Tag Archives: world

Argentine Dinosaur Was an Estimated 130,000 Pounds, and Still Growing

by Myrna Posted on September 4, 2014

The 85-foot-long dinosaur, whose remains were discovered in 2005 in Argentina but took years to excavate and prepare for study, is among the largest land animals ever. Link to original:  Argentine Dinosaur Was an Estimated 130,000 Pounds, and Still Growing ; ; ;

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Argentine Dinosaur Was an Estimated 130,000 Pounds, and Still Growing

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Republicans Mysteriously Decide to Become Hawkish Again

by BBWWilbert Posted on September 2, 2014

Mother Jones

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Apparently the kinder, gentler version of the Republican Party is quickly disappearing:

Remember when the Republican Party was quickly shifting toward a new brand of Rand Paul-esque foreign policy non-interventionism?

No more.

Less than a year ago, just 18 percent of GOPers said that the United States does “too little” when it comes to helping solve the world’s problems, according to a Pew Research Center poll. Today, that number has more than doubled, to 46 percent.

….The results echo a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll which showed higher GOP support for airstrikes in Iraq.

So what to account for the shift?

Hmmm. That’s a poser, isn’t it? What, oh what, could account for the shift?

Well, let’s cast our minds back a year or two. We were fighting in Libya, a war that President Obama got us involved in. We were fighting in Afghanistan, a war that Obama ramped up as soon as he took office. We were fighting drone wars in Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia, all thanks to Obama.

Then what happened? The civil war in Syria heated up, but after a brief bout of indecision Obama decided not to get deeply involved. Russia ramped up military action in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, and Obama decided not to get deeply involved. ISIS took over a huge chunk of Iraq, and Obama decided not to get deeply involved.

So let’s review. A year or two ago, we were involved in three overseas wars, all of them supported by Obama. At the time, Republicans were unaccountably dovish about military interventions. Today, Obama is refraining from getting deeply involved in three overseas wars. And guess what? Republicans have suddenly become hawkish again.

Yep, this is a poser. What could possibly account for this change in Republican attitudes?

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Republicans Mysteriously Decide to Become Hawkish Again

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Inflation Is Still the Great Bogeyman of the Rich

by DEQCheryle Posted on September 2, 2014

Mother Jones

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Paul Krugman is trying to figure out why wealthy elites are so damn obsessed with the dangers of moderately higher inflation. After all, in a deep recession, inflation is likely to spur economic growth, and that helps rich folks. Their assets increase in value and they become even richer. So what’s their problem?

In a post yesterday, Krugman refers to my suggestion that it’s mostly a case of septaphobia, or fear of the 70s. The idea here is that inflation really did run out of control in the 70s, and it really did take a massive recession engineered by Paul Volcker to rein it in. If that was one of your seminal experiences of the consequences of loose money, then it’s no surprise that you fear inflation. But Steve Randy Waldman says this is “bass-ackwards”:

Elites love the 1970s. Prior to the 1970s, during panics and depressions, soft money had an overt, populist constituency….The 1970s are trotted out to persuade those who disproportionately bear the burdens of an underperforming or debt-reliant economy that There Is No Alternative, nothing can be done, you wouldn’t want to a return to the 1970s, would you?

Quite right. Because the high inflation of the 70s really was painful for the middle class, the 70s do indeed serve a very useful purpose to elites who want to keep fear of inflation alive. But that begs the question: Why do they want to keep fear of inflation alive? The fact that elites have hated inflation forever isn’t an answer. During the days of the gold standard, high inflation really did hurt the wealthy. But today’s economy is vastly different from the hard-money + financial repression economy of the 70s and before. Inflation is much less threatening to the rich than it used to be. Why haven’t they figured this out?

I’m not sure, but I do want to note that both Krugman and Waldman have at least partly misunderstood me. Although I do think that septaphobia is a real thing, I mainly think it’s a real thing for the non-rich. It’s primarily the middle class that fears a rerun of the 70s. That might have been a bit muddled in my initial post (which Krugman linked to), but I made this clearer in a subsequent post about the roots of inflation phobia:

So what’s the deal? I’d guess that it’s a few things. First, the sad truth is that virtually no one believes that high inflation helps economic growth when the economy is weak….Second, there’s the legitimate fear of accelerating inflation once you let your foot off the brake….Third, there’s the very sensible fear among the middle class that high inflation is just a sneaky way to erode real wages….Fourth, there’s fear of the 70s, which apparently won’t go away until everyone who was alive during the 70s is dead. Which is going to be a while.

Krugman responds to Waldman here, and even though Waldman says my argument is bass-ackwards, I actually think he and I mostly agree. Krugman may be right that higher inflation would help the rich right now, and that they’d support it if they were smart. But Waldman argues there’s more to it. Basically, he thinks the rich are fundamentally conservative: inflation might help them on average, but there are still going to be plenty of losers whenever there’s an engineered change to the economy. Since the rich, by definition, are already doing pretty well, why risk it?

I think that’s probably right, though Waldman probably overstates its importance. Wealthy elites aren’t that conservative, especially when it comes to making money. Still, it’s almost certainly a significant factor. But I also think Krugman is right about false consciousness. In fact, that was #1 on my list above: the fact that virtually no one really, truly believes in Keynesian stimulus. (Waldman makes this point too.) If rich elites really did believe that a bit of high inflation would get the economy booming, I think they’d swallow their innate conservatism and support it. But they don’t. Almost no one really believes it in their guts.

That’s a failure of the economics profession, perhaps, but it’s also a legacy of septaphobia. After all, if you take a look solely at the surface—and that’s what most of us do, rich and poor alike—what’s the lesson of the 70s? That’s easy: Inflation got out of control and the economy went to hell. Then Paul Volcker reined in inflation, and the economy boomed. What’s more, the rich have prospered mightily in the 30 years of low inflation since then. So why mess with a good thing?

So yes: It’s septaphobia, both in a real sense and as a useful morality tale. It’s false consciousness from wealthy elites who don’t really believe that inflation will spur the economy. And it’s the innate conservatism of the rich, who don’t have much incentive to accept change when they’re already doing pretty well. Add to that the fact that inflation phobia is an easy sell to voters because the middle class really does have reason to fear inflation, and you have everything you need to make it nearly impossible to convince people that a bit of higher inflation would be a good thing right now. And so we stagnate.

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Inflation Is Still the Great Bogeyman of the Rich

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Putin Brags About How Fast He Could Take Ukraine

by JacelynBrigham Posted on September 2, 2014

Mother Jones

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Here’s the latest from Russia:

Vladimir Putin has said Russian forces could conquer the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, in two weeks if he so ordered, the Kremlin has confirmed.

Moscow declined to deny that the president had spoken of taking Kiev in a phone conversation on Friday with José Manuel Barroso, the outgoing president of the European commission….Barroso asked Putin about the presence of Russian troops in eastern Ukraine. Nato says there are at least 1,000 Russian forces on the wrong side of the border. The Ukrainians put the figure at 1,600.

“The problem is not this, but that if I want I’ll take Kiev in two weeks,” Putin said, according to La Repubblica.

The Kremlin did not deny Putin had spoken of taking Kiev, but instead complained about the leak of the Barroso remarks.

Yes, the leak is the real problem here. Invading Ukraine is a mere piffle.

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Putin Brags About How Fast He Could Take Ukraine

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The New Look of Smokers’ Litter

by Myrna Posted on September 2, 2014

The cigarettes may change, but for some smokers the habit of littering does not. See the original article here:  The New Look of Smokers’ Litter ; ; ;

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The New Look of Smokers’ Litter

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Dot Earth Blog: The New Look of Smokers’ Litter

by Myrna Posted on September 2, 2014

The cigarettes may change, but for some smokers the habit of littering does not. Link to article: Dot Earth Blog: The New Look of Smokers’ Litter

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Dot Earth Blog: The New Look of Smokers’ Litter

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An Icy Answer to the Mystery of the Moving Death Valley Stones

by Myrna Posted on September 1, 2014

At last, researchers have figured out the phenomenon known as the “sailing stones,” and the trails they leave, in the desert. Original article –  An Icy Answer to the Mystery of the Moving Death Valley Stones ; ; ;

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An Icy Answer to the Mystery of the Moving Death Valley Stones

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"Bull City Summer": Incredible Photos From a Year Embedded With a Minor League Club

by GudrunNesmith Posted on August 31, 2014

Mother Jones

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Twenty-five years after Bull Durham introduced the world to the minor league world of Crash Davis, Annie Savoy, and Nuke LaLoosh, a group of writers and photographers descended on Durham, North Carolina, to document life with the hometown team. The result is Bull City Summer: A Season at the Ballpark, a rich photo book interspersed with smart, poignant essays about the game’s rhythm, its injustice, and its occasional grace.

The essayists introduce us to a familiar cast of characters: the elderly couple who’ve missed just 50 games in 30-plus years; the aging veteran playing out the string in Triple-A, four years removed from a World Series appearance with the Yankees; the Duke philosophy professor who, before succumbing to colon cancer in 2013, would “adopt” a player every year, bringing him cookies and the occasional CD filled with classical music; the Cuban first baseman whose league MVP award will get him no closer to the big leagues; the general manager who helped revitalize the club in 1980 and who claims at the start of one essay, “I’m a gifted salesman. I hate it, but I am.”

Meanwhile, the photos highlight the play between the sort of regional authenticity that clubs sell to local fans and the generic ballpark experience found in dozens of baseball towns—Corpus Christi, Rancho Cucamonga, New Britain, wherever—around the country. There are still lifes; there are landscapes; there are stadium workers and players and fans in varying arrangements and formats, including the occasional tintype.

Running throughout Bull City Summer, though, is that old sense of the minor leagues as something special, something sui generis. “The majors are baseball’s height, but the minors are its depth,” writes Adam Sobsey, “and what we have here may be richer.”

All photos from Bull City Summer: A Season at the Ballpark, Daylight Books. Conceived and edited by Sam Stephenson. Photographs by Alec Soth, Hiroshi Watanabe, Hank Willis Thomas, Alex Harris, Frank Hunter, Kate Joyce, Elizabeth Matheson, Leah Sobsey. Essays by Michael Croley, Howard L. Craft, David Henry, Emma D. Miller, Adam Sobsey and Ivan Weiss.

Center Field #2, 2013 Alec Soth

Holly, 2013 Alec Soth

Outside the Ballpark #2, Durham, North Carolina, June 2013 Alex Harris

Light in a Summer Night #7, 2013 Frank Hunter

Approaching storm, Goodman field Frank Hunter

Vendor Frank Hunter

In collaboration with Colby Katz, Allen Mullin, Ben Berry, Emma Miller, Ivan Weiss, Michael Itkoff, Mika Chance, Matali Routh, Ryan Vin, and Sara Schultz: A Futile Attempt to Take a Portrait of Everyone who Attended the Latest Regular Season Game, 2013 Hank Willis Thomas

Pitching practice (Team psychologist), April 2013 Kate Joyce

Craig Albernaz’s Catcher’s Mask, 2013 Hiroshi Watanabe

Untitled, 2013 Elizabeth Matheson

Daylight Books, 2014

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"Bull City Summer": Incredible Photos From a Year Embedded With a Minor League Club

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Friday Cat Blogging – 29 August 2014

by AmberSuttor Posted on August 29, 2014

Mother Jones

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It’s the return of quilt blogging! Sort of. In any case, there’s a quilt in the background because that happens to be where Domino was posing this week. I think she’s auditioning to be the model for a new pair of sculptures outside the New York Public Library.

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Friday Cat Blogging – 29 August 2014

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Chart of the Day: When Women Fail, They Pay a Bigger Price Than Men

by AlissaQdkhqo Posted on August 29, 2014

Mother Jones

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The chart below is not part of a study that examines a statistically random set of data. It’s quite informal, and probably suffers from some inherent sampling biases. Nonetheless, it’s pretty astonishing:

Here’s the background: Kieran Snyder asked men and women working in the tech industry to share their performance reviews with her. Virtually all of them were high performers who got generally strong reviews. But it wasn’t all positive:

In the 177 reviews where people receive critical feedback, men and women receive different kinds. The critical feedback men receive is heavily geared towards suggestions for additional skills to develop….The women’s reviews include another, sharper element that is absent from the men’s:

“You can come across as abrasive sometimes. I know you don’t mean to, but you need to pay attention to your tone.”

Etc.

This kind of negative personality criticism—watch your tone! step back! stop being so judgmental!—shows up twice in the 83 critical reviews received by men. It shows up in 71 of the 94 critical reviews received by women.

This comes via Shane Ferro, who concludes that there’s probably good reason for women to be more cautious than men in their professional lives. It’s easy to tell women they shouldn’t be afraid to fail. “But we as a society (men and women), need to stop judging women so harshly for their flaws. For them to be equally good, it has to be okay that they are equally bad sometimes.”

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Chart of the Day: When Women Fail, They Pay a Bigger Price Than Men

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