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: Politics
Why the Newt is Winning
America is at war, not just abroad but also at home.
The Right is spoiling for a fight and they like Newt because, unlike Romney, he is a mean and nasty pit bull. The meaner and nastier the better!
The Left is … Continue reading
Bill Moyers Interviews Jacob Hacker & Paul Pierson on Engineered Inequality
If you haven’t seen this interview, it is well worth watching. After watching it, give some thought to follow up questions below.
Jacob Hacker & Paul Pierson on Winner Take All Politics from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.
Follow-up Questions:
If inequality is engineered by … Continue reading
Hallucinating in Santa Cruz
Help me! I can no longer bear to turn on the TV or listen to the radio. The nonsense has overwhelmed me. It’s like I’m on a bad LSD trip. I am thinking to myself, “I must be hallucinating”. I … Continue reading
A Perfect Storm?
NYT, Jan. 3, 2012: Iran Warns the United States Over Aircraft Carrier
“Iran’s military sharpened its tone toward the United States on Tuesday, bluntly warning an American aircraft carrier that left the Persian Gulf through the strategic Strait of Hormuz last week … Continue reading
Unknown Knowns
Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the United States secretary of defense, [said] that “There are known knowns… there are known unknowns … there are also unknown unknowns.” But the Irish problem, says Mr. O’Toole, was none of the above. It was … Continue reading
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
Who’s a Hack?
Dr. W. E. Deming, the physicist, statistician, business consulatant I most respect and admire, used to caution his audiences, beware of hacks. So who’s a hack and how can we know if you or I or us or they are … Continue reading
Acts of God man
In today’s NYT Science section: “Add Quakes to Rumblings Over Gas Rush”
Nine quakes in eight months in a seismically inactive area is unusual. But Ohio seismologists found another surprise when they plotted the quakes’ epicenters: most coincided with the location … Continue reading
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
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 Mark of Cain
Watching 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.
Democracy OR Capitalism?
Democracy and Capitalism are two very big ideas. Democracy is an idea about a method people can use to govern themselves. Capitalism is an idea about how some people think we should produce and distribute wealth among people.
So what do … Continue reading →