Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Monday, November 15, 2010
The death panels cometh?
http://www.examiner.com/finance-examiner-in-national/nobel-prize-winning-economist-krugman-stands-up-support-of-death-panels
Nobel Prize winning economist Krugman stands up in support of death panels
DEATH PANELSNOVEMBER 15, 2010
BY: KENNETH SCHORTGEN JR
Paul Krugman on This Week with Christiane Amanpour
Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman was on The Week with Christiane Amanpour and spoke out on what was needed to solve the US debt crisis.
Some years down the pike, we're going to get the real solution, which is going to be a combination of death panels and sales taxes. It's going to be that we're actually going to take Medicare under control, and we're going to have to get some additional revenue, probably from a VAT. But it's not going to happen now."
The Obama healthcare plan passed by Congress in 2010 includes government-run healthcare committees with sweeping powers, including the power to engage in competitive pricing and cost analysis, a system Britain uses that has led to rationing of medical care for the elderly. - Newsmax article follows, to continue reading Examiner article, scroll down.
Newsmax article:
Economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman says the only way the U.S. will get its debt crisis under control is by the use of "death panels" and a national sales tax.
The national sales tax, referred to as value-added tax (VAT), which governments across Europe use widely, will help cut the U.S deficit, Krugman argues.
Krugman made his comments on ABC's “This Week with Christiane Amanpour” during a roundtable discussion about the economy and the recent findings of the U.S. Debt Reduction Commission.
Here's the key excerpt:
"Some years down the pike, we're going to get the real solution, which is going to be a combination of death panels and sales taxes. It's going to be that we're actually going to take Medicare under control, and we're going to have to get some additional revenue, probably from a VAT. But it's not going to happen now."
The Obama healthcare plan passed by Congress in 2010 includes government-run healthcare committees with sweeping powers, including the power to engage in competitive pricing and cost analysis, a system Britain uses that has led to rationing of medical care for the elderly.
Critics of the Obama plan, including former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, quickly dubbed the committees "death panels," saying government agencies would decide who would live and who would die. Supporters of the Obama health plan dismissed such suggestions as nonsense.
Krugman apparently thinks otherwise, and suggests that such death panels could be one way the federal government will be able to keep soaring medical costs under control as baby boomers enter retirement.
He continued: If the Debt Commission "were going to do reality therapy, they should have said, ‘OK, look, Medicare is going to have to decide what it's going to pay for. And at least for starters, it's going to have to decide which medical procedures are not effective at all and should not be paid for at all. In other words, it should have endorsed the panel that was part of the healthcare reform.’"
Krugman also criticized Republican plans to extend the Bush tax cuts fully, including those who make more than $250,000 a year.
He said: "The cost of permanently extending just the upper-end Bush tax cuts, as opposed to only extending the middle-class tax cuts, the 75-year cost of that is just about identical to the 75-year accounting shortfall in Social Security. So we've got people who are saying, ‘Oh, Social Security, got to do something about it, but let's extend those tax cuts for rich people. This is showing how the priorities are all skewed.’”
Apparently realizing his comments were inflammatory, Krugman took to his blog immediately Sunday afternoon to “clarify” his comments.
“I said something deliberately provocative on 'This Week,' so I think I’d better clarify what I meant, which I did on the show, but it can’t hurt to say it again,” he wrote. “So, what I said is that the eventual resolution of the deficit problem both will and should rely on “death panels and sales taxes.”
“What I meant is that:
"(a) health care costs will have to be controlled, which will surely require having Medicare and Medicaid decide what they’re willing to pay for — not really death panels, of course, but consideration of medical effectiveness and, at some point, how much we’re willing to spend for extreme care
"(b) we’ll need more revenue — several percent of GDP — which might most plausibly come from a value-added tax
"And if we do those two things, we’re most of the way toward a sustainable budget."
He then provided a link to a June 20 column in which he also described “death panels,” but only in passing and in a mocking way. The column is actually about budget deficits.
What he doesn't say is that he has written at least half a dozen columns repeatedly referring to death panels the last year in an ongoing effort to malign Palin and other conservatives.
Krugman also conceded his solution may be “politically impossible.” But, he added, “I believe that some day — maybe in the first Chelsea Clinton administration — it will actually happen.”
Examiner article, cont.
What is scary about this proposal is that Paul Krugman has been an advisor to the Obama administration on economic policy, and is a known Keynesian and socialist. Rationing of healthcare for Seniors is known in the business as 'death panels', and was put into the massive healthcare bill as a spurious way to remove one of the largest groups of social program recipients... the elderly.
You will notice as well, this 'famed' economist says nothing about cutting spending or wasteful programs, but instead is advocating a tax (VAT) on every single transaction that occurs in America.
Krugman later attempted to backtrack on his comments in his blog, but the truth of the matter is, when someone speaks without thinking, they are assuredly speaking what they truly feel in their hearts. Even with his backtracking, Krugman believes in his statements and has a fantasy world ideal of their potential implementation.
Krugman also conceded his solution may be “politically impossible.” But, he added, “I believe that some day — maybe in the first Chelsea Clinton administration — it will actually happen.”
Chelsea Clinton administration? Is it any wonder why radio host Michael Savage is correct in saying, "Liberalism is a mental disorder."?
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Chinese Supercomputer Likely to Prompt Unease in U.S.
By DON CLARK, WSJ
A newly built supercomputer in China appears poised to take the world performance lead, another sign of the country's growing technological prowess that is likely to set off alarms about U.S. competitiveness and national security.
The system was designed by China's National University of Defense Technology and is housed at the National Supercomputing Center in the city of Tianjin. It is part of a new breed that exploits graphics chips more commonly used in playing videogames—supplied by Nvidia Corp. NVDA -1.82% —as well as standard microprocessors from Intel Corp. INTC -2.32%
A new supercomputer in China appears poised to take the world performance lead, another sign of the country's growing technological prowess. Don Clark joins Digits to discuss.
Supercomputers are massive machines that help tackle the toughest scientific problems, including simulating commercial products like new drugs as well as defense-related applications such as weapons design and breaking codes. The field has long been led by U.S. technology companies and national laboratories, which operate systems that have consistently topped lists of the fastest machines in the world.
But Nvidia says the new system in Tianjin—which is being formally announced Thursday at an event in China—was able to reach 2.5 petaflops. That is a measure of calculating speed ordinarily translated into a thousand trillion operations per second. It is more than 40% higher than the mark set last June by a system called Jaguar at Oak Ridge National Laboratory that previously stood at No. 1 on a twice-yearly ranking of the 500 fastest supercomputers.
"I don't know of another system that is going to be anywhere near the performance and the power of this machine" in China, said Jack Dongarra, a supercomputer expert on the Oak Ridge research staff who is a professor at the University of Tennessee and recently inspected the system in Tianjin last week. "It is quite impressive."
The development was not altogether unexpected. China placed 24 systems in the so-called Top 500 supercomputer ranking last June; a system called Nebulae, for example, took second place that also used chips from Nvidia and Intel.
NVIDIA The Tianhe-1A Supercomputer, located at National Supercomputer Center in Tianjin, China, is one of the fastest supercomputers in the world.
But Mr. Dongarra and other researchers said the machine should nevertheless serve as a wake-up call that China is threatening to take the lead in scientific computing—akin to a machine from Japan that took the No. 1 position early in the past decade and triggered increased U.S. investment in the field.
"It's definitely a game-changer in the high performance market," said Mark Seager, chief technology officer for computing at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. "This is a phase transition, representative of the shift of economic competitiveness from the West to the East."
Nearly all components of the high-profile Japanese system, called the Earth Simulator, were created in Japan. By contrast, most of the Tianjin system relies on chips from Intel and Nvidia, which are both based in Santa Clara, Calif. So U.S. customers could presumably construct a system with similar performance, noted Horst Simon, deputy lab director at Lawrence Berkeley Lab.
But Mr. Dongarra noted that communications chips inside the machine were proprietary and designed in China, and the country is also working on its own microprocessors.
“As long as we owe China a ton of cash and buy all their stuff, they aren't a threat. Don't kill your best customer. ” —Mike Scott
Moreover, while the Japanese system was a single machine, Tianjin is part of a multi-year strategy by China to develop a range of machines to create a dominant position in both military and commercial applications. "In that sense, I would say this is a much more important event than the Earth Simulator," Mr. Simon said.
The new supercomputer will be operated as an "open access" system, available to other countries outside of China to use for large scale scientific computation, said Ujesh Desai, an Nvidia vice president of product marketing.
It reflects a major design shift to use graphics chips to help accelerate the number-crunching functions most often carried out by so-called x86 chips, which evolved from personal computers and have long dominated supercomputing. Advanced Micro Devices, which makes both graphics chips and x86 microprocessors, is another company besides Nvidia that is promoting the technology shift.
Monday, August 16, 2010
The Allure of a Female Hitchhiker’s Breast Size (To Male Drivers)
Published on June 9, 2010 by Gad Saad, Ph.D. in Homo Consumericus
In visiting Nicolas Guéguen's website, I could not help but notice that he possesses a talent for conducting naturalistic experiments about issues that many people have wondered about and yet few (if any) have tested. Recall my earlier post on the likelihood of a woman being approached at a bar as a function of whether she is wearing cosmetics (one of Guéguen's other papers).
Returning to the current paper, Guéguen created one of three naturalistic experimental conditions (corresponding to three breast sizes) using an average looking female confederate: (1) her actual breast size, which was an A cup (i.e., smaller than the French average); (2) a B cup (the average size in France); (3) a C cup (greater than the average). The breast "augmentations" were performed via the addition of a latex implant.
The female confederate then stood at the side of a road and actually hitch hiked (i.e., put out her thumb as cars whizzed by). Two observers coded the number of male and female drivers that drove by along with the number of times that a given driver stopped to pick up the confederate. For obvious security reasons, once a driver stopped, this was counted as an instance of having picked up the hitchhiker. In other words, the confederate did not actually get into any cars. A male observer also hid close by to ensure against any possible threats to the confederate's security.
Here are the results (Table 1, p. 1297):
Cup Size A Cup Size B Cup Size C
Male drivers (n = 774) 40/268 46/256 60/250
(14.92%) (17.79%) (24.00%)
Female drivers (n = 426) 12/132 11/144 14/150
(9.09%) (7.64%) (9.33%)
Statistically speaking, only men's behaviors were affected by the hitchhiker's breast size (p < .03). The frequency of stopping in the cup C condition was marginally greater than that of cup B (p = 0.09) and significantly greater than that of cup A (p < .01). The difference between cups A and B was not significant.
The bottom line: If a woman has large breasts, men are more likely to engage in prosocial behavior (in this case offering her a ride). I suppose that we could have all predicted this fact albeit it is fun to see it tested in a scientific manner. Finally, I am only the messenger so direct your accusations of patriarchal oppression to Dr. Guéguen!
Source for Image:
http://www.limosinasvip.com/modelos/images/1655-sexy-hitchhiker.jpg
Returning to the current paper, Guéguen created one of three naturalistic experimental conditions (corresponding to three breast sizes) using an average looking female confederate: (1) her actual breast size, which was an A cup (i.e., smaller than the French average); (2) a B cup (the average size in France); (3) a C cup (greater than the average). The breast "augmentations" were performed via the addition of a latex implant.
The female confederate then stood at the side of a road and actually hitch hiked (i.e., put out her thumb as cars whizzed by). Two observers coded the number of male and female drivers that drove by along with the number of times that a given driver stopped to pick up the confederate. For obvious security reasons, once a driver stopped, this was counted as an instance of having picked up the hitchhiker. In other words, the confederate did not actually get into any cars. A male observer also hid close by to ensure against any possible threats to the confederate's security.
Here are the results (Table 1, p. 1297):
Cup Size A Cup Size B Cup Size C
Male drivers (n = 774) 40/268 46/256 60/250
(14.92%) (17.79%) (24.00%)
Female drivers (n = 426) 12/132 11/144 14/150
(9.09%) (7.64%) (9.33%)
Statistically speaking, only men's behaviors were affected by the hitchhiker's breast size (p < .03). The frequency of stopping in the cup C condition was marginally greater than that of cup B (p = 0.09) and significantly greater than that of cup A (p < .01). The difference between cups A and B was not significant.
The bottom line: If a woman has large breasts, men are more likely to engage in prosocial behavior (in this case offering her a ride). I suppose that we could have all predicted this fact albeit it is fun to see it tested in a scientific manner. Finally, I am only the messenger so direct your accusations of patriarchal oppression to Dr. Guéguen!
Source for Image:
http://www.limosinasvip.com/modelos/images/1655-sexy-hitchhiker.jpg
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Monday, June 28, 2010
Mojo Nixon
"Gimme a big ugly G, boys!"
big ugly G commences
"Yeah, rednecks were in caves, banging sticks together, they was drinking homemade wine made out of elephant testicles and shit. These were the original rednecks, back in the Caveman Cromagnon Big Dick Days, the day that everybody had a big dick, all women had motors in their pussies, nobody had a job! It was a glorious time on the Planet Earth! Are you ready to hear my sidewayssuperpsychogirth I-am-ready-to- shout- bamalamadamalamadama - ARE YOU READY, BOYS?!"
--from "Redneck Rampage", The Real Sock Ray Blue
big ugly G commences
"Yeah, rednecks were in caves, banging sticks together, they was drinking homemade wine made out of elephant testicles and shit. These were the original rednecks, back in the Caveman Cromagnon Big Dick Days, the day that everybody had a big dick, all women had motors in their pussies, nobody had a job! It was a glorious time on the Planet Earth! Are you ready to hear my sidewayssuperpsychogirth I-am-ready-to- shout- bamalamadamalamadama - ARE YOU READY, BOYS?!"
--from "Redneck Rampage", The Real Sock Ray Blue
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Gretzky, Orr, Howe, Lemieux?
Ever since Wayne Gretzky retired, who was greater: Orr or Gretzky? If we are going to compare these two players, who played different positions in vastly different eras, then we begin our analysis with the most accurate measure of a player's overall strength: Plus/Minus Ratio. Plus/Minus Ratio is a number (positive/negative) that is added to, every time a player's team scores (at EVEN STRENGTH) and that player is on the ice. Conversely, if the player is on the ice (at EVEN STRENGTH) and the other team scores, a point is subtracted from the player in question. Although not perfect, Plus/Minus (+/-) Ratio is the only statistic in Hockey that accounts for a players offensive AND defensive abilities. What follows is a tremendous analysis of Bobby Orr vs. Wayne Gretzkey vs. Gordie Howe vs. etc... This fine piece of work comes to us from Ian Wilson. Ian can be reached for comment or questions at: gobruins@fundy.net Bear in mind that no defenceman's stats should stack up against a forward. Bobby was on the ice in every key defensive situation the Bruins faced. They didn't start to keep +/- until 1967-68, Bobby's second season. Bobby's career +/- is 597 Wayne's career +/- is 518 Marios career +/- is 114 Bobby's best year was +124, Wayne's was +98, Mario's was +55. Bobby never had a minus season, Wayne and Mario both had 7 minus seasons.
Bobby's +/- seasons
1967-68 +30
1968-69 +65
1969-70 +54
1970-71 +124 (all-time record)
1971-72 +86
1972-73 +56
1973-74 +84
1974-75 +80
1975-76 +10 (10 games played)
1976-77 +6 (20 games with Chicago)
1977-78 (Did Not Play)
1978-79 +2 (6 Games played with Chicago)
I don't think Gretzky is the best player ever, not even close, but one thing you have to credit the guy with is durability. When you view his +/- stats over the length of his career, it's not all that good, and doesn't really compare with other forwards. For instance, going into this year Wayne was at +541 in 1417 games, for an average of +0.38 per game. Bobby was +0.91 per game, FAR AND AWAY THE BEST EVER. Larry Robinson is next closest at something around 0.54 per game. Wayne's numbers don't compare with a lot of very good scorers, who also happened to know there were two ends of the ice, players like Mike Bossy and Bryan Trottier, Rick Middleton for instance, who are around 0.45 per game. Bobby's +124 in 1970-71 is an NHL record, and the .91 +/- per game is almost twice the nearest guy, Larry Robinson, so that is a record too. There will be comparisons, but for the most part I believe most people who saw both players play agree that Bobby was the best. Gretzky is a great player, but he's not Bobby Orr. I don't even think he was Gordie Howe for that matter. The game is different today, and Wayne had the advantage of playing when goals were scored at a rate twice as high as when Gordie played. To give you an idea, Wayne retired at 38, having scored 12 goals this season. Gordie Howe had three more seasons in which he scored over 30 goals after he turned 39. I happen to believe that the most amazing "stat" in hockey is that Gordie Howe finished in the top five in scoring for 21 straight seasons. Wayne did it for 8 seasons. In Gordie Howe's final NHL season, at AGE 52, he scored 15 goals.
Bobby's +/- seasons
1967-68 +30
1968-69 +65
1969-70 +54
1970-71 +124 (all-time record)
1971-72 +86
1972-73 +56
1973-74 +84
1974-75 +80
1975-76 +10 (10 games played)
1976-77 +6 (20 games with Chicago)
1977-78 (Did Not Play)
1978-79 +2 (6 Games played with Chicago)
I don't think Gretzky is the best player ever, not even close, but one thing you have to credit the guy with is durability. When you view his +/- stats over the length of his career, it's not all that good, and doesn't really compare with other forwards. For instance, going into this year Wayne was at +541 in 1417 games, for an average of +0.38 per game. Bobby was +0.91 per game, FAR AND AWAY THE BEST EVER. Larry Robinson is next closest at something around 0.54 per game. Wayne's numbers don't compare with a lot of very good scorers, who also happened to know there were two ends of the ice, players like Mike Bossy and Bryan Trottier, Rick Middleton for instance, who are around 0.45 per game. Bobby's +124 in 1970-71 is an NHL record, and the .91 +/- per game is almost twice the nearest guy, Larry Robinson, so that is a record too. There will be comparisons, but for the most part I believe most people who saw both players play agree that Bobby was the best. Gretzky is a great player, but he's not Bobby Orr. I don't even think he was Gordie Howe for that matter. The game is different today, and Wayne had the advantage of playing when goals were scored at a rate twice as high as when Gordie played. To give you an idea, Wayne retired at 38, having scored 12 goals this season. Gordie Howe had three more seasons in which he scored over 30 goals after he turned 39. I happen to believe that the most amazing "stat" in hockey is that Gordie Howe finished in the top five in scoring for 21 straight seasons. Wayne did it for 8 seasons. In Gordie Howe's final NHL season, at AGE 52, he scored 15 goals.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Erdélyi hajdútánc
Nosza hajdú, firge varjú, járjunk egy szép táncot!
Nem vagy fattyú, sem rossz hattyú, kiálts hát egy hoppot!
Szájon mondjon, lábod járjon egy katonatáncot.
Haja Tisza, haja Duna, Száva, Dráva vize!
Mindenkinek, mikor árad, zavaros az vize,
az német is, hogy általjött, megváltozott íze.
Kis-Küküllő, Nagy-Küküllő gyönyörű folyása,
Nyárád vize, kedves íze, rózsa az illatja,
bő terméssel határidat Isten látogassa!
Marosszékrűl, Udvarhelyrűl megyek Háromszékre,
szépségérűl térségére; nincs mása Erdélyben,
Isten tartsa, szaporítsa gabonáját benne!
Egészséggel, békességgel édes lakóföldem,
kit sóhajtott és óhajtott ez napokban szívem,
ím, hogy juték, belélépék, megvidula lölköm.
Nohát immár minden ember örüljön ez napon,
nagy jókedvet, víg örömöt mutasson ez házbon:
az én szívem mert hazajött szerencsés órában!
Sunday, January 31, 2010
We're no Angels
just watched "We're no angels"...Well, ask me why this movie has such a poor rating. Or maybe don't ask me, because I have no answer. The movie is just great. The acting is perfect for this script, DeNiro and Penn are so funny and also serious when is needed. I even liked Demi Moore, although I can't stand her. Why such a poor rating? Two important comments. First, it's not a comedy, as in a fall-on-the-floor, laugh-your-head-off, side-splitter.Second, the story is about miracles. Both the lower case miracles that happen all the time to people, as well as the upper case MIRACLES that may change our lives. The focus of the action is on how we make miracles happen for one another without some divine intervention. So, maybe that's the reason for the low rating: the movie requires attention.
