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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- Lip Reading Babies: Utter nonsense!
Category Archives: Rants
New Year’s Resolutions Predictions 2012
I did my first New Year’s Resolution blog back in 2010, resolving that we as a nation should set ourselves to work increasing goodness rather than misery. My resolution didn’t take. Since then, we’ve done more warring. Wealth differentials have … Continue reading
Here’s the smell of blood, still
December 22, 2011, NYT, BAGHDAD — A wave of coordinated explosions ripped across Baghdad early on Thursday, killing at least 63 people, wounding more than 180 and jolting a country already unsettled by a deepening political crisis and the absence … 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
Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean…
My “Master Control” toon-mix in yesterday’s post has got some people to thinking that I am becoming overly paranoid, but being paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you, whether that be today, tomorrow, or in some unanticipated future. … Continue reading
Letter to an Old Friend and Colleague
Dear Old Friend,
I know what you mean about wanting to get involved in some sort relevant project. Just sitting on the sidelines watching the world go to hell is driving me crazy too.
I read something a few months back in … Continue reading
Hostage Situation
SCENE
An intelligence operative sits at a console of sophisticated listening devices. He removes his headset and calls for his boss, the head of U.S. anti-terrorism operations, to come into the room.
Intelligence Operative: Sir, we have an intercept you’re going want to … Continue reading
Anthony Weiner: Stupid is as Stupid Does
In hi-tech America the art of doing stupid is being lifted to new heights. Take Anthony D. Weiner’s predicament. It’s enough to make the strongest of men cringe in horror. It’s one thing to have your mom or wife find … Continue reading
Clash of Stupidity
I have recently found myself in bad company. My posts on the subject of the recent Arab-Islamic revolts, in which I suggest that these events are not good news, sound to some like an echo of the xenophobic and fascistic … Continue reading
Jared Lee Loughne Got the Message
Today, in the NYT “Room for Debate” column, they pose the question “Does political speech lead to acts of political violence?” Stupid question.
This kind of question is being bandied about quite a bit lately. It drives me absolutely crazy!. This … Continue reading
Why I Hate Christmas
I have always thought of Christmas as the most unkind holiday known to man. As a genetic Jew, meaning that I am of the tribe but do not subscribe to the tribe’s dogma, Christmas has always represented the imposition of … Continue reading
Collapse: The Movie
It is not possible to continue infinite consumption and infinite population growth on a finite planet.
Michael Ruppert
I have a vivid memory from my time as an undergraduate student back in 1968. I was sitting in the office of Dr. Nick … Continue reading
The Box-Cutter Society
Almost a decade ago a small group of religious fanatics secreted box-cutter knives on their persons, boarded several passenger jets, and used their box-cutters to intimidate the crew and passengers aboard those jets into handing over control. The fanatics then … Continue reading
The Feminine Factor
I came of age during the rise of Feminist social theory. Among many flagrant errors, populist versions of Feminism conflated two contradictory ideological threads.
The first was about sameness. In matters of business and politics, money and power differentials between men … Continue reading
Woe Unto US
In yesterday’s NYT, Roger Cohen offered a sobering look at the deep and deepening divisions between have’s and have not’s in America. He opens his essay with:
“The “animal spirits” of which Keynes spoke are on the prowl across the United … Continue reading
May All Your Hallucinations Be Bright
I find the crass commercialism of Christ’s birthday celebration rather off-putting. This year it’s the media thing about Christmas being the salvation of American consumerism that’s getting me low.
Economists are hopeful, report the media. The good news is that sales … Continue reading →