Tag Archives: second

Pre-Algebra DeMYSTiFieD, Second Edition – Allan Bluman

by Myrna Posted on September 6, 2017

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Pre-Algebra DeMYSTiFieD, Second Edition

Allan Bluman

Genre: Mathematics

Price: $12.99

Publish Date: December 6, 2010

Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education

Seller: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.


Preempt your anxiety about PRE-ALGEBRA! Ready to learn math fundamentals but can't seem to get your brain to function? No problem! Add Pre-Algebra Demystified , Second Edition, to the equation and you'll solve your dilemma in no time. Written in a step-by-step format, this practical guide begins by covering whole numbers, integers, fractions, decimals, and percents. You'll move on to expressions, equations, measurement, and graphing. Operations with monomials and polynomials are also discussed. Detailed examples, concise explanations, and worked problems make it easy to understand the material, and end-of-chapter quizzes and a final exam help reinforce learning. It's a no-brainer! You'll learn: Addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division of whole numbers, integers, fractions, decimals, and algebraic expressionsTechniques for solving equations and problemsMeasures of length, weight, capacity, and timeMethods for plotting points and graphing lines Simple enough for a beginner, but challenging enough for an advanced student, Pre-Algebra Demystified , Second Edition, helps you master this essential mathematics subject. It's also the perfect way to review the topic if all you need is a quick refresh.

Continued here – 

Pre-Algebra DeMYSTiFieD, Second Edition – Allan Bluman

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Headstrong – Rachel Swaby

by Myrna Posted on June 27, 2017

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Headstrong
52 Women Who Changed Science-and the World
Rachel Swaby

Genre: Reference

Price: $1.99

Publish Date: April 7, 2015

Publisher: Crown/Archetype

Seller: Penguin Random House LLC


Fifty-two inspiring and insightful profiles of history’s brightest female scientists. In 2013, the  New York Times  published an obituary for Yvonne Brill. It began: “She made a mean beef stroganoff, followed her husband from job to job, and took eight years off from work to raise three children.” It wasn’t until the second paragraph that readers discovered why the  Times had devoted several hundred words to her life: Brill was a brilliant rocket scientist who invented a propulsion system to keep communications satellites in orbit, and had recently been awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. Among the questions the obituary—and consequent outcry—prompted were, Who are the role models for today’s female scientists, and where can we find the stories that cast them in their true light?        Headstrong  delivers a powerful, global, and engaging response. Covering Nobel Prize winners and major innovators, as well as lesser-known but hugely significant scientists who influence our every day, Rachel Swaby’s vibrant profiles span centuries of courageous thinkers and illustrate how each one’s ideas developed, from their first moment of scientific engagement through the research and discovery for which they’re best known. This fascinating tour reveals 52 women at their best—while encouraging and inspiring a new generation of girls to put on their lab coats.

Originally posted here – 

Headstrong – Rachel Swaby

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Medicaid Is the Most Widely Used Benefit Program in Existence

by AlyciaLinder Posted on June 3, 2017

Mother Jones

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Aaron Carroll points me to this surprising result from a new Kaiser survey:

Is it really true that 71 percent of Republicans think it’s important to keep ACA’s Medicaid expansion? Yes it is, though with less intensity than Democrats and Independents. Is it because they’re confused and think this is about Medicare? Nope. The question explicitly starts out, “Now thinking specifically about Medicaid, the program for certain low-income adults and children…”

The answer probably lies here:

Even among Republicans, nearly half say Medicaid is personally important to their family. If that’s the case, it’s not really surprising that 71 percent support Medicaid expansion. That includes all the Republicans who think it’s personally important plus another sizeable chunk who have one or more friends who depend on it. (Plus, presumably, some who are unaffected by Medicaid but support it out of ordinary human decency anyway.)

These numbers may seem surprisingly high, but they’re really not. In the Kaiser poll, among all party IDs, 58 percent say that Medicaid is personally important to them and their families. In the US there are, roughly speaking:

68 million Medicaid enrollees
85 million families

If, say, there are 35 million families with one Medicaid enrollee; 10 million with two; and 4 million with three or more; that’s a total of 68 million Medicaid enrollees spread out among 49 million families. And that’s 58 percent of all families.

It’s a big number because Medicaid is the most widely used major benefit program in existence.1 Most people don’t know this.

1I think. It’s more widely used than Social Security (61 million), Medicare (55 million), food stamps (44 million), unemployment insurance (6 million at the height of the recession), the home mortgage deduction (about 60 million), 401(k) plans (about 52 million), IRAs (about 60 million), EITC (26 million), and TANF (about 4 million). Am I missing any major programs?

There is one fly in this ointment: employer health insurance. About 155 million people receive medical coverage through their employers, and they all benefit from the tax advantages of employer health plans. If you count this, then Medicaid is only the second most widely-used benefit program.

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Medicaid Is the Most Widely Used Benefit Program in Existence

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Donald Trump Really Likes to Drop Military Secrets Into His Conversations

by AdrienneWaterman Posted on May 24, 2017

Mother Jones

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A couple of days ago The Intercept released a leaked transcript of President Trump’s recent phone call with President Duterte of the Philippines. Here’s a piece of it:

BuzzFeed’s Nancy Youssef got some feedback about this from folks in the Pentagon:

Pentagon officials are in shock after the release of a transcript between President Donald Trump and his Philippines counterpart reveals that the US military had moved two nuclear submarines towards North Korea. “We never talk about subs!” three officials told BuzzFeed News, referring to the military’s belief that keeping submarines’ movement stealth is key to their mission.

….By announcing the presence of nuclear submarines, the president, some Pentagon officials privately explained, gives away the element of surprise — an irony given his repeated declarations during the campaign that the US announces far too many of its military plans when it comes to combatting ISIS.

Moreover, some countries in the region, particularly China, seek to develop their anti-sub capability. Knowing that two US submarines are in the region could allow them to test their own military capabilities.

Needless to say, Trump wasn’t expecting that his conversation would be leaked. But these things happen—along with other ways that private conversations can end up in the wrong hands—which is why presidents don’t just casually drop military secrets into meetings with foreigners for no better reason than to make themselves look tough. This is now (at least) the second time Trump has done this, and there’s a price to pay:

We’re quickly reaching the point where intelligence agencies, both foreign and domestic, are going to start withholding information from Trump because they don’t trust him to keep his yap shut. We might already be there, for all I know.

From – 

Donald Trump Really Likes to Drop Military Secrets Into His Conversations

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Trump Has No Idea What’s In His Health Care Bill

by Deana19P2532 Posted on April 30, 2017

Mother Jones

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I’m going to go out and throw some frisbees around. In the meantime, enjoy John Dickerson’s interview with Donald Trump about his health care bill:

JOHN DICKERSON: So but in the bill, as it was analyzed, there were two problems. One, and you talked about this with Congressman Robert Aderholt, who brought you the example of the 64-year-old who under Obamacare the premiums–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: But that was a long time ago, John.

JOHN DICKERSON: But has that been fixed?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Totally fixed.

JOHN DICKERSON: How?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: How? We’ve made many changes to the bill. You know, this bill is–

JOHN DICKERSON: What kind though?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: –very much different than it was three weeks ago.

JOHN DICKERSON: Help us explain because there are people–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The bill–

JOHN DICKERSON: –out there wondering what kind of changes.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Let me explain. Let me explain it to you.

JOHN DICKERSON: Okay.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: This bill is much different than it was a little while ago, okay? This bill has evolved. And we didn’t have a failure on the bill. You know, it was reported like a failure. Now, the one thing I wouldn’t have done again is put a timeline. That’s why on the second iteration, I didn’t put a timeline.

But we have now pre-existing conditions in the bill. We have — we’ve set up a pool for the pre-existing conditions so that the premiums can be allowed to fall. We’re taking across all of the borders or the lines so that insurance companies can compete–

JOHN DICKERSON: But that’s not in–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: –nationwide.

JOHN DICKERSON: –this bill. The borders are not in–

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Of course, it’s in.

Needless to say, it’s not in. It might be in a future bill, but it’s not in the current bill. On the bright side, I’m impressed that Trump even knows about the high-risk pool, even if he doesn’t quite know what it’s called.

We also learned that Trump’s response to North Korea’s missile test is that he’s not happy. What does that mean? “I would not be happy. If he does a nuclear test, I will not be happy.”

Roger that.

Source: 

Trump Has No Idea What’s In His Health Care Bill

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GDP Growth Anemic? Blame the Weather!

by RodgerLundie Posted on April 28, 2017

Mother Jones

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A reader emailed this morning suggesting that GDP growth in the first quarter was low because GDP growth in the first quarter is always low:

Something I’ve long wondered is if the seasonal adjustments BLS is making on these numbers is artificially skewing the 1Q results every year. As you recall 1Q09 was the bottom of the Great Recession, it feels like they are overcorrecting for that phenomenon. When you look at the quarterly progression of every year (minus 2015 it looks like) 1Q sucks and then you get q/q improvement during the year.

I remember having read some criticisms of BEA’s seasonal adjustments, so I got curious. Is Q1 growth routinely lower than later quarters?

NOTE: The original chart I used showed GDP growth compared to the previous year. That’s not what BEA reports. The headline number is annualized growth from the previous quarter. I’ve revised the chart, which significantly revises the text below too.

On average, reported first quarter growth really is considerably lower than it is in the other three quarters. Nor is this an issue of unusually high revisions from the advance print to the final print. For the past seven years, the advance number has been a little higher on average than the final revision.

FWIW, if you look at GDP compared to the previous year (i.e., Q1 of 2017 compared to Q1 of 2016 etc.), average growth rates are about the same in all four quarters. This is probably a better measure.

While we’re on the subject, though, the weather is one of my favorite topics when it comes to making excuses for poor growth. Here is Nelson Schwartz in the New York Times today:

Michelle Meyer, chief United States economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said healthier business investment indicated that the overall economy was performing better than the headline numbers would suggest. “Warm weather meant consumers weren’t spending as much on electricity and natural gas and home heating,” Ms. Meyer said. “Government spending can also be affected by seasonal factors, and defense spending is especially volatile.”

Here is Nelson Schwartz in the New York Times three years ago:

In their initial estimate for growth in the months of January, February and March, government statisticians said output expanded at an annual rate of just 0.1 percent, although experts noted that figure was affected by one-time headwinds like unusually cold weather and slower inventory gains after businesses aggressively built up stockpiles in the second half of 2013.

Too hot, too cold, the weather is never just right, is it?

Original post – 

GDP Growth Anemic? Blame the Weather!

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Let’s Talk About Bubbles and James Comey

by stephenagee641 Posted on April 22, 2017

Mother Jones

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I have frequently made the case that Donald Trump is president because of FBI director James Comey. On October 28, Comey wrote a letter to Congress telling them that the FBI was investigating a new cache of Clinton emails that it found on the laptop of Huma Abedin’s estranged husband, Anthony Weiner. That was the turning point. Clinton’s electoral fortunes went downhill from there and never recovered.

As shocking as this may sound, not everyone agrees with me. A new book, Shattered, makes the case that Clinton was an epically bad candidate and her campaign was epically badly run. That’s why she lost. Yesterday, Shadi Hamid took aim at me for my continued Comey obsession in the face of the story told in Shattered:

Let’s talk. There’s a reason I blame Comey, and it’s not because I live in a bubble. It’s because a massive amount of evidence points that way. Today I want to put the whole case in one l-o-o-o-o-ng post so everyone understands why I think Comey was the deciding factor in the election. If you still disagree, that’s fine, but this is the evidence you need to argue with.

NOTE: I want to make clear that I’m talking solely about Hillary Clinton and the presidency here. Democrats have been badly pummeled at the state level over the past six years, and that obviously has nothing to do with Comey. It’s something that Democrats need to do some soul searching about.

Ready? Let’s start with some throat-clearing.

First: Keep in mind that Clinton was running for a third Democratic term during a period when (a) the economy was OK but not great and (b) Barack Obama’s popularity was OK but not great. Models based on fundamentals therefore rated the election as something of a tossup. Clinton was not running as a sure winner.

Second: For the sake of argument, let’s assume that Hillary Clinton was an epically bad, unpopular candidate who ran a terrible campaign. She foolishly used a private email server while she was Secretary of State. She gave millions of dollars in speeches after leaving the State Department. She was a boring speaker with a mushy agenda. She was a hawkish Wall Street shill who failed to appeal to millennials. She lost the support of the white working class. Her campaign was a cespool of ego, power-mongering, and bad strategy. Let’s just assume all that.

If this is true, it was true for the entire year. Maybe longer. And yet, despite this epic horribleness, Clinton had a solid, steady lead over Trump the entire time. The only exception was a brief dip in July when Comey held his first presser to call Clinton “extremely careless” in her handling of emails. Whatever else you can say about Hillary Clinton, everyone knew about her speeches and her emails and her centrism and everything else all along. And yet, the public still preferred her by a steady 3-7 percentage points over Trump for the entire year.

Third: Every campaign has problems. If you win, they get swept under the rug. If you lose, bitter staffers bend the ears of anyone who will listen about the campaign’s unprecedented dysfunction and poor strategy. This is all normal. Both the Clinton and Trump campaigns had all the usual problems, and in a close election you can blame any of them for a loss. But two things set the Comey letter apart. First, it had a big effect right at the end of the race. Second, it was decidedly not a normal thing. It came out of the blue for no good reason from the chief law enforcement officer of the United States. There is nothing Clinton could have done about it.

With that out of the way, let’s take a look at the final two months of the campaign. All of the poll estimates look pretty similar, but I’m going to use Sam Wang’s EV estimator because it gives a pretty sharp day-to-day look at the race. Wang’s final estimate was wrong, of course, like pretty much everyone else’s, but don’t worry about that. What we’re interested in is the ups and downs. What Wang’s estimate tells us is that, with the brief exception of the July Comey presser, the race was amazingly stable. From January through August, he has Clinton at 330-340 electoral votes. Let’s pick up the story in September:

At the beginning of September, Clinton slumps after her “deplorables” comment and her stumble at the 9/11 memorial. After Trump’s shockingly bad performance at the first debate she starts to regain ground, and continues to gain ground when the Access Hollywood tape is released. By the end of October she’s back to where she started, with a big lead over Trump. THIS IS IMPORTANT: despite everything — weak fundamentals, the “deplorables” comment, her personal unpopularity, her mushy centrism, her allegedly terrible campaign — by the end of October she’s well ahead of Trump, just as she had been all year.

On October 25, HHS announces that Obamacare premiums will go up substantially in the following year. This doesn’t appear to have any effect. Then, on October 28, Comey releases his letter. Clinton’s support plummets immediately, and there’s no time for it to recover. On November 8, Trump is elected president.

But how much did Comey’s letter cost Clinton? Let’s review the voluminous evidence:

Nate Silver estimates the Comey letter cost Clinton about 3 points.
A panel survey from the Institute for the Study of Citizens and Politics suggests the Comey letter produced a net swing of 4 points toward Trump.
Sam Wang estimates the Comey letter cost Clinton 4 points, though she may have made back some of that in the final days.
Engagement Labs tracks “what people are talking about.” Immediately after the Comey letter, they registered a 17-point drop in favorable sentiment toward Clinton.
Google searches for “Hillary’s email” spiked 300 percent after Comey’s letter.
The tone of news coverage flipped enormously against Clinton after the Comey letter.
A trio of researchers who looked at the evidence concluded that Comey’s letter was decisive, probably costing Clinton 3-4 points in the popular vote.
Trump’s own analysts think the Comey letter was decisive.
The Clinton campaign agrees that the Comey letter was decisive, and adds that Comey’s second letter hurt her too.1

I’m not sure how much clearer the evidence could be. Basically, Hillary Clinton was doing fine until October 28. Then the Comey letter cost her 2-4 percent of the popular vote. Without Comey she would have won comfortably — possibly by a landslide — even though the fundamentals predicted a close race.

That’s it. That’s the evidence. If you disagree that Comey was decisive, you need to account for two things. First, if the problem was something intrinsic to Clinton or her campaign, why was she so far ahead of Trump for the entire race? Second, if Comey wasn’t at fault, what plausibly accounts for Clinton’s huge and sudden change in fortune starting precisely on October 28?

One way or another, it appears that all the things that were under Hillary Clinton’s control were handled fairly well. They produced a steady lead throughout the campaign. The Comey letter exists on an entirely different plane. It was an unprecedented breach of protocol from the FBI; it was completely out of Clinton’s control; and it had a tremendous impact. That’s why I blame James Comey for Donald Trump’s victory.

1The second letter was the one that cleared her. However, merely by keeping the subject in the news, it hurt Clinton.

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Let’s Talk About Bubbles and James Comey

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How Many Republicans Are Atheists?

by SteffenWheen Posted on April 13, 2017

Mother Jones

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How many Americans are atheists? Many people don’t really like admitting it, but Brian Resnick points today to an attempt to get at the truth. In the cleverly titled “How many atheists are there?” a pair of researchers sent people surveys with a bunch of personal questions (Are you vegetarian? Do you work from home? Etc.). But they didn’t ask for answers to the questions. All they asked for was the number that were true for you.

The researchers don’t report the average number reported back. But let’s suppose it was 4.3 out of 9. This is important, because they sent out a second set of surveys that were identical but added one question: “Do you believe in God?” If the average number of questions that were reported true in the second survey stayed at 4.3 out of 10, we can figure that no one believes in God. If it went up to, say, 5.1 out of 10, a little arithmetic suggests that roughly 80 percent of the respondents believe in God and 20 percent don’t.

After grinding through all this, the paper concludes that about 26 percent of Americans are atheists. Maybe that’s a reliable number, maybe not. This needs to be replicated a few times before we believe it. However, I was pretty gobsmacked by this table:

Granted, the error bars are large, but their point estimate is that no Republicans are atheists. None! If this methodology is accurate, it not only suggests a truly enormous religion gap between Republicans and everyone else, but also that self-reporting isn’t worth a damn.

As it happens, the sample the researchers used was probably somewhat self-selected rather than being truly random, and that may have affected the results. There are other potential problems too. Still, it’s an interesting first crack at this, and I hope that others follow it up.

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How Many Republicans Are Atheists?

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Devin Nunes Is Playing a Familiar Republican Game Today

by tbzmelisa1 Posted on March 22, 2017

Mother Jones

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When a big story breaks while I’m at lunch, it can be a real pain in the ass. Instead of following it in real time, I have to rush around later trying to piece together what’s happened. On the other hand, sometimes this is a blessing, because by the time I get to the story it’s clearer what the real issue is. I think today is an example of the latter.

For starters, here’s a nutshell summary of what happened. Devin Nunes, the Republican chair of the House Intelligence Committee, took the stage a few hours ago to declare himself “alarmed.” He believes that some of Donald Trump’s transition team might have been “incidentally” recorded during surveillance of foreign nationals. He won’t say who. Nor will he say who the foreign nationals were, other than “not Russian.” And as soon as he was done with his press conference, he trotted off to the White House to brief President Trump.

There are several problems here. First, Nunes didn’t share any of this with Democrats on the committee. Second, incidental collection is both routine and inevitable in foreign surveillance. Congress has had ample opportunity to rein it in if they wanted to, and they never have. Third, if this was part of a criminal investigation, Nunes may have jeopardized it by going public. Fourth, the chair of the Intelligence Committee isn’t supposed to be briefing the president on the status of an investigation into the president’s activities.

This is plenty to embarrass the great state of California, from which Nunes hails. But for what it’s worth, I don’t think any of this is the biggest issue. This one is:

He claims to have gotten the information personally from an unspecified source, and had not yet met with FBI Director James Comey to review the raw intelligence intercepts he was provided. Why would he go public without first consulting spies to see if what he had was actually worth sharing with the public?

Oh. This is one of those deals where the Republican chair of a committee gets some information; releases a tiny snippet that makes Republicans look good; and then eventually is forced to release the entire transcript, which turns out to be nothing at all like the snippet. We’ve seen this gong show a dozen times in the past few years.

My advice: ignore everything Nunes said. He’s obviously carrying water for Trump, hoping to drive headlines that vaguely suggest the Obama administration really was listening in on Trump’s phone calls. I gather that he’s succeeded on that score. For now, though, there’s no telling what this raw intel really says. Eventually the intelligence community will provide analysis, and committee Democrats will get to see the transcripts too. Then we’ll have a fighting chance of knowing whether it’s important or not. In the meantime, everything Nunes said is literally worthless. He’s not “probably right” or “probably wrong.” He’s nothing.

Originally posted here: 

Devin Nunes Is Playing a Familiar Republican Game Today

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Congressional Black Caucus Shows Trump Its Policy Vision for Black America

by JuanitaSelwyn Posted on March 22, 2017

Mother Jones

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In the lead-up to their meeting today with President Donald Trump, Congressional Black Caucus leaders said they would focus on explaining what African Americans stand to lose under a Trump presidency. Now, the caucus has shared its vision for black America in a new document released this afternoon.

Shortly after the meeting with the president ended, the CBC released “We Have a Lot to Lose: Solutions to Advance Black Families in the 21st Century,” a 130-page policy document drafted by the caucus in response to a question frequently posed by the president (“What do you have to lose?”) when he addressed black voters on the campaign trail. During the campaign, Trump was frequently criticized for characterizing black America as being uniformly decimated by crime and violence.

“We honor this opportunity to enlighten President Trump on the history and diversity of African Americans and offer bold policy solutions to advance our communities, and all Americans, in the 21st century,” the document says, adding, “If President Trump is sincere in his interest in advancing the Black community, this document should be the guiding post of his Administration.” A copy of the document was delivered to the president during the meeting.

“There were many areas where we disagreed with the policy solutions, but it was a meeting where both sides listened and where we were candid about disagreements,” Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.) the caucus chair, said at a press conference after the meeting. Richmond said members shared their concerns about how Trump has discussed black communities in the past, but that there was agreement on some issues, like the need for improved infrastructure.

“He listened,” Richmond said of Trump.

According to an excerpt sent to Mother Jones ahead of the meeting, the policy document highlights several areas that the CBC wants the president to focus on—including voting rights, the economy, health care, environmental justice, and rural America—and offers detailed solutions. In a section on criminal justice, for example, the document notes that in contrast to Trump’s emphasis on adopting “tough-on-crime” policies, the caucus would rather see an end to racial profiling, continued federal oversight of police departments, and reforms to the corrections system. “Taxpayer money would be better spent on the front end of the criminal justice system to prevent crimes from occurring in the first place,” the document states.

To solve these problems, the caucus suggests things like de-prioritizing arresting non-violent drug offenders and establishing a permanent White House commission aimed at addressing the needs of black men and boys. The CBC also suggests permanently authorizing and funding the Second Chance Act, a law that provides federal grants for state and local programs aimed at improving reentry into society from prison.

The CBC also delivered letters from several caucus members addressed to the president and members of his Cabinet. In a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Richmond and Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) write that “the first several weeks under your tenure have given us many causes for concern.” The congressmen note that they are particularly worried about the fate of criminal justice reform, racial profiling, voting rights, and policing under a Sessions’ Justice Department. In January, Richmond and other members of the CBC testified against Sessions’ nomination for attorney general, citing his history on racial controversies.

In a letter to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Richmond and Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.) cite their concerns with the administration’s focus on school choice vouchers, arguing that diverting funds to private schools will further endanger public schools and leave “the most disadvantaged students with the fewest resources.” The letter also notes that despite a highly publicized meeting between the Trump administration and the leaders of historically black colleges and universities, the president’s proposed budget offers little insight into how it will address educational institutions specifically aimed at helping minorities.

During the meeting, Trump said he would work to help the black community. “Throughout my campaign, I pledged to focus on improving conditions for African American citizens,” he said at the beginning of the meeting. “This means more to me than anybody would understand or know.”

The CBC says it will continue to push its agenda and stand against the president when necessary. “We’re going to keep advocating,” Richmond said as the press conference came to a close. “We’re not called the ‘conscience of the Congress’ for nothing.”

Source: 

Congressional Black Caucus Shows Trump Its Policy Vision for Black America

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