Human Genomes, errors and chills...

Workout notes, dark, breezy (8 mph), chilly (just under freezing) and I ran my 5.1 mile course in 52:31. I didn’t feel THAT bad out there but was puzzled that my time was so slow…then I looked and found that is a typical time for this course.

I have my last spandex chase for the season this Saturday and the weather is supposed to be perfect. Hence I plan to pick up my packet super early and then drive home…and then jog to the start for a warm up (about 2.5 miles downhill). Now if I could pay a spandex wrapped MILF to set about a 7:50 pace for the first couple of miles…..

Posts
I haven’t read this whole article yet; I probably will tonight. But there have been many evolutionary changes in the past 5000 years that have shown up at least in the genetic level.

Being wrong Watch as John McCain and Lindsey Graham get hammered for their hypocrisy. Note: they blustered about Saddam Hussein having WMDs and complained about opposition to Condoleezza Rice when she was standing for Secretary of State.

Economy
Paul Krugman on types of errors in forecasting:

Some readers may recall the “Peter Schiff was right” campaign of 2009, a sort of public-relations blitz claiming that Schiff, an Austrian-oriented commentator, had foreseen everything correctly. It wasn’t really true even then; still, Schiff became a fixture of right-wing TV shows, constantly warning about how expansionary monetary and fiscal policies were about to produce hyperinflation.

Well, Cullen Roche catches a TV host actually putting Schiff on the spot, pointing out that he’s been predicting that hyperinflation since 2008, so where is it?

Good question. And I’d like to pursue the question a bit more, not just or even mainly about Schiff, but more broadly about the role of predictions — including wrong predictions — in economics.[...]

One kind of error, which everyone makes all the time, involves what you might call extraneous forces. If you didn’t know that there was going to be a war in the Middle East, or a confrontation over the debt ceiling, or whatever, your forecast may well be very badly wrong; too bad, but that doesn’t really speak to your underlying model. And by the way, this exoneration applies even if you should have known what was coming; all this says is that you may not be the right guy to listen to for short-run forecasts, which doesn’t necessarily say that you’re wrong about the bigger issues. [...]

Now, the thing about Schiff and all the other Austrians predicting runaway inflation is that they were right to make this prediction given their model. If you believe that a recession is caused by a failure on the production side of the economy, the result of past malinvestment or something, you should also believe that any attempt to correct this decline by expanding credit will simply result in too much money chasing too few goods, and hence a lot of inflation.

In other words, their model is wrong.

The upcoming battle over the fiscal cliff
Robert Reich suggests a bungee strategy:

Obama’s only real bargaining leverage comes from the fact that when the Bush tax cuts expire at the end of December, America’s wealthiest will take the biggest hit. The highest marginal income tax rate will rise from 35 to 39.6 percent (for joint filers), and the capital gains rate from 15 to 20 percent.

This will happen automatically if nothing is done between now and then to change course. It’s the default if Republicans won’t agree to anything else. It’s Obama’s trump card.

So rather than stoking middle-class fears about the cliff, the White House ought to be doing the opposite – reassuring most Americans they can survive the fall. To utilize his trump card effectively, Obama needs to convince Republicans that the middle class is willing to jump.

And the middle class can jump fearlessly if the White House and Democrats enact legislation that reinstates the Bush tax cuts for the middle class as of January 1.

The legislation would operate like a bungee cord — snapping the middle class back from the abyss of paying an extra $2,200 in taxes next year, even as the wealthy go over the cliff.

This bungee-cord legislation could be introduced early next year, but there’s no reason not to introduce it sooner — even now. And challenge Republicans to vote on it as we get nearer and nearer the precipice.

This would give the President’s “My2K” campaign the focus it needs — directly pressuring Republicans to support tax cuts for the middle class and not for the wealthy.

If Republicans won’t agree, they still face the cliff’s automatic tax increases on the rich. But they’re also revealed as shills for the rich — ready and willing to push the middle class over the edge in pursuit of even more wealth for their patrons.

We’ll see what happens.

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