Rob Rogers for August 17, 2012

things that make me pull my hair oout!!!!!

Can’t agree. The biggest social program is the one that supplies the military-industrial complex.

Let’s cut defense waste, and subsidies to oil and other extraction industries like cheap, or FREE access to taxpayer owned natural resources! Let’s end all the tax breaks on incomes over $250,000 a year, and ALL “corporate” tax breaks, and subsidies, like in agriculture.

The load can be eased considerably, without screwing the “middle class” who actually pay a higher percentage of their total income in taxes, of all varieties, than do the wealthy, or corporations.

The local radio station where I grew up always started Sunday morning with Tennessee Ernie Ford’s recording of “16 Tons.” A question in it was, ‘You dig 16 tons and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt" to the company store. The r/w-tea party is trying to restore the company store through out America. Let’s not let them, vote for President Obama. Vote out republican senators, vote out republican representatives in November.

Really Oldie? Is that the best ya got?

The conservatives have no rational arguments, but you can always call people Nazis and socialists.

Sorry to hear that. In my case I just don’t have the time I once had since I was laid off my old job and am now working for corporate America now. Plus school is becoming a pain.

Absolutely! Fennec narced him out ages ago. How is she doing anyway?

Fennec is much missed. One of the best posters ever. I learned a lot from fennec. That reminds, me, Doc, have you looked at “Thinking, Fast and Slow”?

I figured that this stuff was right up your alley. I knew a little of it, but a lot is new and very interesting.

I did some reading some years back on risk assessment, and I came across some of this. I’ve also thought some about “causal” thinking — for instance, I’ve always been suspicious of the reasons people give for stock market moves — “The market dropped 57 points today because of fears of oil shortages” — well, maybe, but how the hell do they know? And the idea that people are rational economic actors is just so obviously not true. And of course the difficulty people have thinking statistically. So there’s a lot in the book that’s fascinating and pretty important. An education for me, that’s for sure. Fennec hipped me to it.

Yeah, another one I just missed out on. When I was in high school I did a science project on the genetics of Indian corn, and I missed getting Barbara McClintock’s Nobel. Oh, well.