I ran across this somewhat longish article at NakedCapitalism.com. Even if you are not a 6th grader you will find this interesting. In part, Andrew Dittmer, who in fact has taught 6th graders, our author, points out that modern economics is based on certain assumptions that render much of the application of advanced mathematics in economics false, misleading, yet amazingly resistant to criticism by non-economists exactly because of the use of obscurantist fog of mathematics. One of these assumptions is that players in a market have “perfect information” – this is summed up in action by Wikipedia as “Perfect information would practically mean that all consumers know all things, about all products, at all times (including knowing the probabilistic outcome of all future events) , and therefore always make the best decision regarding purchases.” There has been plenty of criticism of this concept even by economists, yet this concept is still embedded. Another assumption is that people will...
A Theory of Preservation and Restoration? – Carole Osterink’s Posting about Ft. McHenry’s Viewshed
The September 17, 2011 posting on Carole Osterink’s Gossips of Rivertown blog, “Of National Heritage and Viewsheds” caught my eye. Here it is in its entirety: Of National Heritage and Viewsheds We all know the story. Francis Scott Key, a young lawyer from Georgetown, witnessed the bombardment of Fort McHenry, which lasted for twenty-five hours, from September 13 to September 14, 1814, during the Battle of Baltimore in the War of 1812. At first light, after the cannon fire had finally ceased, the sight of the flag known as the “Star-Spangled Banner” still flying over the fort inspired Key to write a poem called “Defence of Fort McHenry,” which became the lyrics for our national anthem. A stirring and significant moment in American history. The successful defense of Baltimore marked the turning point in the war. Fort McHenry should be a national historic shrine, and indeed it is, but here’s the view from Fort McHenry today. This...
Seen in Hudson
Recently I was sitting in the park in front of our county courthouse and was struck by the ugliness and cheapness of the trash containers, sections of corrugated black plastic drainage pipe. Take a look next time you happen by. What are they thinking about in the that building? Just this spring there was considerable, well-deserved hullabaloo about plans to restore the courthouse and preserve it facade. And, the park is home to numerous monuments to war dead. Curiously, this spring considerable time and effort was spent on sanding down and varnishing the wooden surfaces of all the park benches. Now these….?
FBI Training – another clever use of the Cartesian coordinate system
I sometimes wonder why I poke at my Wired Magazine app almost every day…. Today brought a little reward, if one considers revelations of such nonsense as a reward. Here is a chart from this training manualon “mainstream” Muslims: How anyone with any level of day-to-day common sense, or rudimentary knowledge of history, any history, could believe that the followers of the Torah or Bible have been becoming less violent must be on some pretty serious drugs. I will leave it to those with a more serious understanding of the relative bellicosity of believers in the Koran to weigh in on the horizontal line…..
Parallels and Prescience – on the Tenth Anniversary of 9/11 and the “War on Terror”
Having successfully avoided much of the national moment for our politicians to blather on about the true meaning of 9/11, I was struck this morning by parallel between our “War on Terror” and our longest war, the “War on Drugs” (I have written earlier about this here). Some may be offended initially by this comparison. The War on Drugs was invented for the most cynical of purposes by one of our more craven Presidents, President Nixon1. But, when one observes the gigantic interests in Federal, State, and local bureaucracies (think your local police) and corporate worlds that immediately lined up to feed at this trough of a war, a bit of cynicism can not help but creep into mind. Nixon’s invention spawned a plethora of Federal, State, and local bureaucracies consuming vast resources and spreading around the globe. Meanwhile, our social and criminal policies gauranteed high prices for the drug lords thus supporting a marketing...