Short Takes
- Lip Reading Babies: Utter nonsense!
January 17, 2012 | 8:54 pmSays psychologist David Lewkowicz of Florida Atlantic University, who led [a] study published yesterday…
’The baby in order to imitate you has to figure out how to shape their lips to make that particular sound they’re hearing,’’
Can you “figure out” why this is utter nonsense? I should as obvious as monkey see, monkey do. With this sort of thing passing for science, we are surely doomed.
- The Mark of Cain
November 9, 2011 | 3:13 amWatching Herman Cain duel with his female accusers is like watching the Jerry Springer Show. Not a pretty picture. If you partake, be sure an wash you hands afterwards.
- The Truth About Sovereign Debt
November 1, 2011 | 4:01 pmDuring the housing bubble people bet on rising home prices by taking out loans on to-good-to-be true terms and investment banking made bets on the rising home prices by lending on to-good-be-true terms. Everyone drank the Kool Aid. Prices went down. Having made bad bets, home owners should default on their loans and bankers should take their losses. This is the simple-minded logic of every-man-for-himself market economics.
The nations that joined the EU placed bets on rising economic prosperity that would come from joining the EU and adopting the Euro and borrowing from the EU banks on to-good-to-be-true terms. The EU investment bankers made speculative bets on EU member nations by lending them billions on to-good-to-be-true terms. The borrower economies went down not up. Everyone drank the Kool Aid and having made bad bets the borrowers should default on their loans and the bankers should take their losses. This too, is the simple-minded logic of every-man-for-himself market economics.
So how do the bankers hold the world hostage to their bad bets? They claim they are too big to fail. In other words, the only game they know is heads they win, tails we lose.
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Archive for Short Takes »
- Lip Reading Babies: Utter nonsense!
Category Archives: Current Events
Reality Doesn’t Make Deals
“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” — Albert Einstein
In an article in today’s NYT Dot Earth section, “Naomi Klein’s Inconvenient Climate Conclusions” Andrew Kevkin shares his e-converstation with Klein. The … Continue reading
The Wrong Story
Apropos of my post yesterday on the perils of nuclear power—a form of extreme energy production—Naomi Klein gives a wonderfully lucid explanation of how our dominant cultural story of an infinitely abundant world that will tolerate our most extreme efforts … Continue reading
Things Go Wrong
NYT, Dec. 7, 2011 – Japan Split on Hope for Vast Radiation Cleanup
In the United States, the average person gets six millisieverts of radiation a year. Around the Fukushima plant, officials evacuated areas where people would have gotten an estimated … Continue reading
Recipe: How to Succeed at Capitalism
NYT: JOHANNESBURG — An advocacy organization that helped to establish an international certification program to prevent the sale of so-called blood diamonds withdrew from the coalition on Monday, saying the effort was no longer effective.
Global Witness, is the first advocacy … Continue reading
Egypt Goes Islamist
NYT, December 1, 2011: CAIRO — Islamists claimed a decisive victory on Wednesday as early election results put them on track to win a dominant majority in Egypt’s first Parliament since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak…But a big surprise was … Continue reading
Insurgency American Style
James Fallows at the Atlantic magazine is a bit outraged by the disproportionate aggression by police against non-violent UC Davis demonstrators. He suggests the we need to train our police to use more appropriate methods.
It seems to me that war is … Continue reading
The Truth About Sovereign Debt
During the housing bubble people bet on rising home prices by taking out loans on to-good-to-be true terms and investment banking made bets on the rising home prices by lending on to-good-be-true terms. Everyone drank the Kool Aid. Prices went … Continue reading
Wagging the Dog
Dare I say it? Dare anyone say it?
Seriously now, do you really believe that the Right is about to choose Herman Cain to represent them in the 2012 election?
I can’t be the only one who is on to their game.
Clearly … Continue reading
SS Zombie
I have commented recently on this blog that zombieism is responsible for the tragic unraveling of Western society. As students of zombieism know, among the many disgusting characteristics of zombies, one looms largest—their monomaniacal single-mindedness. Once zombies fix themselves on … Continue reading
Zombie Abatement
As events are demonstrating daily, the rise of zombies is causing serious problems in society today. Urgent action is required. I offer the following white paper on zombie abatement for your immediate consideration.
Zombies have been a societal problem since humans … Continue reading
Which Comes First, the Public or the Private Sector?
Okay, okay! Some of you who have read my previous blog entry are thinking to yourselves that my explanation of private v. public begs the question of the which comes first, public or private jobs?
Allow me to give you a … Continue reading
Job Creation: Which Kind are Best?
Western economies are reeling from massive unemployment, largely due to a breakdown in market demand triggered by losses incurred by to-big-to-fail financial cabals who made bad bets in hopes of realizing big profits. In the United States the official number of unemployed … Continue reading
Freedom Day: Cut the Cord Nov. 5th
The 99-Percenters of the OWS movement are calling upon all freedom seeking Americans to cut themselves loose of their umbilical cords on November 5th, 2011 by transferring their money from profiteering parasitic financial combines to collaboratively owned, not-for-profit credit unions. A great … Continue reading
Take a Walk in the Park
My sympathies lie with the OWS crowd—the 99 Percenters as they call themselves. But I also can see that there is a basic problem with their well intentioned efforts. The 99′ers are angry about their sense that as the rich … Continue reading
Prey Takes Stand Against Predators (At last!)
The 99 Percenters are trying.
In today’s American food chain, 99% of us are the prey and 1% are the predators. The predators have become masters of the science of breeding and managing their prey. They work hard to keep their … Continue reading
