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silveradeptGood morning, seekers of information. Of use to anyone who has to navigate the sometimes confusing set of medical portals in search of good and useful information, the Medical Library Association offers their User Guide, as well as their top tens of various types of health websites, so as to winnow down the search into something manageable.
For those with a more philosophical bend, observe the possibility that in the post-scarcity economy, bullshit and branding will be the only way to get them to pay money for anything.
The Dead Pool claims Benoit Mandelbrot, the mathematician for whom the Mandelbrot sets were named, at 85 years of age.
If you live in the United Kingdom of England, Scotland, Wales, and North Ireland or in the Irish Republic, there will be one million books given away - 50 copies from 20,000 people, on 1 December 2011. Nominations are now in process for the list of 25 titles that will be bought in multiple to make up the one million books. 20 must be by living authors of the UK or Ireland, five are wild cards that can be from anyone, anywhere, living or dead. After that, they will be solicitng applications for the 20,000 persons that will be given the 50 titles to give away. Support for the project is extensively funded by the BBC and RTE. Woooooooooo, free books!
Elsewhere in the world, Myanmar cements the perception of "sham" in its upcoming elections by refusing foreigners access to the process or the ballots to verify. The country claims it need not allow in foreign correspondents because it has domestic correspondents working for foreign newspapers that will do just fine.
Yemen's offensive against alleged members and strongholds of al-Qaida in the country continues, as a member of NATO alleges that Osama bin Laden is alive and well, and living in Pakistan. The offensive makes for an interesting comparison to a different piece saying the United States has been trying to get Yemen to fight al-Qaida in the country for a long time with little success.
Iran releases an American that it had held without charge for two years, alleging ties to a group but never formally prosecuting the case. Makes you glad that we don't practice anything like that in our country, right?
Iraq's Prime Minister is traveling to Iran and Jordan to attempt to secure their endorsements for his bid to be reinstalled at the head of the government.
Finally, the prime minister of Germany, Angela Merkel, has said that multicultralism has failed in her country and that immigrants, while welcome, need to do more to assimilate, including learning German, apparently echoing a sentiment of much of her population that foreigners came to work, have stayed, and are now overrunning the country and taking things from native Germans. Odds up on when Germany passes something more like SB 1070?
Domestically, what does it say about the sad state of how we fund our schools that a reality show about fixing them can be approved and that the corporations that are responsible for much of their run-down-ness get a free pass as saviors?
And furthermore, what kind of country is it where people attempting to ask legitimate questions or political candidates are handcuffed and threatened with trespass?
Not to mention the court system that considers cartoons to be humans, at least when it comes to depictions of underage sexual activity.
At least we have the President hosting a science fair in the White House and appearing on Mythbusters. Yay, science!
Although it's not all puppies and kittens. The DEA feels slighted when the President mentions Justice and the FBI in the War on (Some) Drugs, without confirming their acting head or mentioning them at all.
Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics wants to take a closer look at Walter Schumm's paper that posits the children of gay men and lesbians are more likely to become gay men and lesbians themselves, based on statistical analyses and meta-analysis of studies already done counting numbers. At first glance, though, it looks like he's not trucking in ideologies that would kill his chances of scientific reliability, and he seems at least on good terms with Occam about the reasons why the numbers might be significantly higher in lesbian and gay families. Speaking of the QUILTBAG, an impassioned plea by a city councilmember detailing hi own experiences with being bullied is thirteen minutes of Internet-viral plea for kids to realize it gets better, but also to teachers, counselors, and the adults in their life to provide much-needed support and to foster a safe environment for those children. That's the more important facet - to the thirteen year-old mind, you can tell them that it gets better, but you've got to be able to show it, as well, to provide concrete examples directly in their lives that things are going to stop or get better, or it's just more words from someone who doesn't really care enough to try and stop it.
Last out, the architect of a rescue of more than 500 pilots from that-which-was-Yugoslavia during World War II received a Bronze Star for the successful mission several decades after completing it.
In technology, the Chrysler corporation developed a turbine-powered vehicle in the 1950s...but the technology never came to commercial production.
It appears by mining the mood of the masses on Twitter, one can potentially divine the movements of the stock market. Given a big enough sample, Seldon can predict the future.
Scientists believe the pattern of watter as it falls from a tap and hits a sink is the same pattern of a white hole, the time-reversed counterpart to a black hole. It thus creates an environment where nothing can get in behind the event horizon, as opposed to black holes, where nothing inside the event horizon can escape it.
Popularity can apparently be bought, at least with YouTube. Something about this smacks heavily of botnets and other potentially illegal activities...
Last out of technology, meteor showers upcoming - hopefully you see them.
Leading opinions is Mr. Greenwald, saying the War on (Some) Drugs and the War On Terror both have similar roots and ends - keep the population afraid so as to stop them from questioning, while also maintaining the power of the people those wars are aupposed to be dismantling.
Mr. Berkowitz, in defending the legitimacy of the Tea Party movement as grassroots and leaderless, claims that liberals decry it because they don't understand and weren't taught by their professors how the Tea Partiers are really just Anti-Federalists looking for limited government. At least, the True Scotsmen among them are - Mr. Berkowitz has a very narrow definition of what constitutes Proper Tea Partiers. MeidaPunk gives an excellent rundown of why Mr. Berkowitz is not only myopic, but wrong in his assessment.
Mr. Rago makes his case for the repeal of the health care bill by pointing at the 2018 beginning tax on excellent health plans, the taxes on the health insurance industry, and the apparent shrinking of plans and increased cost to those on Medicare Advantage. Who put those bits in? I do believe the "Cadillac" insurance thing was a Republican Take That to unions and collectively-bargained health plans, which are generally better than the ones given when private sector employees have only individual power. Convenient to be able to criticize something they helped put in.
Speaking of health care, I continue to point this out in a futile attempt that someone will notice it and ask the underlying question, but so far, I haven't seen any takers. Bill O'Reilly says the voters are furious about their health care costs going up, because the companies are stockpiling cash to pay for the new health care mandates, which he ultimately blames for the problem. Maybe it's easier to blame the government for when things like this happen, but shouldn't they be scrutinizing the companies? If the company's stockpiling cash and jacking up rates and blaming the mandates as their excuse, do you want to take a company that makes profit by raising rates and denying coverage at their word that they need all that extra money? What part of their profits will be eaten up by the new mandates? If they say "none", then shouldn't that be a warning sign that they're playing all the angry voters for idiots?
Instead, meaningful discussions about what sort of new forseen and unforseen problems might develop out of mandates requiring electronic records systems, but preferably without all the "Obamacare evul" drek obscuring a perfectly sound point.
Mr. Barnes checks in with the largely irrelevant RNC to confirm that they're still going to be largely irrelevant and let outside groups that don't have to disclose their donors do the heavy lifting and advertising. Mr. Steele's chairmanship looks to be a quiet one, and this might turn out to be beneficial in all ways, anyway. It gives cover to those who want to be anonymous, has sparked a bit of a discussion about why giving peopel cover like that is probably a bad idea and let smartasses make what they think is a simple point - extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence - while utterly misreading who the burden should be on to prove they're on the up and up. Hint: It ain't the government. Corporations and those entities collecting and spending the money have the burden of proving that they're in compliance, especially when the auditor comes knocking. Otherwise, they should be treated suspiciously.
Mr. Spencer is pleased that the prosecutors of the Geert Wilders case in Amsterdam say that he should be found not guilty of inciting hate speech, and spends half of his column talking about how Dutch law about material that incites violence should not be selectively applied to make Mein Kampf illegal and let the Qu'ran through, and that he has a personal distate for book banning of any sort. Had he stopped there, it would have been a good column. Unfortuantely, he then mars it horribly by declaring that the statement Islam is the Bloodthirsty Religion set upon conquering all of us and subjugating us to their will is the unvarnished truth, and any attempts to say otherwise is advancing the goal of imposing the barbaric Sharia on everyone and will be used as a precedenct to silence those few people awake to the truth under hate speech laws.
Last out, Ms. Novick suggests that instead of moratoria on foreclosures, we develop a special bankruptcy chapter to allow those people who should be foreclosed on to clear up their own balance sheets and for the housing market to proceed in an orderly fashion with disposing of their toxic assets. Well, perhaps once all the paperwork problems are resolved so that the people in forcelosure and court have all their ducks in a row to allow for orderly procedure...
Last for tonight, Yes, Peter Jackson will be doing The Hobbit. In 3-D. But, as far as I know, Leonard Nimoy will not be singing.
For those with a more philosophical bend, observe the possibility that in the post-scarcity economy, bullshit and branding will be the only way to get them to pay money for anything.
The Dead Pool claims Benoit Mandelbrot, the mathematician for whom the Mandelbrot sets were named, at 85 years of age.
If you live in the United Kingdom of England, Scotland, Wales, and North Ireland or in the Irish Republic, there will be one million books given away - 50 copies from 20,000 people, on 1 December 2011. Nominations are now in process for the list of 25 titles that will be bought in multiple to make up the one million books. 20 must be by living authors of the UK or Ireland, five are wild cards that can be from anyone, anywhere, living or dead. After that, they will be solicitng applications for the 20,000 persons that will be given the 50 titles to give away. Support for the project is extensively funded by the BBC and RTE. Woooooooooo, free books!
Elsewhere in the world, Myanmar cements the perception of "sham" in its upcoming elections by refusing foreigners access to the process or the ballots to verify. The country claims it need not allow in foreign correspondents because it has domestic correspondents working for foreign newspapers that will do just fine.
Yemen's offensive against alleged members and strongholds of al-Qaida in the country continues, as a member of NATO alleges that Osama bin Laden is alive and well, and living in Pakistan. The offensive makes for an interesting comparison to a different piece saying the United States has been trying to get Yemen to fight al-Qaida in the country for a long time with little success.
Iran releases an American that it had held without charge for two years, alleging ties to a group but never formally prosecuting the case. Makes you glad that we don't practice anything like that in our country, right?
Iraq's Prime Minister is traveling to Iran and Jordan to attempt to secure their endorsements for his bid to be reinstalled at the head of the government.
Finally, the prime minister of Germany, Angela Merkel, has said that multicultralism has failed in her country and that immigrants, while welcome, need to do more to assimilate, including learning German, apparently echoing a sentiment of much of her population that foreigners came to work, have stayed, and are now overrunning the country and taking things from native Germans. Odds up on when Germany passes something more like SB 1070?
Domestically, what does it say about the sad state of how we fund our schools that a reality show about fixing them can be approved and that the corporations that are responsible for much of their run-down-ness get a free pass as saviors?
And furthermore, what kind of country is it where people attempting to ask legitimate questions or political candidates are handcuffed and threatened with trespass?
Not to mention the court system that considers cartoons to be humans, at least when it comes to depictions of underage sexual activity.
At least we have the President hosting a science fair in the White House and appearing on Mythbusters. Yay, science!
Although it's not all puppies and kittens. The DEA feels slighted when the President mentions Justice and the FBI in the War on (Some) Drugs, without confirming their acting head or mentioning them at all.
Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics wants to take a closer look at Walter Schumm's paper that posits the children of gay men and lesbians are more likely to become gay men and lesbians themselves, based on statistical analyses and meta-analysis of studies already done counting numbers. At first glance, though, it looks like he's not trucking in ideologies that would kill his chances of scientific reliability, and he seems at least on good terms with Occam about the reasons why the numbers might be significantly higher in lesbian and gay families. Speaking of the QUILTBAG, an impassioned plea by a city councilmember detailing hi own experiences with being bullied is thirteen minutes of Internet-viral plea for kids to realize it gets better, but also to teachers, counselors, and the adults in their life to provide much-needed support and to foster a safe environment for those children. That's the more important facet - to the thirteen year-old mind, you can tell them that it gets better, but you've got to be able to show it, as well, to provide concrete examples directly in their lives that things are going to stop or get better, or it's just more words from someone who doesn't really care enough to try and stop it.
Last out, the architect of a rescue of more than 500 pilots from that-which-was-Yugoslavia during World War II received a Bronze Star for the successful mission several decades after completing it.
In technology, the Chrysler corporation developed a turbine-powered vehicle in the 1950s...but the technology never came to commercial production.
It appears by mining the mood of the masses on Twitter, one can potentially divine the movements of the stock market. Given a big enough sample, Seldon can predict the future.
Scientists believe the pattern of watter as it falls from a tap and hits a sink is the same pattern of a white hole, the time-reversed counterpart to a black hole. It thus creates an environment where nothing can get in behind the event horizon, as opposed to black holes, where nothing inside the event horizon can escape it.
Popularity can apparently be bought, at least with YouTube. Something about this smacks heavily of botnets and other potentially illegal activities...
Last out of technology, meteor showers upcoming - hopefully you see them.
Leading opinions is Mr. Greenwald, saying the War on (Some) Drugs and the War On Terror both have similar roots and ends - keep the population afraid so as to stop them from questioning, while also maintaining the power of the people those wars are aupposed to be dismantling.
Mr. Berkowitz, in defending the legitimacy of the Tea Party movement as grassroots and leaderless, claims that liberals decry it because they don't understand and weren't taught by their professors how the Tea Partiers are really just Anti-Federalists looking for limited government. At least, the True Scotsmen among them are - Mr. Berkowitz has a very narrow definition of what constitutes Proper Tea Partiers. MeidaPunk gives an excellent rundown of why Mr. Berkowitz is not only myopic, but wrong in his assessment.
Mr. Rago makes his case for the repeal of the health care bill by pointing at the 2018 beginning tax on excellent health plans, the taxes on the health insurance industry, and the apparent shrinking of plans and increased cost to those on Medicare Advantage. Who put those bits in? I do believe the "Cadillac" insurance thing was a Republican Take That to unions and collectively-bargained health plans, which are generally better than the ones given when private sector employees have only individual power. Convenient to be able to criticize something they helped put in.
Speaking of health care, I continue to point this out in a futile attempt that someone will notice it and ask the underlying question, but so far, I haven't seen any takers. Bill O'Reilly says the voters are furious about their health care costs going up, because the companies are stockpiling cash to pay for the new health care mandates, which he ultimately blames for the problem. Maybe it's easier to blame the government for when things like this happen, but shouldn't they be scrutinizing the companies? If the company's stockpiling cash and jacking up rates and blaming the mandates as their excuse, do you want to take a company that makes profit by raising rates and denying coverage at their word that they need all that extra money? What part of their profits will be eaten up by the new mandates? If they say "none", then shouldn't that be a warning sign that they're playing all the angry voters for idiots?
Instead, meaningful discussions about what sort of new forseen and unforseen problems might develop out of mandates requiring electronic records systems, but preferably without all the "Obamacare evul" drek obscuring a perfectly sound point.
Mr. Barnes checks in with the largely irrelevant RNC to confirm that they're still going to be largely irrelevant and let outside groups that don't have to disclose their donors do the heavy lifting and advertising. Mr. Steele's chairmanship looks to be a quiet one, and this might turn out to be beneficial in all ways, anyway. It gives cover to those who want to be anonymous, has sparked a bit of a discussion about why giving peopel cover like that is probably a bad idea and let smartasses make what they think is a simple point - extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence - while utterly misreading who the burden should be on to prove they're on the up and up. Hint: It ain't the government. Corporations and those entities collecting and spending the money have the burden of proving that they're in compliance, especially when the auditor comes knocking. Otherwise, they should be treated suspiciously.
Mr. Spencer is pleased that the prosecutors of the Geert Wilders case in Amsterdam say that he should be found not guilty of inciting hate speech, and spends half of his column talking about how Dutch law about material that incites violence should not be selectively applied to make Mein Kampf illegal and let the Qu'ran through, and that he has a personal distate for book banning of any sort. Had he stopped there, it would have been a good column. Unfortuantely, he then mars it horribly by declaring that the statement Islam is the Bloodthirsty Religion set upon conquering all of us and subjugating us to their will is the unvarnished truth, and any attempts to say otherwise is advancing the goal of imposing the barbaric Sharia on everyone and will be used as a precedenct to silence those few people awake to the truth under hate speech laws.
Last out, Ms. Novick suggests that instead of moratoria on foreclosures, we develop a special bankruptcy chapter to allow those people who should be foreclosed on to clear up their own balance sheets and for the housing market to proceed in an orderly fashion with disposing of their toxic assets. Well, perhaps once all the paperwork problems are resolved so that the people in forcelosure and court have all their ducks in a row to allow for orderly procedure...
Last for tonight, Yes, Peter Jackson will be doing The Hobbit. In 3-D. But, as far as I know, Leonard Nimoy will not be singing.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-19 05:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-19 06:58 pm (UTC)I appreciate you telling me that you look forward to seeing what we have to offer. Mr. Greenwald does have a bit of a touch among columnists.