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Showing posts with label Other. Show all posts

Neat new iPhone app: Want to know down to the minute when it will start to rain and for how long it will last?

Click on picture to make it larger.

Anna Schwartz RIP

Anna Schwartz RIP

Together with Milton Friedman, Anna Schwatz co-authored the monumental and extremely influential "A Monetary History of the United States."  From today's WSJ:
In an October 2008 interview with The Wall Street Journal—a month after the collapse of Lehman Brothers—Ms. Schwartz criticized policy makers' handling of the 2008 financial crisis. "They should not be recapitalizing firms that should be shut down," she said. "Firms that made wrong decisions should fail." . . .

Remembering the War of 1812

USA Today has a very nice discussion of the war available here.  The 200th anniversary is on Monday.
What followed was equally bizarre, especially an early string of U.S. naval victories. James Grossman, director of the American Historical Association, says it's as if Serbia had smacked around the U.S. Air Force in 1999. . . .Jim Hill of the Niagara (Ont.) Parks Commission recalls an old saying: "Canadians are sure they won the War of 1812, Americans are pretty sure, and the British never heard of it." British Prime Minister David Cameron admitted as much on his last visit to the White House, joking, "We so much more prefer talking about defeating the French." . . .
Some signs of the times?

Some signs of the times?


Man who fathered 30 kids says he needs a break—on child support

Why do these 11 women keep having kids with this guy if they already know that he has so many kids that he can't provide more than $1.49 a month to many of them?

Postal employee on workers’ comp caught running Boston Marathon

A U.S. District Court in Florida convicted a former Florida postal worker of health care fraud after she was caught participating in more than 80 long-distance races, including the Boston Marathon, all while taking workers' compensation for a back injury.
Jacquelyn V. Myers . . . faces up to 15 years in prison. . . .
In May 2009, Myers claimed to have a lower back injury that prevented her from delivering the mail as part of her job. She was relieved of her mail carrying responsibilities and put on "light duty."
However, photos and videos emerged showing Myers participating in the races, including a triathlon. And in what would ordinarily be considered good news, her race times actually improved after she made her initial injury claim. . . .

So what was the most expensive work of art sold a auction?

From The Economist magazine available here.

Did you know that "escalator" was originally a brand name?

Did you know that "escalator" was originally a brand name?

Here is a list of surprising brand names that became generic terms:
A company's biggest fear is that their brand name becomes so commonly used to describe a product that a judge rules that it's too "generic" to be a trademark. That means that any product — even inferior ones — can legally use the name. A brand usually is declared legally generic after a company sues another firm for using its name and the case goes to a federal court. Drug maker Bayer lost trademarks for the names "aspirin" and "heroin" this way in the 1920s. So did B.F. Goodrich, which sued to protect its trademark of "zipper" in the 1920s after the name joined the world of common nouns. Similar cases deemed "escalator" generic in 1950, "thermos" generic in 1963 and "yo-yo" generic in 1965. . . .
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords resigning, recovery will take some time

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords resigning, recovery will take some time

This is sad but not unexpected news. Giffords will surely get a massive ovation at the State of the Union this week when Obama announces her resignation.

Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords announced on her website Sunday that she will resign from Congress this week to continue her recuperation from the brain injury she suffered when shot just over a year ago.
"A lot has happened over the past year. We cannot change that," Giffords, 41, says in a video on her website, speaking in a halting manner. . . .
Giffords, a Democrat, will submit a letter of resignation during the week to House Speaker John Boehner and Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer. Brewer said Sunday in a statement that she will call a "special primary and general election" to fill the state's 8th congressional district seat for the rest of Giffords' term, which expires at the end of the year.
A statement from her office said Giffords will attend the State of the Union address Tuesday as one of her last acts before stepping down. . . .
You have to love Texas: "Strange town names decorate the Texas map"

You have to love Texas: "Strange town names decorate the Texas map"

There is of course a Lott, Texas. From the UPI:

Texas is host to hundreds of towns with strange names, including one dubbed Nameless, a folklorist says.

The town of Nameless got its handle after several other names for the proposed town were rejected by the U.S. postmaster in 1880, the San Antonio Express-News reported Sunday.

Finally, after the sixth rejection, a resident sent a note to the postmaster saying, "Let the post office be nameless and be damned!" And thus the town of Nameless was born.

Other towns adopted names for specific reasons, said Rhett Rushing, a folklorist at the Institute of Texan Culture.

Some residents named their towns after large cities as a way of raising attention, such as Atlanta, Detroit, Paris and Carthage.

Others were named after the town's roots, like Bovina, where cattle were shipped to market, and Muleshoe, which grew around a blacksmith's shop.

Happy, Joy, Utopia, Paradise, Eden, Placid, Prosper and Loyal Valley were all named with good feelings. . . .

What the new Bond Girl thinks of guns



French beauty Berenice Marlohe is the newest "Bond Girl." Her comments on guns are available here.

A picture from my recent trip to Hawaii


While I was giving a couple of talks at the University of Hawaii and making other appearances, I did take a brief trip outside and this is one of the amazing views that I saw. Click on the picture to make it bigger.

A sign of the times: Reporters using iPhones to record interviews



This picture is from the allegation of rape story involving Julian Assange. The UK Guardian has this of substance:

The process of taking a rape allegation to court is notoriously hard for the victim. When the accused assailant is a high-profile campaigner with thousands of active and vocal supporters, it becomes acutely fraught.

Claes Borgström, the lawyer for the two women whose complaints of sexual assault triggered Julian Assange's arrest, said his clients had been assaulted twice: first physically, before being "sacrificed" to a malevolent online attack. The women were having "a very tough time", he said.

A wealth of hostile material attacking the two women has appeared on the internet since August, when they took their complaints to the police. Their right to anonymity has been abandoned online, where enraged bloggers have uploaded dossiers of personal photographs, raked through their CVs and tweets, and accused them of orchestrating a CIA-inspired honeytrap operation. These online rumours were a convenient way for Assange to divert suspicion from the actual allegations, the women's lawyer said. . . . .
Kid forbidden from flying American Flag on back of bike because of "racial" tensions at Middle School

Kid forbidden from flying American Flag on back of bike because of "racial" tensions at Middle School

 
This all apparently came to a head during the week that Veteran's Day was celebrated.

The school later reversed its decision. The problem here is how many times do public schools do smaller things that never get the public attention?
A California school has done a U-turn after it forced a student to remove an American flag attached to his bike, saying the Stars and Stripes could spur racial tensions on campus.

Cody Alicea,13, had been flying the flag on the back of his bicycle for almost two months to show support for veterans like his grandfather, Robert Alicea.

But just in time for Veterans Day, school officials at Denair Middle School told Cody he would no longer be allowed to display the flag, citing complaints from other students.

Now, after a public outcry, the school has decided that the grand old flag can come back. . . .


This is a great way to end all these trouble.

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