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.
-
Archive for Short Takes »
- Lip Reading Babies: Utter nonsense!
Category Archives: Rants
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
Caution, Oligarchy at Work
OLIGARCHY: ol·i·gar·chy? [ol-i-gahr-kee]
–noun, plural -chies.
1. a form of government in which all power is vested in a few persons or in a dominant class or clique; government by the few.
2. a state or organization so ruled.
3. the persons or class so ruling.
1570s, from … Continue reading
Dangerous Seas
A few weeks ago I set sail down the coast of California, from Santa Cruz to Santa Barbara, and thereafter, for a few days out to the Channel Islands. The islands off the coast of California are a favorite destination … Continue reading
Pragmatic Action
Time for a rant.
It seems to me that America has become a nation paralyzed by fear into impractical inaction. Our greed bubble has popped. The wizards of finance have been unmasked and the pyramid has collapsed. The double-dip recession is … Continue reading
The Belief Barrier In Brief
Theory underlies ALL human experience including every seemingly raw observation or assertion of true fact. Theory is the vehicle of all conscious experience.
Simply put, theory-making consists of setting forth an assertion, no matter how trivial or grand, in which we … Continue reading
Grave Diggers’ Lies
Do you remember a few months back, when the U.S. media was busily burying Toyota’s reputation as the be-all and end-all of automotive quality? To me, the media’s myth-busting paroxysms came off more like a witch-hunt than investigative journalism. Now … Continue reading
The “I Can’t Remember Where I Left My Keys” Con
NYT, July 13, 2010 – “Rules Seek to Expand Diagnosis of Alzheimer’s“:
If the guidelines are adopted in the fall, as expected, some experts predict a two to threefold increase in the number of people with Alzheimer’s disease.
The new guidelines include … Continue reading
Friendscape
In a worthy July 4th NYT blog entry, “Friendship in an Age of Economics“, Todd May , a professor of Philosophy at Clemson University, gives himself over to some rather random thoughts on the nature of friendship. He draws upon Aristotle’s … Continue reading
Lost In The Funhouse
It seems to me that we have become so dazed and confused by our own razzle-dazzle that we are now lost in our own funhouse. We are searching for ways to exit the maze but at each turn we find … Continue reading
Gen. McChrystal’s Barking (Updated)
Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, commander of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force and U.S. Forces-Afghanistan, works on board a Lockheed C-130 Hercules aircraft between Battlefield Circulation missions.
U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Mark O’Donald/NATO
By Michael Hastings
Jun 22, 2010 10:00 AM EDT
In … Continue reading
Abby Sunderland Lost – and Found – In Me-Space (Updated)
Update: Sailor Abby Sunderland found safe in Indian Ocean
(Reuters) – A 16-year-old California girl trying to sail solo around the world is safe and well after a massive search and rescue was launched in the Indian Ocean when she triggered distress … Continue reading
Can BP Afford To Pay For What Cannot Be Bought?
Foremost amid the clamor over the Gulf of Mexico gusher has been the call for the mega corporation, British Petroleum, to compensate those affected by their risky behavior. The consensus opinion, at least up until today, seems to be that … Continue reading
Messages in Bottles
IF YOU ARE READING THIS MESSAGE then you have found one of the bottles I have been casting into the sea. I don’t know your name or where you live, but I am certain that you are not too far … Continue reading
Apple IStuff in a Post-BP World
“A shovel is a fine tool for digging holes, but a shovel that can only dig holes where the guy who sells it to you says you can dig holes…. Well I’m thinking maybe he just wants me to pay … Continue reading
The Price of Greed
It should come as no surprise that apocalyptic thinking is pretty much ground into my psyche. I was raised during the 50′s and 60′s, so my formative years were punctuated by air raid sirens, duck-and-cover drills, bomb shelters, and dread of nuclear … Continue reading
