Anologist David Runciman looks up his own anus to explain why Americans “voted against their own interest” in taking “Kennedy’s” seat from the Democrats.

I’d like to know what North Carolina Congress critter came up with yet another tax on ability. Sheesh.

When is the immigration reform shoe going to drop? There a few bills out there already, but none if it seems to getting much attention. You know that the progressives can’t resist tackling one of their pet projects, the question is when.
I don’t think that they will really start talking about immigration reform until after the midterm elections, it’s too much of a hot button with voters.
We need to start the conversation with our lawmakers now, make them listen to what we their constituents want, not just the lobbyists trying to buy their vote.

The Fed was chartered about 1914 IIRC and it is owned by its member banks, who contributed capital for its start up. It has been growing its balance sheet since Day One thru interest and retained earnings (also IIRC most of the profits have to be returned to the US Treasury but it keeps a certain fraction) and it’s ability to create money and lend to the US Government (buy US Treasuries) utilizing fractional reserve banking just like any other bank. I am not sure if there is any limit on the Fed’s ability to create money because I do not think there is any actual reserve requirement for it. Treasury has an account there. It just writes a check to them and deposits it in their account. In the past it was limited in that there had to be gold backing the dollars, but the last vestiges of that disappeared in 1971 when Nixon took us off the gold standard.

Early in 2008 the Fed had a 800 Billion balance sheet, mostly of US Treasury securities and high quality lending facilities. Since then it has expanded its balance to just over 2.1 Trillion through additional lending against mortgage security collateral (the JPM Morgan takeover of Bear Stearns and other “Maiden Lane” vehicles), and has outright purchased US Treasury and mortgaged backed securities from the market.

The Fed is nominally independent of the Fed Gov and the Fed Govt only has oversight of the Fed (semi-annual Humphrey Hawkins reviews but more importantly ratification of Board appointments including the Chairman of the Federal Reserve itself). The US Govt has no ownership in the Fed and the Fed does not appear on the books of the Fed Govt.

Hope this helps but I would do a search on Federal Reserve, check Wikipedia, etc to make sure I got it all correct and fill in the gaps. Check my dates, I’m going from memory and may be off by a year or two!

Bill, I know you said you were looking for a replacement for Roboform on linux. Did you ever find one? I started using LastPass recently, and it seems to work well on chrome/windows, firefox/ubuntu, and safari/mac.

Here’s the website that originated that ad. fcino.com. And Campbell’s wrong the sheep changes to a wolf in sheep’s clothing not a demon sheep. The Man can’t even listen to the ad.
Fiscal Conservative In Name Only in case you were wondering.

many thanks, kennycan. Let me paraphrase, and check me if I derail:

open market operations consist entirely of displacing money into the future through T bills. Money tied up in bills redeemable 1 week or 1 month in the future are not in the money supply TODAY, and the money supply of concern is money that can be transacted TODAY.

But the money displaced into the future cannot stay there because TODAY becomes tomorrow, the bills will be redeemed. FOMC gets another chance every few weeks with a given stack of money, to finesse how much cash to move out of today’s supply, and to reappear in the supply in a few weeks.

They’re lying to you, George. I’ll explain later.

Another one!

There was enough information in the article to track down the principal’s email address (emastro-at-ps52-dot-org).

Was the message I sent her out of line?

Principal Mastroianni,

I don’t think a kid needs to be disciplined for bringing a 2 inch toy gun to school. What is more troublesome to me is bullying in schools. Unfortunately, in this case, you are the example.

If more adults like you were fired for things like this, we would have a lot less bullying of innocent children by adults in schools. Were it my child, I would remove him from the school and teach him that you are a bully.

Why don’t you grow up, get away from insane ideology, stop bullying kids, and concentrate on teaching.

Sincerely,
…

I had already once removed two of my kids from school for two years in past, so my hypothetical threat to do so here would be no bluff. Since moving to ND, I’ve taken one kid out of one class, a “history” class, mostly taught by videos (a pathetic way to teach). I objected to a section on comparative religion which was going to show some dhimmi fluff about Islam, the religion of peace. The teacher had actually sent around a form listing all the videos that would be shown and offering to accommodate anyone with any particular objection, so I expected that we would end up having William do some other thing for the Islam lesson. Instead, when I telephoned him, he got mad at me and really left me with no choice but to take my son out of the class. This “history” teacher didn’t seem to know anything about the violent expansion of Islam at all.

Just think - I’ve done all this and I’m not even old enough to vote yet.

Update:

The principal has apologized. Maybe my email made a difference.

She should be fired.

The Fed buys and sells securities. If it wants to increase the money supply it can buy a security, like a TBill, and if it wants to contract the money supply it sells a security, like a TBill. The Fed deals in longer dated securities as well. If a security matures, it just repeats the process. It also does repurchase agreements and reverse repurchase agreements. This is contracts to buy or sell securities and an agreement by the seller to repurchase them later at a set price. The price is determined by the money market rates and the Fed uses this to adjust money market rates for short term (1 day, 1 week, 1 month) so money market rates remain stable in the short term even though there may be money flows in and out of the market.

The Fed both conducts monetary policy on a short term and a relatively longer term basis using these 2 basic tools.

btw Post WWII the Fed rarely ever (on purpose) outright contracts the money supply in practice. “Tightening” has normally consisted of slowing down the expansion of the money supply.

I rarely paid more than $10 for a paperback prior to purchasing the kindle. Discount retailers like sams/walmart often have them for 5-6 bucks. As much as I love the kindle for travel, I will not pay $15 for a normal* ebook. I’ll just buy the cheaper paperback, which will cost the publisher more money. I’ll save the kindle books for travel only, purchasing the less expensive ones

*normal meaning entertainment. For history or other books my willingness to pay is in line with my perceived value.

Kennedy … down
Murtha … down

…hmmm, time to start a dead pool?
Byrd anyone?
Lot’s o info here:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-01-05-new-congress_N.htm

Religion of horror strikes again. I cannot for the life of me imagine how someone buries his own daughter-alive- just because she has some male friends.

C’mon PG. Don’t you know you can get cancer just from looking at a picture of someone smoking, or hearing about it, or even from seeing the word n**otine?

Newest health hazard: third hand smoke.

“Berkeley scientists in the US ran…”

No surprise there…

There is probably a global warming connection here that the Berkeley scientists overlooked. The well-established relationship between hundreds of millions of smokers and AGW (pop) (crack) space aliens are stealing our nitrogen while we sleep it’s too late to stop them we will all die from shortages of fertilizer zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

An odds on fav is nothing at all. Several previous deadlines passed with nothing happening.

Dinnerjacket will claim credit for the D.C. blizzards and threaten to keep doing it until he’s paid a ransom of one million dollars.

The 120 day end has, I’m pretty sure, always been there.

Good ads, but the over the top moralizing and bitching I could do without.

Truthfully, it took me a sec to figure out that it was a parody. Considering where Britain is now, and where we seem to be heading, I thought it might be an Al Gore PSA.

Not a parody, fellas. Not hardly. “They’re not here to judge,” just to “collectively help guide consumers to make the right decision when it comes to the environment” — and not a trace of irony in sight.

And nemo, didn’t you know that simpering, pantywaisted compliance with authority is the new “cool” in the Age of Obama? The ones who had faded old “Question Authority” bumper stickers on their cars are now…Authority. They’re taking to it just a tad too easily and happily if you ask me. And again, without a hint of irony, or any evident awareness of its existence, even.

Speak nothing but good of the dead?

Fine.

He’s dead. Good.

Phil should remember that Suicide is painless.

Not a bad scalp for the blogosphere.

And, arguably, the most important one so far…

We’ve got a flap-eared Affirmative-Action serial liar and all-around Socialist ego-tripper at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave who’s in thrall to TOTUS, and the Demonrat hordes are havin’ a hissy over a six-word crib on a Republican palm…

DU’s still splattering its moronic mewlings on the Intartubes? I would have thought those bozos choked to death on their own insipid poison-pen rabid Leftism back around 2004 - 5.

Nice to see the ex-Icebox* Guv’s maintaining her sense of humor in the face of the Lefty Loon Squad’s droolings…

(*Not so “Icebox”, these days - maybe Glowball Wormening, Regional Division?)

Dang!! Now, that’s “progressive”!!

Talk about “stage presence” - even a Pat Robertson or a George Voinovich would have a tough time going head-to-head (so to speak…) with those two - er - that one…

…the former escort empress said the legalization of prostitution and marijuana could provide $2.5 billion in revenue to help close the budget gap.

COYOTE and NORML, here’s your candidate!!

…“I’m a natural Libertarian,” said Davis…

Yes, well, we can pretty much see that…

If she’s even suspected of hiding anything - I hereby volunteer for the search team!…

Just because they’ve never worked in the past doesn’t mean we shouldn’t use them!

Sanctions can and will work. They’ve just never been done right yet.

the left and within the RINO wing of the GOP

Redundancy alert.

FDR tops him only for winning WWII

As a general thing, a man is not lauded for saving your life if he was the one who endangered it.

Sorry, Deanz, a brain-burp: I meant since LBJ’s Great Society.

Truman is seriously overrated, by the way.

The meme boils down to this: She’s not a real pol. She hasn’t got the credentials, the education, the experience, or the smarts to be President.

To the people that are supporting her that is a feature not a bug. They are sick and tired of the “pols” and the “smarter than you” crowd.

Since being selected as McCain’s running mate she has never held a press conference. Not a single one. I don’t think the numbskull has ever had an original thought. Plus, she’s a congenital liar. Talk about a cult of personality.

With Judson around, you never have to ask yourself, if an intestinal fistula could talk, what would it say?

Speaking of fisting, how’s your love life doing, Judhead? Still keeping Unilever’s sales up? If you have trouble raising the money to keep up with your needs, I’m sure you can find gainful employment. After all, the Goatse site lost its hallmark image and the goatsex guy is reputedly dead. (Don’t worry. Just like shoving that first baseball bat where the sun don’t shine, getting a job hurts only the first time.)

Well, I’d love to stay and chat, but getting too near a congenital moron makes me feel icky. Sort of like you’d feel if you came within shouting distance of a reasoned opinion.

To be Clintoneque, it would be

I feel you

But that would be applied only if Judson were a young, not-too-bright woman. Judhead has the not-too-bright bit going strong, but “puerile” is not the same as “young” and the only woman’s bits he’s ever been near were his mother’s.

Plus Reagan had to do what he did with a major portion of the country actively working against us winning, plus a media and Hollywood propaganda machine that had a sizeabole portion of the electorate thinking it was unwinnable for the US at best and going to end in nuclear armageddon under Reagan at worst. There may have been some overlap in those 2 groups as well ;>D

FDR had pretty much the country behind him in the war effort and Media/Hollywood for the most part actually supporting that as well.

Judson, Judson, Judson,

I don’t think the numbskull has ever had an original thought. Plus, she’s a congenital liar.

A know-nothing, talking about something he knows nothing about.
I have mixed feelings about Palin. But having seen her in action in Juneau, having watched what happens when she is in charge, you are absolutely wrong.
As I said, I have my reservations regarding Palin, but I have fewer with her than any democrat and most republicans.

I don’t think the numbskull has ever had an original thought. Plus, she’s a congenital liar.

Now, Judson, you’re assuming facts not in evidence. Whilst I grant that nothing has shown it to be the case, rumor has it that Barry is a man.

I’m not that great of a physicist, but even I could see that Barry’s nonsense was just that. Still, it brings a smile to my face to see a physicist of some repute taking the nail-studded cluebat to The Won.

Going out on a limb here but…

The key thesis of the Obama-Tribe paper is contained in the opening sentences of its abstract: “Twentieth-century physics revolutionized our understanding of the physical world. Relativity theory replaced a view of the universe as made up of isolated objects acting upon one another at a distance with a model in which space itself was curved and changed by the presence and movement of objects. Quantum physics undermined the confidence of scientists in their ability to observe and understand a phenomenon without fundamentally altering it in the process.”

All of these sentences are completely wrong

They are? They are completely wrong?

In Newtonian theory, gravity is space-time curvature just as it is in general relativity. In fact, Einstein’s general relativity is just a special case of Newtonian gravity theory incorporating the ether. Quantum physics is also just a special case of Newtonian mechanics in its wave-particle formulation (called Hamilton-Jacobi theory) incorporating the very modest requirement that this formulation be mathematically consistent. Hamilton-Jacobi theory is deterministic, hence quantum mechanics is equally deterministic. There was absolutely nothing revolutionary about twentieth century physics. There has been no “paradigm shift” in physics. The magnificent intellectual edifice created by Isaac Newton stands unshaken.

There was absolutely nothing revolutionary about twentieth century physics?

I dunno, I wouldn’t need much convincing that Tribama’s paper is nonsense and scientifically challenged, but the above doesn’t do it for me.

The quoted lines from that abstract sound as if they could have been lifted from any random physics textbook.

If, as Tipler claims, that abstract is completely wrong, then he’s damning far more than that paper.

I agree with Alfred (surprise, surprise).

The evolution of the wave function is deterministic. What will happen isn’t, unless you assert the interpretation of Hugh Everett III that the universe splits into bajillions of universes every nanosecond. The problem is, you can’t predict which universe you are going to find yourself in - a copy of you is in each on of them but you find yourself in only one of them, and which one of them that is, is unpredictable. Since you are in all of them, you could end up as any one of those yous. So while the wave function evolves deterministically, the result of an experiment done by you is indeterminate. Since the sine qua non of science is experiment, to me Hugh Everett’s interpretation is a load of BS. It is a God’s eye viewpoint if it is right, not what a human can detect. It satisfies the Pythagoreans amongst physicists, those who think the universe is just mathematics, but there is nothing scientific about a belief that the universe is just mathematics. If you are a determinism freak, too, Hugh Everett’s is your interpretation.

The older and more widely accepted interpretation is the Copenhagen interpretation in which the wave function gives the probability of an event (actually the modulus squared of the wave function gives the probability density). In the Copenhagen interpretation, there is just one universe.

The article Tipler is denouncing uses 20th century physics as a metaphor for socialist ideas, which any physicist would denounce. Tipler has made as dramatic a denunciation of the metaphor as possible, but he has asserted things that are controversial at best as the received truth.

Don’t take my word for it. Here is Bernard Beard, a physicist I used to talk to, objecting to Tipler’s attitude that Hugh Everett’s interpretation is a proof that the universe is deterministic in the comments to another one of Tipler’s Pajamas Media articles.

I also have Gravitation by Wheeler, et al. You could cast Newtonian gravity as curved space but Newtonian gravity is linear and relativistic gravity is non linear, so I don’t see how relativistic gravity could be considered a special case of Newtonian gravity.

As I understand it, in the geometric formulation of Newtonian gravity, spacetime is stratified into spacelike slices by a universal time coordinate and the geometry of each slice is Euclidean, i.e., uncurved. To quote “Gravitation” again:

If the space slices are really so flat, where do curvature and geodesic deviation enter in? They are properties of spacetime.

…

Geodesics of a space slice that are initially parallel remain always parallel. But geodesics of spacetime (trajectories of freely falling particles) initially parallel get pried apart or pushed together by spacetime curvature.

pgs 291 - 292.

So, as I understand it, it is the spacetime that is curved, i.e., the Reimann tensor does not vanish; but it is curved in a very artificial way such that that a spacetime metric cannot be defined as it is in GR.

Is that more or less what you are saying?

I’m a pragmatist, not a theorist. As such, I’m inclined to throw rocks at all of their heads. “See? The rock leaves my hand with velocity V. It is acted upon my gravity and wind, and impacts your head at position P. Is that Newtonian or Einsteinian? What’s that? Concussion? Gee, sorry.”

deanz1, gravity bends the trajectory of em waves in Newtonian physics too. The amount of bending is different for relativistic and Newtonian gravity. In fact, even black holes exist in Newtonian physics too.

Alfred, nope, it’s not what I was saying, and I was wrong.

I had thought Newtonian gravity cast as curvature differed from relativistic gravity in that there would be no curvature in 2 dimensional spacetime slices but there would be curvature in space slices, but you are right, it is the other way around. It’s easy to see too, when you think about it. If it was just space slices that were curved, then trajectories between two points in a gravitational field would be independant of velocity. A baseball thrown through a hole in a wall would follow the same path as a bullet fired from the same point - which is obviously wrong.

I’ve carried that incorrect idea around in my head for years.

Traffic-law “violation enforcement” methods of any sort that result primarily in fines have almost nothing to do with safety. Whether it’s ticketing by cops or ticketing by cameras, it’s always, first and foremost, about the money.

If that wasn’t true, flagrant and outrageous speeders and drunk drivers would lose their licenses - instantly and automatically - on first offense, and be jailed just as quickly and automatically on a second offense.

Any statistical “proof” that is offered to try to support such schemes fall into the “…lies, damned lies and statistics…” category - just more “junk science”, like AGW.

The whole report from Dr. Jeff Masters, one of the founders of Weather Underground (www.wunderground.com). The satellite view, and the photos contributed by readers, are priceless as well.

I wonder if this will “cool” the ardor of watermelon Dems…?

Of course not - “Climate change, dammit - it’s climate change - and this is just more definitive proof of it! Now, knock off that sneering - this is serious stuff !!…”

So…in that picture up above, how many of those do you suppose are “carbon footprints”?…

drach. They got these things called “snow blowers”. I admit getting one up on the roof might be more trouble than it’s worth. I on the other hand need something called a “high pressure water pump”.

Northern Minnesota: several inches of fluffy snow Algor dandruff, several more expected. I sure am glad I don’t live in southern areas, where AGW hits harder.

The snow did some good. Federal Government Closed on Monday

Indy 42, Aint 35

O.k., I’ll play a round…

Colts 34

(S)Aints 21

The Big (Not So) Easy goes marchin’ out…

(Who Dat, indeed…)

Update (Subsequent to the final score…): Sadly consistent with my usual degree of success in sports prediction - didn’t even get the point spread (in reverse) right…

Precisely why I don’t bet sports anymore - the last time I won at that, Denny McClain won 31 games for the Detroit Tigers (and the Colts lost the Super-Duper Bowl that season, too…)

Oh, well - guess Mardi Gras starts early, this year.

Geaux Saints!

I’m just hoping for a Saints win, if only for the spectacle of an even longer NOLA Mardi Gras. Straight out partying from tonight until Ash Wednesday? That would be a sight to see.

Never liked the Colts in Balmer. Like ‘em even less in Naptown.

Weaux, Saints!

Do you think I could get grant money and a Nobel prize for that?

Probably not - you’re neither a “recognized academic liar researcher” nor an Affirmative-Action POTUS. You could maybe get your own personalized hockey-stick, though…

…I’d rather watch a gaggle of transvestite rodeo clowns slap each other on the ass…

Now, that would, indeed, make some prime-time TeeVee watching - you could probably put it on Pay-Per-View, billed as “Congressional Health-Care Reform Negotiations” - reality programming at it’s finest…

Personally, I have to confess - I didn’t actually watch the Super-Duper Bubble. See, there was this kinda-cool Western rerun on, called Dances With Indians, or some such…

I took a peek at some of the commercials, though - found out roughly how many Doritos you can pile in a casket, and still have room for the “corpse” and a T.V. screen. Also, even if you used to Own Or Control It All, but get wiped out financially and lose it all, a free bottle of Coke makes it all better, somehow…

Oh, and Go Daddy.com produces such devout ecstasy, women start ripping their clothes off.

I take it your view is the rear view?

Jeez, I get it RIGHT, and STILL I am mocked? Oh, the humanity…

Amen. How does he get a rep as a good speaker when most of his sentences are 1 or 2 cliches with some filler?

Is “ray serene” a Rosicrucian reference? Been many years since I read any of their stuff, but that sounds like something they would say. Lots of various “rays” anyway as I recall.

Nick Gillespie headlines the story:

Outgoing Dem. Senator Finishing Ted Kennedy’s Term Laments End of Single-Party Rule, Asks That Oppo Party Gets The Message That They Should Do Whatever Dems Ask

I think that was Lincoln’s favoite poem. (No, I don’t have anything interesting to add to this thread)

If anybody hasn’t read Clarence Thomas’ autobiography My Grandfather’s Son, I would highly recommend it. My respect for the man went up significantly after I read his book and I’ve purchased several copies and given them away.