"The enemy is the gramophone mind whether or not one agrees with the record that is being played at the moment."--Orwell, in the intro to Animal Farm.
A decade ago, the Bakken oil fields in western North Dakota were producing an insignificant amount of crude oil — only 132,000 barrels per day, while at the same time Venezuela was producing 2.5 million barrels per day, or about half of America’s 5 million barrels per day.
From 1970 to 2017, the six major pollutants monitored by the EPA plunged by 73%. By comparison, during that time the U.S.' economy grew 262% and its population by 60%.The decline in pollution is steep. Carbon monoxide, down 77%. Lead, 80%. Nitrogen oxide, 56%. Ozone, 22%. Particle pollution, off an average 38%. Sulfur dioxide, 88%. That didn't include CO2 output, which has plunged by 29% since peaking in 2007. Data from BP show "the U.S. led the world in emissions cuts for the ninth time this century," while in the EU, "emissions were ... up (1.5%)." The Daily Caller notes, "globally, greenhouse gas emissions are set to rise to historic highs by the end of the year, despite nearly 200 countries signing the Paris climate accord. Global greenhouse gas emissions also rose in 2017." So...world emissions are up, the U.S. emissions are down, the U.S. walks away from the Paris accords and gets criticized.
Researchers followed 411 boys from South London from 1961 to 2001 and found that half of the convicted kids were accounted for by 6 percent of all families; two-thirds of them came from 10 percent of the families. This intergenerational transmission of violence was first documented in the 1940s when a husband-and-wife team at Harvard Law School found that two-thirds of boys in the Boston area sent by a court to a reformatory had a father who had been arrested; 45 percent also had a mother who had been arrested. And, in 2007, the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics concluded that half of the roughly 800,000 parents behind bars have a close relative who has previously been incarcerated.
The most surprising thing was how surprised the Atlantic people were in researching this article.
Moonstruck:
- dreamily romantic or bemused.
- mentally deranged, supposedly by the influence of the moon; crazed
The original sense of moonstruck, “mentally deranged, insane,” first appears in Paradise Lost (1667) by John Milton (1608–74). Milton was astonishingly learned: he wrote poetry in Latin, Greek, and Italian; he translated Psalm 114 from Hebrew into Greek verse; he was a polemicist (or propagandist) for the English general, Puritan statesman, and Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell. Moonstruck is probably Milton’s own creation, a translation from Greek selēnóblētos “moonstruck, epileptic,” a compound of selḗnē “moon” and blētós “stricken, stricken with palsy,” a past participle of bállein ”to throw, hit (with a missile).” The sense of “dreamily romantic” dates from the mid-19th century.
According to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, consumers pay only 11 percent of their health care costs. Everything else is paid by third parties, whether the government or private insurers. That's a problem because when people's consumption is paid for by someone else, demand artificially rises, thus driving up the prices and introducing inefficiencies in the production and delivery of the subsidized good or service.
Suicides are rapidly rising across the once-wealthy nation of Venezuela, but particularly in mountainous Merida, where they are hitting levels never seen. The Venezuelan Violence Observatory, a nongovernmental organization, estimates that the state’s suicide rate was more than 19 per 100,000 in 2017. Only 12 nations have a rate so high.
Such deaths are becoming ordinary in a population plagued by hyperinflation, hunger and mass emigration.
Strangely, you never here this about trade: If we assume a GDP of $1,000, a 2 percent trade deficit would mean someone had sold us $20 more in goods than we sold to them. And we would have received quality merchandise for that $20. Trade is exchange. And trade in money is investment. So if we have a positive trade balance in money, that means we are investing more in other countries than they are investing in us. How is that inherently good?
Buying an index fund is essentially buying stocks without regard to price.
A woman who works for the FSB has been found working for the U.S. Embassy and the Secret Service in Moscow for the last ten years. But don't worry, we're in good hands.
Book clubs are going on-line. Three popular--and surprising--successes are run by Andrew Luck, Reese Witherspoon and Emma Watson.
deRugy: Mark my words: The problems we fail to solve now will one day lead Republicans to accept a value added tax perched on top of our income and payroll taxes, a carbon tax and higher tax rates on all of us.
A major donor to President Trump agreed to pay $10 million to the president’s then-personal attorney if he successfully helped obtain funding for a nuclear-power project, including a $5 billion loan from the U.S. government.(wsj)
George Will wrote "A French minister of education once bragged that he could glance at his watch and tell what was being taught at that moment in every French classroom." If that is true, is it good?
Golden oldie: https://steeleydock.blogspot.com/2013/07/computers-writing-and-phaedrus.html
Sarah Jeong has just been named to the NYT editorial board. She really doesn't like white people, especially men. (“Oh man. It’s sick how much joy I get from being cruel to old white men.”) But I suppose I am nonetheless to assume she will edit with an even hand. When power is being dismissive it can be revealing. Some are very tolerant of clearly bad behavior when the perpetrator advances certain causes. Clinton got a free ride because he supported many causes the popular press--and the power base of his party--liked. Look at what is happening to Sen. Kristen Gillbrand from N.Y.. She is being vilified--and her financial support is being withdrawn--for her refusal to support the esteemed Al Franken after his sexual abuse allegations. Her lack of solidarity with the party--not Franken's behavior-- has become the major part of the story.
In an article for Vox, Meagan Day, a writer for the socialist magazine, Jacobin, and a democratic socialist, says the goal is to pursue a “reform agenda today in an effort to revive a politics focused on class hierarchy and inequality in the United States.”
She writes,
I believe her.
A Democrat running for the House called Melania a prostitute. Stormy is a free speech advocate. Balance, overall.
Mom heard an interview with Ron Howard where he was talking about how long he worked in entertainment and how long he has earned good money. He said there was a big fight over Sandy Kolfax' contract and, at the time, he (Howard) was earning more than Kolfax; Howard was eleven.
Artists at war:
AAaaaaaaannnnnnnndddddd…. ….a graph:
The chart above shows the collapse of oil production in socialist Venezuela, the country with the world's largest oil reserves.
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steeleydock.blogspot.com
Nothing is new under the sun. We are having discussions about the impact of computers, the availability of information and dissemination o...
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Sarah Jeong has just been named to the NYT editorial board. She really doesn't like white people, especially men. (“Oh man. It’s sick how much joy I get from being cruel to old white men.”) But I suppose I am nonetheless to assume she will edit with an even hand. When power is being dismissive it can be revealing. Some are very tolerant of clearly bad behavior when the perpetrator advances certain causes. Clinton got a free ride because he supported many causes the popular press--and the power base of his party--liked. Look at what is happening to Sen. Kristen Gillbrand from N.Y.. She is being vilified--and her financial support is being withdrawn--for her refusal to support the esteemed Al Franken after his sexual abuse allegations. Her lack of solidarity with the party--not Franken's behavior-- has become the major part of the story.
In an article for Vox, Meagan Day, a writer for the socialist magazine, Jacobin, and a democratic socialist, says the goal is to pursue a “reform agenda today in an effort to revive a politics focused on class hierarchy and inequality in the United States.”
She writes,
"I’m a staff writer at the socialist magazine Jacobin and a member of [the Democratic Socialists of America], and here’s the truth: In the long run, democratic socialists want to end capitalism." Continuing she says:
“The eventual goal is to transform the world to promote everyone’s needs rather than to produce massive profits for a small handful of citizens.” I believe her.
A Democrat running for the House called Melania a prostitute. Stormy is a free speech advocate. Balance, overall.
Mom heard an interview with Ron Howard where he was talking about how long he worked in entertainment and how long he has earned good money. He said there was a big fight over Sandy Kolfax' contract and, at the time, he (Howard) was earning more than Kolfax; Howard was eleven.
Artists at war:
In 1782, the British playwright and general, John Burgoyne, died in England. His humiliating surrender to Patriot forces at Saratoga on October 17, 1777, left a black mark on his military career, but his successful play The Heiress, released in 1786, secured his literary reputation.
Burgoyne led 3,300 Redcoats, 3,900 Hessian mercenaries and 650 Canadians, Loyalists and Indians to victory at Ticonderoga, New York, on July 5, 1777, which earned him a promotion to lieutenant general. However, as he extended his supply lines ever further south, he found himself trapped at Saratoga after General William Howe decided to take Philadelphia instead of meeting Burgoyne at Albany as planned. Following Patriot victories on September 19 at Freeman’s Farm and October 7 at Bemis Heights, Burgoyne’s troops were surrounded by Patriots under General Horatio Gates and forced to surrender on October 17. Burgoyne successfully negotiated that his surviving men would be returned to Britain with a pledge that they would never again serve in North America. The nearly 6,000-man army was kept in captivity at great expense to the Continental Congress until the end of the war.
Howe's change of plans hurt Burgoyne's efforts, as did the death of the very talented Brigadier General Simon Fraser, killed by the marksman Murphy (for whom our dog is not named) under the direction of Benedict Arnold, pursuing the American technique of targeting officers. (He also killed British Senior officer Sir Francis Clerke, General Burgoyne's chief aide-de-camp.)
This first major victory for the rebels was seen as a turning point.
AAaaaaaaannnnnnnndddddd…. ….a graph:
The chart above shows the collapse of oil production in socialist Venezuela, the country with the world's largest oil reserves.
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