Friday, January 24, 2014

@14:41, 1/22/14

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1
Health

What's In Your Fish Oil Supplements?

By ANAHAD O'CONNOR | Jan 22nd 2014
Millions of Americans take fish oil supplements to promote heart and vascular health. But a new analysis suggests that some consumers may not always get what they are paying for.
Dietary Supplements and Herbal Remedies; Labeling and Labels; Medicine and Health; Omega-3 Fatty Acids 

I would rather eat fish more.
2
Business Day

Australia Divided on Fracking

By KATE GALBRAITH | Jan 22nd 2014
While the country appears to be ripe for developing natural gas from shale rock, environmentalists are fighting such projects.
Hydraulic Fracturing; Environment; Energy and Power 

There are always enthusiasts of "free" money.

Make the drillers pay all the costs.  Carbon always costs.
3
Science

List of Smoking-Related Illnesses Grows Significantly in U.S. Report

By SABRINA TAVERNISE | Jan 17th 2014

Tobacco is still legal.  Let's change that.
4
Business Day

Foxconn Ex-Managers Detained in Bribery Inquiry

By DAVID BARBOZA | Jan 22nd 2014
Authorities are investigating whether several former managers accepted millions of dollars in bribes from partners of the electronics maker, which is a main supplier to Apple.
Executives and Management (Theory) 

These payments are traditional though not proper.
5
Fashion & Style

Cartier’s Roses Bloom Eternal

By SONIA KOLESNIKOV-JESSOP | Jan 20th 2014
6
Dining & Wine

A New Outlet, Handy Sauce, Winter Cheese and More

By FLORENCE FABRICANT | Jan 21st 2014
7
Opinion

Stop Trusting Yourself

By DAVID DeSTENO | Jan 17th 2014
8
N.Y. / Region

All That Remained of 100 Elephants: A Ton of Ivory, Turned Into Trinkets

By JIM DWYER | Jan 16th 2014

They are guilty of conspiracy after trial.

9
U.S.

Same-Sex Newlyweds Sue Utah After Series of Rulings

By JACK HEALY | Jan 21st 2014

Good.

10
U.S.

Program to End Homelessness Among Veterans Hits Milestone in Arizona

By FERNANDA SANTOS | Jan 15th 2014
  
Concentration camps will be next.

11
Business Day

Funds Created to Offload Credit Risk From Big Projects

By JENNY ANDERSON | Jan 21st 2014
It is debt and adds to instability.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minsky_moment
12
Sports

Beasts of the East Display Some Offensive Flair in the A.C.C.

By RAY GLIER | Jan 17th 2014
13
Business Day

A Tiny Antenna Threatens the TV Networks’ Airspace

By LESLIE KAUFMAN | Jan 19th 2014
Chet Kanojia’s company, Aereo, has figured out how to grab over-the-air television signals and stream them to subscribers on the Internet. It is an invention that could topple TV titans.
Television; Copyrights and Copyright Violations 

I think they have him on retransmission.  Napster is no longer an entity.
14
Science

Stark Reminders of How Uncivil a War It Was

By DENISE GRADY | Jan 20th 2014
15
Movies

Cut Here, Cut There, but It’s Still 3 Hours

By ERIC HYNES | Jan 17th 2014
Thelma Schoonmaker, Martin Scorsese’s longtime editor, and the filmmakers Frederick Wiseman and Joshua Oppenheimer talk about the art of editing movies — long movies.
Movies 

Do justice to the story.
16
U.S.

Defendant Admits Sending Letter With Ricin to Obama

By ALAN BLINDER | Jan 17th 2014
J. Everett Dutschke, who mailed poison-tainted letters to public officials including President Obama, pleaded guilty to four counts in Oxford, Miss.
Threats and Threatening Messages; Ricin (Poison); Sentences (Criminal) 

A nasty man.
17
Fashion & Style

From Street Smart to Safari Savvy

By SUZY MENKES | Jan 17th 2014
Alexander Wang and Olivier Rousteing, for Balmain, offered collections that were very different but had the same spirit of sport.
Fashion and Apparel 

Making something from very little.  
A mix and match from the history of costume.
18
N.Y. / Region

For Christie and MSNBC, a Messy Divorce Plays Out in Public View

By MICHAEL BARBARO and BILL CARTER | Jan 19th 2014
The improbable relationship between a governor with his eyes on the White House and a network determined to break into the top tier has curdled in a spectacularly public fashion.
News and News Media; Presidential Election of 2016; George Washington Bridge 

I am cheering on the destructive conflict.
19
Magazine

Jeffrey Wright’s Gold Mine

By DANIEL BERGNER | Jan 16th 2014
The actor in his most morally complicated role yet: Prospector in Sierra Leone.
Mines and Mining 

Jeffrey Wright has mines and miners.  What he does not have is an assay 
operation for ore so he can pay the miners fairly for what they dig. He then needs a refining operation to extract the metals safely from the ores.
When he has an income he can develop the rate of ore production.

Cultivate the weeds.
All he has to do is buy the ore from the existing miners. 
They are already high grading.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_grading#Mining
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallurgical_assay
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectroscopy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salting_%28confidence_trick%29

20
Sports

Seahawks’ Harvin Is Held Out of Practice

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS | Jan 16th 2014
The availability of Seattle receiver Percy Harvin for the N.F.C. championship game against San Francisco was uncertain as Harvin continued to have concussion testing.
Football; Concussions 

Football and tobacco are dangerous to the users.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

@21:50


1
Movies

Gaining Accolades, Friends and Steam

By MELENA RYZIK | Jan 22nd 2014
Lupita Nyong’o, who is nominated for an Oscar for her role in “12 Years a Slave,” is this year’s most traditional ingénue and a front-runner for the prize.
Movies; Actors and Actresses; Academy Awards (Oscars) 

I have seen none of the films.  I have no plans to see them.
2
Opinion

We’ve Got Your Number

By LINDA GREENHOUSE | Jan 22nd 2014
The Supreme Court must decide how old precedents fit with new realities in cases involving cellphones and their users’ privacy.
Search and Seizure; Fourth Amendment (US Constitution); Gun Control; Data-Mining and Database Marketing; Wireless Communications; Cellular Telephones; Privacy 

I think the original decision was in error.
The billing details of the telephone are not shared with third parties.
This indicates that there is an expectation of privacy in the phone bill.
I see no way to prevent a government stealing the data.
Stolen data should not be presented as evidence or as probable cause for the issuance of a search warrant.
I am glad to see that Supreme Court decisions are precedent based.
The strict constructionists can sit down and be silent.
3
Fashion & Style

For Tresses Feeling Their Age

By HILARY HOWARD | Jan 22nd 2014
Pills with fish protein, laser treatments, even plasma injections are promoted to help keep hair looking its best as it ages.
Hair; Cosmetics and Toiletries; Skin; Spas 

Eat healthy.  I don't worry much about hair,  mine which is thinning 
or yours which I have not seen for years.
I would rather have you happy.

4
Opinion

A ‘Preventable’ Tragedy

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD | Jan 16th 2014
Damning details emerge in a Senate report on the Benghazi attacks.
Diplomatic Service, Embassies and Consulates; United States International Relations; Editorials 

Action is very difficult when the agency is starved of resources.
Hillary Clinton is not the enemy of our nation.
5
World

Letter from China: A Race Against Time for a Second Child

By DIDI KIRSTEN TATLOW | Jan 22nd 2014
Zhejiang Province has become the first to implement legal changes permitting many couples to have two children, after decades of only one. But elsewhere the wait is agonizing for many couples whose biological clock is ticking.
Biorhythms; Birth Control and Family Planning; Birth Rates; Law and Legislation 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhejiang_Province
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anhui_province

These provinces are outside but near Peking.
It looks like a move to get those anxious to have a second child away from the capital.  Heavy handed but it should work.  China will get its population crash and move the middle class out of the capital.

6
Business Day

A Tiny Antenna Threatens the TV Networks’ Airspace

By LESLIE KAUFMAN | Jan 19th 2014
Chet Kanojia’s company, Aereo, has figured out how to grab over-the-air television signals and stream them to subscribers on the Internet. It is an invention that could topple TV titans.
Television; Copyrights and Copyright Violations 

No.
7
Sports

Blue Jackets Win Fifth Straight

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS | Jan 17th 2014
Cam Atkinson scored twice, and goalie Sergei Bobrovsky continued his hot streak to lead the host Columbus Blue Jackets past the Washington Capitals, 5-1, for their fifth straight win.
Hockey, Ice 

Enjoy.
8
Opinion

Smoking Is Worse Than You Imagined

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD | Jan 18th 2014
The latest surgeon general’s report offers astonishing new evidence of just how much harm tobacco is causing.
Smoking and Tobacco; Lung Cancer; Surgeon General (US); Research 

Yes.
9
Science

List of Smoking-Related Illnesses Grows Significantly in U.S. Report

By SABRINA TAVERNISE | Jan 17th 2014
Long known to cause lung cancer and heart disease, smoking also causes diabetes, colorectal and liver cancers and erectile dysfunction, a new report from the United States surgeon general says.
Smoking and Tobacco; Liver Cancer; Death and Dying; Lung Cancer; Respiratory System; Research 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/19/opinion/sunday/smoking-is-worse-than-you-imagined.html?src=recg&module=Ribbon&version=origin&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Recommended&pgtype=article

Any one you influence should be advised to stop.  Stopping can be done.

What worked for me was buying a pack and smoking one.  I waited until my addiction insisted to smoke the next one.  
I continued until there was just one left.  
That took two or three weeks.  
I carried that last one for about a month and never did smoke it.
10
Opinion

What’s Happening With the Air Force?

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD | Jan 19th 2014
Cheating on tests is the latest in a growing list of alarming behavior by Air Force officers.
United States Defense and Military Forces; Nuclear Weapons; Cheating; Editorials 

The threat is not a continent wide strike but a bomb or six on selected rich targets.  The response to such an attack is not massive retaliation but a strike on selected targets.  The strike may not need to be nuclear.

It is time to send the bombs to ready reserve.
There will be time to get them out and deliver them at need.
We should maintain tritium production.

11
Health

W.H.O. May Begin Webcast of Health Ministers’ Meeting

By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr. | Jan 20th 2014
A move would allow health campaigners and journalists from many poor countries to at least watch the annual meeting, which considers questions of life and death.
Video Recordings and Downloads; Conventions, Fairs and Trade Shows; Medicine and Health; Third World and Developing Countries; Computers and the Internet 

No one wants to hear the bloviation but the speakers.
It is not the technical project but the production values.
The speakers love the captive audience.

12
Business Day

U.S. Offshore Wind Farm, Made in Europe

By DIANE CARDWELL | Jan 22nd 2014
The promise of new jobs and work for American companies failed to come true, revealing shortcomings in the American offshore wind industry.
Wind Power; United States Economy; Factories and Manufacturing; Energy and Power

Their subsidies are bigger than our subsidies.
 
13
Business Day

Ex-Managers at Foxconn Detained in Taiwan Bribery Case

By DAVID BARBOZA | Jan 22nd 2014

Tradition!

14
Opinion

How to Help Homeless Families

By DAVID BORNSTEIN | Jan 22nd 2014
There are programs out there, in the city and around the country, with an encouraging success rate.
Families and Family Life; Homeless Persons; Public and Subsidized Housing; Real Estate and Housing (Residential)

The demand for affordable housing is much greater than any community or combination of communities ability to supply that demand.

Going case by case works for those cases.  The line grows.
There is no profit and no honor in affordable housing.
 
15
Automobiles

Wheelies: The Better Efficiency Now Edition

By BENJAMIN PRESTON | Jan 16th 2014
An automotive panel in Detroit says 54.5 m.p.g. is possible with current technology; Subaru expects to sell 500,000 vehicles a year in the United States by 2016.
Automobiles; North American International Auto Show; Fuel Efficiency

My next car will be an old pickup truck from west of the Mississippi.
(No Rust, a small engine and manual transmission.)
You get what makes you happy.  Your happiness with your car is best.


16
Technology

Portable Charger Adds New Feature: Speakers

By GREGORY SCHMIDT | Jan 22nd 2014
PowerStick.com, the Canadian company behind the handy PowerStick charger, has ventured into new territory: portable speakers.
Speakers (Audio)

"The PowerSound is in an identity crisis: It can’t decide whether it wants to be a speaker or a charger, and it got stuck somewhere in the middle."

Get a cell phone dongle for your laptop.
Or just a USB cable from the laptop to your phone.
 
17
Arts

Conjuring the Global Dangers of Water

By NEIL GENZLINGER | Jan 21st 2014
Hurricane Sandy involved a gradual storm surge, over 24 hours, a “Nova” program says, while the surge of Haiyan, in the Philippines, occurred in just minutes.
Typhoon Haiyan (2013); Hurricane Sandy (2012); Weather; Tidal Waves and Tsunamis; Water; Television; Typhoons

Dr. Jeff Masters did a through job.

http://classic.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/article.html
 
18
Business Day

The Rationality Debate, Simmering in Stockholm

By ROBERT J. SHILLER | Jan 18th 2014
Three Nobel lectures continue a discussion that divides economists, and those in other social sciences as well.
Economics (Theory and Philosophy); Emotions; Stocks and Bonds; Philosophy

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/23/everything-new-is-old-again/
"

Everything New Is Old Again

Logistical note: I’ll be traveling the next couple of days — family, not work — so little if any blogging. Also, for those who like to plan their TV viewing far in advance, next week I’ll be doing SOTU commentary on CNN. I believe I’ve been assigned to discuss Michelle Obama’s wardrobe, or something.
But before we hit the very cold road, I thought I’d weigh in on an ongoing discussion about the state of Keynesian economics. Simon Wren-Lewis had a piece a few days ago that I never got around to discussing, and now John Quiggin has a further piece that lays out an interesting typology. I don’t really disagree with either piece, but have a slightly different take.
So Wren-Lewis asks whether the financial crisis and aftermath will lead to a revolution in macroeconomics. He thinks mostly not, and he’s probably right — but the absence of a revolution will be mainly for the wrong reasons.
There have been two big revolutions in macro. First was the Keynesian revolution, closely tied to the Great Depression; then the new classical counterrevolution, more loosely tied to stagflation in the 1970s. In the first case the linkage was obvious: Keynes offered a way to understand what was happening, and a solution too.
In the second case things weren’t quite so obvious — new classical models didn’t actually have anything much to say about inflation. But stagflation was predicted by Friedman and Phelps, using models that attempted to derive wage and price-setting behavior from rational choice. So the effect of the emergence of stagflation was to give a big boost to “microfoundations” as a modeling strategy
There was a limited Keynesian pushback, what Quiggin calls the Old New Keynesian economics. Basically, this approach tried to get as much rationality into the models as possible without reaching the conclusion that demand-side recessions can’t happen. So intertemporal optimization by consumers, optimal price-setting by firms, with just the caveat that for reasons not specified firms and/or workers had to set prices well in advance, so that surprises in demand could translate into real fluctuations.
There was never a compelling empirical case for this approach. Yet it became dominant for, I think, a couple of reasons. First, it aped the style of the new classical types, creating the illusion of intellectual convergence. Second,it was mathematically hard enough to give you the feeling that you were doing real theoretical work, not just writing down something ad hoc — and maybe even more important, hard enough to convince referees that it was serious stuff. Finally, on a more positive note, New Keynesian-type models did and do under certain circumstances force you to think harder about issues in a way that enhances your understanding, even if you don’t really believe them; that’s certainly been my experience, which is why I usually try to model macro issues both ways (old and new Keynesian), just to be sure I’m not missing something.
So now comes the Lesser Depression — and it turns out that the New Keynesian models have been of hardly any use, while old Keynesian approaches (sometimes with a consistency check using NK modeling) have been tremendously useful. The result has been the rise of what Quiggin, borrowing a phrase from Tyler Cowen, calls New Old Keynesian economics. I liked my term Neo-Paleo-Keynesianism, but whatever.
Quiggin says that I’m the leader in this movement; hey, I’ll take it, although Larry Summers is giving me a definite run for the money lately.
But will this sweep the academic world? No. Partly because of politics: as Quiggin says, new classical economics is effectively part of the broader right-wing apparatus of denial, into which awkward facts rarely penetrate.But there’s also a professional dynamic going on.
You see, both the Keynesian revolution and the classical counterrevolution had one great virtue for ambitious academics: they involved both new ideas and more elaborate math than their predecessors. (It’s often forgotten, but Keynesian economics and the Samuelsonian modeling revolution went hand in hand.) New Old Keynesian economics, on the other hand, involves turning away from hard math back toward rough-and-ready assumptions based on empirical observation. Aspiring up-and-coming economists may be able to publish empirical papers in this vein, but theoretical analyses are likely to be met with giggles and whispers. Just because the stuff works doesn’t mean that it will be publishable.

So I think we’re in for a long siege in which the economics that works remains virtually absent from economic journals (except policy journals like Brookings Papers) and largely untaught in graduate programs.

I hope I’m wrong."


"

The Euthanasia of the Rentier

A commenter quotes John Maynard Keynes:
The outstanding faults of the economic society in which we live are its failure to provide for full employment and its arbitrary and inequitable distribution of wealth and incomes.
It is, of course, a perfect quote for our times, too. It comes from the last chapter of the General Theory — a chapter that definitely bears rereading in the light of current debates.
For what Keynes describes in this chapter is, pretty much, a condition of secular stagnation — of persistently low returns on investment, in which there is a chronic oversupply of saving. He believed, in 1936, that this would be the state of affairs in the decades ahead, and was of course wrong in that belief. But he wasn’t wrong about the possibility of such a state of affairs, and since Larry Summers came out as a secular stagnationist, the view that we may well be there now has gone mainstream.
What struck me, looking at what Keynes wrote, were his remarks on interest rates and the return to capital: low rates of interest, he suggested,
would mean the euthanasia of the rentier, and, consequently, the euthanasia of the cumulative oppressive power of the capitalist to exploit the scarcity-value of capital.
Actually, for now at least profits remain high — but bond yields are very low.
What Keynes didn’t say, but now seems obvious, is that the rentiers are unlikely to accept their euthanasia gracefully. And therein, I’d argue, lies the ultimate explanation of the persistent clamor for monetary tightening despite weak economies and low inflation. I’ve described on a number of occasions how tight-money advocates are constantly shifting their arguments — it’s about inflation; no, it’s about sound market functioning; no, it’s about financial stability — but always with the same bottom line: rates must rise now now now.
Well, what I think we’re hearing is the sound of rentiers and those who, explicitly or implicitly, work for them, demanding their natural right to earn good returns even if the resource they control isn’t actually scarce anymore. They are not willing to go gently into their euthanasia."

19
Business Day

Finding Rewards, Financial and Spiritual, in E-Waste

By COLLEEN DEBAISE | Jan 16th 2014
Discarded consumer electronics are clogging landfills, fast-becoming a worldwide environmental calamity. One woman in Tulsa, Okla., is trying to make a dent.
Electronics; Hazardous and Toxic Substances; Recycling of Waste Materials; Small Business; Waste Materials and Disposal

Good job.
 
20
Automobiles

Upbeat Again, but Not Overconfident

By LAWRENCE ULRICH | Jan 17th 2014
The auto industry has been bouncing back, and at the Detroit auto show carmakers are showing off, presenting their new models and forward-looking concepts.
Automobiles; North American International Auto Show

I will have to look but not just now.
 


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