And yet, some women will vote Republican!

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/02/how-the-gop-went-back-to-the-1950s-in-just-one-day.php

Life as a Dhimmi - 9

Maldives

The Maldives' national museum reopened Tuesday without some of its most valuable exhibits a week after a mob of suspected religious extremists smashed images from the pre-Islamic era of this Indian Ocean archipelago.

About 35 exhibits — mostly images of Buddha and Hindu gods — were destroyed. Some of the artifacts dated to the sixth century, museum director Ali Waheed said.

Waheed says 99 percent of the Maldives' pre-Islamic artifacts from before the 12th century, when most inhabitants were Buddhists or Hindus, were destroyed.

"Some of the pieces can be put together but mostly they are made of sandstone, coral and limestone, and they are reduced to powder," he said.

Nothing new here.  Thor Heyerdahl noted this behavior years ago.

Nutcracker Suite

Nutcracker Suite, a set on Flickr.

Some photographs from a Christmas performance of the Nutcracker.

Closer than you think

Religious extremism in politics is not something that happens just in Pakistan.

Molly Worthen in her NYT article has sentences that strike a chord.  A couple of them:

Evangelicals’ embrace of Santorum illuminates a crucial shift in American political culture: their honeymoon with the Tea Party seems to be over. They have turned away from the cries for small government and liberty — about which they have always been ambivalent — to rekindle their love affair with theocratic Catholicism. ....

The truth is that the Tea Party’s demand for “strict construction” of the Constitution and a return to the Founders’ “true intentions” is not really a cry for unfettered freedom. It is an attempt to uncover the immutable, divine will of the Founders — a homegrown version of natural law that would provide grounds for forbidding abortion, same-sex marriage and “Obamacare” in the name of American liberty.

          .......Natural law is a noble tradition that has shaped Western jurisprudence, but in the hands of conservative activists like Santorum it has become a dangerous cult of first principles. Santorum’s positions are perfectly logical if you accept his founding presuppositions — but, in his view, those presuppositions are not open to question. The genius of this emphasis on foundational assumptions is that if you can dismiss your opponent’s first principles, if you can accuse him of denying humanity’s “natural purpose,” you can claim to win the debate without ever considering the content of his argument.

Valedictory

The just-deposed President of the Maldives has an op-ed in the NYT.

DICTATORSHIPS don’t always die when the dictator leaves office. The wave of revolutions that toppled autocrats in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen last year was certainly cause for hope. But the people of those countries should be aware that, long after the revolutions, powerful networks of regime loyalists can remain behind and can attempt to strangle their nascent democracies.

HP's lousy printers

At least, with the HP 5510, you cannot set up the printer without the set-up cartridges that come with the printer. If one of those is defective you are SOL. The regular HP cartridges for the printer WILL NOT WORK. You cannot get a replacement set-up cartridge from your nearby friendly retailer. The HP web-site states this.

I hope HP meets the fate of Kodak for this lousy piece of engineering. Obviously, you will henceforth have to pay me to own a HP product.

More on Asperger Syndrome

Benjamin Nugent writes in the NYT: I Had Asperger Syndrome. Briefly.

On Asperger Syndrome

In the New York Times, Paul Steinberg writes what is bound to be a controversial op-ed.

Asperger syndrome and Aspies — the affectionate name that people diagnosed with Asperger syndrome call themselves — seem to be everywhere.

Considered to be at the high-functioning end of the autism spectrum, Asperger syndrome has become more loosely defined in the past 20 years, by both the mental health profession and by lay people, and in many instances is now synonymous with social and interpersonal disabilities. But people with social disabilities are not necessarily autistic, and giving them diagnoses on the autism spectrum often does a real disservice. An expert task force appointed by the American Psychiatric Association is now looking into the possibility of changing the way we diagnose Asperger. True autism reflects major problems with receptive language (the ability to comprehend sounds and words) and with expressive language. Pitch and tone of voice in autism are off-kilter. Language delays are common, and syntactic development is compromised; in addition, there can be repetitive motor movements.

A letter of note

From a former slave to his former master. Read through and enjoy the grim humor.

Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.

Lies!

1. Arizona Governor Jan Brewer

“They are awful,” she said. “Knowing that my father died fighting the Nazi regime in Germany, that I lost him when I was 11 because of that…and then to have them call me Hitler’s daughter. It hurts. It’s ugliness beyond anything I’ve ever experienced.”....Brewer’s father had in fact died of lung disease in California in 1955, a decade after WWII ended.

2. Claremont McKenna College

Claremont McKenna College, a small, prestigious California school, said Monday that for the past six years, it has submitted false SAT scores to publications like U.S. News & World Report that use the data in widely followed college rankings.

3. Former Yale football coach Tom Williams

...Tom Williams, had invented parts of his résumé, including a supposed Rhodes candidacy that he had dropped two decades earlier in favor of a chance at a professional football career ...

Finnair goes Bollywood!

(Via S.M.) Finnair surprised passengers with a Bollywood number:

Better than any Hedge Fund!

A stint in the Senate produces better returns than any hedge fund.
Mitch McConnell (R-Ky)
2004: Net Worth: From $1,734,029 to $4,410,999
Rank: 41st in Senate

2010: Net Worth: From $9,839,049 to $44,587,000
Rank: 10th in Senate

Some Money is Greener than Others

Over on CIP's blog, Cynthia points out:

Our tax code is custom made for wealthy people. Earned income vs. investment income is the crux of the issue. Consider a bright middle class kid whose family scrimps and saves all their after tax income to give the kid a good education. Then the kid goes on to benefit society, maybe a doctor, teacher, scientist, etc. The investment made by his family in his education is taxed at earned income rates: fed income, state tax, local tax, payroll tax. The kid pays 40-50% when all is totaled up, for benefiting society.

Then, take a rich kid who drinks his way through school, his family realizes he’s a loser, so they buy him some Brazilian government bonds paying 10% interest, maybe with money that’s never been taxed in a trust or an offshore account, and he leads the idle rich lifestyle of tennis, golf and vacationing year round. His income is taxed at 15%.

So I guess our system favors loafers over people who benefit society.

(via dailykos) Eugene Robinson writes in the Washington Post:

“The issue I think that’s going to play out this election is that question of Warren Buffett’s secretary,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said Wednesday on CNN. “We want her to make more money, we want her to have more hope for the future. . . . [But] this notion that somehow the income that Warren Buffett makes is the same as a wage income for his secretary, we know that’s not the same.”

In other words, it’s not just that the rich are better than the rest of us but also that their money is better than our money.

Japanese Snow Song

This Japanese song about the snow seems to be very popular in schools from the US to Macedonia. (Thanks to A for telling me about it.)


USA


Macedonia

Food for thought

Just how many digital crumbs should you leave for a Google to follow?
Sara Marie Watson in The Atlantic.

Bradley Horowitz, Google's Vice President of Product for Google+:

Until now, every single Google property acted like a separate company. Due to the way we grew, through various acquisitions and the fierce independence of each division within Google, each product sort of veered off in its own direction. That was dizzying. But Google+ is Google itself. We're extending it across all that we do -- search, ads, Chrome, Android, Maps, YouTube -- so that each of those services contributes to our understanding of who you are.

Sara Marie Watson writes:

“To me, the result of this consolidation that gives me cause for concern is the fundamental integration of my entire digital life. When you start pulling together email data with browser data, that really begins to paint a near-complete picture of a life lived on the internet. It's not just search terms, not just circles of friends. It's every last digital scrap of me.”

Industrial Ecology

A free market can fail to maintain the ecology needed for a manufacturing firm to thrive. At least, that is what I understand from this.

Krugman: Manufacturing firms often stand or fall not just on their own merits, but because they do or don’t have a surrounding cluster of related firms that are suppliers or customers, provide a ready pool of suitable labor, and so on.

Vintage Glenn Greenwald

The scary thing is that he is right!

"The U.S. really is a society that simply no longer believes in due process: once the defining feature of American freedom that is now scorned as some sort of fringe, radical, academic doctrine. That is not hyperbole."

Epicurious Cake

Recipe for Pineapple Upside Down Cake adapted from Epicurious.

Shri Dakshinamurti

@Arsha Vidya Gurukulam, Saylorburg, PA.

Sky at 600mm

300mm + x2

I think this is Jupiter.

Nutcases are everywhere

Will the Secret Service arrest this guy? Send him to Gitmo?  Or is that reserved for Musalmans only?

Haaretz 

NEW YORK - The owner and publisher of the Atlanta Jewish Times, Andrew Adler, has suggested that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu consider ordering a Mossad hit team to assassinate U.S. President Barack Obama so that his successor will defend Israel against Iran.


Adler, who has since apologized for his article, listed three options for Israel to counter Iran’s nuclear weapons in an article published in his newspaper last Friday. The first is to launch a pre-emptive strike against Hamas and Hezbollah, the second is to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities and the third is to “give the go-ahead for U.S.-based Mossad agents to take out a president deemed unfriendly to Israel in order for the current vice president to take his place and forcefully dictate that the United States’ policy includes its helping the Jewish state obliterate its enemies.”

Adler goes on to write: “Yes, you read “three correctly.” Order a hit on a president in order to preserve Israel’s existence. Think about it. If have thought of this Tom-Clancy-type scenario, don’t you think that this almost unfathomable idea has been discussed in Israel’s most inner circles?” 

 PS: My great sympathy for Israel from my younger years has been slowly eroding, and lately, much more rapidly. If Israel drags us willy-nilly into a war against Iran, then I too will start viewing Israel as a dangerous threat to world peace that must be defanged, and if that can't be done, then it needs to be abolished - become a UN protectorate or something, but it must lose its sovereignty.   I don't think any Islamist government, even a nuclear Iran, presents such a threat to world peace.

PPS: Chemi Shalev spells out the damage.

Strange Planet

Our wondrous universe.  (Discover magazine blogs).

How not to feed your kids in Norway

I had had a better impression of Norway than this.

SOPA and PIP

Google today:


Many websites today are engaging in an awareness campaign about two pieces of pending U.S. anti-piracy legislation -- SOPA (The Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (The Protect IP Act). The problem with these acts is that if this legislation passes, the primary requirement on the World Wide Web will be censorship-compliance.

Read more here.

See Daily Kos, too.

PS: Read Glenn Greenwald, too, the corruption of America's political class is on clear display.

PPS: Just how bad SOPA is:

The provision in question would force search engines, advertisers, banking and financial firms and even Internet service providers  to de-list websites accused - not proven, but simply accused - of copyright infringement. The provision even includes language that would allow the Justice Department to force ISPs to falsify DNS records so as to prevent users from being able to even locate a suspect site. That's bad... particularly for Internet users who are completely uninitiated. But for the rest of us who aren't members of Congress, two brilliant Firefox add-ons provide ingenious workarounds.

Nalanda

Dailykos story on the ancient university at Nalanda.

Hergé : Tintin in America - 1931-32

Commentary by Hergé on the US of A, around 1931-32, beneath the fold.

India's crisis of malnutrition

Shankkar Aiyar.

There is more shame. With four of 10 children under-5 underweight, India does worse than much maligned sub-Saharan Africa where only 22 per cent of the kids are underweight. India also has a higher proportion of children under five who are underweight, who suffer from wasting and who are stunted due to malnourishment, than in the dark region of Africa. And this has been the case for some time now. Consider the names of some of the countries (UNICEF data) who score better than India: Albania, Algeria, Bhutan, Cameroon, China (if you thought this was about scale), Congo, Ethiopia, Guinea, Haiti, Indonesia, Kazakhstan and even Myanmar!

The co-relation between poverty, malnourishment, primary school enrolment and school drop-outs had been recognised way back in the seventies. It was also very clear as early as in the eighties that state intervention in the form of income and food support was critical. Soon after MGR introduced the mid-day meals scheme for school children in 1982, it was clear (and later certified by the World Bank) that the intervention helped curb malnutrition and encouraged enrolment. Indeed, the first calls for a national scheme came up at the meeting of the National Development Council in 1985. And Manmohan Singh would remember this because he was then the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission and Rajiv Gandhi the chairman. Yet it took till 1995 for the Centre to announce a national scheme and another 10 years for the scheme to be universalised finally in 2004 for all students. And that also happened only after the intervention of the Supreme Court.

Mind you, this is not about spending or resources. Countries with lesser resources, but a more committed bureaucracy have done it. And as early as in the eighties, the World Bank and UNICEF had concluded that it cost less than $10 per child per year to address malnutrition. Consider the arithmetic of costs for required intervention. Assuming India has currently 160 million children in the 0-6 age group, what would it cost to feed all of them? Do the math and think. Is the cost beyond the capacity of a trillion-dollar economy?

Catching on to the scam

Concluding a very negative review of a horrid Turkish play, running in the "Under the Radar" international festival in New York, Claudia La Rocco notes:

According to Under the Radar’s Web site, the play “was only performed once in Istanbul, due to protests by a fundamentalist newspaper.” It’s interesting to note just how often such tales of suppression are used in marketing materials at international festivals, as if they were badges of honor. (This work was too controversial for its narrow-minded native land, but you, sophisticated audience member, can support censored art!)

Veggies!

Sis. has a sort-of-theory about the unhinged nature of Pakistani public life - "they do not eat enough veggies".

Today, about the American Midwest, A. G. Sulzberger writes of his difficult experience of being vegetarian there (NYTimes)

Even though the region boasts some of the finest farmland in the world, there is a startling lack of fresh produce here. This is a part of the country — and there’s no polite way to put this — where the most common vegetable you’ll see on dinner plates is iceberg lettuce.

So those worrying about "What's Wrong with Kansas?" have their answer :)

----
In another NYTimes article, Mark Bittman notes that Americans are eating much less meat.

The department of agriculture projects that our meat and poultry consumption will fall again this year, to about 12.2 percent less in 2012 than it was in 2007. Beef consumption has been in decline for about 20 years; the drop in chicken is even more dramatic, over the last five years or so; pork also has been steadily slipping for about five years.

and notes:

We still eat way more meat than is good for us or the environment, not to mention the animals. But a 12 percent reduction in just five years is significant, and if that decline were to continue for the next five years — well, that’s something few would have imagined five years ago. It’s something only the industry could get upset about. The rest of us should celebrate. Rice and beans, anyone?

All I can say is - three cheers!

Anything is better than Fox News

Jonathan Levine,a lecturer in American studies and English at Tsinghua University in Beijing, has an Op-Ed in today's New York Times in which he advises unemployed or underemployed Americans to find a career in China. He talks about how he finds life in China, and among other things has this to say:

There are problems here, of course. China is a nation that unapologetically rejects Western democracy — and yet I am surprised to find that Chinese citizens and the news media have as much freedom as they do. For my money, CCTV News English, a channel offered by China’s major state television broadcaster, is more fair and balanced than Fox News.

Tintin - the movie

Tintin the movie is true to Tintin the comic. Steven Spielberg has done a great job. Tintin fans, enjoy!

What IQ Tests Test

This paper (PDF) by Ken Richardson is worth a read.

My favorite passage:

TEDx talk by Michael Wall

TEDxHONOLULU - Michael Wall - Groovin' Together: Adventures in Interactive Creativity

One reason why this talk is featured here is because it uses (towards the end of the second minute) a picture from this blog.

Three legs of the stool - Liberty, Equality, Fraternity

Consider this to be a continuing reply to libertarians:

During the Indian Constitutional Debates, B.R. Ambedkar said something like this (this source contains obvious typos)

The third thing we must do is not to be content with mere political democracy. We must make our political democracy a social democracy as well. Political democracy cannot last unless there lies at the base of it social democracy. What does social democracy mean? It means a way of life which recognises liberty, equality and fraternity as the principles of life. These principles of liberty, equality and fraternity are not to be treated as separate items in a trinity. They form a union of trinity in the sense that to divorce one from the other is to defeat the very purpose of democracy. Liberty cannot be divorced from equality; equality cannot be divorced from liberty. Nor can liberty and equality be divorced from fraternity. Without equality, liberty would produce the supremacy of the few over the many. Equality without liberty would kill individual initiative. Without fraternity, liberty and equality could not become a natural course of things. It would require a constable to enforce them.

Libertarians focus only on liberty. The last clause is also often overlooked. The fact is that there can be the rule of law only if most people voluntarily follow the law. (As the experience of the Prohibition in the US showed, there is no police force, no justice system that keep a law which a large number of people don't want to follow.)

Why Libertarianism doesn't work

On dailykos.com

Mahatma Gandhi's laissez-faire!

Alan Campbell Johnson, in "Mission with Mountbatten", reports in his entry for December 26th, 1947:

On the ultimately decisive economic front the Government has added to its own burdens by its blind and bland acceptance of Gandhi's policy towards decontrol.  The Mahatma's approach to economics is unashamedly pre-feudal, and he has converted the doctrine of laissez-faire beyond the dreams of Adam Smith into what is little less than a branch of metaphysics.   We now have the spectacle of a Government trying to create a modern State and depriving itself of the power to tackle food-hoarders and price-ring profiteers save through appeals to their social conscience, the one commodity in which they are totally lacking.   The decontrol policy has been opposed by Mountbatten as well as by all responsible Civil Service advisers without exception.  It is the outcome solely of the Government's awe of Gandhi.  It is causing almost at once a vicious spiral of inflation, and will involve an extra eight crores of rupees on Civil Service salaries alone to meet the rise in prices.  Altogether it is estimated that some one hundred and ten crores of rupees will need to be pumped in to meet the cost of Gandhi's economic ideas.   Sugar and salt have both rocketed up to one rupee eight annas a seer - the rise in the price of salt being no less than five hundred per cent.

Effect of redistricting in New Jersey

After every census, the congressional districts are redrawn to take into account the changes in population.  The 2012-2021 map for New Jersey is here, also displayed below.  As a result, I lose my ex-physicist Democratic representative, Rush Holt (district 12) and instead get Republican Chris Smith (district 4).  Unless there is a chance of getting a decent Democrat elected, there goes my interest in my Congress representative.

Representative Christopher Smith
Liberal Action Score: 22/100
Conservative Action Score: 55/100

Representative Rush Holt
Liberal Action Score: 92/100
Conservative Action Score: 3/100

 

Dark clouds swirl around the Indian economy

Read about it here.

How Ayn Rand Helped Make the US into a greedy, selfish nation

Via Praveen Swami on twitter.

A demagogue, in addition to hypnotic glibness, must also be intellectually inconsistent, sometimes boldly so. This eliminates challenges to authority by weeding out clear-thinking young people from the flock.

Being Different: An Indian Challenge to Western Universalism

Rajiv Malhotra's book.

PS: Introductory video.

The Higgs at last?

Dorigo.

PS: Strassler 

PPS: Gibbs  Read this one for sure.

Higgs news

Everyone in the particle physics community is waiting for tomorrow's status report from CERN.
Lots of good blog posts, so am simply linking to them:
Conway
Dorigo
Jester 
Strassler 
Woit

PS: Carroll

S Gurumurthy on the Indian Retail Sector

The best argument I've seen so far for being cautious in reforming the retail sector.

India: Foreign Direct Investment In Retail

A political storm was unleashed in India when the government announced its decision to allow foreign direct investment (FDI) in the retail sector in India (the decision has been put on indefinite hold). This decision would allow Walmart and its equivalents to enter the Indian market.

What struck me is the very poor quality of the debate. Putting aside the ideology of "free markets", it was not clear at all what the problems are, and how FDI will help solve them.  A fact-based presentation of what problems may be solved (and what new problems may be created - I'll provide an example) will be useful in deciding what the right policy is.

Job creation

Nick Hanauer tells us what ought to be obvious - jobs are created by consumers buying from businesses.

Note to the President

Via Yahoo:

Doctor Reinvents Calculus!

(Hattip Bee).
"Clueless doctor sleeps through math class, reinvents calculus… and names it after herself."

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2010/12/07/ncbi-rofl-clueless-doctor-sleeps-through-math-class-reinvents-calculus-and-names-it-after-herself/

Pepper spray techniques

Cosmic Variance shows us how it is done in University of California, Davis.

Statistical Analysis of the OPERA experiment

This one (sticky) blogpost will serve for accumulating everything related to the statistical analysis of the OPERA experiment (that found faster-than-light neutrinos).

PS: There is a rumor that OPERA has repeated its experiment with very short pulses of protons and the faster-than-light result persists.  If the rumor is true, then everything under the fold is irrelevant to the issue of whether OPERA is right or wrong.

PPS: OPERA confirms its result! See Tommaso Dorigo for a discussion, waiting for the pre-print to show up.

PPPS: the updated pre-print is here.   Almost all the objections that had been raised about the original preprint have been addressed.  If there is an error, it is inaccessible to the remote observer.  The way forward is to repeat the experiment elsewhere.

Unstick-ing this post.

PPPPS: Further comments from Tommaso Dorigo.

{Last update: Nov 18, 1:07 PM}

Ayn Rand

National Public Radio, on the influence of Ayn Rand on current politics.

Excerpting one instance from there:

Recently, House Speaker John Boehner channeled Rand when he said, "Job creators in America basically are on strike."
 ....
This idea that Boehner put forth in a recent speech before the Economic Club of Washington, D.C., could have come straight from Atlas Shrugged.

Businesses, Boehner said, need to be set free. Instead, "they've been antagonized by a government that favors bureaucrats over market-based solutions. They've been demoralized by a government that causes despair, when what we really need is to provide reassurance and inspire hope in our economy."

Boehner uses the language of slavery when he says, "We need to liberate our economy from the shackles of Washington."

The problem with Boehner's (and all the other examples in the NPR piece) is that corporations are doing very well.

In other news, the latest figures for corporate profits

Corporate profits in the second quarter grew to $1.467 trillion annualized-up from $1.455 trillion in the fourth quarter (previously $1.476 trillion). Today's report includes annual revisions. Profits in the second quarter rose an annualized 3.3 percent, following a 39.9 percent surge the quarter before (previously 35.2). The upward revision to the first quarter is due to a downward revision to the fourth quarter. Profits are after tax but without inventory valuation and capital consumption adjustments. Corporate profits are unchanged on a year-on-year basis, compared to up 2.8 percent in the first quarter. Growth in profits is extremely volatile over recession/recovery periods and is slowing from the spike in late 2009 and early 2010. The recent peak in year-ago growth was 115.9 percent for the fourth quarter of 2009. 

and

The new figures indicate that corporate profits accounted for 14 percent of the total national income in 2010, the highest proportion ever recorded. The previous peak, of 13.6 percent, was set in 1942 when the need for war materials filled the order books of companies at the same time as the government imposed wage and price controls, holding down the costs companies had to pay.

There have been 10 years when corporate profits as a share of national income exceeded 13 percent — 1941, ’42, ’43, ’50, ’51, ’55, ’65, ’66, 2006 and 2010. In eight of those years, the economy, as measured by real gross national product, grew at a rate of greater than 6 percent.

The exceptions were 2006, when real growth was just 2.7 percent, and 2010, when it was 3 percent.

Fundamentalism, American style

In today's New York Times, "Will This Election Be the Mormon Breakthrough?", Harold Bloom notes that:

The 19th-century Mormon theologian Orson Pratt, who was close both to Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, stated a principle the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has never repudiated: “Any people attempting to govern themselves by laws of their own making, and by officers of their own appointment, are in direct rebellion against the kingdom of God.” 

Aatish Taseer dissects Arundhati Roy

The man is simply brilliant!

Ida: Sorry! So, we’ve talked about Noon, we’ve talked about Pakistan and your father, what about India? You’ve said some pretty harsh things about a certain writer cum activists on the Left–no names!–who, we in the States, kind of like. She seems, in an environment of rapacious capitalism, to be a friend of the poor and marginalised. What possible objection could you have to her?

Aatish: None except that I don’t think she’s a friend of the poor at all. She would like to doom them to a permanent state of picturesque poverty. They are beautiful to her–the poor–beautiful, benign and faceless. And that is exactly how she wants them to stay. Let me say also that it is not the poor who animate her politics. Oh, no! The people who get her into the streets are the new middle classes. This class, still among the most fragile in India, people who have newly emerged from the most dire conditions, are despicable to her. She mocks their clothes; their trouble with English; she hates their ambitions; when India wins the cricket and she sees them celebrating, her skin crawls; she wants, more than anything, to do these people down. And it is her overwhelming hatred of them that allows her to be a friend of movements that are seemingly far apart. The jihadists, the Maoists, the Kashmir movement, the anti-development people…they’re all her friends. Anyone who can prove a credible threat to the future of India is a friend of that woman. I would go so far as to say she has a prurient fascination with the enemies of India. And where do they love her? In Pakistan, and in the faculty rooms of Europe and America. No surprise there.

Also, this business of pretending she’s a lone voice in the wilderness. What rubbish! At least have the good grace to admit that not one thing she says is provocative or new; it is perfectly banal. And we know how well the universities Europe and America reward this bogus cant!

October snow

The storm of October 29 left this snow:

The Saudi Menace

Madanjeet Singh

Blurb: Wahabism, with enormous Saudi petrodollars at its disposal, has wrought havoc worldwide. The writer travels back to Kashmir, Kerala, Lahore, and Indonesia of some decades ago to get a measure of the tragic and vicious effects — and hopes resilient, multilayered secular cultures will be able to fight back.

Last words

Last words of Steve Jobs: OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW.

Miss USA 2011

Miss USA 2011 is apparently from around here.

Rangoli 2011

Courtesy my niece:



Full set

Bergeron on OPERA

Via Tommaso Dorigo, http://arxiv.org/abs/1110.5275

About Statistical Questions Involved in the Data Analysis of the OPERA Experiment
Authors: H. Bergeron
(Submitted on 24 Oct 2011)

Abstract: The authors of the OPERA experiment [arXiv:1109.4897] claim that "the measurement indicates an early arrival time of CNGS muon neutrinos with respect to the one computed assuming the speed of light in vacuum". In this note we analyze the statistical aspects of the experimental results presented in [arXiv:1109.4897], assuming that no hidden experimental bias exists. Due to statistical constraints, we show (through two different methods) that the experimental data presented in [arXiv:1109.4897] do not permit to conclude unambiguously with the existence of a superluminal behavior of neutrinos. The problem lies essentially in the interpretation of the data and not in their veracity.

Neutrinos on the brain - redux

Readers of this blog may have noticed that ever since the OPERA collaboration announced finding neutrinos that travel faster than light, I have been scratching my head about something.  Here, in the simplest possible terms is what I'm thinking about.

A how-to and a how to?

First - a how-to do something:
Second - a question about how to do something.

Auditors' contribution to the fiscal crisis

Floyd Norris has written in today's New York Times that the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board was harshly critical of 27 of 61 of the Deloitte & Touche's audits that it inspected, over three years ago.

Sneak Peek at Adobe's Image Deblurring

Rajan Parrikar sent this my way:
http://tv.adobe.com/watch/max-2011-sneak-peeks/max-2011-sneak-peek-image-deblurring/

Neutrinos on the brain-12

(PDF) An attempt to understand the statistical error in the time-of-flight estimate in the OPERA experiment.

I'd rather stay up and finish this, but....

Neutrinos on the brain-11

Tommaso Dorigo tells us about the ICARUS collaboration's refutation of the OPERA superluminal neutrino result.

Joke

Neutrinos on the brain-10

C.I.P. points to this article from Technology Review. There is a discussion of a claim by Ronald van Elburg that the motion of GPS satellites is not factored into the time of flight calculations at OPERA.

My reply is that per this note the GPS satellite designers have thought of all of that. A key excerpt:

The concept of coordinate time in a local inertial frame is established for the GPS as follows. In the local Earth-Centered Inertial frame, imagine a network of atomic clocks at rest and synchronized using constancy of c. To each real, moving clock apply corrections to yield a paper clock which then agrees with one of these hypothetical clocks in the underlying inertial frame, with which the moving clock instantaneously coincides. The time resulting from such corrections is then a coordinate time, free from inconsistencies, whose rate is determined by clocks at rest on the earth's rotating geoid.

Neutrinos on the brain-9

Two pieces worth reading:
1. Tommaso Dorigo
2. Matt Strassler

Neutrinos on the brain-8

From -7.

Haha!

CIP reports hearing:

At the end of the last century America had Bob Hope, Johnny Cash, and Steve Jobs. Now we have no Jobs, No Cash, and No Hope.

Delusional!

RIP, Steve Jobs!

:(

Neutrinos on the brain-7

OPERA and CERN were kept in sync. by using GPS in the "common view time transfer mode".   The synchronization was verified by using a clock that was moved.  Much is being made of the problem of relativistic corrections to the moving clock.  But perhaps that is not so important.

Neutrinos on the brain-6

Some more curve-fitting.

On hyperaccomplishment

James Atlas has an amusing op-ed in today's NY Times.  Excerpts beneath the fold.

Neutrinos on the brain-5

There are three main lines of attack on the OPERA "faster-than-light" neutrino measurements:
1. Physics issues
2. Measurement issues
3. Data analysis issues

IMO, the data analysis is the least likely to have mistakes. Measurement issues, are for example, C.R. Contaldi's issues with the synchronization of clocks between CERN and Gran Sasso.  The real killer, however, is the Cohen-Glashow argument, that superluminal neutrinos, weakly interacting though they are, must shed energy rapidly; so much so as to make some OPERA observations impossible.

Peter Woit points out a slew of papers finding exotic ways to justify the OPERA results.

hep-ph is chock-a-block with papers purporting to explain the OPERA results, using theoretical models of varying degrees of absurdity.

Perhaps Sabine Hossenfelder has it right, in her tweet:

Explanation for OPERA result: A 5th force connecting the GPS with the collective physicists' subconsciousness begging for unexplained data.

Neutrinos on the brain-4

http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.6562

New Constraints on Neutrino Velocities

Authors: Andrew G. Cohen, Sheldon L. Glashow

(Submitted on 29 Sep 2011)

Abstract: The OPERA collaboration has claimed that muon neutrinos with mean energy of 17.5 GeV travel 730 km from CERN to the Gran Sasso at a speed exceeding that of light by about 7.5 km/s or 25 ppm. However, we show that such superluminal neutrinos would lose energy rapidly via the bremsstrahlung of electron-positron pairs ($\nu\rightarrow \nu+e^-+e^+$). For the claimed superluminal neutrino velocity and at the stated mean neutrino energy, we find that most of the neutrinos would have suffered several pair emissions en route, causing the beam to be depleted of higher energy neutrinos. Thus we refute the superluminal interpretation of the OPERA result. Furthermore, we appeal to Super-Kamiokande and IceCube data to establish strong new limits on the superluminal propagation of high-energy neutrinos.

Neutrinos on the brain-3

What I'm trying to do with curve-fitting is to convince myself that the following is plausible, or figure out that it is not.

Neutrinos on the brain-2

My previous post demonstrated that the proton curve was of the form:

y = c * exp( - exp( -a * x + b ))

Specifically, my eyeball fit was

y=exp(3.58)* exp( - exp( -0.0061*x - 2.9201))

Neutrinos on the brain

The OPERA faster-than-light-neutrinos has become a bit of an obsession. But I have made a little progress.

OPERA numbers

From the OPERA experiment that found faster-than-light neutrinos:

1. Width of the proton extraction: 10,500 ns
2. Protons per extraction: 2.4E13
3. Extractions per cycle: 2
   
4. Total neutrino events : 16,111
5. Total Protons delivered: 9.34E19

CNGS Beam Run 2010 (29 April - 22 Nov): Total 4.04E19 Protons on Target
CNGS Beam Run 2009 (27 May - 23 Nov): Total 3.52E19 Protons on Target
CNGS Beam Run 2008 (8 Jun- 3 Nov): Total 1.78E19 Protons on Target

1. Slide 15/84 http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1384486/ 
2. Slide 13/84 http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1384486/ 
3. Slide 13/84 http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1384486/ 
4. Slide 42/84 http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1384486/  
5. http://proj-cngs.web.cern.ch/proj-cngs/

Deduced numbers:


1. Number of extractions: 3.89E6
2. Probability of neutrino event per extraction: 4.14E-3
3. Probability of neutrino event per proton: 1.724E-16
4. Summed up over all extractions, average protons/ns = 8.9E15
5. Summed up over all extractions, the average neutrinos detected/ns = 16111/10500 = 1.5

Plot from OPERA:(http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.4897)

Notice the y-axis is binned as Events/150ns.

PS: recent comments on OPERA's work
1. Jon Butterworth http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/life-and-physics/2011/sep/24/1
2. John P. Costella http://johncostella.webs.com/neutrino-blunder.pdf -- confirms the intuition that the edges are what are important. By his eyeballs 919 neutrino events at the leading and trailing edge of the pulse give most of the statistical significance. (If the pulses were perfect square pulses, then only the leading and trailing edges can give timing information.)

PS: I don't buy Costella's arithmetic, however.

Faster than Light Rumors

If you want to know about superluminal neutrinos, read Tommaso Dorigo.

The danger of wildlife in my backyard

The danger of having wildlife around mainly comes from humans. I will explain this in a few easy steps.

1. The wildlife - there's deer of course, and now turkeys

 

Seeking reparation for 9/11

The Independent of U.K. reports:

A Lloyd's insurance syndicate has begun a landmark legal case against Saudi Arabia, accusing the kingdom of indirectly funding al-Qa'ida and demanding the repayment of £136m it paid out to victims of the 9/11 attacks.

The Brighton-based Lloyd's 3500 syndicate, which paid $215m compensation to companies and individuals involved, alleges that the oil-rich Middle Eastern superpower bears primary responsibility for the atrocity because al-Qa'ida was supported by banks and charities acting as "agents and alter egos" for the Saudi state. 

The detailed case, which names a number of prominent Saudi charities and banks as well as a leading member of the al-Saud royal family, will cause embarrassment to the Saudi government, which has long denied claims that Osama bin Laden's organisation received official financial and practical support from his native country.

Palestine 1896

Supposedly the first film shot in Palestine. Whether it is or not, still interesting.

Darwin and Economics

Just a week or so ago, I began thinking, in a shallow way, that perhaps the insights from evolution are required for economics. Just as random variation and natural selection can provide the illusion of intelligent design, perhaps it can also produce the illusion of the rational actor, upon which so much of economics depends.

Anyway, in today's NYT, Robert H. Frank provides yet another way that Darwin lends insight into economics. The insight is understanding the forces that leads individuals in a a group to behaviors that are detrimental to the group, and to themselves. Excerpts beneath the fold.

TED: Yasheng Huang: Does democracy stifle economic growth?

Grasping at straws...

It may be that "the major carbon repository in Earth is probably the mantle, rather than the atmosphere or biosphere, but it is the least well understood," Walter told OurAmazingPlanet. "The mantle reservoir might affect the global cycle over Earth's history."

From here.   The grasping at straws part comes from the wild hope that the solution to our global warming problem somehow lies in harnessing the mantle.

Epigenetics

For plants at least, genes are not destiny.

There apparently is significant variation in which genes express themselves and how and when.

Politics

US Congressional candidates that I support - needless to say, all Democrats.

1. Rush Holt (incumbent, NJ district 12, my representative)
2. Bill Foster (seeking the Illinois 11th district seat)
3. Manan Trivedi (seeking the Pennsylvania 6th district seat)

Holt and Foster are ex-physicists; Manan Trivedi is a physician and also has the blessings of Arsha Vidya Gurukulam.

I think this is the extent of my support for the 2012 elections, unless you find me some more ex-physicists. :)

Trivandrum Rising

A blog.  This article is on the Vizhinjam Port Project.

Trump as a counterindicator on gold

Amusing story.

Oh, brother.

When a self-promoter like The Donald jumps on a bandwagon, you know it's getting a little old. For all his big reputation, Trump's career over the past two decades is littered with the wreckage of high-profile deals he cut at the peak of each boom. Think: Trump Taj Mahal casino (bankruptcy, 1991). Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts (2004). Trump Entertainment Resorts (2009).

Or the "Trump International Hotel & Tower," a luxury condo development in Fort Lauderdale planned and built in… happier times.

News that Trump is backing gold comes after the metal has already skyrocketed in price. Gold has so far jumped nearly 30% so far this year, and more than 500% in a decade.

What's next?

What goes up...

What goes up, may come down. Here is the historical real price of gold, as per Paul Krugman:

Of course, there are some secular trends now that were not there in the 1980s- namely the increasing buying power in the gold-hungry countries of India and China. So when the price of gold eases, it will probably stabilize at a higher real price than the 1985-2006 average. I suppose.

The Portents

Republican Bob Turner won a Congressional by-election in a heavily Democratic district in New York, running on the theme that this was a referendum on President Obama.

This points towards the Republicans gaining the Presidency, retaining the House and perhaps taking the Senate in 2012. There is already a Republican Supreme Court.

Why this is a bad idea: the short version by CIP, or the long version by Mike Lofgren.

I predict an overall end to the New Deal, beginning 2013, and another lost decade for the American middle class.

PS: It is so unstoppable, all I can suggest, is put your head down and work hard to climb out of the middle class. Yes, that is unrealistic; but it is more realistic than trying to divert a hurricane.

Graeber on the origins of money

At Delong, or at CIP.

Crudely: Gifts, credit, debt came first, money and barter followed.

In the shadow of Saturn

NASA picture.

Is our universe asymmetric?

CIP highlighted a paper just out,< in which the researchers look at how fast the universe is expanding in different directions, and find an asymmetry. How they examine this is by looking at the data from 557 type1A supernovae. These supernovae are well-calibrated "standard candles" which means that we know their intrinsic brightness. Their observed brightness, and their redshifts tell us how far away they are and how fast they are receding from us. Well, they find an asymmetry. The link that CIP provided gives a better description than my two sentences above.

If Obama purchased a car

If President Obama were to purchase a car, especially if it were from a dealer who was Republican, Obama's starting bid would be Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price.

The difference between two Presidents

It is Thomas Friedman, but on the other hand there is Bush-bashing, who can resist.

Why has this been a lost decade? An answer can be found in one simple comparison: How Dwight Eisenhower and his successors used the cold war and how George W. Bush used 9/11. America had to face down the Russians in the cold war. America had to respond to 9/11 and the threat of Al Qaeda. But the critical difference between the two was this: Beginning with Eisenhower and continuing to some degree with every cold war president, we used the cold war and the Russian threat as a reason and motivator to do big, hard things together at home — to do nation-building in America. We used it to build the interstate highway system, put a man on the moon, push out the boundaries of science, teach new languages, maintain fiscal discipline and, when needed, raise taxes. We won the cold war with collective action.

George W. Bush did the opposite. He used 9/11 as an excuse to lower taxes, to start two wars that — for the first time in our history — were not paid for by tax increases, and to create a costly new entitlement in Medicare prescription drugs.

Stalled

Shot at 1/5000 sec, so these look as though their engines have stalled.

A World of Hurt

From CalculatedRisk