Merry Christmas from Ireland

John, David, Peter, Kathleen, Clemént, Jordon, Patricia and William

Peter, John, Patricia, David, William, Mary, Tom,Kathleen, Clemént, Jordon and Luke

Wright's Law

Dear Mrs Chown, Ignore your son's attempts to teach you physics. Physics isn't the most important thing. Love is.

Best wishes, Richard Feynman.

One of the more interesting gift catalogues we received

This is from Peter (not the founder of this blog, but the one with the same name), who  claims these are pages from a catalogue Lisa found while shopping in a discount mall. (Click on each image to view it full size.)

The Geography of Gun Violence

The Newtown shooting has occasioned endless features and articles on gun violence and gun control.  While I'm not sure that anything can be done to stop a mass killer intent on carrying our his mission, our murder rate is off the charts -- as Jim has pointed out.  Using 2009 data, we have a gun homicide rate that is is some 15 times greater than the combined homicide rates of 22 other high income countries.  That's just crazy and, if a mass killing generates a discussion about that, I'm not not complaining.


The frenzy is such that even old articles are being dredged up.  I saw an article originally published in January 2011, after the Tucson, Arizona shootings:  The Geography of Gun Deaths.  It compared the firearm deaths -- accidental, homicide and suicide -- for the 50 states and the District of Columbia.   Here's a map showing the comparison:  

Then, came the interesting part.  As the author, Richard Florida states:

With these data in hand, I decided to look at the factors associated with gun deaths at the state level. With the help of my colleague Charlotta Mellander, we charted the statistical correlations between firearm deaths and a variety of psychological, economic, social, and political characteristics of states. As usual, I point out that correlation does not imply causation, but simply points to associations between variables.

First of all, let's look at the factors that do not correlate with gun death rates:  rates of unemployment, illegal drug use, stress,  neuroticism, mental illness and population.  

Now, what are the factors which can be assocaited with high gun death rates?  The factor with the highest correlation to gun deaths was which candidate carried your state in 2008.  If your state went for Obama, breathe a sigh of relief; there are not many gun deaths in your state.  Be concerned, however, if it went for McCain.   Also, if your looking for safety, pick a state with a high immigrant population.  A high immigrant population had a high correlation to low gun death rates.   Also, look for a state with a lot of college graduates.   Anyway, here's the complete graph.  You can see for yourself.  

 

It's the news, again

In Progress typically has a unique perspective on events. I don't want to add more to the cascade of reporting and opinions on the tragedy of Newtown, CT. Kottke has abstracts and links to an incredible amount of thoughtful writing.

I'll only add a couple of quick comments. First, Tom, before he left for Ireland, was upstairs packing and heard me say that I doubted even this tragedy would budge Obama and congress to enact more strict gun control. When he came down he said imaginatively that it is more likely that the response, especially from the gun lobby, would be: we need to pass legislation to arm teachers with hand guns.

Secondly, why is this news? It is not because it is unusual for 26 people to be killed by gun shots in a day. In 2011 there were 8,583 deaths from guns in the U.S. That averages, over a 365 day year, to about 24 a day, so this was a pretty average day. It's just that it coincidentally happened in just one spot.

NASA Working on Warp Drive

NASA is currently working on a warp drive -- thanks to recent work by physicists Miguel Alcubierre and Harold White. Once developed, we could be in Alpha Centauri in two weeks tops. See How NASA might build its very first warp drive. For the more technicially minded, here is White's paper:  Warp Field Mechanics 101.

Christmas songs

On the subject of Christmas songs here's "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer" with a little bit of a different twist to it.

The Creepy Christmas Song

It seems that everywhere I turn these days someone is writing about the song, "Baby It's Cold Outside."  The song is a duet sung as a conversation: one party to the exchange is bent on seduction while the other resists. The song was first presented to the public in the 1949 motion picture, Neptune's Daughter. The film actually featured two performances of the song: one by Ricardo Montalbán and Esther Williams and the other by Red Skelton and Betty Garrett. It won the Academy Award for best song that year.

The problem is that in this time of date rape and Rohypnol, some question the appropriateness of the song, especially at Christmas time.  After all, the woman protests, "I simply must go", "The answer is no", "I've got to go home", and the guy persists -- exactly the opposite of what they teach you in the workplace harassment seminars.   And he uses every weapon in the arsonal:  appeals to her safety and well-being, flattery and utltimately guilting her ("What's the sense of hurtin' my pride?" "How can you do this thing to me?").  And the "Say, what's in this drink?" line has its own obvious problems. 

Stephen Deusner of Salon doesn't approve. Is “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” a date-rape anthem? Alyssa Broda of PolicyMic says This Song is About Sexual Harassment. And Eleanor Barkhorn and Ashley Fetters of The Atlantic want to re-write the lyrics.  How to Redeem 'Baby, It's Cold Outside': Fix the Lyrics.

Well, in spite of it all, it's a pretty clever song -- and you can decide for yourself if it's creepy or not.  Is she putting up a token protest, or does she really want to leave?
  

First, here are the two versions from Neptune's Daughter:

And a more recent version from Glee:





And, finally, if you just want the lyrics:  

More Things You Shouldn't Teach Your Children

In a previous post I offered the view that the sad state of religion today has been severely abetted, if not principally caused, by teaching religion to children. I want to expand that to other areas.

It's not unusual to spread lies to our children in many areas, but typically they are corrected when the child becomes an adult. From Santa, to George W. never telling a lie, to Columbus discovering America, we later teach them the fine distinctions of what first was presented as simple truth.

The reason religion is such a problem area is that, while we may take advance math or history, ninety-nine per cent of us never take advanced religion. As I said earlier, we get stuck with the child view.

But while it is pervasive in things religious, it causes problems in other subjects too. Unless you are a college physics major, you most likely have not been taught, and will not be taught any physics that has been developed since 1865! Yes, 1865. Imagine all the lies this fills us with. Thank goodness this is not true for other areas of science.

For example, were you taught that gravity was a force of attraction between the masses of different objects? I was. Do you believe it still? It's a lie; a popular misconception. The problem, again, is that we don't teach the adult version because…well, I'm not sure why…perhaps, like religion, it would be too difficult, or that many aren't interested.

No serious scientist believes gravity is based on mass. You can easily grasp that the notion is silly when you think about gravity's affect on light. Everyone knows about light and black holes; but light has no mass. Actually the source of gravity, at least as we understand it today, is not mass, but energy and momentum. Newton's Law of Gravitation is just an approximation. It's 'good enough' for most purposes. But it helps to have the 'adult' versions of things.

OK, the title of this post is a child's view of the subject. We can't really stop teaching children childish things, but we should try not to teach them things that are flatly wrong without continually reminding them with every lesson:
"This is not exactly right. It's wrong, but it's somewhat understandable. Hopefully, you can use it. Build on it. But, most importantly, continue to discover all the wrongness in it, and correct it. Whatever you do, don't believe it as gospel."

Traveling Upstream

Shane Carruth is the man behind the world's most complicated film, Primer. It's a movie that fascinates even when you haven't the foggiest of what's going on. After a few viewings you get the impression that time travel may be involved, that time travel is as addictive as crack, and that a lot of characters are walking around with similar names and faces. Unfortunately, something this complex is often seen as either an intelligence test or the emperor's new clothes. But that was 2004; now is 2012. Carruth is now moving Upstream Color. And it's coming to Sundance.


If that teaser (NOT a trailer) means anything to you, you may not be tethered properly.

Of course the whole movie may not add a lot of clarity, if Primer is any indication. I'm excited though. And it comes from my daily perusal of Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News. I can tell you that:

Within the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industry, there are many process streams that require purification by some means or another. Typically, this requires that a specific impurity is removed or that a range of impurities are eliminated. In the latter case, these impurities are never fully characterized and are generally called color-species. 



In all cases, the color is regarded as an impurity that must be removed in order to avoid any adverse quality problems downstream with the final pharmaceutical product. The removal of upstream color also serves to improve the resin lifetime of expensive chromatography media that is used in downstream purification.

Feel better now?

Finding Fault with God

It's nice to see that other mainstream media, aside from In Progress, attempts to venture beyond childhood notions of religion. Yoram Hazony, a Jewish Philosopher, writes a nice piece in the New York Times. This statement may be part of our mythical canon:

The belief that any human mind can grasp enough of God to begin recognizing perfections in him would have struck the biblical authors as a pagan conceit.

I found that Hazony's explanation on the pitfalls of perfection called to mind the first episode of "The Hermeneutics of Wishes" where I quote William James and call it the Incompatibility Principle. (shameless plug: There is still time to enjoy the six part series.)

Amazing Science

I know some people are interested in this, especially John, so here is an amazing article about amazing science.

Election Firsts

All the post election news centered around how surprised and bummed out the Republicans were about the election results, and how, once again,  Nate Silver got everything right (I'm beginning to re-think the Niels Bohr observation:  "Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future."  Silver doesn't seem to have any problem.)

So, it's possible that you missed a few election firsts.   We begin with same-sex marriage.  For the first time by popular vote, same sex marriage laws were passed in Maryland, Maine and Washington.  Minnesota, trying to get on the gay marriage bandwagon, voted no to a ballot initiative to change its constitution to deny same-sex couples the right to marry.  Meanwhile, there were other victories for gays.  Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) became the first openly gay senator in United States history.  And while we're on the subject, Spain's highest court voted to uphold the legality of same-sex marriages in that country.  France is moving toward passing a same sex marriage law in 2013.

In another first, Puerto Ricans voted for the first time in that island's history in favor of statehood in a nonbinding referendum.

Puerto Ricans were asked about their preference in two parts. First, by a 54% to 46% margin, voters rejected their current status as a U.S. commonwealth. In a separate question, 61% chose statehood as the alternative, compared with 33% for the semi-autonomous "sovereign free association" and 6% for outright independence.

Who knows where this will lead, but it may be that there will be a 51st state in the near future.  Among other things, this will mean another blue state, and will move us down the road toward bi-lingualism (as psychologists tell us, increasing American intelligence overall and preventing dementia). The United States now has the 5th largest number of Spanish speakers in the world.  Adding Puerto Rico may move us up the ladder.  You might as well get started right now:  estadidad means statehood.

Why Hobbits seem happier than others in Middle Earth

Courtesy of the lotrproject.

The Future of Football (American style)

American football is second only to Nascar racing as the most popular spectator sport in the United States. Statistics are murky, but it's safe to say that oodles of people like to watch the game. The problem is the people who play the game—they don't last like they used to. For whatever reasons, it may be more likely for wealthy NFL players to pay taxes at over a 15% rate than to finish a season. Fans like to identify with the players, but the team at the end of the year is barely recognizable from the one that started. Fans in Pittsburgh now will have to somehow root for one of the most scorned and ridiculed players in recent local history, Plaxico Burress. The team has lost its receivers, linemen, quarterbacks, defensive backs and their uniforms.

There is a solution. Combine the two most popular sports, auto racing and football. At first glance they seem incompatible, but their immense popularity is based on one common event—crashes. By replacing the injury prone players with repairable mechanical engines, we could enjoy spectacular crashes on practically every play. The mind numbing boredom of auto racing gets to keep all its noise and adds incredible robotic strategy. The rules would have to be slightly modified. All 'players' would need to receive instructions from the bench, but the current army of rule making officials in both sports have more than enough expertise to quickly come up with a working formula.

With Carnegie Mellon's robotic prowess, Pittsburgh could have a leg up on the competition.  And there would be no need change the eminently appropriate name of Steelers.

comment on Increase Tax Rates or Eliminate Deductions

I wanted to add this graph, but I couldn't put it in the comment section:

Someone else showed me this, but I couldn't find it on the site so I'm posting it (again?). I was shocked that the tax cuts drove the deficit much, much more than the wars.

When Patricia N. was here before Halloween, she told me of an economics lecture she attended recently where the speaker basically said, illustrated with fact, figures, charts, bells and whistles, that taxes have not increased since the 50's or 60's, but the services from the government have grown enormously. Eventually, there are no free lunches.

Increase Tax Rates or Eliminate Deductions?

The show down between the Republican House and Obama is going to be whether we raise revenue by getting rid of some deductions or raise tax rates.  My question is:  what is the source of the fear of increased tax rates?

In September of this year, the Congressional Research Service published a paper, "Taxes and the Economy: An Economic Analysis of the Top Tax Rates Since 1945 September."   I'm surprised that the paper has not received more attention.  By taking an historical view, it concludes that raising tax rates on the wealthy do not have a negative impact on the economy in any way, but merely increase disparities in income distribution.

Here is the summary:

Throughout the late-1940s and 1950s, the top marginal tax rate was typically above 90%; today it is 35%. Additionally, the top capital gains tax rate was 25% in the 1950s and 1960s, 35% in the 1970s; today it is 15%. The real GDP growth rate averaged 4.2% and real per capita increased annually by 2.4% in the 1950s. In the 2000s, the average real GDP growth rate was 1.7% and real per capita GDP increased annually by less than 1%. There is not conclusive evidence, however, to substantiate a clear relationship between the 65-year steady reduction in the top tax rates and economic growth. Analysis of such data suggests the reduction in the top tax rates have had little association with saving, investment, or productivity growth. However, the top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution. The share of income accruing to the top 0.1% of U.S. families increased from 4.2% in 1945 to 12.3% by 2007 before falling to 9.2% due to the 2007-2009 recession.

Just looking at the most recent years we see that tax cuts do not equal growth in GDP:

If anyting cuts in tax rates appear to have a negative impact on the economy.

Here are two more charts.  One shows how tax rates for highest income taxpayer have declined over the years, and thje other one shows how the share of total income by the wealthiest has increased over the same time.  One thing is clear:  decreasing tax rates for the wealthy may not help the economy but it helps rich people.

Again, why are Republicans opposing tax increases on the wealthy?

Now, can we get back to doing God's work?

Those of you who think that Christianity is now simply a front for a bunch of conservative culture warriors need to take a look at Faithful America.

Faithful America is an online community of people of faith which seeks to, in its own words, "restore community and uphold the common good in America and across the globe." It sees as its issues ending poverty, promoting human rights, preventing climate change, fighting hate speech and reforming immigration laws.

Ellen in an email entitled "Now, can we get back to doing God's work?" sent me the link below to a petition sponsored by Faithful America which is addressed to the American Catholic bishops. I was trying to think of how I could give this petition the widest possible distribution and immediately thought of In Progress.

And so here it is:
TELL THE BISHOPS: IT'S TIME TO DROP YOUR POLITICAL CRUSADE

Football…, I mean, soccer

Maryland has been ranked first most of the season in soccer. Currently the polls rank them second with Akron first and Notre Dame third. However, the NCAA tournament committee seeded Notre Dame first (either because they won the Big East or they get special bias), Maryland second and Akron ended up seeded fifth. The upshot of all this is, if each team plays as predicted, the Terrapins will be facing the Irish for the championship. (Also, it may be the only time in history you can say Notre Dame football is ranked third and it doesn't matter if you are talking to an American or any other nationality.)

On a completely different note, coaches and sport banquet hosts are always saying sport teaches us lessons. This was illustrated dramatically in the latest Monday Night (American) Football game with the Steelers and Kansas City. The Chiefs performed an excessive group celebration after an apparent fumble recovery and runback for a touchdown. Upon review it was ruled an incomplete pass—no touchdown. But the penalty stands. It gave the Steelers a first down on an otherwise fourth down with the incomplete pass.

The lesson (other than never be too proud of yourself): Fictive things wink as they will; but the penalties remain.

Disclosure: Tom's post on running

I got an email from Tom, who is having trouble posting to the blog. As many emails today, it was mostly concerned with confidentiality, disavowing any information, especially tax information which you may think it contains, and explaining what it is not intended for. But I also discovered it contained a link to an article on running and how fast you may think you are going.

Please note I am not endorsing any information you may think is implied in this post, especially if it constitutes fraud.