Tuesday, October 23, 2012

SAR #12296

If your lawyer doesn't believe the system is rigged, get another lawyer; ditto for your accountant.

Understandable confusion: "I thought they were going to debate about Energy Policy." "No, Foreign Policy." "That's what I said."

Performance Pay: The ECB/IMF/EU has fired all 2235 of Greece's tax investigators because they were not raking in enough shekels. Their replacements understand that collections must increase. Methodology was not discussed.

Regrouping: Tom Corbett, PA's Republican governor, has temporarily stopped pushing an ALEC-written law that would give the State the power to over-ride local school boards and force them to accept charter schools in their towns. After the election, when the people are once again powerless, they'll be back.

Getting Out The Vote: Sometimes putting barriers in the way of potential voters can seem like a good idea. Go ahead, go listen to the clip, then come back and argue with me.

Merchandising: After Greg Smith wrote his Op-Ed, Goldman Sachs examined its own navel and found no lint. Sure, they admit they screw their customers, but say that their customers know they're getting screwed and keep showing up anyway, so it's all good.

Ear Muffs for The Mitten: The Salt Lake Tribune has endorsed the Other Guy, saying that there were “too many Mitts”, with an agenda “bereft of detail and worthy of mistrust." They've also noticed that Romney will do whatever “shape-shifting (with breathtaking aplomb)” it takes to win.

Hazards of the Job: Six Italian seismologists have been jailed for three years on manslaughter charges for failing to predict the 2009 earthquake. Too bad that court doesn't have jurisdiction over BP.

Succinctly: Corporate profit margins are close to all time highs, as are the Federal deficit and Federal debt. Funny how that happens.

Follow The Money: The Deputy AG says the fed's do not care what the people want, marijuana will remain a serious crime with serious federal penalties as long as Wall Street continues to make billions laundering drug money.

The Plots: A study begun in 2003 compared the 'regular Midwestern' farming cycle of corn/soybeans grown with chemicals and pesticides with a corn/soybeans/oats cycle and a corn/soybeans/oats/alfalfa cycle combined with raising livestock on the land, using their manure as fertilizer. And you know the outcome, else I wouldn't cite the item, right? Right, they managed to reduce the nitrogen fertilizer and herbicide use by over 80%, reduced toxins in the groundwater and did not reduce profits by even a penny.

Liberal Bias: Only 5 of the 63 energy firms that received significant DOE funds for alternative energy projects have gone bankrupt. That's what all the noise has been about. That's 8%. That's Obama's big alternative energy failure.

Maybe, Maybe Not: Academic research is increasingly being published on-line in open-access format. The “good” is that this opens access to scientific research to all at no cost. The “bad” is the fear that less rigorous peer review will lead to even greater cases of shoddy and deceptive research being inflicted on the unwary. On balance, having experience with the Linux community, a couple of specialist websites and Wiki, of course, I'm for it.

The Parting Shot:

.121023

There's one in every crowd.

4 comments:

Gegner said...

Getting out the vote: Imagine the ridicule I'd suffer if I dared to hazard the opinion that this woman (and they are mostly women) is a conservative.

Um, no arguments over here!

Anonymous said...

Six Italian seismologists......

At Last!!! A model to deal with Economists and Banksters!

Anonymous said...

Hazards:

They were not convicted of not predicting the earthquake. According to the Itialian papers: The view from L'Aquila, however, is quite different. Prosecutors and the families of victims alike say that the trial has nothing to do with the ability to predict earthquakes, and everything to do with the failure of government-appointed scientists serving on an advisory panel to adequately evaluate, and then communicate, the potential risk to the local population. The charges, detailed in a 224-page document filed by Picuti, allege that members of the National Commission for Forecasting and Predicting Great Risks, who held a special meeting in L'Aquila the week before the earthquake, provided "incomplete, imprecise, and contradictory information" to a public that had been unnerved by months of persistent, low-level tremors. Picuti says that the commission was more interested in pacifying the local population than in giving clear advice about earthquake preparedness."

RBM

Charles Kingsley Michaelson, III said...

RBM - Thanks for the clarification - it is much better that they went to jail for being wishy-washy bureaucrats instead of scientists reluctant to go beyond the data. Sort of like climate scientists (with exception for Hansen and a couple of others) for the last couple of decades. Don't scare the women and children...

ckm