Official BBO Hijacked Thread Thread

[y66]

The 8 Most Common 2019 Tax Return Questions, Answered by Experts

[Winstonm]

What is wrong with these people?

 

Pro-Russian Coast Guard lieutenant arrested with hit list of liberal senators wanted to establish ‘a white homeland’

[Winstonm]

Is it time to rethink this all-volunteer army?

 

It is not uncommon for white nationalists to seek weapons and combat training through the military. Last year ProPublica exposed an active-duty Marine as a white supremacist with ties to Atomwaffen Division, a secretive neo-Nazi group whose members fantasize about a race war in the U.S. Atomwaffen deliberately recruits U.S. military personnel because of their training and access to weapons, a former group member told law enforcement officials.

[Winstonm]

A golf clap for this Republican.

 

 

Republican Mark Harris said he believes a new election should be called amid ongoing scrutiny over absentee ballot activity in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District.

 

“I believe new election should be called,” the candidate told the North Carolina State Board of Elections during public testimony Thursday. “It’s become clear to me the public’s confidence in the 9th District seat general election has been undermined to an extent that a new election is warranted.”

 

Of course, his change of heart might be more about trying to stay out of prison for perjury.

 

Earlier Thursday, Harris said he knew nothing of an alleged ballot-tampering scheme led by an operative he hired to work in his 2108 campaign.

 

 

Harris’s testimony came the day after his son, John Harris, a federal prosecutor, testified about the warnings he offered his father in phone calls and emails that he believed the operative had broken the law in a previous election.

[Winstonm]

Inversion alert: the 6 month treasury is yielding more today than the 2,3, and 5 year. Recession is in the air.

[Winstonm]

More bad news on the treasury inversion front. Today we had a 3-month/3-year inversion which is significant as the average recession lasts about 18 months. Looks like money is moving into mid-length treasuries in expectations of at least a significant slow down over the next 2-3 years.

[y66]

From Tyler Cowen's conversation with venture capitalist Sam Altman:

 

COWEN: Young Napoleon shows up. What do you think after 5 minutes?

 

ALTMAN: How young? Like 18-year-old Napoleon or 5-year-old?

COWEN: Why has the tech world found education so hard to crack?

 

ALTMAN: Why can the tech world not convince parents to love and prioritize their children?

 

COWEN: Say a little more.

 

ALTMAN: There’s a lot of things technology can’t do. There are a lot of things that require human connection. There are a lot of things that require people. Technology can do some things, but I don’t think the biggest problem with our educational system is a technology one.

 

COWEN: It’s the human one?

 

ALTMAN: For sure.

I enjoyed Altman's observations about the network effect and what he would do if given $200 million to help St. Louis.

[kenberg]

From Tyler Cowen's conversation with venture capitalist Sam Altman:

 

 

 

I enjoyed Altman's observations about the network effect and what he would do if given $200 million to help St. Louis.

 

That is one fascinating interview!

[y66]

Copy edit this!

 

The Times’s standards editor, Philip B. Corbett, invites readers to correct grammatical errors in recent New York Times articles.

[Winstonm]

During a Senate Health Committee hearing on Tuesday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) criticized the idea that parents should be required to vaccinate their children and perpetuated the notion that vaccines themselves could cause harm.

 

You would hope at some point morons like Rand Paul would be held accountable for his words - criminally accountable.

 

March 5, 2019

A new decade-long study of more than half a million people found that the measles vaccine does not increase the risk of autism, further reinforcing what the medical community has long been saying about preventative shots.

 

Researchers from Denmark looked at a Danish population registry of 657,461 children, some that were vaccinated with the mumps, measles, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and some who were not. After over a decade of follow-up, 6,517 were diagnosed with autism. There was no increased risk of autism in children who had the MMR vaccine and no evidence that it triggered autism in susceptible children.

Source: USA Today

 

Since 2003, there have been nine CDC-funded or conducted studies Cdc-pdf[PDF – 357 KB] that have found no link between thimerosal-containing vaccines and ASD, as well as no link between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and ASD in children.

Source: CDC

[y66]

From Pritzker Prize Goes to Arata Isozaki, Designer for a Postwar World by Amy Qin at NYT:

 

While his best known projects are in cities, Mr. Isozaki said last week that he was “more nostalgic about the rural projects.” Asked to pick a favorite, he named the Domus Museum (1993-1995) in A Coruña, Spain. Built atop a rocky outcrop by the Bay of Riazor, the museum features a curved slate-clad facade that resembles a sail billowing in the wind.

 

“Mr. Isozaki’s is an architecture that thrusts aside the shopworn debate between modernism and postmodernism, for it is both modern and postmodern,” the critic Paul Goldberger wrote in The Times in 1986. “Modern in its reliance on strong, self-assured abstraction, postmodern in the degree to which it feels connected to the larger stream of history.”

 

In 2017, Mr. Isozaki donated his vast collection of books and quietly moved with his partner, Misa Shin, from Tokyo to Okinawa in search of warmer climes. The couple rented a nondescript apartment with a view of the sea in a peaceful residential neighborhood. The neighbors have no idea that living in the peach-colored walk-up is a bona fide starchitect.

 

Despite having moved to what might be called the “Florida of Japan,” Mr. Isozaki said he has no immediate plans to retire. Recent building booms in the Middle East and Asia — and China, in particular — have allowed the architect to finally realize ideas for urban planning that he first conceptualized in his unbuilt project “City in the Air” (1962), which envisioned a multilayered city hovering above the traditional city. The opportunities were exciting.

 

Mr. Isozaki cited a poem he wrote early in his career called “Incubation Process” (1962), describing it as his first architectural work. The poem was raw and unrefined, he said, but after 60 years, he still holds onto its essential ideas.

 

“Urban planning which doesn’t include the idea of destruction,” the poem reads in part, “should be carried out in nursing homes.”

[Winstonm]

3 month treasuries: 2.47

3 year: 2.49

5 year: 2.49

 

This is getting serious. Lots of someones think hard times are coming.

[y66]

From A Word With Ian McShane by Kathryn Shattuck at NYT:

 

Before he landed the role of Mr. Wednesday in “American Gods,” Ian McShane hadn’t read Neil Gaiman’s fantastical 2001 novel. Then he picked it up and, four readings later and counting, still hasn’t put it down.

 

“It’s not my preferred genre, as they say, but there was something rather thrilling about it,” he recalled. “It seemed like a perfect blueprint for a TV series because of all the ‘coming to America’ stories. You could go wherever you wanted within that world.”

 

“American Gods,” the book and series, presumes a world where deities are real — and walk among us. There are the old gods (like Loki, Bilquis and Anansi), who came to America through the beliefs of immigrants, and the new (Technical Boy and Media), who ascended through contemporary fixations.

 

And in the first season, the show’s creators, Bryan Fuller and Michael Green, trailed Shadow Moon (Ricky Whittle), an aimless ex-con, and Mr. Wednesday, an eccentric grifter, on a serpentine cross-country road trip to visit the increasingly irrelevant old gods — and make the case for war against the upstarts trying to usurp their power.

 

Mr. Wednesday was eventually revealed to be no less than Odin, the omnipotent Norse all-father. Season 2 — returning to Starz on March 10 after a 21-month hiatus, during which Fuller and Green left the show — finds him preparing his ancient troops for an epic battle.

 

His fierce charm intact at 76, McShane is burning up the screen this spring, with “American Gods” followed by four films in April and May: “Hellboy,” “Bolden,” “John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum” and “Deadwood,” the long-gestating follow-up to the popular HBO cult western that ended in 2006, in which he’ll reprise his brutal Dakota Territory pimp and saloonkeeper, Al Swearengen. In a phone interview from Los Angeles, he recounted his own “coming to America” story and revealed which god he’d want to be.

 

Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.

 

A lot happened between Seasons 1 and 2 of “American Gods,” with the departure of the original showrunners and Gillian Anderson and Kristin Chenoweth. How has this whirlwind left you feeling?

 

Hey, that’s what happens in life. A little turmoil never hurt anybody as long as it came out slightly more creative in the end, and I think it maybe has.

 

In what way?

 

Where they are, where they’re going to, is to get back to Gaiman’s book a little more than the first season, which I thought was excellent and provocative and a lot of startling good things but tended to [stray] from the book. Season 2 is more about asking questions of Shadow, because he’s got to become more proactive, and concentrating on the gods themselves. And also bringing the new gods into it more, because they tended to be just too shadowy toward the end. So yeah, I think it’s quite a thrilling year.

 

You’re British but live mostly in Los Angeles. What’s your own “coming to America” story?

 

I first came back in ’75 and I’ve lived here now mostly permanently for the past 17 years while I work. It’s very odd what’s going on in America. I still think it’s a wonderful, wonderful country. It’s just strange times.

 

The series touches on immigration, racism, xenophobia and gun control. Did you have any idea how prescient it would be?

 

Well, it was very interesting what was happening when we did the first season of “American Gods.” The country has taken a serious lurch to the right, as much as they’d love to say it’s taken a serious lurch to the left. I don’t think America would know a socialist if they fell over him. They think it’s somebody who lives in a garret in Russia and has no telephone and no refrigerator. But that’s due to their lack of education. America’s been dumbed down over the years, which is a shame. It’s wonderful to see Congress now with a rainbow color, if you like, of immigrants and nationalities and people who love this country. They’re talking about it in a different way.

 

Let’s talk about your upcoming films, starting with “Deadwood.”

 

“Deadwood” was like being on an acid trip, like being transported back 15 years ago. People you’ve loved and known, some you’ve seen, some you haven’t — but you have a good time with them when you walk on that set, doing great work, loving the work you’re doing and hoping that people, when it comes out, will enjoy it.

 

Can you hint at the story line?

 

I can say it’s 10 years later, South Dakota just got statehood and [Gerald] McRaney is coming back as a senator — he plays George Hearst, who is sort of the villain of the piece — and it all connects in a strange, great way to the last episode when we left.

 

How has Al held up?

 

Ten years will make a difference, especially if you drink that much. But that’s life.

 

And I’m guessing his language is an obscenely poetic as ever?

 

Yeah, he may have the propensity for swearing but every swear word was written by David Milch. If you put a [expletive] in the wrong place you’re [expletive] because it was all rhythm. It was a deliberate attempt to shock.

 

What about “John Wick: Chapter 3”?

 

That will be big and that will be good.

 

Your character, Winston — the owner of the Continental hotel, neutral territory for assassins — let John get away at the end of Chapter 2. Will there be payback?

 

Well, the High Table doesn’t like anybody stepping out of line so maybe they’ll take me to task, giving John an out, even. And you’ve got Laurence Fishburne and me, and maybe we get together, maybe we’re unvirtuous. Who knows? Because nothing is the same.

 

I’ve heard that you aren’t going to be part of “The Continental,” the Starz spinoff.

 

I may give them a voice-over. You never know.

 

But you are in the reboot of “Hellboy.”

 

Hellboy, yeah! I think that’s going to surprise a lot of people. David [Harbour of “Stranger Things”] is a marvelous actor. He just fills out the role. It was nice and bittersweet taking over [Professor Bruttenholm] from a dear old friend of mine, John Hurt. But it’s not Part 3. It’s a complete reboot of [Guillermo del Toro’s] “Hellboy,” and I think they picked the right guy in David. It was a pleasure to work with him and be in Bulgaria for three weeks, a country I’ve never been to before. Greatest fresh vegetables I’ve ever tasted. And the scripts are funny and smart and bright, and the action is fantastic, and I have grandkids who love all that. They can’t wait.

 

Last question: The heart of “American Gods” is faith and belief. Are you a believer? And if so, who is your god?

 

I believe Jesus Christ is a great guy, absolutely, and if he came back again they’d kill him, absolutely. And not just because he was Jewish, either. They’d kill him because in this day and age, if you talk about anything you’re misinterpreted into something else. So if I was a god, I’d be the god of tolerance. Not a vengeful god — no. I’d be the god of tolerance and understanding and say, “Everybody is worth it.”

[johnu]

A humorous take on modern culture:

 

He Was Mad His Photo Was Used To Show All Hipsters Look Alike, But It Wasn’t Him

 

A man threatened to sue a technology publication for using his image in a story about how all hipsters look alike, only to find out that the picture was of a different person.

 

Last week, MIT Technology Review posted an article titled “The Hipster Effect: Why Anti-conformists Always End Up Looking The Same,” which discussed a Brandeis University study about “the hipster effect,” or how nonconformists often end up conforming to counterculture conventions.

[kenberg]

Watching the story yesterday about bribes to get kids into "elite colleges", my first reaction was "My parents were better than that". But then I began to wonder if the young woman whose parents spent 15K in bribes feels unloved after learning that another parent spent 500K.. To say that I do not understand this severely understates the matter.

[y66]

From Tyler Cowen's conversation with Raghuram Rajan:

 

COWEN: And to close, last question: what general message would you like to leave us with concerning your new book, The Third Pillar: How Markets and the State Leave the Community Behind?

 

RAJAN: In many ways, this book is my view of why capitalism worked and why it’s not working as much anymore. Central to this view is how important democracy is — democracy working through the community, the community pushing its ideas up. And to some extent, that we need to regain that ability for capitalism to work for all.

 

That’s the effective capitalism that took us in the West over the last 70 years to where we are. It’s where I think we could go in the East, but we need that spreading of capitalism’s benefits. And there I think democracy, in opening up capitalism and keeping it open, is extremely important. That’s why I focus in this book on the community, because it seems to me that the community is a basic building block of democracy.

 

It’s the guy at the bottom, who has no influence, who is essentially saying, “I want capitalism to work for me” — that’s when capitalism actually works. It’s when everything is determined at the top that it stops working and we get the crony states. Whether they be socialist crony states, or fascist crony states, or even some versions of capitalist crony states.

[y66]

How a Bitcoin Evangelist Made Himself Vanish, in 15 (Not So Easy) Steps

[kenberg]

From Tyler Cowen's conversation with Raghuram Rajan:

 

 

It's an interesting interview but it hops around a lot. For eample:

COWEN: Why doesn't online education work better, then? What's special about face to face?

 

RAJAN: I think you need both. Look, face to face in my class — when I look at a student and they're not prepared, they feel a sense of embarrassment. It's hard to get that sense of embarrassment across the net, at least in full measure.

 

COWEN: You can text them an insult. [laughs]

 

RAJAN: You could text them an insult. It's not as powerful, I would think.

 

 

Then on to something else.

 

In the passage that you cite

"It's the guy at the bottom, who has no influence, who is essentially saying, "I want capitalism to work for me" — that's when capitalism actually works."

 

Ok, but further thoughts?

With online education I think a lot of it is very badly done. A lot of books are badly written, but with guidance we can choose the better ones. Also, learning comes in several forms. We need to accumulate facts, and for this we need a trusted source of facts. But education, at its best, can also involve conceptual development. Personal interaction can play a big role in this.

 

My point is that the discussion of online education came and went so quickly that I barely noticed it. The guy sounds interesting and I would like to have heard more.

[y66]

It's an interesting interview but it hops around a lot. For eample:

 

 

Then on to something else.

 

In the passage that you cite

"It's the guy at the bottom, who has no influence, who is essentially saying, "I want capitalism to work for me" — that's when capitalism actually works."

 

Ok, but further thoughts?

With online education I think a lot of it is very badly done. A lot of books are badly written, but with guidance we can choose the better ones. Also, learning comes in several forms. We need to accumulate facts, and for this we need a trusted source of facts. But education, at its best, can also involve conceptual development. Personal interaction can play a big role in this.

 

My point is that the discussion of online education came and went so quickly that I barely noticed it. The guy sounds interesting and I would like to have heard more.

As Cowen points out, this is the interview he wants to have, not the interview his audience wants to have although he does ask people ahead of time to send him their questions. As you point out, the exchanges are not deep.

 

I've taken a few online classes in programming languages. The course materials were exceptional and, for self motivated individuals, hard to beat. I would put them on a par or above some of the better traditional classes I've taken in programming languages. That's a small sample but I did not see a problem with quality in my sample. My best classroom teachers had an amazing ability to spark interest which I didn't get from the online classes I took. Rajan's point that you need both makes obvious sense to me.

 

I think Rajan gets at something important and true about capitalism and democracy in that short exchange which is that they have to work at all levels, not just for the people at the top. Yes obvious, but also not so obvious, which is why we have the Trump tax cut, why we have Trump and why we are a divided nation and a divided water cooler.

[Winstonm]

I wonder what would happen if everyone who is not a billionaire suddenly stopped working? Who is John Gestalt?

[kenberg]

I think Rajan gets at something important and true about capitalism and democracy in that short exchange which is that they have to work at all levels, not just for the people at the top. Yes obvious, but also not so obvious, which is why we have the Trump tax cut, why we have Trump and why we are a divided nation and a divided water cooler.

 

Yes, or approximately yes. If you were (via a seance) to ask my father "Did capitalism work for you" I am sure he would have no idea what the question meant. Let's look at it just a bit differently. My father came to this country when he was 10, brought by his older brother, 16. Ask him if he thought this was a good move. Oh yes. I am again completely sure that he would see the answer as so obvious that he could not imagine what sort of an idiot would even ask. He came in 1910, Taft was president, it was two years after Ford introduced the model T. He somehow learned to install weatherstripping and made his living that way. To put it mildly, the world has changed. Or has it? There is this guy, Leo, who comes around from time to time to see if we need any trees chopped down. He used to bring his girlfriend with him to handle the conversation but his English now is pretty good.

 

I would like to have heard much more about Rajan's thoughts on this, For starters he could say what he thinks it would mean for capitalism to be working for everyone. It's not just my father who would wonder about just what is meant.

 

As to learning, yes, I agree that there can be some good stuff. I still like books.

[y66]

Timothy Egan at NYT is hopeful that Brexit could lead to a united Ireland free of interference from Britain after 800 years. Proudly progressive, increasingly free of religious and foreign oppression and last year the fastest growing economy in Europe. Erin go Bragh!

[Cyberyeti]

Timothy Egan at NYT is hopeful that Brexit could lead to a united Ireland free of interference from Britain after 800 years. Proudly progressive, increasingly free of religious and foreign oppression and last year the fastest growing economy in Europe. Erin go Bragh!

 

Free of religious oppression - both sides are dictated by religious dogma, look at the abortion laws which are decades behind the rest of the UK.

[y66]

Free of religious oppression - both sides are dictated by religious dogma, look at the abortion laws which are decades behind the rest of the UK.

I meant "increasingly free" in the sense that freedom is increasing, not that it is at an acceptable level or on a par with Ireland's oppressors. A gay prime minister of Irish-Indian descent is not proof that Ireland is free but it does suggest that the days of religious oppression are ending which they are.

[y66]

Yes, or approximately yes. If you were (via a seance) to ask my father "Did capitalism work for you" I am sure he would have no idea what the question meant. Let's look at it just a bit differently. My father came to this country when he was 10, brought by his older brother, 16. Ask him if he thought this was a good move. Oh yes. I am again completely sure that he would see the answer as so obvious that he could not imagine what sort of an idiot would even ask. He came in 1910, Taft was president, it was two years after Ford introduced the model T. He somehow learned to install weatherstripping and made his living that way. To put it mildly, the world has changed. Or has it? There is this guy, Leo, who comes around from time to time to see if we need any trees chopped down. He used to bring his girlfriend with him to handle the conversation but his English now is pretty good.

 

I would like to have heard much more about Rajan's thoughts on this, For starters he could say what he thinks it would mean for capitalism to be working for everyone. It's not just my father who would wonder about just what is meant.

 

As to learning, yes, I agree that there can be some good stuff. I still like books.

My grandfather came over from Ireland 5 years before your uncle and your father. He saw that cars were catching on and made a good living as a car salesman. He was not an economist but I feel sure he would have agreed that a system in which the minimum wage, adjusted for inflation, has declined by a third over the last half century, while worker productivity has increased 150 percent, is not working for everyone. I see that my library has Mr. Rajan's book which is out on loan. I've placed a hold. When it becomes available, I'll see if he has more to say on this topic and perhaps post more here.