Reading that sentence about handing “tracts to trick-or-treaters” sent chills down my spine and reminded me of the most frightful man ever to be associated with Halloween: Jack Chick.
I guess Jack Chick does not really scare me. But he sure makes me sick.
If you’re one of those people who needs a negative GDP number to convince yourself that we’re in a recession, here you go. But the headline -0.3% figure isn’t the worst bit: that would be the 8.7% fall in disposable personal income. If there was any doubt about the outcome of this election, that number alone should put it to rest: there’s no way that the incumbent party can win in that kind of economic environment.
The unemployment rate has risen to 6.1% and is set to continue upwards. Ford and General Motors, as well as Whirlpool, an appliance manufacturer, are among big American firms that have announced job cuts recently. Employment figures due for release on November 7th are likely to show that around another 175,000 jobs were lost in October, pushing the unemployment rate up to 6.3%, according to a survey of forecasts by Bloomberg. Fewer jobs mean lost income and less spending.
Companies seem to be cutting overtime and hours worked more then jobs. I think that is a good thing. But how long can it last?
A team of scientists from the United States and China announced last week that, for the first time, they had found a means of selectively and safely erasing memories in mice, using the signaling molecule αCaMKII. It’s a big step forward, and one that will be of considerable interest to the military, which has devoted efforts to memory manipulation as a means of treating post-traumatic stress disorder. But some military research has moved in another direction entirely.
From the New York Times….
In a tour de force of office supply physics, researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, have shown that it is possible to produce X-rays by simply unrolling Scotch tape.
From latter on in the article…
The tape phenomenon could also lead to simple medical devices using bursts of electrons to destroy tumors. The scientists are looking to patent their ideas.
I have wasted a bunch of time I could not really afford to waste reading Abu Mugawama’s blog tonight. So naturally I think everyone else ought to do the same.
First off, read this post on the American attack into Syrian. Be sure to follow all the links and read all the comments.
Then read Abu Mugawama/Andrew Exum’s post of the week. In fact, you should do this every week.
For those that don’t know, Andrew Exum outed himself and retired from the blog that he started because of time constraints. That lasted all of a couple of months before he was suckered into coming back. The deal was that he would only write one post a week. He has sort of stuck to this schedule. Which is to say; he writes one post a week and sometimes he writes more.
It was a good thing he came back because his blog was getting boring without him. The others are cool and all (particularly Londonstani) but Abu Mugawama has consistently demonstrated that he is the best of the best and the rest are just the rest. That is not to say I agree with all the time (or even most of time) but he is one of the few people out there who consistently makes me feel dumb by comparison. Plus, he manages to bring out the best of his excellent comment section.
I only wished he could cover more areas of the world. On the other hand, I am thankful that he seems to have limitations.
This week’s rant of the week is Taleb’s Warning from the Belmont Club
From in the Pipeline (on Triazadienyl Fluoride)….
Now this is a fine substance. Also known in the older literature as fluorine azide, you make it by combining two other things that have already made my “Things I Won’t Work With” list. Just allow fluorine (ay!) to react with neat hydrazoic acid (yikes), and behold!
Well, what you’re most likely to behold is a fuming crater, unless you’re quite careful indeed. Both of those starting materials deserve serious respect, since they’re able to remove you from this plane of existence with alacrity, and their reaction product is nothing to putz around with, either.
The rest of the post details how they made the stuff without getting killed. I imagine that nobody got bored in the process.
This week’s rant of the week is The Persistent Myth of Pre-Taliban Anarchy
This week’s essay of the week is the pomocons, Freddie, and god.
Perhaps the most remarkable feature of the crisis of 1914 was the closure of the world’s major stock markets for up to five months. The Vienna market was the first to close, on July 27. By July 30 all the continental European exchanges had shut their doors. The next day, London and New York felt compelled to follow suit. Although a belated settlement day went smoothly on November 18, the London Stock Exchange did not reopen until January 4. Nothing like this had happened since its foundation in 1773. The New York market reopened for limited trading (bonds for cash only) on November 28, but unrestricted trading did not resume until April 1, 1915. Nor were stock markets the only ones to close in the crisis. Most U.S. commodity markets had to suspend trading, as did most European foreign-exchange markets. The London Royal Exchange, for example, remained closed until September 17. It seems likely that, had the markets not closed, the collapse in prices would have been as extreme as it would be in 1929, if not worse.
(h/t the Belmont Club)