Please, see these charts from Mother Jones on income inequality in America. It's not that the rich are getting richer, its that the super-rich are getting super-richer...and leaving the rest of us behin...
Monday, 28 February 2011
Friday, 25 February 2011
Boeing Wins, again.
Posted on 08:12 by hony
$35 billion for 179 tankers. I know this is a bit premature, but I would be willing to bet $500 that by the time 179 tankers are delivered to the Air Force, the tax payers have been billed at least $50 billio...
Thursday, 24 February 2011
TAE's Fantasy World
Posted on 09:34 by hony
In response to this post, on which I am about to expand, I was accused of being a communist. First, this is such a straw man accusation, as the term "communist" is really a cover for "dictatorship by a team" in the modern sense. Kind of like "Intelligent Design" nowadays means Creationism.And secondly, I'm actually talking about socialism, not communism, thank you very much.The idea I proposed was hypothetical plan in which an individual's income could not exceed $200,000 gross. If they earned more than that, it was taxed 100%. Now let me...
Wednesday, 23 February 2011
Echoes can be louder than the original voice
Posted on 06:07 by hony
I highly doubt, when Mohamed Bouazizi lit himself on fire December 17th, 2010, that he thought "this will hopefully spark a democratic revolution in Tunisia." Furthermore, I doubt he thought "and that Tunisian revolution will spread to Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Iran, Algeria, Cameroon, Jordan, Syria, and Bahrain."But it did. You never know what your one brave little act could accomplish, until after you perform that act. Would that we all could be so brave, so reckless.A lighthearted version of this, h/t Chri...
Tuesday, 22 February 2011
offensive post
Posted on 10:52 by hony
At the risk of offending my massive libertarian following, I must ask: exactly what Bill of Rights-guaranteed freedoms would Americans lose if they were not allowed to make more than $200,000 a year? As in, the tax rate on income over $200,000 was 100...
Monday, 21 February 2011
My Dad Makes a Good Point About Human Brain Inefficiency
Posted on 10:29 by hony
Jonah Lehrer thinks the human brain is a super-efficient computer compared to Watson: Let’s begin with energy efficiency. One of the most remarkable facts about the human brain is that it requires less energy (12 watts) than a light bulb. In other words, that loom of a trillion synapses, exchanging ions and neurotransmitters, costs less to run than a little incandescence. Compare that to Deep Blue: when the machine was operating at full speed, it was a fire hazard, and required specialized heat-dissipating equipment to keep it cool. Meanwhile,...
Friday, 18 February 2011
Friday Poetry Burst
Posted on 12:37 by hony
A yellow oasis in hell=premeditated stupidity= A phrenological idol.The sombre dream of the grey-eyed CorsicanA Brain so small that an animacuale went to view it with a compound MicroscopeThe wrestling of shadows, a square chunk of carrion with two green eyes held by threads ofgossamer which floats at midnight in bleak old rural graveyards.Three million miles beyond the limits of the universe where the anglels dare not goThere flies forever from nihil to nihil the foulest demon of the Cosmos-Thomas Alva Edi...
The Fallacy That Non-Participation Disqualifies Criticism
Posted on 09:22 by hony
I said to a friend today "Thanks Mr. Obama for the extra 40 bucks in my paycheck. It will definitely help me buy Chipotle burritos while we bankrupt Social Security."Friend responded "You didn't vote, you don't get to complain."My response: "I don't watch porn, am I allowed to complain about the porn industry? I don't murder people, can I not complain about murderers? Since when is there a barrier to entry in regards to complaining?"I did vote; I actively voted for no one. In fact, I'd argue that my very act of not voting was in itself a complaint...
Watson and the Future of the Human-Machine Interface
Posted on 08:06 by hony
A reader of Andrew Sullivan writes to him: I watched the PBS documentary on Watson last week and what struck me most was just how close we are to a Star Trek ship’s computer.Being a fan of The Next Generation, I loved watching Beverly Crusher go back and forth with her sickbay computer to diagnose a medical issue. You could see flashes of inspiration in Beverly’s eyes as the computer made connections that she had no way of making because it was tapping into to resources and databases her human mind could never store internally (or never even...
Wednesday, 16 February 2011
Gates on Defense
Posted on 11:32 by hony
So apparently Bob Gates says that if we want to cut the Defense budget, we need to end the war in Afghanistan first.Which seems logical.However he suggests we do this around 2015, when we are "scheduled" to get out of Afghanistan.TAE has a better solution: just pack up and leave, now. Right now. Right freaking now.Remember when we fought in Vietnam for a decade, and then we left, and everyone was afraid communism was going to sweep across the globe, it was the most evil of all evils...and then communism didn't go anywhere, and it didn't spread...
Deep Thought
Posted on 08:17 by hony
Could I set up my email so that when I send an email to an incorrect address and get an "address unknown" daemon email from my server, the address unknown email is autoforwarded to the incorrect address?Would this cause a gravitational collapse and destroy the Eart...
Tuesday, 15 February 2011
The "Let's Slash the EPA but Increase Defense Spending Plan"
Posted on 10:25 by hony
President Obama's proposed budget released this week suggested a 13 percent cut in the EPA fund. A bold move amongst many to try to cut all the parts of the budget that he can without offending anyone who might scuttle his reelection campaign.The House Republicans answered with their own proposal, suggesting 13 percent was a mere starting point, and went further, opening a 29 percent slash in the EPA budget.Meahwhile, Obama suggested a 22 billion dollar increase in the Defense budget. The House Republicans only asked for a mere 11 billion dollar...
Thursday, 10 February 2011
Climate Science vs. Climate Economics
Posted on 06:17 by hony
Maybe you are getting tired of the climate ranting I'm doing. If so, here's David Roberts: Or contemplate this: To reach even the more modest target of 450ppm, reports David Biello, the IEA says humanity would have to build the following every year between now and 2050:... 35 coal-fired and 20 gas-fired power plants with carbon capture and storage; 30 nuclear power plants; 12,000 onshore wind turbines paired with 3,600 offshore ones; 45 geothermal power plants; 325 million square meters-worth of photovoltaics; and 55 solar-thermal power plants....
The People Who Make Sustainability Impossible, Ctd
Posted on 05:42 by hony
From an article on New Scientist:The new cadre of Republicans in Congress is packed with climate change sceptics, several of whom have promised to use their power to cast doubt on the underlying science.Seriously? "several of whom have promised to use their power to cast doubt." I don't know about you, readers, but I never voted for an elected official yet who had "the power to cast doubt" in their job description. The obvious implication here is that not only are the scientists who have provided evidence of anthropogenic global warming absolutely...
Monday, 7 February 2011
The People Who Make Sustainability Impossible
Posted on 09:01 by hony
So above is this great little video of Bill O'Reilly explaining that you can't explain things, and therefore God exists. Normally, I try to not to let these people get any blog time, but you know, based on the title of this post, that someone is going to get mentioned.The really eerie thing about this isn't O'Reilly; his exhortations are easily enough dismissed. No, what scared me was when I showed this video to a friend and he immediately denounced the video, and O'Reilly, as "an entertainer just doing what he can to entertain." Further, when...
Thursday, 3 February 2011
Quote for the Day
Posted on 11:25 by hony
From Neal Stephenson at Slate: "Moreover, the rocket industry's status as a colossal government-funded program with seemingly eternal lifespan has led to a situation in which its myriad contractors and suppliers are distributed over the largest possible number of congressional districts. Anyone who has witnessed Congress in action can well imagine the consequences of giving it control over a difficult scientific and technological program."Double that up with this post on Lockheed-Martin from William Hartung at Guernica:[C]onsider Lockheed...
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