Thursday, June 16, 2011

NHL & Asterix

From the Guardian article, an excerpt follows.


"The role of helmet protection has been stressed by the authors, especially in view of the fact that strap-fixation should have been taken more seriously by the Roman besiegers and others."


Who woulda thunk that one of my favorite cartoon strips (and the most effective way for me to learn French), Asterix, could have been the basis of a study of brain injury?   What's next?  The New England Journal of Medicine will be publishing findings on the Three Stooges?  How does one get to be on these "fact"-finding missions?  Does a childhood glued to the tv watching Moe, Larry, & Curly suffice as experience?   Does still owning 5 of Asterix books (and parking them on a bookshelf next to Peter DeVries and Joseph Heller, humorists of a different age target) qualify me to sit in and opine?


And, now that the Stanley Cup has been awarded to the Boston Bruins who will be taking the Cup hither (Slovakia), yon (Germany), and elsewhere (Montreal, Vancouver...), will the NHL return to their investigation of concussive damage and perhaps relate them to the findings of the European Journal of Neurosurgery, Acta Neurochirurgica?


Well, I know what I'll be doing.  Time to pull out those wonderful books and think back on the days when the only concern regarding head injuries were whether a solid whack by Asterix or Obelix would induce a "BAAFFFFFFF" or a "WHHHOOOP".


For my Canadian readers, I'm sure you remember that one character that now has been haunting the country for decades, Valueaddedtax.  May he remain North of the Border!

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Friday, June 10, 2011

Value Subtraction Layers

(Photo from http://www.bastardette.blogspot.com/)
...will be the buzzword for the next few years as shell companies disguising reverse mergers come undone.  Interesting article in today's NYT re. Muddy Waters Research.  The company's already been targeted in the past for its reports and it may be hard to tell who's wearing the white hat in this legal (at this point) money collecting schemology.  Well, at least we'll have an interesting phrase to kick around for a while.

In the NYT article, Carson Block, the 35 year old founder of Muddy Waters Research explains how the company got its name and the concept of "value subtraction layer".

"He explains by way of the firm’s name, Muddy Waters. It’s derived from a Chinese phrase that says the easiest way to catch fish is by muddying the water, forcing it to the surface.
"You kick up the silt, and they rush to the top of the water,” he said of the Chinese proverb.
“This explains a lot about how things work in China,” Mr. Block added. “Business deals are rife with value subtraction layers. The more opaque they make it, the easier it is for them to siphon off money.”


Another term for this methodology of disappearing money may be "financial quicksand".

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Thursday, June 09, 2011

Yukon Goes (and goes for some more) Fishing


Well, just a pointer to a blogger that happens to be related.  Da Son is out west running into various folks visiting his neck of the woods, including a fellow who was RV-ing and had inquired of him as to the availability of parking spots in Yellowstone.  The inquiry was made shortly after the May 21st End of The World proclamation but before the next announced EOW...guy was simply trying to get some last view before he rides off into Infinity.  Da Son seems to be dressed in a End of the World wardrobe, i.e., he sure doesn't seem to be expecting a visit from the Pope or the Queen.  Way Out West wear is built for comfort not for show.

In other musings on his blog, he opines with scientific airs (and beyond my level of comprehension) on matters of the fluvial sort.  He does me proud...especially when he offers graphs to illustrate his passion.  I'm hoping Edward Tufte can come up with one of his magnificent relational graphs combining results of the respective successes of Fly-Fishing and Masters thesis writing, where-in there is a confluence of positive results....
.....Before the End of the World RV parks itself in his backyard....  Keep up the great blogging, Sir!

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Thursday, June 02, 2011

Summer's Almost Here..


The Sedin Brothers a.k.a. the Dropsy Twins

June 21st is almost upon us. I can tell as the Finals (finally) of the Stanley Cup are taking place. Not sure how much I'll be watching what with no Devils, nor Phlyers, nor Canadiens, nor reffing in the Finals. Sorry! I AM WRONG. There IS reffing in the Finals, unfortunately not fair refereeing as evidence in Wednnight's last second victory by the home team in Vancouver on a blatant non-call for offsides by the same home team. The only saving grace with that goal was that neither of the Dropsy Twins, was involved with the questionable goal. The last thing I'll say about the Bruins-That Other Team is, "Wait 'til you get to Boston." The fans there would make Philly proud.




Onto a more summer reflective sport, baseball. Great to read this weekend that PNC Park, the gorgeous Pirates baseball stadium situated on the Allegheny River, was picked as the best baseball venue, just easing past Fenway. If you've never had the chance to go there, GO. Great sight lines, absolutely gorgeous views of downtown Pittsburgh (you should go to a day game AND a night game to get the full experience), friendly and helpful staff, great food, and....uhmmm an almost major league team playing there. One of my favorite things about the way Pittsburgh deals with the Pirates games is that they shut down the Roberto Clemente bridge a few hours before game time (as well as the street feeding off of the bridge right in front of the Park) so you can walk around, beer and hot dog in hand and sink into the city experience. As regards the food...some minor issues exist, especially when you compare PNC Park with the Blue Jays' Rogers Centre.





The minute problems @ PNC Park pale in comparison to Citi Field, home of the Mets where the fans (and the rats) have deserted the ship....good to know, though, that the mice have decided to stay behind. Not sure if they're included in the "paid attendance" figures announced at the end of each game....





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Thursday, May 26, 2011

Caught!

Finally!

Please read some of the comments attached to the Guardian article. Quite a few appear (well, they DON'T appear) with the following message, "This comment was removed by a moderator because it didn't abide by our community standards. Replies may also be deleted. For more detail see our FAQs"

After all of these years, there is still a high level of emotion concerning Mladic.

Frankly, I never thought this day would come. I'd assumed that he would have survived to a ripe old age and simply died, unlike a lot of his victims, of natural causes. Per a Croatian newspaper, he was unarmed at the time of capture, did not have a beard, and seemed as if he'd aged quite a bit. Unlike Kardzic, he had not taken up alternative medicine prosletizing or excessive hair growth.

Now, let's see how long before he's off to The Hague. Extradition can be an adventure on its own timeline.

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Monday, May 23, 2011

@ Yankee Stadium, You Can't

...it seems, bring a Kindle, Nook, or any other e-reader. Add that to the ever-lenghtening list of things you can't bring and it seems that the only thing you'll be allowed to bring is boatloads of money. Wonder if the Pinstripers have enough chutzpah to sell Kindle covers in Yankee logos?

The alleged reason, as put forth by the Yankee organization, is that some fan was beaned by a foul ball when he was reading his Kindle. So...reading a book, a souvenir media guide, or, God forbid, a newspaper will soon be banned as well. Keep in mind that this is the same organization that sold season tix to their fans without telling them that there may be a restaurant obstructing their view.

So......another reason to hate the Bronx Bombers is provided to you by their management team.

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Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Let's Call the Whole Thing Off

So, needing a clarification on what's the difference between a lawyer and a judge?

Per today's piece in Writer's Almanac, a lawyer is an alleged learned professional who can argue that a tomato is a vegetable. A lawyer can also present the case that the tomato is a fruit.

But that's only an argument; I can present the case that I'm Brad Pitt.

So, it's up to a judge to pronounce the final answer to such foolishness, right? So, what is a judge?

A judge is the epitome of accumulated human knowledge who can decide that (regardless of the science of botany) that the tomato is a vegetable.

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Monday, May 09, 2011

Eunuchs & Tax Collection

For an insightful and throat-clutching synopsis on a short history of the USA and Pakistan's mutual "arrangement", this NewYorker article by Lawrence Wright, is quite helpful.

An excerpt:
"In a country of a hundred and eighty million people, fewer than two million citizens pay taxes, and Pakistan’s leaders are doing little to change the situation. In Karachi, the financial capital, the government recently inaugurated a program to appoint eunuchs as tax collectors. Eunuchs are considered relentless scolds in South Asia, and the threat of being hounded by one is somehow supposed to take the place of audits."

Imagine that.   1.1111% of Pakistanis pay income tax.  The USA hands out over 1 billion dollars a year in aid (not counting the hard to track military aid given) to Pakistan.  Just wondering if the late Osama bin Laden was one of the 1.111% contributing or was his "income" left untaxed?

Had the IRS been asked to get involved with bin Laden's capture I wonder if he would have been found earlier and suffered the same fate as Al Capone?  (tongue firmly embedded in cheek, folks....)

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Tuesday, April 26, 2011

281 Times

... is the total of attempts that Roger Ebert has filed in the New Yorker Cartoon Caption weekly contest before finally winning.  Geeeezzz!  I entered the 1st one and then followed with an inconsistent 20-25 or so without a bite of even placing among the weekly 3 for the final round.  If it took the much wiser and wittier Mr. Ebert 281 times...  Well, I feel better knowing that and have commenced self-deluding myself that I'm on the cusp.

Ha!

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Saturday, April 16, 2011

Dissing the Hipster...

..continues.  Clipping a hipster is now as easy as those fish in a barrel we always hear about.  Just a pause here...has anyone ever seen live fish in a barrel?

Seems that David Foster Wallace is getting a bad reputation and unfortunately he is no longer amongst us  to defend himself thanks to the Hipster element.  Boston's Phoenix fills in the facts.   People Holding "Infinite Jest" provides photos and comments a la The Unhappy Hipster (h/t to Michael @ Execupundit for cluing me in the latter hilariously quippy site).

This post all started thanks to a tip from the Somerville Scout.

..so, if you're a DFW fan ( I confess...his verbal theatrics are a wonder), you may be wanting to read your Pale King at home or, if in public, wrap it in Kraft paper or discarded IRS forms.

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Friday, April 15, 2011

Some Issues

As one says when dealing with opinions on nasty subjects, especially thoughts that run counter to "legal" interpretations, I have "some issues" with the news that Ante Gotovina has been convicted of war crimes by the U.N. Court at The Hague.  The war in Croatia has now been over close to 16 years and since it's questionable as to who the winner was, the adage of the victor writing history doesn't apply here.    Were there atrocities committed by all side in this internecine war?  No doubt.  Is there blame to be laid on all sides?  No question.  Can individual combatants, specifically commanding officers, be fingered for culpability?  That's a tough one and Solomon's not around.

Since I have many relatives still over in the Old Country, I receive different information on matters over there.  Certainly, some of it is biased, but a lot of it does not become revealed to the "unerring judgement of journalistic light" until much much later.  A perfect example was the black market shenanigans of the U.N. troops sent over to "guard" the airport in Zagreb.  I heard about the corruption early on in the conflict.  Newspapers such as the NY Times and the Guardian did not tackle this touchy issue until a decade after the conflict was over.  To my knowledge, no one from the U.N. participating countries has ever been prosecuted for the money-grubbing activity.

All I can say is that with my relative sources, the whole Gotovina matter rather stinks.  The alleged culpable miscreants who started the whole mess are still rambling around and no urgency seems to be exercised in closing that end of the matter.  Innocence, not truth, is the first casualty of war.

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Thursday, March 17, 2011

Cooking Tiger Stew





Another call last night.  Seems I've been recalcitrant in my check-writing and had snubbed the alma mater of the bucks I'd annually been giving them.  Like most dottering alumni, I have an affection for the old campus that seems to increase with age as my senses are decreasing.  My specific "love" is for a specific building, McLennan Library.  It was a building I spent many a night and weekend allegedly studying.


More so than usual, as evidenced by my grades in my major, I tended to go through the stacks and pick out books I'd drag back to my carrel and proceed to devour rather than having my eyes stare at textbooks.  I completed a self-directed major in Russian literature while in the McLennan; unfortunately my McGill degree did not acknowledge my "independent" studies.

There was also another area at McLennan was honey to this bear.  The Periodicals Library.   Aside from a plethora of newspapers (the divine Times of London with its onion-skin paper) were racks of foreign magazines.  Punch was there.  I had to take the magazines and find a very secluded part of the Periodicals Library to read them.  It was impossible not to laugh out loud reading the magazine and I was asked to leave on a few occasions until the Periodicals Librarian finally realized that I was not demented, simply an undergraduate in need of a well-crafted joke.   One of the folks involved with putting Punch together was a fellow by the name of Alan Coren

Alan Coren, the last of the great editors at Punch magazine, had decided one year to write a book based on his thesis that the book-buying public will shell out shillings for any book that covers cats, golf, & Nazis.  He concocted  Golfing for Cats, a collection of short stories which was very eye-catching with its bold red cover emblazoned with a large..make that VERY LARGE swastika.  The book, really a large pamphlet @ 160 pages, barely discusses golf...or cats...or even Nazis.  Unfortunately, Mr. Coren's hopes for a small fortune from sales of "Golfing for Cats" stayed small and of no fortune.

Channeling Mr. Coren, I was pondering the possibility of writing a book in hopes of assuring that my retirement years will have minimal need for cat/dog food casseroles.  Hmmm.... so what topic(s) should be plastered on the cover?  I'd already fixed my price point @ $9.98, a penny under Amazon's Kindle average.  All I needed was a cover.   It's been documented that most readers buy and read only the first 5 -10 pages before clicking the "BUY NOW" button for another visit from the UPS man.  I mean, even I could come up with 5-10 pages of content to keep the pages turning for that type of reader.

Glancing at the deluge (caught myself there folks!  Almost typed that "tsu..." word!) of book titles recently unloaded on us, I think my title must have the noun Tiger somewhere.   Many trees have been sacrificed for the newsprint to publish reviews about the the book AND the authors oA Tiger’s Wife: A Novel (written by Tea Obreht) and Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (written by Amy Chua), Tiger, Tiger : A Memoir (written by Margaux Fragoso), Tiger: The Real Story,  The White Tiger (written by Aravind Adiga) & The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance & Survival (written by John Valliant).  So.."Tiger" seems to selling quite well these days.  For the record, I've only read Mr. Aduga's Book, "The White Tiger", a novel I recommend highly for its tightrope act of comedy and tragedy and invention.

I'd thought that, with apologies to Mr. Coren, "Golfing for Tigers" might be catchy but what with Tiger's issues, I would have been in truly bad taste along with being viewed as a blog-posting remora.

So, I'm going with "Cooking Tiger Stew", soon to be on your Cook book and Animal Studies shelves in your local brick & mortar venues or Internet Book coves.


Hmmmm...on the other hand, perhaps I'll re-think that title.


Addendum:  The Ever-Loving Wife, tired of my incessant commentating re. the hyper-apperance (don't believe me?  Here are some links just from the NYT. One.   Two.) of both "A Tiger's Wife", the book, and "A Tiger's Wife", the author, has decided to put a wet sock in my grousing by buying a copy and insisting I read it before I moan on.  A short review of the book will eventually pay a visit to these "pages".


Addendum #2:  It's Sunday morning, March the 20th and I'm reading the NYT Book Review.  New books to be reviewed this week?  Well, one would be Sarita Mandanna's "Tiger Hills".  So,  the tiger limbers on.

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Thursday, March 03, 2011

"The Information"

by seemingly always-in-the-running for major awards (Pulitzer, National Book Award) science writer James Gleick may be the 2010 decade's version of Douglas Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid.  The book, coming in at a touch over 500 pages, is also available in a Kindle version, $14.99 vs hardcover version @ $16.47.  If reviews are be taken into consideration, then the book certainly deserves a place next to Hofstadter's classic.  Anyone familiar with Mr. Gleick's articles in the New York Times knows how lucid his style is with topics that are dense...and it sounds as if "The Information" can be dense.


Personally, I'll be putting "The Information" on my Amazon Wish List, holding off the Buying Click for now.  With shame, I'll pre-admit that the chances of my finishing reading Mr. Gleick's tome may be the same as those of my finishing Mr. Hofstadter's book...which has been in my possession for over 20 years.


None.


But, like Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, the effort will be there.  Kindle or Hardcover?  I'd swing toward the hardcover version.  At times of frustration of comprehension (no matter how lucid Mr. Gleick may be), it is a better economic decision to chuck a book than a Kindle.
..and, yes, the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Books has had me on their "to audit" list since way back in the last century when I first tackled Gödel 

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Monday, February 21, 2011

Open City

James Woods' review of Teju Cole's "Open City" is reason enough to head off to Border's to try to save the place by buying the book...although Amazon still makes it easier to feed the habit.

However, there's that pile o' books bedside wearing that jilted look that shrivels one's heart...

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Wednesday, February 09, 2011

Two Guys Who Look Good In Hats Will...

..be @ the Waldorf-Astoria on March 14th for a long-deserved honor.  Wondering how a regular guy from Delaware can sneak in?  Perhaps an appropriate hat will do the trick?

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Tuesday, February 08, 2011

Wordle-Guess I've Been a Bit Excited 'bout Sharon Jones....

Wordle: Verging on Pertinence Jan 2011


(Click on image to enlarge)

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Friday, February 04, 2011

Sometimes It's the Direction of The Message...



...that matters.

A dear and wise friend sent this video.

If you have 2 minutes and 25 seconds of free time on your hands then....

1) Click on the "Enlarge to Screen" box in the lower right corner of the video.
2) Hit "Play".
3) Make sure to stay until the very end.....

If you don't have the 2 & 1/2 minutes...come back another time when you do.  It is important to see your way through the whole thing.

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Thursday, February 03, 2011

If It Weren't Sad, It'd Be Funny

In today's NYT, there's an article concerning "Italy’s traditionally byzantine, male-dominated politics" and, naturally, the further sex-capades of Silvio Berlusconi.  Among the choice facts mentioned and Italian conditions of life listed, the following came to the fore:

* 59 percent of women in the 27-member European Union are employed v. 46 percent of Italian women
* According to the 2010 World Economic Forum Gender Gap Index, Italy ranks 74th out of 134 countries.
* In familycentric Italy, fewer than 10 percent of toddlers have access to preschool nurseries (I hear Maria Montessori turning in her grave).
* Italian women have come far in a country whose most entrenched power structures - the Roman Catholic Church and organized crime - remain male and secretive.   For the first time, women now lead the industrialists’ association and Italy’s largest labor union. (“It took them nearly 100 years to appoint a woman, and they chose the worst economic moment,” Ms. Marcegaglia recently said about herself.)

I did a double take when reading the pairing up of organized crime and the Roman Catholic Church; I'd always missed the connection.  What with the other issues the Church has been having the past 5 years or so, I'm wondering which of the two male dominated organizations feels more slighted being grouped with the other.

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Wednesday, February 02, 2011

Poor Artistical Timing

I'm not a Sarah Palin fan, except when she comes out with another car crash of a comment...which is usually any time she feels the need to expel air.  However, in a recent incident at the Missoula Children's Theatre, a performance company of national renown, I'd have to say I'm in total agreement with this letter writer to the local newspaper, the Missoulian.  It's one thing to make the comment referred to in a play for adults, but to do so in a performance aimed toward children?  Total lapse of judgement.

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Tuesday, February 01, 2011

This Sunday... Who Am I Cheering For?



(Note: Video NSFGBF *)


Take a guess.

Game preparations include watching this DVD.  Franco is still The Man...and a great Dad.




* NSFGBF: Not Safe For Green Bay Fan

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