4 April 2011: Politics and other topics

President Obama: what has he done anyway? Surf here to play the “what has Obama done” game.

I have to question myself: I actually agree with Rush Limbaugh on something! (ok, I agree with him on a very narrow issue)

“These protests are now entering their fourth day. Never mind that nobody even knew about the burning of the Koran – it happened more than two weeks ago – until these devout Muslims brought it up. Never mind that the Koran gets burned all the time when Muslims blow each other up in their mosques. And never mind that the US burned Bibles in Afghanistan back in 2009.”

Non-political frauds Schneier on Security discusses two different kind of e-book frauds:

Currently there are two types of fraud. The first is content farming, discussed in these two interesting blog posts. People are creating automatically generated content, web-collected content, or fake content, turning it into a book, and selling it on an ebook site like Amazon.com. Then they use multiple identities to give it good reviews. (If it gets a bad review, the scammer just relists the same content under a new name. That second blog posts contains a screen shot of something called “Autopilot Kindle Cash,” which promises to teach people how to post dozens of ebooks to Amazon.com per day.

The second type of fraud is stealing a book and selling it as an ebook. So someone could scan a real book and sell it on an ebook site, even though he doesn’t own the copyright. It could be a book that isn’t already available as an ebook, or it could be a “low cost” version of a book that is already available. Amazon doesn’t seem particularly motivated to deal with this sort of fraud. And it too is suitable for automation.

A political fraud: Tim Pawlenty:

Wow. So Tim Pawlenty is using something I said on yesterday’s This Week in a new ad.

So, to clarify: nobody in Washington is doing anything about job creation. However, Republicans are working quite hard on job destruction.

And Pawlenty — who knows so little about the whole subject that he fell for a well-known zombie claim (killed by facts, but still shambling along) about soaring government employment — is hardly qualified to lecture anyone else on the issue.

It isn’t as if Mr. Pawlenty hasn’t gone on and one over stuff he knows nothing about before.

More on the economy

Remember the overriding GOP plan: the goal is to dismantle anything resembling socialism. That is why the idea that they are pushing for Medicare will make it even more expensive. The idea is to get rid of it.

Now if we really want to fix the debt…we have to TAX THE RICH:

Here’s the truth: The only way America can reduce the long-term budget deficit, maintain vital services, protect Social Security and Medicare, invest more in education and infrastructure, and not raise taxes on the working middle class is by raising taxes on the super rich.

Even if we got rid of corporate welfare subsidies for big oil, big agriculture, and big Pharma – even if we cut back on our bloated defense budget – it wouldn’t be nearly enough.

The vast majority of Americans can’t afford to pay more. Despite an economy that’s twice as large as it was thirty years ago, the bottom 90 percent are still stuck in the mud. If they’re employed they’re earning on average only about $280 more a year than thirty years ago, adjusted for inflation. That’s less than a 1 percent gain over more than a third of a century. (Families are doing somewhat better but that’s only because so many families now have to rely on two incomes.)

Yet even as their share of the nation’s total income has withered, the tax burden on the middle has grown. Today’s working and middle-class taxpayers are shelling out a bigger chunk of income in payroll taxes, sales taxes, and property taxes than thirty years ago.

It’s just the opposite for super rich.

The top 1 percent’s share of national income has doubled over the past three decades (from 10 percent in 1981 to well over 20 percent now). The richest one-tenth of 1 percent’s share has tripled. And they’re doing better than ever. According to a new analysis by the Wall Street Journal, total compensation and benefits at publicly-traded Wall Street banks and securities firms hit a record in 2010 — $135 billion. That’s up 5.7 percent from 2009.

Yet, remarkably, taxes on the top have plummeted.

4 April 2011; workouts and woo

Today’s workout: am: 4 mile run on the treadmill (10 minutes warm up, then 15 x 1 minute harder, 1 minute easier, plus 30 seconds for 40:30).
pm: weights:
Squats (smith): 10 x 135, 10 x 165, 7 x 185 (less depth), 10 x 135
Incline press: 10 x 115, 10 x 125, 3 x 135, 5 x 130
curls: 3 sets of 15 x 20 dumbbells
rows: 3 sets of 10 with 200 (Hammer machine)
pull downs: 3 sets of 10 x 120 (shoulder friendly grip)
sit ups: 4 x 25 (inclines)
ball (hamstring) 3 sets of 15.

Note: the vertigo, while much reduced, is still there (slightly). I feel much better but not quite at 100 percent.

Shoulder: still achy at times; I’ll see how it feels when the infection is completely gone. And the weather has threatened to be rainy.

Woo
Repeat after me: “woo” doesn’t work! Too see practitioners of woo get totally owned:

Here some BS artist (who claims to be able to knock people over without touching them) gets his behind kicked by an MMA fighter.

India: fake holy men

(hat tip for the India related videos: Mano Singham)

Of course, he have our own form of ignorance in the west: astrology, homeopathy, etc. Probably the best known one is “religion”.

3 April 2011 late…

The ND-UConn game is tight at the moment.

Here are a couple of interesting videos; both are old but appropriate at the moment:

People shouldn’t have the right to stifle speech by acting out.

Freedom from state imposed religion. I like the argument here: people are free to pray all they want; they aren’t entitled to have the government lead the prayers.

NCAA Women’s Basketball Final Four

Final: 63-62 Aggies Stanford lead going into the final minute; there were 5 lead changes. Stanford went up a 35 seconds to go, then again with 12 seconds to go. The winning shot was a driving lay-up with 3 seconds to go. Games don’t get any better than that.

I only made it to 10 minutes to go in the ND-UConn game; ND lead 41-38 and I was mildly surprised that ND held on.

Irish-Aggies in the finals; it should be pretty good!

(photo from yahoo)

Class Warfare

Yes, it is being waged by the top 1 percent on the rest of us. Hopefully, they will realize that it is NOT in their best long term interests to keep doing so.

Hat tip: Mano Singham.

3 April 2011

Today’s walk: 6.5 miles with Lynn then 5.5 more on my own; I rode with her to the Riverplex from where we walked a 6.5 mile course together. I did the remaining .5 on my own and then told her to let me walk home; I got my extra 5 by walking one mile to the marina then returning.

It was sunny to partly cloudy, dry, and very windy. Though the first 6.5 was very slow, it was enough to induce a bit of fatigue to make my 5.5 net uphill challenging.

Personal: I broke down and got a Sunday subscription to the New York Times; with that comes free internet access. I’ll have to become a regular of their science stuff.

Progress…

This morning: I was a lazy dog and didn’t get out the door until 10:30 am.
By then the park was..well…not exactly crowded but not completely empty (as I am used to).

Time: 1:00:30, which included some effort toward the end. This compares to 1:01:52 last week and 1:04:36 a month ago. Part of the improvement is that I am getting over my ear infection. But hey, at a rate of 4 minutes off per month, I’ll be world class in 8 month’s time!

Yes, I use examples like this to explain the limits of linear extrapolation.

As far as the run itself, it, while not great, was the best one I had in a while; very steady if not fast.

The course itself:

On April 1, they open the gates inside of Bradley Park (you can see the course that I do here) which means that there might be cars on the various hilly sections.

Here is the start of one of the hills (note the open gate)

The summit

and an old bridge whose metal parts date back to the 1890′s:

So, my course consists of a 1.05 mile run to the park entrance through neighborhoods which includes one busy road crossing, a drop to the lower park, two 1.3 mile loops (hilly), one .6 mile loop then an uphill and then back on 1.05.

2 April 2011: Free Speech

Some of us have read about this:

Seven foreign UN workers were killed in Afghanistan by protesters angered by a Koran burning in the United States, in the deadliest attack on the UN there since the 2001 invasion.

Four Nepalese, one Swedish, one Norwegian and one Romanian worker were believed to have been killed Friday, and several protesters killed or wounded after a mob overwhelmed guards at the UN compound in the normally relatively calm city of Mazar-i-Sharif.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the violence following a battle of over three hours in which part of the building was burned down amid small arms fire and explosions, an AFP correspondent at the scene said.

US President Barack Obama condemned the attack “in the strongest possible terms”, while UN chief Ban Ki-moon said it was “an outrageous and cowardly attack against UN staff which cannot be justified under any circumstances”.

So, the question is: do we have the right to burn the Koran or any other so-called “holy book”?

Note: the question isn’t: “should we do that”. After all, someone has the right to say that “Mexicans are too stupid to fit into a civilized society”. That doesn’t make that statement true. And yes, we SHOULD keep some of our opinions to ourselves. But what about having the right to do that?

From the Harris article:

There is an uncanny irony here that many have noticed. The position of the Muslim community in the face of all provocations seems to be: Islam is a religion of peace, and if you say that it isn’t, we will kill you. Of course, the truth is often more nuanced, but this is about as nuanced as it ever gets: Islam is a religion of peace, and if you say that it isn’t, we peaceful Muslims cannot be held responsible for what our less peaceful brothers and sisters do. When they burn your embassies or kidnap and slaughter your journalists, know that we will hold you primarily responsible and will spend the bulk of our energies criticizing you for “racism” and “Islamophobia.”

I have to agree. But while it is unfair to compare the attitudes of Muslims in the United States with those in countries such as Afghanistan, check this out:

In a shocking poll coming out of Britain, it has been revealed that around a third of young British Muslims favour killing in the name of Islam. This according to a survey revealed by the WikiLeaks’ publication of U.S. diplomatic cables. The survey of 600 Muslim students at 30 universities throughout Britain found that 32% of Muslim respondents believed killing in the name of religion is justified.

A U.S. diplomatic cable from January 2009 quoted a poll by the Centre for Social Cohesion as saying 54% wanted a Muslim party to represent their world view in Parliament and 40% want Muslims in the UK to be under Sharia law.

Yes, these are young Muslims in Britain, but this is unacceptable.

So we have two things going on: on one hand, people have the right to practice their religion, so long as their practice doesn’t take away the rights of anyone else. On the other hand, they have no right to expect the rest of society to “respect their beliefs” or to refrain from making critiques.

People who can’t accept that have no business living in the United States.

2 April Humor (lighten up edition)

These cartoons and features struck my funny bone:

see more funny videos, and check out our Yo Dawg lols!

2 April 2011

This is the President’s weekly address: he speaks about energy.

Economy:

Here is the good news:

and:

Today’s employment report shows that private sector payrolls increased by 230,000 in March, marking 13 consecutive months of private employment growth. Private sector employers added 1.8 million jobs over that period, including more than half a million jobs in the last three months. The unemployment rate fell for the fourth straight month to 8.8 percent. The full percentage point drop in the unemployment rate over the past four months is the largest such decline since 1984, and, importantly, it has been driven primarily by increased employment, rather than people leaving the labor force.

Here is the bad news:

(from here)

A NOTE ON THE TWO CHARTS: I am aware that the first job chart is “job gains by month” (with losses pointing downward) and the second one is total jobs (including public sector). Also, the second chart is one month behind the first one.

But this puts the two job charts in context: the first one talks about jobs lost/created (e. g. the derivative of job creation) and the second one is where the jobs numbers actually are.

Or put another way: we are no longer sliding back down the well; in fact we have some upward movement (finally!). Nevertheless, we have a long, long, long climb back to the top and our current rate of progress will not get us there soon; remember that the jobs created have to be enough to give the currently unemployed jobs AND handle new job seekers.

Paul Krugman goes into more detail:

There has been some celebrating over the jobs report, and for sure 200,000 jobs is better than 100,000, or none at all. But still: here’s the employment-population ratio: