The American Constitution declares "All men are born equal." The British Socialist party adds: "All men must be kept equal."--Churchill
Joan's Cercone's father died and we went to the funeral home. Lively. Gina looked pretty good. Stopped for dinner at the strangely named "Fish nor Fowl" and was impressed.
I am just astonished at how the Series has gone so far.
However you feel about Trump, the environment in Washington has to worry you. Repeated wild accusations that never seem to be proved but morph into another critical iteration, relentless criticism of what has become generic political behavior but is presented as uniquely Trumpian, now secret hearings where things are carefully and selectively leaked. (So far, no torture seems to be involved.) While all of this is unfair, it is pointed, planned and organized. It is a teaching moment as to how important an objective and un-invested Press is to a democracy. And a warning as to the threat posed by those enlightened ones who want to sacrifice principles for a greater good.
A 25-year-old driver today arrested on suspicion of murder after 39 bodies were found in his lorry in Essex.
Assortive Mating. Smart women with good educations are marryng smart well-educated men. Their children are often smart and get good educations. This, believe it or not, is being seen as a social problem, an argument (from Milanovic) that can become very scary.
"Looking at twenty-two countries around the world, Miles Corak showed in 2013 that there was a positive correlation between high inequality in any one year and a strong correlation between parents’ and children’s incomes (i.e., low-income mobility). This result makes sense, because high inequality today implies that the children of the rich will have, compared to the children of the poor, much greater opportunities. Not only can they count on greater inheritance, but they will also benefit from better education, better social capital obtained through their parents, and many other intangible advantages of wealth. None of those things are available to the children of the poor."
These dangerous things like individual choice and decision have serious consequences for those who make bad choices and decisions. Now, just how could a good hearted bureaucrat help here....?
“When an issue becomes a vital part of a political agenda, as is the case with climate, then the politically desired position becomes a goal rather than a consequence of scientific research.”--Lindzen
This is one of my favorite days of the year. Today is the birthday of the earth.
James Ussher was born in Ireland in 1581. His mother was Catholic but he grew up a Calvinist. He became a priest, was a well regarded academic and scholar. He became Bishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland in 1625 and continued so until his death in 1656.
But, while a powerful and influential political and religious figure, he is known best for his historical research into the age of the earth. He started with Adam. The bible records an unbroken line from Adam to Solomon. There were some estimates necessary because not all of the information correlates perfectly, and there is some guesswork from begat to begat.
After Solomon, more historical resources were necessary but good historic points existed up to the Destruction of the Temple. After this--the so-called Late Age of Kings from Ezra to Jesus--the Bible offered little help and most of the dates had to be taken from independent history. For example, the death of the Chaldean King Nebuchadnezzar II, who conquered Jerusalem in 586 B.C., could be correlated with the 37th year of the exile of Jehoiachin (2 Kings 25:27).
He finally published his most famous work, the Annales veteris testimenti, a prima mundi origine deducti ("Annals of the Old Testament, deduced from the first origins of the world"), which appeared in 1650, and its continuation, Annalium pars posterior, published in 1654. In this work, he calculated the date of the Creation to have been nightfall on October 22, 4004 B.C.. Probably at 6 p.m..
Before you roll your eyes, be aware that his estimates do not differ much from other such bible-based estimates of the time, estimates from significant thinkers, notably Johannes Kepler who estimated the birth of the earth as 3992 B.C. and Isaac Newton as 4000 B.C.. And Ussher was a very accomplished man; his collected works make up eighteen volumes.
The annoying and disappointing Stephan Jay Gould would write in "Fall in the House of Ussher" in Eight Little Piggies:
Happy Birthday, Earth!
Joan's Cercone's father died and we went to the funeral home. Lively. Gina looked pretty good. Stopped for dinner at the strangely named "Fish nor Fowl" and was impressed.
I am just astonished at how the Series has gone so far.
However you feel about Trump, the environment in Washington has to worry you. Repeated wild accusations that never seem to be proved but morph into another critical iteration, relentless criticism of what has become generic political behavior but is presented as uniquely Trumpian, now secret hearings where things are carefully and selectively leaked. (So far, no torture seems to be involved.) While all of this is unfair, it is pointed, planned and organized. It is a teaching moment as to how important an objective and un-invested Press is to a democracy. And a warning as to the threat posed by those enlightened ones who want to sacrifice principles for a greater good.
On March 2, 2018, when Fox Business Network’s “Mornings With Maria” asked whether China would retaliate against the metal tariffs, Mr. Trump’s economic adviser Peter Navarro replied, “I don’t believe any country in the world is going to retaliate for the simple reason that we are the most lucrative and biggest market in the world.” He was wrong: Everyone has retaliated against us. A recent study by the economists Mary Amiti of the Federal Reserve, Stephen J. Redding of Princeton and David Weinstein of Columbia shows that our trading partners, “especially China, have retaliated with tariffs averaging 16 percent on approximately $121 billion of U.S. exports.”--de Rugy
A 25-year-old driver today arrested on suspicion of murder after 39 bodies were found in his lorry in Essex.
Assortive Mating. Smart women with good educations are marryng smart well-educated men. Their children are often smart and get good educations. This, believe it or not, is being seen as a social problem, an argument (from Milanovic) that can become very scary.
"Looking at twenty-two countries around the world, Miles Corak showed in 2013 that there was a positive correlation between high inequality in any one year and a strong correlation between parents’ and children’s incomes (i.e., low-income mobility). This result makes sense, because high inequality today implies that the children of the rich will have, compared to the children of the poor, much greater opportunities. Not only can they count on greater inheritance, but they will also benefit from better education, better social capital obtained through their parents, and many other intangible advantages of wealth. None of those things are available to the children of the poor."
These dangerous things like individual choice and decision have serious consequences for those who make bad choices and decisions. Now, just how could a good hearted bureaucrat help here....?
“When an issue becomes a vital part of a political agenda, as is the case with climate, then the politically desired position becomes a goal rather than a consequence of scientific research.”--Lindzen
On this day in 1648, the Treaty of Westphalia was signed, ending the Thirty Years' War and radically shifting the balance of power in Europe. The Thirty Years' War, a series of wars fought by European nations for various reasons, ignited in 1618 over an attempt by the king of Bohemia (the future Holy Roman emperor Ferdinand II) to impose Catholicism throughout his domains. Protestant nobles rebelled, and by the 1630s most of continental Europe was at war. As a result of the Treaty of Westphalia, the Netherlands gained independence from Spain, Sweden gained control of the Baltic and France was acknowledged as the preeminent Western power. The power of the Holy Roman Emperor was broken and the German states were again able to determine the religion of their lands.
The principle of state sovereignty emerged as a result of the Treaty of Westphalia and serves as the basis for the modern system of nation-states.
Happy Birthday Earth One Day LateThis is one of my favorite days of the year. Today is the birthday of the earth.
James Ussher was born in Ireland in 1581. His mother was Catholic but he grew up a Calvinist. He became a priest, was a well regarded academic and scholar. He became Bishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland in 1625 and continued so until his death in 1656.
But, while a powerful and influential political and religious figure, he is known best for his historical research into the age of the earth. He started with Adam. The bible records an unbroken line from Adam to Solomon. There were some estimates necessary because not all of the information correlates perfectly, and there is some guesswork from begat to begat.
After Solomon, more historical resources were necessary but good historic points existed up to the Destruction of the Temple. After this--the so-called Late Age of Kings from Ezra to Jesus--the Bible offered little help and most of the dates had to be taken from independent history. For example, the death of the Chaldean King Nebuchadnezzar II, who conquered Jerusalem in 586 B.C., could be correlated with the 37th year of the exile of Jehoiachin (2 Kings 25:27).
He finally published his most famous work, the Annales veteris testimenti, a prima mundi origine deducti ("Annals of the Old Testament, deduced from the first origins of the world"), which appeared in 1650, and its continuation, Annalium pars posterior, published in 1654. In this work, he calculated the date of the Creation to have been nightfall on October 22, 4004 B.C.. Probably at 6 p.m..
Before you roll your eyes, be aware that his estimates do not differ much from other such bible-based estimates of the time, estimates from significant thinkers, notably Johannes Kepler who estimated the birth of the earth as 3992 B.C. and Isaac Newton as 4000 B.C.. And Ussher was a very accomplished man; his collected works make up eighteen volumes.
The annoying and disappointing Stephan Jay Gould would write in "Fall in the House of Ussher" in Eight Little Piggies:
I shall be defending Ussher's chronology as an honorable effort for its time and arguing that our usual ridicule only records a lamentable small-mindedness based on mistaken use of present criteria to judge a distant and different past
Ussher represented the best of scholarship in his time. He was part of a substantial research tradition, a large community of intellectuals working toward a common goal under an accepted methodology…So times change. Methodologies change. And brilliant minds work within their contexts. And some, despite their greatest efforts, will be remembered only for their errors.
Happy Birthday, Earth!
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