Economists to Romney campaign: That’s not what our research says.
"On Tuesday, the Romney campaign responded to the fire it’s taking from economic analysts by unleashing some artillery of their own. They released a paper by four decorated economists associated with the campaign — Glenn Hubbard, Greg Mankiw, John Taylor, and Kevin Hassett — that tried to lend some empirical backing to “The Romney Program for Economic Recovery, Growth, and Jobs.”"
"Each of these sections include supporting documents from independent economists. And so I contacted some of the named economists to ask what they thought of the Romney campaign’s interpretation of their research. In every case, they responded with a polite version of Marshall McLuhan’s famous riposte. The Romney campaign, they said, knows little of their work. Or of their policy proposals."
"So even the studies that the Romney campaign’s economists handpicked to bolster their case don’t prove what the Romney campaign says they prove. And some of the key policy recommendations that flow from those studies are anathema to the Romney campaign. And in perhaps the key policy area highlighted by these studies, the Romney campaign doesn’t have a formal policy. If this is the best they can do in support of their economic plan, well, it’s not likely to quiet the critics."
Romney's campaign just keeps lying, I'm waiting for the Obama ad that points them all out and actually uses the word lie.
Wednesday, August 08, 2012
Mars Photos from Earth
"Irony: The first real flying saucer is from Earth. And it landed on Mars."
You can see the processed images from Curiosity here and the raw images here (I prefer for the former).
You can see the processed images from Curiosity here and the raw images here (I prefer for the former).
The Romney campaign says stimulus doesn’t work. Here are the studies they left out.
The Romney campaign says stimulus doesn’t work. Here are the studies they left out.
"As the descriptions above make clear, none of the studies are flawless. But while the optimistic studies do, in fact, support the conclusion that the stimulus worked, there is some reason to doubt that the pessimistic studies support the conclusion that it failed. Conley and Dupor found a negative effect on employment and output but, as they concede and critics of the study have emphasized, their results are not statistically significant. Taylor found that the stimulus did not increase government purchases significantly but, as Noah Smith argued, this result could be consistent with the stimulus increasing employment and output. Oh and Reis found a small multiplier for tax transfers of the kind found in the stimulus package, but, as they concede, their model produces estimates for key figures that are empirically implausible. Using more plausible figures produces a significantly larger multiplier, meaning the package was more effective than the model initially suggested. Due to these issues, I’m inclined to believe that the preponderance of evidence indicates the stimulus worked."
"As the descriptions above make clear, none of the studies are flawless. But while the optimistic studies do, in fact, support the conclusion that the stimulus worked, there is some reason to doubt that the pessimistic studies support the conclusion that it failed. Conley and Dupor found a negative effect on employment and output but, as they concede and critics of the study have emphasized, their results are not statistically significant. Taylor found that the stimulus did not increase government purchases significantly but, as Noah Smith argued, this result could be consistent with the stimulus increasing employment and output. Oh and Reis found a small multiplier for tax transfers of the kind found in the stimulus package, but, as they concede, their model produces estimates for key figures that are empirically implausible. Using more plausible figures produces a significantly larger multiplier, meaning the package was more effective than the model initially suggested. Due to these issues, I’m inclined to believe that the preponderance of evidence indicates the stimulus worked."
Romney tax plan on table. Debt collapses table.
Following up on my earlier post Romney Tax Plan, here's Ezra Klein's take, Romney tax plan on table. Debt collapses table.
"The truth is that Romney is afraid to put his plan on the table. He has promised to reduce the deficit, but refused to identify the spending he would cut. He has promised to reform the tax code, but refused to identify the deductions and loopholes he would eliminate. The only thing he has put on the table is dessert: a promise to cut marginal tax rates by 20 percent across the board and to do so without raising the deficit or reducing the taxes paid by the top 1 percent."
He then goes through the analysis by the Tax Policy Center and the Romney Campaign (weak) rebuttal.
"I can describe Mitt Romney’s tax policy promises in two words: mathematically impossible."
"The truth is that Romney is afraid to put his plan on the table. He has promised to reduce the deficit, but refused to identify the spending he would cut. He has promised to reform the tax code, but refused to identify the deductions and loopholes he would eliminate. The only thing he has put on the table is dessert: a promise to cut marginal tax rates by 20 percent across the board and to do so without raising the deficit or reducing the taxes paid by the top 1 percent."
He then goes through the analysis by the Tax Policy Center and the Romney Campaign (weak) rebuttal.
"I can describe Mitt Romney’s tax policy promises in two words: mathematically impossible."
Could GPS Spoofing Cause Another Flash Crash?
The Big Picture writes Could GPS Spoofing Cause Another Flash Crash?. Many financial systems use GPS to get accurate timestamps (GPS works by putting atomic clocks in satellites and broadcasting timestamps, your GPS clock is the most accurate you have). It turns out civilian GPS is easy to spoof, just fly a drone and broadcast fake timestamps. Apparently the major exchanges protect against this (not sure how, maybe they have their own atomic clocks) but high frequency traders (who really demand nanosecond accuracy) who are co-located to exchanges (to keep wires short) may be vulnerable.
The Movie Math Quiz by Spiked Math
The Movie Math Quiz by Spiked Math is really really hard. Most of the films are reasonably well known but others are quite obscure. There's a lot of math I used to know.
Tuesday, August 07, 2012
Mark Twain Filmed by Thomas Edison in 1909
It's a really boring film. Someone should make a modern day action movie trailer out of this. (via The Atlantic)
Half of US Counties Now Considered Disaster Areas
Half of US counties now considered disaster areas "The U.S. Department of Agriculture's addition of the 218 counties means that more than half of all U.S. counties — 1,584 in 32 states — have been designated primary disaster areas this growing season, the vast majority of them mired in a drought that's considered the worst in decades."
"The USDA uses the weekly U.S. Drought Monitor to help decide which counties to deem disaster areas, which makes farmers and ranchers eligible for federal aid, including low-interest emergency loans. To help ease the burden on the nation's farms, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Thursday opened up 3.8 million acres of conservation land for ranchers to use for haying and grazing. Under that conservation program, farmers have been paid to take land out of production to ward against erosion and create wildlife habitat."
"As of this week, nearly half of the nation's corn crop was rated poor to very poor, according to the USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service. About 37 percent of the U.S. soybeans were lumped into that category, while nearly three-quarters of U.S. cattle acreage is in drought-affected areas, the survey showed."
"The USDA uses the weekly U.S. Drought Monitor to help decide which counties to deem disaster areas, which makes farmers and ranchers eligible for federal aid, including low-interest emergency loans. To help ease the burden on the nation's farms, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Thursday opened up 3.8 million acres of conservation land for ranchers to use for haying and grazing. Under that conservation program, farmers have been paid to take land out of production to ward against erosion and create wildlife habitat."
"As of this week, nearly half of the nation's corn crop was rated poor to very poor, according to the USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service. About 37 percent of the U.S. soybeans were lumped into that category, while nearly three-quarters of U.S. cattle acreage is in drought-affected areas, the survey showed."
Monday, August 06, 2012
Curiosity Costs
I wanted to explore this a little more, "In case you missed it earlier - Curiosity cost $2.5B. Americans spend $7B on potato chips annually. To say we can't afford this is nonsense".
NASA Budget: Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) project says "The current life cycle cost is estimated at $2,476.3 million." But you have to realize, the program started in 2003 and while operations are expect to run just more than a year, there's another 4 years of research after that. That's 14 years. So Curiosity is costing on average $177 million a year.
"NASA spokesman Guy Webster said the rover, named Curiosity, is currently supporting about 700 people, but has supported 7,000 jobs at various times over the last eight years...He said there are currently up to 400 NASA employees working on the project, in addition to 300 scientists outsourced by the government agency."
The potato chip number was harder to track down. It seemed to start in 2010. John Doerr said it was more than $5 billion. Science News said we spend $7 billion. Robert Lehrman said $8 billion. Back in 2008 the BBC quoted former FEC chairman Michael Toner as saying we spent $3 billion on potato chips the prior year.
I think it got most coverage from George Will who in an Oct 17, 2010 article said it was $7.1 billion. What's fun is that almost exactly two years prior, Mr. Will said it was $6.3 billion.
NPR had a report Feb 18, 2011 about campaign spending. "Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay made the case on C-SPAN a few years ago: "There's not enough money in politics. You know, Americans spend more on potato chips than they do on elections?" [Historian Robert] Mutch says people have been using arguments like that for a long time: "Back in the '30s, it was Wrigley's gum." But the argument may need updating again. The American Snack Food Association says potato chip sales are somewhere north of $3.5 billion."
I couldn't find an American Snack Food Association but there is a SFA which is "an international trade association" which I think just means lobbying group as they're based just outside of DC. They do publish a State of the Snack Food Industry Report, but I'm not paying $300 for it.
NASA Budget: Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) project says "The current life cycle cost is estimated at $2,476.3 million." But you have to realize, the program started in 2003 and while operations are expect to run just more than a year, there's another 4 years of research after that. That's 14 years. So Curiosity is costing on average $177 million a year.
"NASA spokesman Guy Webster said the rover, named Curiosity, is currently supporting about 700 people, but has supported 7,000 jobs at various times over the last eight years...He said there are currently up to 400 NASA employees working on the project, in addition to 300 scientists outsourced by the government agency."
The potato chip number was harder to track down. It seemed to start in 2010. John Doerr said it was more than $5 billion. Science News said we spend $7 billion. Robert Lehrman said $8 billion. Back in 2008 the BBC quoted former FEC chairman Michael Toner as saying we spent $3 billion on potato chips the prior year.
I think it got most coverage from George Will who in an Oct 17, 2010 article said it was $7.1 billion. What's fun is that almost exactly two years prior, Mr. Will said it was $6.3 billion.
NPR had a report Feb 18, 2011 about campaign spending. "Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay made the case on C-SPAN a few years ago: "There's not enough money in politics. You know, Americans spend more on potato chips than they do on elections?" [Historian Robert] Mutch says people have been using arguments like that for a long time: "Back in the '30s, it was Wrigley's gum." But the argument may need updating again. The American Snack Food Association says potato chip sales are somewhere north of $3.5 billion."
I couldn't find an American Snack Food Association but there is a SFA which is "an international trade association" which I think just means lobbying group as they're based just outside of DC. They do publish a State of the Snack Food Industry Report, but I'm not paying $300 for it.
Curiosity Landed on Mars
There are two craft flying around Mars. I hadn't realized that the Curiosity landing was timed so that it could be photographed by them. I believe there is a video still to come but here's a photo of Curiosity with its supersonic parachute deployed as taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter:
"The simple and sheer amazingness of this picture cannot be overstated. Here we have a picture taken by a camera on board a space probe that’s been orbiting Mars for six years, reset and re-aimed by programmers hundreds of millions of kilometers away using math and science pioneered centuries ago, so that it could catch the fleeting view of another machine we humans flung across space, traveling hundreds of million of kilometers to another world at mind-bending speeds, only to gently – and perfectly – touch down on the surface mere minutes later."
To add more to that, MRO is orbiting Mars at about 2 miles per second, the camera that took this, HiRISE, is actually a 20 inch diameter telescope, at the time Curiosity was moving between 200 and 900 miles per hour.
@MarsCuriosity if the official twitter account. It has a sense of humor:
10:31PM: "I'm safely on the surface of Mars. GALE CRATER I AM IN YOU!!! #MSL"
which is referencing a Wil Wheaton standard joke. and...
10:47PM No photo or it didn't happen? Well lookee here, I'm casting a shadow on the ground in Mars' Gale crater #MSL pic.twitter.com/cj1zFJty
Some other tweets I found amusing:@timhwang: "A+++++ WOULD LAND AGAIN GREAT SHIPPING PRODUCT EXACTLY AS DESCRIBED"
@rsingel: "Curiousity would send more photos, but man, do you know what AT&T charges for planetary data roaming?"
@loweringthebar: "Putting a robot on Mars: $2.5 billion. TSA budget 2012: $7.85 billion. And the robot works."
@Prospectus: "NBC paid $1.3 Billion for Olympics rights. Queen’s diamond jubilee cost £3 Billion. Curiosity cost $2.5 Billion."
@NicklnNC: "In case you missed it earlier - Curiosity cost $2.5B. Americans spend $7B on potato chips annually. To say we can't afford this is nonsense."
@somebadideas: "Fuck it let's start a kickstarter for NASA (in all seriousness low orbit is now domain of entrepreneurship almost wholly)"
I hope this response gets more play:
@cthulhucore: "Lots of people harping on about "crowd funding" NASA. Know what the original crowd funding is? Taxation. Give NASA more tax $$$"
And this one:
@misterjayem: "Reminder: Government programs can't ever accomplish anything ever. #NASA #FTW"
Sunday, August 05, 2012
Curiosity Landing on Mars Tonight
The new Mars rover, Curiosity lands on Mars tonight at about 1:30am eastern time. I'll be watch. The Atlantic has "A cheat-sheet guide to the dramatic descent of the Little Rover That Could" Curiosity Lands on Mars: Know What You're Watching When You're Watching '7 Minutes of Terror' which is really well done and includes links of where to watch it.
Friday, August 03, 2012
Romney Tax Plan
So the problem with Romney's tax plan is that he really hasn't specified enough to call it a plan. He said he'd cut some taxes for the wealthy and he'd keep things revenue neutral, but he didn't say what spending reductions there would be (because no one wants to talk about that in an election, particularly when your math doesn't work). So the Tax Policy Center issued a report, trying to make some assumptions. They concluded that Romeny will have to significantly raise taxes on the middle class to make up the difference. I didn't give it much notice as it's obviously based on assumptions. But here are a few very good points about the TPC report.
Krugman on the TPC report about the effects of Romney's tax plans, Dooh Nibor. "The question one might ask is, did TPC – which is actually painstakingly and painfully nonpartisan – make questionable assumptions to get its results, so that some other set of assumptions might portray Romneynomics in a more favorable light? And the answer is no: TPC actually bent over backwards to literally give Romney every possible benefit of the doubt.
Here’s what they did. They took Romney at his word that he plans to offset his cuts in income tax rates by broadening the base, that is, limiting exemptions and other loopholes. They also assumed, however, that Romney would not be willing to tax dividends and capital gains as ordinary income, since he has made it clear that he opposes any rise in taxes on investment income. As they point out, this leaves a relatively small pool of loopholes to close – big enough that the Romney tax cuts could, in principle, be paid for by base broadening, but not with a lot of room to spare.
So which loopholes are closed? TPC made the most Romney-friendly assumption they could – namely, that base broadening is concentrated on top incomes as much as possible. First you eliminate all deductions that benefit those with more than $1 million in income; then all that benefit those with between $500,000 and $1 million; and so on.
The key point is then that even if you do this, the tax cuts Romney gives high-income Americans are bigger than the loopholes he could conceivably close"
Brad DeLong goes into a little more detail: "Romney says he wants to make up the $360 billion/year of reduced revenue by closing "loopholes"--but he has not said which "loopholes": he has only said that the mortgage interest deduction, the savings-program 401(k) deduction, and like provisions are not "loopholes".
By Brown et al.'s count--which looks right to me--Romney has left only $550 billion/year of "loopholes" on the table: . Of those, some $165 billion/year flow to those reporting incomes of more than $200,000/year. That means that even if--even if: it ain't going to happen because he ain't going to push Congress to do it--Romney eliminates all of his on-the-table "loopholes" as they apply to America's upper class, he will have in the long run redistributed some $85 billion/year to America's upper class--and raised taxes in the long run by $85 billion/year on the middle and working classes if he is going to keep the long-run budget deficit from growing."
He points out that Romney's people (Kevin Hassett) say his tax cuts for the wealthy will boost the economy but DeLong does the math and even if it does (which it won't, it didn't under Bush) it's still not enough to cover the difference. He also takes Hassett to task for his previous Dow 3600 prediction.
And really this is all about if you want to believe in voodoo economics. If tax cuts for the rich really do boost the economy for everyone else then you're willing to believe this wil work, but all the evidence says it doesn't work. Still it's the difference between the Democrats and Republicans. Republicans also think this:
Krugman on the TPC report about the effects of Romney's tax plans, Dooh Nibor. "The question one might ask is, did TPC – which is actually painstakingly and painfully nonpartisan – make questionable assumptions to get its results, so that some other set of assumptions might portray Romneynomics in a more favorable light? And the answer is no: TPC actually bent over backwards to literally give Romney every possible benefit of the doubt.
Here’s what they did. They took Romney at his word that he plans to offset his cuts in income tax rates by broadening the base, that is, limiting exemptions and other loopholes. They also assumed, however, that Romney would not be willing to tax dividends and capital gains as ordinary income, since he has made it clear that he opposes any rise in taxes on investment income. As they point out, this leaves a relatively small pool of loopholes to close – big enough that the Romney tax cuts could, in principle, be paid for by base broadening, but not with a lot of room to spare.
So which loopholes are closed? TPC made the most Romney-friendly assumption they could – namely, that base broadening is concentrated on top incomes as much as possible. First you eliminate all deductions that benefit those with more than $1 million in income; then all that benefit those with between $500,000 and $1 million; and so on.
The key point is then that even if you do this, the tax cuts Romney gives high-income Americans are bigger than the loopholes he could conceivably close"
Brad DeLong goes into a little more detail: "Romney says he wants to make up the $360 billion/year of reduced revenue by closing "loopholes"--but he has not said which "loopholes": he has only said that the mortgage interest deduction, the savings-program 401(k) deduction, and like provisions are not "loopholes".
By Brown et al.'s count--which looks right to me--Romney has left only $550 billion/year of "loopholes" on the table: . Of those, some $165 billion/year flow to those reporting incomes of more than $200,000/year. That means that even if--even if: it ain't going to happen because he ain't going to push Congress to do it--Romney eliminates all of his on-the-table "loopholes" as they apply to America's upper class, he will have in the long run redistributed some $85 billion/year to America's upper class--and raised taxes in the long run by $85 billion/year on the middle and working classes if he is going to keep the long-run budget deficit from growing."
He points out that Romney's people (Kevin Hassett) say his tax cuts for the wealthy will boost the economy but DeLong does the math and even if it does (which it won't, it didn't under Bush) it's still not enough to cover the difference. He also takes Hassett to task for his previous Dow 3600 prediction.
And really this is all about if you want to believe in voodoo economics. If tax cuts for the rich really do boost the economy for everyone else then you're willing to believe this wil work, but all the evidence says it doesn't work. Still it's the difference between the Democrats and Republicans. Republicans also think this:
Daily Chart Olympics: The Global Games
The Economist posts The Global Games: The shifting pattern of national participation in the modern Olympics.
"The timeline below, the first in our series of Olympic daily charts, shows how these numbers have changed since the days of the first modern games."
I didn't realize that it took until 1988 until there was near universal participation among nations.
"The timeline below, the first in our series of Olympic daily charts, shows how these numbers have changed since the days of the first modern games."
I didn't realize that it took until 1988 until there was near universal participation among nations.
London 2012 Olympics Pictures
The Big Picture shows us the London 2012 Olympics "The 2012 Summer Olympic Games, officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad (and known informally as London 2012) are in full swing in London, United Kingdom. Around 10,500 athletes from 204 National Olympic Committees (the group responsible for organizing their people's participation in the games) will compete. Thousands and thousands of images will be made in London of the athletes and the spectators; the venues and the celebrations; the pomp and the circumstance. A search of current images in a wire database reveals images coming into the system at a rate of over 1,000 an hour during the hours of competition, resulting in a major picture editing challenge. A small sampling follows."
Curiosity Just Days Away From Mars
In Focus writes Curiosity Just Days Away From Mars "More than eight months ago, on November 26, 2011, NASA launched its newest rover named Curiosity from Florida's Cape Canaveral, headed to the planet Mars. Now, after traveling hundreds of millions of kilometers, the landing is scheduled to take place at 1:31 am Eastern Time on Monday, August 6 (10:31 pm August 5, Pacific Time). The capsule containing the rover will experience 'seven minutes of terror', decelerating through the Martian atmosphere, as a series of entry events quickly take place, ending with a rocket-powered sky crane lowering the rover gently to the surface. Curiosity is a beast of a rover, weighing one ton, measuring ten feet long by seven feet tall (at the top of the mast), and powered by a plutonium-238 fueled electrical generator. The rover carries ten instruments, including several high-resolution cameras, and a laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy instrument called ChemCam that can vaporize tiny amounts of minerals and analyze their components. If all goes according to plan, Curiosity is scheduled for a stay on Mars of about 668 Martian sols, or nearly two Earth years, starting in Gale crater. Researchers hope to use the tools on Curiosity to study whether the area in Gale crater has had environmental conditions favorable for supporting microbial life and for preserving clues about whether life existed. (Most of these photos were featured in a November, 2011 entry, when Curiosity was launched). [36 photos]"
Playing to Win in Badminton
Playing to Win in Badminton "It's an embarrassing time for Olympic badminton. But not because some players lost on purpose—because someone created horrificly bad tournament rules and then tried to blame the competitors for playing to win."
For another view, I heard an NPR piece about someone that had a similar experience in high school sports. His teammates were discussing throwing a match to change the brackets. Their coach overheard and gave them a speech that stuck with him for the rest of his life. He said that when you decide to do such a thing you believe you can beat one team and can't beat another. That's arrogance for the first and cowardice for the second and both defeat the point of competition.
For another view, I heard an NPR piece about someone that had a similar experience in high school sports. His teammates were discussing throwing a match to change the brackets. Their coach overheard and gave them a speech that stuck with him for the rest of his life. He said that when you decide to do such a thing you believe you can beat one team and can't beat another. That's arrogance for the first and cowardice for the second and both defeat the point of competition.
Thursday, August 02, 2012
Letter from a Birmingham Jail
I have to appreciate this post on Coding Horror, But You Did Not Persuade Me. It references The Last King of Scotland which I really liked and Google's penchant to test 41 shades of blue (which I do not like).
It got me to read something I've known of but never read, Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from a Birmingham Jail.
"I re-read Letter from a Birmingham Jail every year because I believe it is the single best persuasive essay I've ever read. It is remarkably persuasive without ever resorting to anger, incivility, or invective. Read it now."
I agree, it's really amazing. I'm not sure how I managed to graduate high school without reading it.
It got me to read something I've known of but never read, Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from a Birmingham Jail.
"I re-read Letter from a Birmingham Jail every year because I believe it is the single best persuasive essay I've ever read. It is remarkably persuasive without ever resorting to anger, incivility, or invective. Read it now."
I agree, it's really amazing. I'm not sure how I managed to graduate high school without reading it.
Mitt Romney’s Search for Simple Answers
Jared Diamond on Mitt Romney’s Search for Simple Answers.
"It is not true that my book ‘Guns, Germs and Steel,’ as Mr. Romney described it in a speech in Jerusalem, ‘basically says the physical characteristics of the land account for the differences in the success of the people that live there. There is iron ore on the land and so forth.’ That is so different from what my book actually says that I have to doubt whether Mr. Romney read it."
"Mitt Romney may become our next president. Will he continue to espouse one-factor explanations for multicausal problems, and fail to understand history and the modern world? If so, he will preside over a declining nation squandering its advantages of location and history."
Update: More here.
"It is not true that my book ‘Guns, Germs and Steel,’ as Mr. Romney described it in a speech in Jerusalem, ‘basically says the physical characteristics of the land account for the differences in the success of the people that live there. There is iron ore on the land and so forth.’ That is so different from what my book actually says that I have to doubt whether Mr. Romney read it."
"Mitt Romney may become our next president. Will he continue to espouse one-factor explanations for multicausal problems, and fail to understand history and the modern world? If so, he will preside over a declining nation squandering its advantages of location and history."
Update: More here.
Sight
Pretty fun and creepy short film which was made as a graduatino project, (via jwz):
Sight from Sight Systems on Vimeo.
Wednesday, August 01, 2012
Washington Union Station Master Plan: Why It Costs $7 Billion
Washington Union Station Master Plan: Why It Costs $7 Billion "So that is how you get a mega-project. The issue isn’t that Akridge’s development requires a $7 billion overhaul of Union Station. But if Akridge’s development goes through, there’ll be no more opportunity to overhaul the tracks. And Amtrak, MARC, and VRE want to overhaul the tracks to increase platform width. And once you’re mucking with the tracks, you have to remove the garage. The garage is a key revenue center for the Union Station Redevelopment Corporation so they’ll want to put it someplace else. And once you’re building a cavern, the logic of putting a bunch of stuff in it looks compelling."
Romney Praises Health Care In Israel
It seems all the reporting on Romney's trip to Europe and the middle east are about his gaffes. There seem to be a lot of them (here's one and some more about it.) but I'm sure it won't amount to much come November (other than a missed opportunity).
Still I always find things like this interesting. Here's Romney praising another health care system even though it seems to be everything he hates about Obamacare.
Romney praises health care in Israel, where research says ‘strong government influence’ has driven down costs
"Romney’s point about Israel’s success in controlling health care costs is spot on: Its health care system has seen health care costs grow much slower than other industrialized nations.
How it has gotten there, however, may not be to the Republican candidate’s liking: Israel regulates its health care system aggressively, requiring all residents to carry insurance and capping revenue for various parts of the country’s health care system.
Israel created a national health care system in 1995, largely funded through payroll and general tax revenue. The government provides all citizens with health insurance: They get to pick from one of four competing, nonprofit plans. Those insurance plans have to accept all customers—including people with pre-existing conditions—and provide residents with a broad set of government-mandated benefits."
Still I always find things like this interesting. Here's Romney praising another health care system even though it seems to be everything he hates about Obamacare.
Romney praises health care in Israel, where research says ‘strong government influence’ has driven down costs
"Romney’s point about Israel’s success in controlling health care costs is spot on: Its health care system has seen health care costs grow much slower than other industrialized nations.
How it has gotten there, however, may not be to the Republican candidate’s liking: Israel regulates its health care system aggressively, requiring all residents to carry insurance and capping revenue for various parts of the country’s health care system.
Israel created a national health care system in 1995, largely funded through payroll and general tax revenue. The government provides all citizens with health insurance: They get to pick from one of four competing, nonprofit plans. Those insurance plans have to accept all customers—including people with pre-existing conditions—and provide residents with a broad set of government-mandated benefits."
New Air Force Toys
Danger Room had a few interesting articles, How to Defeat the Air Force's Powerful Stealth Fighter.
"In mid-June, 150 German airmen and eight twin-engine, non-stealthy Typhoons arrived at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska for an American-led Red Flag exercise involving more than 100 aircraft from Germany, the U.S. Air Force and Army, NATO, Japan, Australia and Poland. Eight times during the two-week war game, individual German Typhoons flew against single F-22s in basic fighter maneuvers meant to simulate a close-range dogfight.
The results were a surprise to the Germans and presumably the Americans, too. ‘We were evenly matched,’ Maj. Marc Gruene told Combat Aircraft’s Jamie Hunter. The key, Gruene said, is to get as close as possible to the F-22 … and stay there. ‘They didn’t expect us to turn so aggressively.’
Gruene said the Raptor excels at fighting from beyond visual range with its high speed and altitude, sophisticated radar and long-range AMRAAM missiles. But in a slower, close-range tangle — which pilots call a ‘merge’ — the bigger and heavier F-22 is at a disadvantage. ‘As soon as you get to the merge … the Typhoon doesn’t necessarily have to fear the F-22,’ Gruene said."
Also, Killer-Drone Showdown Set as Lockheed Unveils Jet-Powered 'Bot.
"Sometime in the next few years the world’s most sophisticated drone prototypes will likely face off in what could be a multi-billion-dollar competition to shape the future of air warfare. And now we finally know what all four contestants look like.
On Friday, number-one defense contractor Lockheed Martin released the first official teaser image of its Sea Ghost jet-powered killer drone. Along with previously disclosed unmanned aerial vehicle designs from rivals Boeing, Northrop Grumman and General Atomics, the Sea Ghost will go head-to-head for a Navy contract to put fast, stealthy, missile- and bomb-armed drones on the decks of aircraft carriers by 2018."
Here are some pics and info about Northrop's entry, the X-47B.
So my first thought for the F-22 issue was when will there be Babylon-5 ftyle small drones flying around it to handle fighters that get to close?
"In mid-June, 150 German airmen and eight twin-engine, non-stealthy Typhoons arrived at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska for an American-led Red Flag exercise involving more than 100 aircraft from Germany, the U.S. Air Force and Army, NATO, Japan, Australia and Poland. Eight times during the two-week war game, individual German Typhoons flew against single F-22s in basic fighter maneuvers meant to simulate a close-range dogfight.
The results were a surprise to the Germans and presumably the Americans, too. ‘We were evenly matched,’ Maj. Marc Gruene told Combat Aircraft’s Jamie Hunter. The key, Gruene said, is to get as close as possible to the F-22 … and stay there. ‘They didn’t expect us to turn so aggressively.’
Gruene said the Raptor excels at fighting from beyond visual range with its high speed and altitude, sophisticated radar and long-range AMRAAM missiles. But in a slower, close-range tangle — which pilots call a ‘merge’ — the bigger and heavier F-22 is at a disadvantage. ‘As soon as you get to the merge … the Typhoon doesn’t necessarily have to fear the F-22,’ Gruene said."
Also, Killer-Drone Showdown Set as Lockheed Unveils Jet-Powered 'Bot.
"Sometime in the next few years the world’s most sophisticated drone prototypes will likely face off in what could be a multi-billion-dollar competition to shape the future of air warfare. And now we finally know what all four contestants look like.
On Friday, number-one defense contractor Lockheed Martin released the first official teaser image of its Sea Ghost jet-powered killer drone. Along with previously disclosed unmanned aerial vehicle designs from rivals Boeing, Northrop Grumman and General Atomics, the Sea Ghost will go head-to-head for a Navy contract to put fast, stealthy, missile- and bomb-armed drones on the decks of aircraft carriers by 2018."
Here are some pics and info about Northrop's entry, the X-47B.
So my first thought for the F-22 issue was when will there be Babylon-5 ftyle small drones flying around it to handle fighters that get to close?
Lessons in website security anti-patterns by Tesco
Troy Hunt: Lessons in website security anti-patterns by Tesco is pretty entertaining. It starts from this tweet: "Passwords are stored in a secure way. THey're only copied into plain text when pasted automatically into a password reminder mail."
There's a lot of irony in the article so if you're not particularly knowledgable on the topic you might miss some of the snark. If passwords are really stored securely they wouldn't be able to email them to you when you forget them, instead they would create a new (one use) temporary password and send that to you and then make you create a new one as soon as you login.
There's a lot of irony in the article so if you're not particularly knowledgable on the topic you might miss some of the snark. If passwords are really stored securely they wouldn't be able to email them to you when you forget them, instead they would create a new (one use) temporary password and send that to you and then make you create a new one as soon as you login.
When is Mars Closer Than London?
I don't have that many complaints about NBC's olympic coverage, but I loved this tweet: "This weekend @NASA will land a rover on Mars & it will be televised with less delay than the Olympics."
The Mars Curiosity Rover landing system is crazy. More details here.
The Mars Curiosity Rover landing system is crazy. More details here.
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