Dec 08 2012
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Dec 08 2012
Frank Capra– It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) (2:10)
His pictures let viewers witness “a triumph of the individual over corrupt leaders”, and experience “inherent qualities of kindness and caring for others.” Most of his best works have been revived, and are today considered timeless fables filled with love and respect for the struggles of the common man.
Dec 08 2012
Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette
This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future
Find the past “On This Day in History” here.
December 8 is the 342nd day of the year (343rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 23 days remaining until the end of the year.
John and I are in our Dakota kitchen in the middle of the night. Three cats – Sasha, Micha and Charo – are looking up at John, who is making tea for us two.
Sasha is all white, Micha is all black. They are both gorgeous, classy Persian cats. Charo, on the other hand, is a mutt. John used to have a special love for Charo. “You’ve got a funny face, Charo!” he would say, and pat her.
“Yoko, Yoko, you’re supposed to first put the tea bags in, and then the hot water.” John took the role of the tea maker, for being English. So I gave up doing it.
It was nice to be up in the middle of the night, when there was no sound in the house, and sip the tea John would make. One night, however, John said: “I was talking to Aunt Mimi this afternoon and she says you are supposed to put the hot water in first. Then the tea bag. I could swear she taught me to put the tea bag in first, but …”
“So all this time, we were doing it wrong?”
“Yeah …”
We both cracked up. That was in 1980. Neither of us knew that it was to be the last year of our life together.
Dec 08 2012
I know none of my regular readers have a problem with concepts like this because…
Well basically because they’re not ignorant rubes who reject mathematics in favor of magic.
Dean Baker catches David Ignatius suggesting that trade liberalization can provide enough economic boost to offset the effects of austerity. As Dean says, the arithmetic is totally off – almost two orders of magnitude off.
Order of magnitude. What does that mean?
Without overly complicating things (there are 10 types of people, those who know binary and those who don’t) what makes our modern, Arabic system of numeric notation superior for quick calculation to that used by Rome is that we represent numbers positionally using a zero to indicate that no elements occupy a particular multiple of our base.
When you line numbers up in columns this gives you a quick and easy way to see which numbers are about the same size. Which is bigger- MM or MCMXCIX?
MM
MCMXCIX
Why MCMXCIX obviously, it has more numbers.
How about this way?
2000
1999
Now that’s actually a bad example because 1999 and 2000 are really close together. Let’s try something where we are actually displaying some orders of magnitude.
1
10
100
So 10 is 9 more than 1 and 100 is 90 more than 10. What’s important to notice is not only is 100 more than 10, it’s a lot more than 10. The difference is bigger between 100 and 10 than it is between 10 and 1, a lot bigger.
Conveniently for us the difference between 100 and 1 is exactly 2 orders of magnitude, just what Herr Doktor ordered.
Let’s look at what Dr. Baker says-
Ignatius’ trade deal will increase growth over the next decade by an average of 0.09 percent a year.
…
By comparison, the Congressional Budget Office’s projections show that the tax increases and spending cuts associated with the end of year fiscal dispute will reduce GDP by close to 4.0 percent, or roughly 40 times the impact of Ignatius’s trade deal.
40 times? How does he come up with that number? If we take out the confusing decimal place it looks like this-
9
400
So the real number is something like 45 (44.4) times, but that’s still rather big.
Ok, so what does this have to do with the price of tea in China? Well, if you don’t know how to deal with orders of magnitude you might end up spending an awful lot more for your Chinese tea. Let’s look at another example.
Goldman Fined for Failing to Block Trader’s $8.3 Billion Bet
By Silla Brush, Bloomberg News
Dec 7, 2012 4:30 PM ET
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) will pay $1.5 million to settle U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission claims the firm failed to supervise a trader who hid an $8.3 billion position. One CFTC commissioner dissented, saying the penalty is far too small.
Goldman Sachs inadequately policed trades made by Matthew Marshall Taylor on seven days in late 2007, ultimately suffering more than $118 million in losses as his bets were unwound, according to the CFTC. Later, Goldman Sachs didn’t send the regulator “important information” on the incident that was provided to another industry watchdog, the CFTC said.
$1.5 million, that’s a lot of money isn’t it? Perhaps to you and I, but let’s take a look at those orders of magnitude shall we?
$8,300,000,000 == Amount of the illegal trade ($8.3 Billion)
$118,000,000 == Amount the trade lost ($118 Million)
$1,500,000 == Amount of the fine ($1.5 Million)
So the fine was $116.5 Million dollars less than Matthew Marshall Taylor cost Goldman Sachs just by being stupid and wrong and $8.2985 BILLION less than the amount of money at risk in the trade.
And a billion here and a billion there and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.
The moral of the story is, don’t let verbal shortcuts confuse you.
Dec 08 2012
Somewhere along the line the concept of equality has become muddled. We can certainly see that in deliberations around North America in the past week.
In Boise, ID, Helena, MT, East Aurora, IL and Canada we have seen what happens when the public chooses to consider the equality of minority people…especially those of us in minorities that most people don’t know much about, don’t want to know much about and generally detest anyway.
The idea that giving us equal protection under the law will endanger other people because a third set of people might take advantage of our protections is just ludicrous. It’s like saying that disabled people shouldn’t have protections because able-bodied people might use their set-aside parking spaces.
Dec 07 2012
Our regular featured content-
And these featured articles-
Write more and often. This is an Open Thread.
Dec 07 2012
Please keep in mind that I’m even less Jewish than I am Christian so if I differ in details it’s pure ignorance, not malice.
At some point a Syrian King named Antiochus captured Jerusalem, outlawed Judaism, looted the Temple erected by Solomon, and sacrificed pigs on the altar.
To be fair it might have been lobsters, the point is that to express his contempt and enmity he was as disrespectful as he could figure out how to be.
Shortly (as these things go in antiquity which has a much more relaxed and nebulous time frame than contemporary reality) after that a group of Jewish rebels recaptured the city and set about ritually re-dedicating the Temple, a process that involved continuous illumination from a lamp called a menorah.
The supply of oil for this task was limited to a single day and more would not be available for at least eight, yet miraculously the lamp continued to burn.
Further speculation on my part seems unwarranted. Should you be celebrating this season I wish you and yours a happy and enjoyable time.
Dec 07 2012
Welcome to the Health and Fitness News, a weekly diary which is cross-posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette. It is open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.
Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.
You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here and on the right hand side of the Front Page.
These salads are all substantial enough to eat as a meal and have enough calories to sustain you until the next. But you could serve smaller portions as a starter or side dish. I found that some, like the Asian chopped salad and the quinoa salad, had great staying power throughout the week. If you are vegetarian and want to include a high protein food in the salads that call for turkey or chicken, use the baked seasoned tofu in the Asian chopped salad. It would be a welcome addition to any of these salads.
~Martha Rose Shulman~
A lighter version of the classic California Cobb salad, which is a composed salad made with chicken breast, lettuce, avocado, tomatoes, chopped hard-boiled eggs, bacon and blue cheese.
Quinoa Salad With Avocado and Kalamata Olives
A delicious twist on a traditional Greek salad.
Turn a classic spinach salad into a light main course with the addition of some low-fat protein.
Turn a classic spinach salad into a light main course with the addition of some low-fat protein.
Asian Chopped Salad With Seasoned Tofu ‘Fingers’
Served with baked tofu “fingers,” this salad can hold any leftover vegetables you might have on hand.
Dec 07 2012
Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette
Citing everything from home schooling to abortion, 38 Republican senators block the ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities. The negotiations for the convention were completed by the administration of Pres. George W. Bush in 2006 and it was signed by Pres. Barack Obama in 2009. But somehow, according to these right wing conspiracy theorists, the disabilities convention, which is entirely based on the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, would even threaten the “sovereignty of the United States.”
The treaty, already signed by 155 nations and ratified by 126 countries, including Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia, states that nations should strive to assure that the disabled enjoy the same rights and fundamental freedoms as their fellow citizens. Republicans objected to taking up a treaty during the lame-duck session of the Congress and warned that the treaty could pose a threat to U.S. national sovereignty.
“I do not support the cumbersome regulations and potentially overzealous international organizations with anti-American biases that infringe upon American society,” said Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla.
Say what!? Protecting the rights of disabled Americans abroad is now “anti-American?” The irrational hatred of the United Nations by the radical Republicans has twisted their minds. Sen. Inhofe has allies in Tea Party favorites freshman Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), along with anti-feminist conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly:
At an event with former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) late last month, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) announced that 36 Republicans had signed a letter pledging to vote against the treaty.
Lee told Senators on Tuesday that the treaty “threatens the right of parents to raise their children with the constant looming threat of state interference.” [..]
Writing for World Net Daily on Monday, Santorum said the treaty had “darker and more troubling implications” and suggested that it would have meant the forced abortion his daughter because she has a rare genetic disorder. [..]
Conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly also warned in November that proponents were “using this treaty as an opportunity to promote their abortion agenda.”
Even with the support of former Republican presidential candidates and disable veterans, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-KS), present and looking frail and in a wheelchair, the convention failed to garner the necessary two third vote.
The Daily Show host Jon Stewart put it quite succinctly, “It’s official. Republicans hate the United Nations more than they like helping people in wheelchairs.” I just wish I could tell him that this is rock bottom for the Republicans: