Author: david

Disturbing report I heard on NPR radio. This expert said that the prevalence of violins in the media could easily lead to more violins in the street, and even to domestic violins.

And they don’t always win… I have freely excerpted and rearranged from this LA Times piece. “Watergate Weighs on Today’s White House,” By Peter Wallsten., LA Times Staff Writer, June 7, 2005 [L]ingering weaknesses remain in the executive branch’s authority, officials around Bush have said. ********** Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, a Nixon aide who…

I find this report of a US poll encouraging, and better than I’d have expected/feared: Asked if Muslims can go to heaven only 12% said they cannot, 50% said they can and 24% said they do not believe in heaven. Newsweek, May 2004.

Mark Felt is going to publish a final “tell-all” book soon, and Bob Woodward is also going to publish his final wrap-up on Watergate. What could conceivably come out of these? Well, there remain at least two major loose-ends to the story, one Major and the other Huge. Major: Thomas Eagleton. He was the vice-presidential…

Just a bit of a “backgrounder” on a looming Republican political crisis: Even if the Democrats continue to fail to come up with a vision of their own, the key Bush tax cuts have always had built into them a “time-bomb,” which is bound to do heavy damage to the Republicans in congress. It is…

And what if, among a huge proportion of the at-risk population, this new pill made people 23 percent less likely to die from any cause…30 percent less likely to die from cardiovascular disease and 49 percent less likely to die from cancer? What if it were devoid of side-effects? And immediately available? One of the…

Dear Mr. Etiquette, Should carrots and celery be eaten with the fingers? –No, the fingers should be eaten separately.

“People who are overweight but not obese have a lower risk of death than those of normal weight, federal researchers are reporting today.” NYT, 4/20/2005 –I think anything below 100% would be a breakthrough.

NYT, 4/11/05 (My italics.) “…the arresting officer recalled, it took four police officers to haul him down the steps of the New York Public Library and across Fifth Avenue. ‘We picked him up and we carried him while he squirmed and screamed,’ the officer, Matthew Wohl, testified in December. ‘I had one of his legs…

Based on results of the latest brain-imaging technologies, it turns out the right side of the brain does not control the left side of the body and vice versa. It only seems that way because, inside the brain-case within the scull, the brain is actually facing backwards! (No fool, that brain.)

A BBC World Service poll that surveyed 23,518 people in 23 countries finds… –“There is an extraordinary degree of consensus in favor of the UN becoming ‘significantly more powerful in world affairs.’ –“This prospect is seen as ‘mainly positive’ in every country (21 a majority, 2 a plurality) and by an average of 64 percent.…

Once upon a time, Conservatives advocated a free market, with “consumer sovereignty,” for healthy Capitalist development. Consumers would have money to spend. Businesses that efficiently offered them things they wanted to buy would get a larger proportion of consumer spending. They would thus be rewarded for their efficiency and desirable selection of offerings. These businesses…

With thanks to Bertrand Russell… “I thought your boat was larger than it is.” “No, my boat is not larger than it is.”

The Bush administration is now funding a sexual abstinence program as part of its contribution to fighting AIDS in Africa. Abstinence is also a mainstay of its efforts against both youth pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases within the US. So that is consistent. But there are rumors that backsliders in the administration want to restrict…

A fairly harsh crackdown in the War on Drugs–primarily alcohol–has apparently taken hold in Sadr City and other Iraqi centers where US military power is weak. I personally find this overzealous, hard-line Islamist drug-law enforcement to be both abusive and intolerant–though I don’t doubt they can point to many depredations of alcohol on individuals and…

Having so recently told my grandson for the first time the Chanukah story–the defeat of three successive, heavily armored Hellenic colonial armies by agrarian Jewish guerillas in 168 BCE–I read this in the paper today, and the juxtaposition brought me to tears. …an astounding, and forgotten, episode in Western history. Since Haiti alone produced as…

Lai-chui Hsien of Hopei achieved great mastery of Chinese neijia (“internal martial art”–Tai-Chi, etc.) “Sometimes when following the technique exactly, you feel that your body is not coordinated, your abdomen does not feel good, the postures are bad, and you are not happy. “Do not worry! You have gained something and are at a point…

A 30,000-year-old instrument is uncovered in southern Germany: His early experimentation suggests that the old flute would have allowed a relatively sophisticated level of musical variation. “The tones are quite harmonic,” he says. They don’t seem to follow a diatonic scale, he notes, but rather the rules of the pentatonic scale that predominates in Asia.…

Thursday 12/16/2004 ———————————————————– RELEASE: In October, Czech retail sales continued to follow the trend of the preceding months and increased…1.1% on a seasonally adjusted month-to-month basis. On a year-ago basis, retail sales advanced 1.7% (not seasonally adjusted). DKo: A full-year seasonal adjustment? It must make sense somehow, but it does sound funny. Economists don’t indulge…