes: If Morris' argument is true, order is not spontaneous but something that can exist at a tolerable level only after powerful states have been created by war; empires are in general a force for good; and human flourishing, innovation, and prosperity depend on a strong, active government. In terms of current policy disputes, it means that the United States should enhance its global role rather than pulling back.

Morris, however, is well regarded in think tanks and it would be ugly if his thesis is used to justify policy by our self appointed elites.

There was a custom in ancient Ireland where one would show obeisance to the king by sucking his nipples. No nipples, you could not be a king. So apparently--as demonstrated in men found in Ireland bogs--enemies of the king had their nipples cut off.

AAAaaaaannnnnddddd......a graph: