Tom Faranda's Folly

Economic growth goes negative 0.1% in last quarter

No comment. And we're raising taxes? insane.

The U.S. economy posted a stunning drop of 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter, defying expectations for slow growth ...

J.R.R. Tolkien on the Eucharist + comments on war

As many people know, Tolkien was a fervent Catholic; his wife, not so much.

"The only cure for sagging or fainting faith is Communion. Though always Itself, perfect and complete and inviolate, the Blessed Sacrament does not operate completely and once for all in any of us. Like the act of Faith it must be continuous and grow by exercise. Frequency is of the highest effect. Seven times a week is more nourishing than seven times at intervals."

- J.R.R. Tolkien

Here's a couple of more quotes from Tolkien - on war (Tolkien served in the trenches in WW 1 and lost several close friends):

Tolkien criticized Allied use of total war tactics against civilians from Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. In a 1945 letter to his son Christopher, he wrote:

We were supposed to have reached a stage of civilization in which it might still be necessary to execute a criminal, but not to gloat, or to hang his wife and child by him while the orc-crowd hooted. The destruction of Germany, be it 100 times merited, is one of the most appalling world-catastrophes. Well, well,—you and I can do nothing about it. And that [should] be a measure of the amount of guilt that can justly be assumed to attach to any member of a country who is not a member of its actual Government. Well the first War of the Machines seems to be drawing to its final inconclusive chapter—leaving, alas, everyone the poorer, many bereaved or maimed and millions dead, and only one thing triumphant: the Machines.^[109]

He also reacted with anger at the excesses of anti-German propaganda during the war. In 1944, he wrote in a letter to his son Christopher:

... it is distressing to see the press grovelling in the gutter as low as Goebbels in his prime, shrieking that any German commander who holds out in a desperate situation (when, too, the military needs of his side clearly benefit) is a drunkard, and a besotted fanatic. ... There was a solemn article in the local paper seriously advocating systematic exterminating of the entire German nation as the only proper course after military victory: because, if you please, they are rattlesnakes, and don't know the difference between good and evil! (What of the writer?) The Germans have just as much right to declare the Poles and Jews exterminable vermin, subhuman, as we have to select the Germans: in other words, no right, whatever they have done.^[110]

He was horrified by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, referring to the scientists of the Manhattan Project as "these lunatic physicists" and "Babel-builders".^[111]

:

 

Manti Teo's girlfriend got 521x more coverage than the March for Life

It figures.

Manti Te’o’s “Girlfriend” Gets 521x More Coverage Than March for Life

ABC covered the story of the Notre Dame’s linebacker for 63 minutes and 57 seconds, while NBC came close with 59 minutes and 15 seconds. CBS was rational by comparison with just 24 minutes and 31 seconds. The anchors reported on Te’o with gluttony for more detail. ABC’s Dan Abrams made a convincing argument for less coverage on the January 23, “Good Morning America.” That argument clearly failed.

******

Between the threads of the Te’o story, one anchor, NBC’s Brian Williams devoted 17 seconds to the 40th March for Life on last Friday, January 25, saying:

“Back in this country, in Washington today, thousands of anti-abortion demonstrators marched to the steps of the Supreme Court, protesting the landmark decision that legalized abortion. Annual March for Life, as it’s called, this year, coincides with the 40th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision.”

I guess CBS and ABC didn't even bother to mentino the March.

How much does Pandora pay to artists when their music is played? Answer below.

Very little. Put a number in your head and then hit the link.

Having Your Song Played 1.5 Million Times On Pandora Earns A Shockingly Trivial Amount Of Money

The Senate immigration reform plan

Good summary in yesterday's Washington Post. Put forward by four Democrats and four Republicans.

It would allow undocumented immigrants with otherwise clean criminal records to quickly achieve probationary legal residency after paying a fine and back taxes

Those would include additional border security, a new program to help employers verify the legal status of their employees and more-stringent checks to prevent immigrants from overstaying visas.

And those undocumented immigrants seeking citizenship would be required to go to the end of the waiting list to get a green card that would allow permanent residency and eventual citizenship, behind those who had already legally applied at the time of the law’s enactment.

The goal is to balance a fervent desire by advocates and many Democrats to allow illegal immigrants to emerge from society’s shadows without fear of deportation with a concern held by many Republicans that doing so would only encourage more illegal immigration.

“We will ensure that this is a successful permanent reform to our immigration system that will not need to be revisited,” the group asserts in its statement of principles.

The framework identifies two groups as deserving of special consideration for a separate and potentially speedier pathway to full citizenship: young people who were brought to the country illegally as minors and agricultural workers whose labor, often at subsistence wages, has long been critical to the nation’s food supply.

 

"Why Humans Outlasted Neanderthals", short video on a new book

Six and a half minutes long, and very interesting. After it gets reviewed on amazon, I'll probably buy the kindle edition of the book.

 

Two articles pointing to the same investment danger

Yesterday I posted this Take heed, if you are a contrarian investor - the crowd is turning bullish.

Now, here's why "the market" is very dangerous right now. You need to know that the bond (loanership) market is vastly bigger than the equity/stock (ownership) market. And with bond yields at historic lows, the prices of bonds have nowhere to go but down (as soon as interest rates start to rise). And that's bad.

Risk of Ultralow Yields

The risk is that the many retail investors who sought safety in bonds don't fully understand the losses they could face if there is a sustained economic recovery and yields start to rise.

******

Low yields mean that more and more of the value of a bond is in the big lump sum investors get when the bonds mature, making prices more volatile. This is because the payment of that lump sum may be many years away, making the bond's value sensitive to assumptions about interest rates. That has made long-maturity bonds, such as 10-year or longer paper, even riskier than in the past. For a one-percentage point rise in yields, 10-year U.S. Treasury holders now face a drop in price of nearly nine percentage points, versus around seven under more normal yield assumptions. Moreover, given where yields are, there is more room for them to rise than fall, meaning losses are more likely.

The benchmark 10-year Treasury was yielding around 1.95% on Friday, only a sliver more than inflation, which is running at 1.7%. If yields were to return to more normal levels of around 4%, investors would see the price of the bond fall from 97.15 on Friday to around 81, a fall of more than 16%, a huge hit for an asset many see as super safe.

Investors who hold their bonds until they mature will eventually be repaid in full. But they would have to wait until November 2022 for that, a long time to be stuck in a low-yielding investment.

With central banks seemingly on hold for months if not years, this problem is growing, as old bonds that paid high interest rates mature and are replaced with low-interest-rate debt. In Germany, for instance, €79 billion ($106 billion) of bonds that paid interest of between 3.5% and 4.25% mature in the next 12 months and will probably be replaced with debt offering far lower rates.

******

There are reasons to believe that central banks will seek to prevent market yields from rising. After all, tighter credit could choke off any recovery. But by deferring problems, artificially low yields are a double-edged sword—generating savings for borrowers now but storing up losses for lenders in the future.

The time bomb is ticking.

And then there's this article, also from yesterday -

MORGAN STANLEY ANALYST: Every Investor I Met At Davos Was Worried About The Same Fed Scenario

The dreaded "1994 scenario."

In 1994, against the backdrop of a strengthening U.S. economy, the Federal Reserve surprised investors by hiking interest rates, causing a bloodbath in the bond market. The Fed was trying to ward off inflation – even though no real sign of rising prices had yet emerged.

Van Steenis says this concern was voiced by "every single long-term asset owner" that he met.

So, be ready.

Good NY Times op ed on feminism, abortion, and the March for Life

Having gone to the March (as we always do) this past Friday (below are two pictures - Brigid with our friend Digna, and the crowd on the corner of Constitution Ave and First Street as they move toward the Supreme Court building), the essay offers some timely thoughts. As well as a nice tribute to the founder of the March, the late Nellie Gray.

Divided by Abortion, United by Feminism

One of these pioneering women was a corporal from Big Spring, Tex., named Nellie Gray. After the war ended, Gray finished college (with an assist from the G.I. Bill) and moved to Washington, D.C., where she worked for decades at the State Department and the Department of Labor, earning a law degree at night from Georgetown University along the way. Then the social upheavals of the 1970s arrived, the soldier-turned-bureaucrat-turned-lawyer helped found one of America’s most enduring mass movements, establishing an annual protest march that continues to the present day.

That protest is the March for Life, the annual rally against Roe v. Wade.

When she organized the first march, in January 1974, it drew 20,000 anti-abortion marchers to the capital. On Friday, 40 years after Roe and six months after Gray’s death at the age of 88, the marchers numbered in the tens or even hundreds of thousands.

******

As Jon Shields of Claremont McKenna College pointed out last year, pro-life sentiment has been steady over the last four decades even as opposition to women in the work force (or the military, or the White House) has largely collapsed. Most anti-abortion Americans today are also gender egalitarians: indeed, Shields notes, pro-life attitudes toward women’s professional advancement have converged so quickly with pro-choice attitudes that “the average moderately pro-life citizen is a stronger supporter of gender equality than even the typical strongly pro-choice citizen was in the early 1980s.” Among the younger generation, any “divide over women’s roles nearly disappears entirely.”

The pro-life cause has proved unexpectedly resilient, in other words, not because millions of Americans are nostalgists for a world of stricter gender norms, but because they have convinced themselves that the opportunities the feminist revolution won for women can be sustained without unrestricted access to abortion.

This conviction is crucial to understanding why opinion on abortion has been a persistent exception to the liberalizing cultural trends that have brought us gay marriage, medical marijuana and now women in combat. It helps explain, too, why public opinion on the issue doesn’t break down along the gendered lines that many liberals expect — why more women than men, for instance, told the latest Pew survey that abortion was “morally wrong” and (in smaller numbers) that Roe should be overturned.

******

This means that the abortion rights movement, once utopian in its own fashion, is now at its most effective when it speaks the language of necessary evils, warning Americans that while it might be pretty to think so, the equality they take for granted simply can’t be separated from a practice they find troubling.

For its part, if the pro-life movement wants not only to endure but to triumph, then it needs an answer to this argument. That means something more than just a defense of a universal right to life. It means a realist’s explanation of how, in policy and culture, the feminist revolution could be reformed without being repealed.

Here's Brigid and Digna

And the marchers - the "I Regret" signs belong to members of Silent no More,

Lastly, the NY Times coverage of the March (which you can get to here) was quite reasonable, which is surprising considering that in the past it's been scanty, biased or they totally ignored the event.

Take heed, if you are a contrarian investor - the crowd is turning bullish

Here's an "infographic" from USA Today -

This USA Today Infographic Will Make Every Investor Cringe

Five signs that things are goingto be swell.

And then there's this from Davos and other sources -

IT'S OFFICIAL: The World's Elites Declare The Global Economic Crisis To Be Over

The hive mind of Davos has concluded that the financial crisis is done, finished. The new worry: a bubble in the credit markets.

"Hive mind." I like that.

What happens when your computer cursor overheats.

Grim!

Check it out for yourself.

Click Here

NY Times gives coverage to yesterday's March for Life in Washington

Somewhat surprising for the Times, which in the past has ignored the March or given scanty or even biased coverage. I will post some of Brigid and my pictures tomorrow.

Their article is solid, with an excellent picture. The Washington Post, which usually does give reasonable coverage, only ran an AP wire story - Abortion opponents march in Washington to mark 40th anniversary of landmark court decision

Here's the Times - with excerpt below the link

40 Years After Roe v. Wade, Thousands March to Oppose Abortion

“Most Americans want some restrictions on abortion,” Ms. Monahan said. “We see abortion as the human rights abuse of today.”

Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio, who spoke via a recorded video, called on the protest group, particularly the young people, to make abortion “a relic of the past.”

“Human life is not an economic or political commodity, and no government on earth has the right to treat it that way,” he said.

The crowd was dotted with large banners, many bearing the names of the attendees’ home states and churches and colleges. Gary Storey, 36, stood holding a handmade sign that read “I was adopted. Thanks Mom for my life.” Next to him stood his adoptive mother, Ellen Storey, 66, who held her own handmade sign with a picture of her six children and the words “To the mothers of our four adopted children, ‘Thank You’ for their lives.”

Mr. Storey said he was grateful for the decision by his biological mother to carry through with her pregnancy. “Beats the alternative,” he joked.

Tigers attack snowman!

This is at Longleat Safari Park in the Wiltshire, England. Cold spell in the UK!

Washington Post on how Baltimore Ravens turned their season around and made the Super Bowl.

Nice article on the four decisive days and decisions.

Four days that set the course of the Ravens’ season for Super Bowl XLVII

BALTIMORE — The story of the Baltimore Ravens’ remarkable turnaround from losing four of five games to close the regular season to winning three straight to get to the Super Bowl will be told many times before Feb. 3. And the story will undoubtedly start when the team hit rock bottom.

It was Dec. 16 when the Ravens were booed by their home fans during an embarrassing 34-17 loss to the Denver Broncos. After the game, veteran safety Ed Reed, whose frustration boiled over on the sideline when he threw and then kicked his helmet following a Broncos’ touchdown, stood in front of his locker and apologized.

“As a single player, as an individual, right now I am embarrassed to come out and perform the way we have,” Reed said. “We’re not the only team that lost today and we still have two more games. But as a player, I am embarrassed for our city.”

A little more than a month later, that embarrassment has turned into a city-wide celebration. The Ravens rebounded from the Broncos’ loss to beat the New York Giants the following week, setting the stage for the postseason run that has the Ravens readying for a matchup with the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl XLVII on the first Sunday in February at the Superdome in New Orleans.

        How did the Ravens turn things around in time?

Great WSJ editorial on Ms. Clinton's Benghazi testimony

A little excerpt below, but hit the link for the whole nine paragraphs

Hillary Pitches a Benghazi Shutout 'What difference, at this point, does it make?'

The hearing's dramatic high point came when Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson wouldn't take this know-nothing line for an answer and pressed why it took the Administration so long to say it was a terrorist strike. "What difference, at this point, does it make?" she shot back.

Sorry, Ma'am. At this point, or at any point, it matters when Administrations mislead Americans.

Back on message, Mrs. Clinton said she wasn't responsible for the security vacuum in Libya after Gadhafi's fall that was filled by Islamists. She blamed Congress for not providing enough aid.

Mrs. Clinton is a short-timer at State, so her main goal is to escape the Benghazi debacle without permanent wounds. Her adoring press will make sure of that.

Good response by Kerry on his senate hearing interruption

Much as I dislike Kerry's politics, I think he responded properly here, especially considering his own history.

Democrat Congressman with a sensible plan to reduce gun violence

An op ed in the WSJ, written by a Democrat Congressman, so my Democrat friends can read it.

Excerpt below; hit the link for the whole short pece.

Americans support universal background checks, stronger prosecution of gun offenses and limits on ammunition.

I will never give up my guns and I will never ask law-abiding individuals without a history of dangerous mental illness to give up theirs. Not only am I personally against this, but the Constitution wouldn't allow it. In District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), the Supreme Court affirmed once and for all that Americans have an individual right to keep and bear arms.

However, just as the First Amendment protects free speech but doesn't allow Americans to incite violence, the Second Amendment has limitations, too. As conservative Justice Antonin Scalia outlined in Heller, there is no constitutional problem with laws forbidding firearms in places such as schools or with laws prohibiting felons and the mentally ill from carrying guns.

This ruling provides people on both sides with an opportunity to work between the extremes and within the confines of the Second Amendment to pass legislation that will reduce gun violence.

There is wide agreement that we must close the holes in our mental-health system and make sure that care is available for those who need it by improving early intervention and addressing the shortage of mental-health professionals.

In Australian library, Lance Armstrong books moved to the fiction section

It’s unclear if the Manly Library will spark a worldwide trend of removing books about Armstrong from the non-fiction section trend.

Hillary Clinton vs. Senators Johnson and Rand Paul

Mrs. Clinton, "What difference does it make?" (About why the four Americans died in Libya).

Rand Paul,

"Failure of leadership ... I would have relieved you of your post."

Check Hillary's body language.

 

How babies are made in Canada

Looks like a unique method - reported to me by my friend Eileen.

Canadian photographer Patrice Laroche surely will have no trouble explaining his kids about the birds and the bees. During his wife Sandra Denis’ pregnancy, the artist created hilarious explanatory photo series titled “How to Make a Baby”. The creative couple planned and carried out their project throughout the whole period of 9 months, taking pictures in the exact same settings as Sandra’s belly expanded.

The pregnancy saga of Sandra and Patrice basically denounces all the traditional cabbage and the stork stories.

 

NY Post editorial on Roe v. Wade at 40

My friend Nancy sent this to me.

There’s no naïveté quite like that of the sophisticate. Forty years ago this day, the Supreme Court upended the laws of all 50 states in Roe v. Wade — and The New York Times pronounced the issue settled.

“The court’s verdict on abortions,” said the Times, “provides a sound foundation for final and reasonable resolution of a debate that has divided America too long. As with the division over Vietnam, the country will be healthier with that division ended.”

Four decades on, we are hard-pressed to find any sign this division is ended. To the contrary, by substituting the preferences of unelected judges for the people acting through their elected representatives, Roe has only made the issue more divisive.

It's a short editorial - I excerpted about a third of it. it includes a picture of Norma McCorvey, the origianl "roe" in the decision, and who is now anti-abortion and working to overturn the decision.

My friend Theresa on 40 years of post-abortive people

Post abortive - had an abortion, complicit, etc.

Theresa has her own abortion story, and now works full-time as director of Lumina, Hope and Healing After Abortion.

Personal Stories of Personal People

The monster in the room, abortion, that lives in many of our families, will also go unnoticed yet another day, as mothers, fathers, grandparents, siblings and others suffer silently knowing and missing the child, grandchild, brother or sister that should be there with them, but never speaking of it with one another.

 

 

Spot the Faranda

Pretty easy to, actually.

Almost 70 participate in Rally for Life in White Plains

Baltimore Ravens linebacker offers colorful commentary on the New England Patriots

Tyrell Suggs, in the locker, after the Ravens beat the Pats in Sunday.

“These are the most arrogant pricks in the world, starting with Belichick on down,”

Suggs does, however, respect their playing ability.

Meanwhile the wife of Pat's receiver Wes Walker gets into the act -

Wife of Wes Walker goes on a Facebook rant against Ray Lewis

Funny - Watch Michelle Obama diss Speaker of the House Boehner

UPDATE: ABC News speculates on the scene + more stuff

At the Inauguration luncheon. Why were they sitting together? And what did he say? After hitting the link scroll down for the 17 second silent video.

Watch Michelle Obama Throw World-Historical Shade at John Boehner

 

Quotation from Martin Luther King, Jr.

From Consistent Life weekly email.
 
        “Modern psychology has a word – maladjusted – that it uses probably more than any other. I say to you, there are certain things within our social order to which I am proud to be maladjusted and to which I call upon all [people] of good will to be maladjusted.
        I never did intend to adjust to the evils of segregation and discrimination; to religious bigotry; to economic conditions that take necessities from the many and give luxuries to the few; to the self-defeating effects of physical violence.
        Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.”

Interesting UK article: "Strongest evidence yet to there being life on Mars"

In the Telegraph (UK)

"We know from studies that a substantial proportion of all life on Earth is also in the subsurface and by studying the McLaughlin Crater we can see similar conditions beneath the surface of Mars thanks to observations on the rocks brought up by the meteorite strike. "

"There can be no life on the surface of Mars because it is bathed in radiation and it's completely frozen. However, life in the sub surface would be protected from that.

"And there is no reason why there isn't bacteria or other microbes that were or still are living in the small cracks well below the surface of Mars.

"One of the other things we have discussed in our paper is that this bacteria could be living off hydrogen, which is exactly the same as what microbes beneath the surface of the Earth are doing too.

"Unfortunately, we won't find any evidence of animals as the most complex life you might get in the sub surface would be fungi.

"But fungi aren't even that far removed from plants and animals, so I think you could say that life on Mars could be complex, but small."

An easy, very fast way to help a 10 year old young lady on her science project

Watch Isabella's six second video and answer one multiple choice question. I did, but cannot tell you my choice.Don't want to bias you ...

Isabella's science project

 

A little Ed Sullivan - on "What's My Line"

My brother Jim sent me this, and if you know the players, it's quite amusing.

 

NBC/WSJ Poll has NRA more popular than the entertainment industry

Forty-one percent of adults see the NRA -- the nation's top gun lobby -- in a positive light, while 34 percent view it in a negative light. By comparison, just 24 percent have positive feelings about the entertainment industry, and 39 percent have negative ones.

Stan "The Man" Musial

The famous St. Louis Cardinal baseball player and Hall of Famer. he died at age 92.

A frail Musial, wearing a Cardinal red sport jacket, went to the White House in February 2011 to receive the Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award, from President Obama, who called him “untarnished, a beloved pillar of the community, a gentleman you’d want your kids to emulate.”

If you're a baseball fan, hit the link for a fine tribute in the NYT.

Chicago economist on the reality of Federal Reserve policy

A bad long term outcome. Mind you, faced with the fiscal (budgetary) policy of the Adminstration, what could the Fed do otherwise?

“Fed policy will produce the worst possible outcome,” he said. “It will make rich people richer, because rich people own stocks, and they will go up. And it will make a poor people poorer, because it is not going to create jobs and they are going to pay higher gasoline prices.”

Sad to say, i think he's probably right. Of course, more than stocks will go up - real estate could rise, as could precious metals.

Another Tim bench press personal record - 300!

Last evening, up from 290 lbs. exactly a month ago.

His friend Jack actually video'd Tim doing the lift with Tim's iPhone, but Tim refuses to pass along for posting.

The Jamaica Gleaner newspaper photo contest to "Capture Kingston"

An under 2 minute video that really does capture the capital of Jamaica. Not much has changed since I left in 1979.

If the video dooesn't load, here's a direct link that wil get you to it.

Capture Kingston

Great WSJ op ed: "Gold, Greenbacks and Inflation ..."

If you have no interest in your own finances, don't bother reading this.

Otherwise, it's a short, excellent piece.

The Federal Reserve, which celebrates its 100th anniversary this year, is tasked by Congress with managing the money supply so as to preserve price stability while maximizing employment. But with the central bank having increased the money supply by 25% since the financial crash of 2008—while the federal government has borrowed $5 trillion—can inflation be far off?

It won't be the first time. Inflation has often been popular, especially in democracies, since it benefits debtors, who are always more numerous than creditors. Inflation allows debtors to repay in money that is less valuable than the money they borrowed. This was the case after America's Revolutionary War, when economically distressed debtors demanded that state governments ease their burdens. State after state enacted paper-money laws, so that debts contracted in scarce gold and silver could be repaid with infinitely expandable paper.

Hit the link for the rest; another ten paragraphs.

Cable news race

Here Piers Morgan is quoted saying how one day he'll beat O'Reilly. Silly twit.

& I wouldn''t have thought Discovery Channel's unreality show Amish Mafia  was a news program.

CABLE NEWS RACE
WEDS JAN 16 2013

FOXNEWS O'REILLY 3,356,000
DISC AMISH MAFIA 3,200,000
FOXNEWS FIVE 2,323,000
FOXNEWS HANNITY 2,276,000
FOXNEWS BAIER 2,235,000
FOXNEWS SHEP 1,813,000
CMDY DAILY SHOW 1,790,000
FOXNEWS GRETA 1,637,000
CMDY COLBERT 1,360,000
MSNBC MADDOW 1,096,000
MSNBC SCHULTZ 1,020,000
MSNBC HARDBALL 875,000
MSNBC SHARPTON 839,000
MSNBC O'DONNELL 831,000
CNN COOPER 604,000
CNN PIERS 592,000

 

Anglican women's religious community goes RC en masse

 "Funny" how this has received no coverage from the major media. 11 sisters out of a community of about 40.

Suppose a number of Catholic sisters left in a group because of the Church's teaching on - you choose - abortion, gay marriage, women's ordination, etc, etc. Think it would have been on the front pages? To quote a well-known non-Catholic Christian, "You betcha!"

The reason there are 12 in the picture is because another sister from an Anglican order is joining them .

Eleven Anglican Sisters to be received into the Catholic Church

Oh, and one of them "laid down" her Anglican "ordination."

 

 

John Walsh (America's Most Wanted) on gun permits and background checks

Walsh, from the TV show America's Most Wanted and whose son was murdered in 1981 at the age of 6.

The seven key points from the President's gun proposal

None of this looks particularly onerous to me. In fact it's a lot more sensible then what the Anti-Christ Cuomo pushed through a few days ago here in NY.

7 Key Points From Obama’s Gun Proposal 

Here's the one that may be the most difficult to pass - #2. a return of the assault weapons ban

The president’s call on Congress to reinstate and strengthen the assault-weapons ban that expired in 2004 was perhaps the most noteworthy part of the package. As Obama noted, that ban was supported by Second Amendment advocate and right-wing hero Ronald Reagan. “Weapons designed for the theater of war have no place in a movie theater,” Obama said. Does it stand a chance to pass? Hard to say, but bringing up Reagan’s name was an unambiguous signal to Republicans to get behind the bill.

Very predictably, there's little - at least in this article (it's from the Daily Beast/Newsweek website) indicating any serious addressing of mental health issues in the President's points. Why take on the real difficult issue when you can score cheap points with the less important ones?

Seventh anniversary of my autologous stem cell transplant

When I had all that chemotherapy seven plus years ago, my lymphoma guru, Dr. Zelenetz said that mantle cell lymphoma 100% recurs within ten years. Then about three + years ago, when I asked him about it, he said "well we just wrote a paper saying that the treatment you had may in certain patients and situations be curative." Or words to that effect.

So ... who knows? I'm thankful I've been around for the seven years, for my family.

Here's what I posted last year (arrogant to quote myself, but... saves time)

Yup. Great health professionals, chemotherapy and prayer.

Here's what I posted last year on the fifth anniversary.

I could never quite figure why having your stem cells returned to you constituted a transplant, but that's what they call it.

Anyway, the idea is to re-build your immune system, after the high dose chemo has (hopefully) killed off the remaining lingering cancer cells. The side effect is that the chemo gives your immune system a drubbing, and hence the need for the stem cells - and they know what to do - isn't nature wonderful! - to rebuild.

Here's five years ago at Sloan Kettering. The precedure is very simple - like receiving a blood transfusion. I dozed off afterwards for a couple of hours, and Brigid said she enjoyed the peace and quiet ... What was she getting at?

Here - http://tomfaranda.typepad.com/folly/2006/01/transplant_went.html#tp

or here - Transplant went well

 

Journalist taking 7 year walk, following the path of ancient human migration

In the Washington Post science section, a short and interesting article.

Paul Salopek has a long walk ahead of him. The 50-year-old journalist left a small Ethiopian village on foot Jan. 10, planning to retrace the steps of humans’ migration from Africa until he gets to Tierra del Fuego, at the southern tip of Chile.

The 21,000-mile journey — which will cross 30 borders and bring him in contact with dozens of languages and ethnic groups — will take Salopek seven years.

By today’s standards, that’s a long time, but the same trek took ancient humans thousands of years. When and how our ancestors dispersed out of Africa has long been controversial, though it is generally believed that they slowly spread into the Middle East about 60,000 years ago, and while some branched off and headed to Europe, others migrated eastward into Asia, crossed a land-ice bridge that once spanned the Bering Strait and traveled down the length of the Western Hemisphere.

        Other than using a vessel to take him from Russia to Alaska, Salopek will mimic this epic voyage         on foot.

A little Jack Benny as he roasts Johnny Carson

Came across this - I am posting it because Brigid and I have recently watched several of the old Jack Benny shows, and also saw him in an old movie. His television program ran for about 15 years.

What a sense of comedic timing. And it is true that he was one of Carson's idols.

 

Good Washington Post in-depth article on the NRA

Very interesting (full disclosure - I don't own a gun) piece. Probably worth bearing in mind - as the piece points out at the end - thatthe Washnigton Post is not a fan of the NRA.

How NRA’s true believers converted a marksmanship group into a mighty gun lobby

They are absolutist in their interpretation of the Second Amendment. The NRA learned that controversy isn’t a problem but rather, in many cases, a solution, a motivator, a recruitment tool, an inspiration.

Gun-control legislation is the NRA’s best friend: The organization claims an influx of 100,000 new members in recent weeks in the wake of the elementary school massacre in Newtown, Conn. The NRA, already with about 4 million members, hopes that the new push by Democrats in the White House and Congress to curb gun violence will bring the membership to 5 million.

The group has learned the virtues of being a single-issue organization with a very simple take on that issue. The NRA keeps close track of friends and enemies, takes names and makes lists. In the halls of power, it works quietly behind the scenes. It uses fear when necessary to motivate supporters. The ultimate goal of gun-control advocates, the NRA claims, is confiscation and then total disarmament, leading to government tyranny.

“We must declare that there are no shades of gray in American freedom. It’s black and white, all or nothing,” Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre said at an NRA annual meeting in 2002, a message that the organization has reiterated at almost every opportunity since.

There's lots more if you hit the link.

The Japanese Tsunami, viewed from a car caught in it

Sent to me by my friend Bob W. Incredible video that is 4 and a half minutes long. Well worth taking the time to watch. The last 15 seconds - glad the man was out. You don't need to know Japanese to "get it."

Yu Muroga was doing his job making deliveries when the 11 March 2011 earthquake hit in Japan. Unaware, like many people in the area, of how far inland the Tsunami would travel, he continued to drive and do his job. The HD camera mounted on his dashboard captured not only the earthquake, but also the moment he and several other drivers were suddenly engulfed in the Tsunami. He escaped from the vehicle seconds before it was crushed by other debris and sunk underwater. The camera was heavily damaged but a video expert was able to retrieve this footage. 

The WSJ interviews Marco Rubio on immigration

The 41 year old senator from Florida, who is in the picture as a republican presidential candidate in 2016.

His wholesale fix tries to square—triangulate, if you will—the liberal fringe that seeks broad amnesty for illegal immigrants and the hard right's obsession with closing the door. Mr. Rubio would ease the way for skilled engineers and seasonal farm workers while strengthening border enforcement and immigration laws. As for the undocumented migrants in America today—eight to 12 million or so—he proposes to let them "earn" a working permit and, one day, citizenship.

NY City to tie physicians pay to performance; but how do you measure it?

Hmmm. And then there's this really bad idea. Bloomberg with another unnecessary, idiotic rule - restricting availability of painkillers

From Saturday's NY Times.

In a bold experiment in performance pay, complaints from patients at New York City’s public hospitals and other measures of their care — like how long before they are discharged and how they fare afterward — will be reflected in doctors’ paychecks under a plan being negotiated by the physicians and their hospitals.

In the wake of changes laid out in the Affordable Care Act, public and private hospitals are already preparing to have their income tied partly to patient outcomes and cost containment, but the city’s plan extends that financial incentive to the front line, the doctors directly responsible for treatment. It also shows how the new law could change longstanding relationships, giving more power to some of the poorest and most vulnerable patients over doctors who run their care.

“I would expect that we’re going to see this become more and more prevalent in compensation arrangements,” said Alan Aviles, president of the city’s Health and Hospitals Corporation, which runs the city’s 11 public hospitals and is the country’s largest public health system, handling more than 1 million emergency room visits a year.

The corporation’s plan would make doctors’ raises dependent on their performance on quality measures. The details are being negotiated with the doctors’ union, but both sides expect to reach an agreement that incorporates the idea.

Still, doctors are hesitant, saying they could be penalized for conditions they cannot control, including how clean the hospital floors are, the attentiveness of nurses and the availability of beds.

And it is unclear whether performance incentives work in the medical world; studies of similar programs in other countries indicate that doctors learn to manipulate the system.

“The consequences in a complex system like a hospital for giving an incentive for one little piece of behavior are virtually impossible to foresee,” said Dr. David U. Himmelstein, professor of public health at the City University of New York and a visiting professor at Harvard Medical School, who has reviewed the literature on performance incentives. “There are ways of gaming it without even outright lying that distort the meaning of the measure.”

Over the next few years, the federal government will financially reward or penalize hospitals based on how they perform on benchmarks that are believed to be correlated with better patient outcomes. By aligning doctors’ pay to the same benchmarks, city hospitals hope to perform well enough to qualify for federal bonuses.

There's a bit more; hit the link.

Miss USA candidate will have prophylactic breast surgery because of family history

A very interesting short interview. I believe this is being done by women with family breast cancer histories more and more frequently.

 

Three year anniversary of the Haiti earthquake

Here's a short vid from the Catholic media group, RomeReports. Still a mess, and the report seems to sugar coat ...

 

The Cable News Race

CNN barely registers. How the mighty have fallen!

And think about this - on Thursday January 10th, 805,000 people watched Al Sharpton.

CABLE NEWS RACE
THURS. JAN 10, 2013

FOXNEWS O'REILLY 3,162,000
FOXNEWS BAIER 2,152,000
FOXNEWS FIVE 2,129,000
FOXNEWS HANNITY 2,005,000
MTV BUCKWILD 1,920,000
CMDY DAILY SHOW 1,880,000
FOXNEWS SHEP 1,704,000
FOXNEWS GRETA 1,401,000
CMDY COLBERT 1,220,000
MSNBC SCHULTZ 1,035,000
MSNBC MADDOW 982,000
MSNBC MATTHEW 954,000
MSNBC O'DONNELL 914,000
MSNBC SHARPTON 805,000
CNN PIERS 783,000
CNN COOPER 611,000

 

Teacher stops a high school student shooter in California

Whew. And the teacher was unarmed.

Teen shoots high school student before being disarmed by teacher

State of the print news media: more NY Times layoffs expected

And high-up editors.

The media business was shaken on Friday when it was reported, first in New York Magazine and confirmed by POLITICO, that managing editor John Geddes, assistant managing editor Jim Roberts, dining editor Susan Edgerley, former Washington editor Rick Berke, and former Times Magazine editor Jerry Mazorati could all be casualties of the Times’ effort to cut costs.