These are serious times. The industrial base in America is gone, our font of “wealth” in derivatives has proved chimerical, and enormous sea level rises are in our future. If ever there was a time for decisive action by the United States, this is it.
But America is ungovernable, given the permanent veto manifest in perpetual Senate filibuster threats. It’s not just health care. The clubby super-majority in the Senate must end. It must return to simple majority rule if we are to adapt and respond decisively.
Our democratic senators hide behind the “de facto” filibuster. Tellingly, no filibusters take place; and yet they yield. This gives them cover. They just can’t pass the legislation we need; their corporate masters are satisfied.
They’ve gutted health care reform down to a mandate to buy private insurance, and now they have given Citi Bank 38 Billion in tax breaks. Who is this magical “they” — your government, of course. Don’t forget to tip them at tax time.
I watched From Here to Eternity this morning. Still racy, it is the story of gifted bugler denied his horn because he refuses to return to the boxing ring, where he once blinded a man. Passion and quick money, violence, cruelty and corruption on a Hawaiian army base are sorted out in the lazy months preceding the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. With the exception of some military justice meted out neatly to the most corrupt, all the relationships in this film end in disaster.
When the bombs fall on December 7th, the AWOL bugler has killed a man for murdering his best friend. Stabbed and stumbling, he is mistakenly shot as a saboteur. The few female characters prepare to send the rest of the boys off to war.
Here’s an interesting, short video on translation and interpretation at COP15. The processing of passing translated text via language-pairs into a third tongue is fascinating. I wonder how much more lossy this is than a direct translation would be? Add acronyms and scientific concepts and stir. It’s no wonder we can’t all agree.
I’m not in Copenhagen, but I wonder what they’re talking about. News coverage has been weak, and I first stumbled on Ron Paul in a more radical moment. But what’s really in the treaty? AP’s version is more of a catch-up on global warming efforts in general. Information is sparse, and it’s hard to find the official site at http://en.cop15.dk/frontpage. Here’s the skinny: African countries are indicating refusal to sign, as are poor and island countries; India, China and the US are jockeying for forebearances; Bangladesh suggested that all funds be apportioned based on head count. Wow! Why aren’t these on TV?
The financial system is crashing to the ground like a top-heavy tree. Money is being sucked entirely into the banking sector right out of people’s hands. Near zero percent interest to the banks. So they make 5% or so on a mortgage. But they’re taking 23% or more on consumer credit lines — even lines with credit scores above 720 , the traditional bench mark of “good” credit.
It’s getting to the point where foreclosure makes for excellent pickings by the bank. A borrower unable pay a balance of $60,000 on a home valued now a good bargain at $210,000 is a great deal for the bank. I expect we’ll see lot loads of such foreclosures as prices approach value and more people start buying homes again. Another way for the bank to take a quick profit.
Keeping upside-down home-buyers in their homes is in the bankers’ benefit, for now. Is there help for folks who are in near-term danger of losing their homes?
C’mon’Bamaman! Are Larry and Timmy really former insiders who know that reform is necessary to save the industry that made them rich?
The media hubbub over the phenomenon of grass-eating boys is but the latest Japanese dyspepsia caused by a shrinking population. Are these “herbivorous” and passive-in-love lads, eschewing the glitter of material things and the life of the salary man, the tocsin of Japanese culture and civilization?
If America had a population crisis, the current attempts at health-care reform could offer a grand incentive: Medicare for pregnant woman and their children. With universal health-care in place, the Japanese have less wiggle room to preserve their race. (Yet they still pay premiums; could they not make it free?). Meanwhile, in the United States, we are still awkwardly comfortable with the alternative of immigration.
Friends here are amazed that the grass-eaters aren’t gay. I’m astonished the Japanese haven’t considered a culturally-palatable immigration scheme yet.
I took the JLPT on Sunday. It was a big jump from last year’s JLPT 3 (where I skidded across the finish line) to this year’s 2級.
I find the test ingenious. While I could find no information on the design of the test, the question format reveals that multiple choice answers are weighted. Rather than having one correct and three strictly incorrect answers for a given question, the test provides a range of answers indicating partial comprehension or facility.
This is most obvious in the listening comprehension questions where not only one correct but also the three incorrect answers must also be explicitly marked. One might get the best answer wrong, but still eliminate the most obviously incorrect statements.
The design of single-answer questions, however, also indicates testing for partial comprehension. For example, one of this year’s questions was answered by choosing from four cartoons in a grid:
A guy wearing short sleeves with horizontal stripes.
A guy with short sleeves and vertical strips
A guy whose long-sleeved shirt sports vertical strips.
A guy in a horizontally-striped shirt with long sleeves.
You’d be half right if you said short sleeves. I may have gotten the direction of the stripes wrong — I wonder if sleeves and stripes were weighted similarly?
The wisdom of crowds. Hmm. I sometimes doubt the wisdom of crowds. Rubbernecking jams aren’t always the best source of good ideas. And yet, the new discipline of crowd-sourcing shows great promise for many still intractible problems. Social networking is providing tools and, more importantly, data and ideas.
I’m not in Copenhagen, but I wonder what they’re talking about. News coverage has been weak, and I first stumbled on Ron Paul in a more radical