CapitalistImperialistPig

In my experience, feeding the birds can be a good deal more expensive, Mary Poppins/Julie Andrews notwithstanding. I started modestly, with a bit of nyjer seed for the finches, in one of those cylindrical mesh feeder that only finches can access. I wanted to expand to other songbirds, though, so I got another type of feeder, one of those shaped like a birdhouse, but surrounded by a coarse grill to keep the doves out. Hah! The stupid songbirds promptly began push much of the seed out onto the ground, thereby attracting an enormous mob of doves. I hope they get a commission. I took my problem to the bird seed store, who promptly recommended a solution of sorts. For slightly less than $200 I could get a pole type apparatus upon the top of which could be placed my bird feeder (itself having cost $60 or so). Underneath the bird feeder would be perched a platform surrounded again by a dove excluding grill. So far, I'm not buying it. Maybe I can just get a cat with a taste for d...

Via Steve Hsu, J D Jackson, he of the dreaded but inevitable (green, red, or blue) E&M book and problem sets, has died at age 96. Steve tells this story of an encounter when both were at Berkeley: When I entered graduate school at Berkeley I asked to place out of the required course in advanced electrodynamics, which was taught by Jackson using his famous book. I had lecture notes from the course I had taken at Caltech from Mark Wise, which also used the book. Jackson borrowed the notes for a few days, looked through them carefully, and returned to me a short list detailing topics in which my education had been deficient. I was to study those topics, but was excused from the course. Jackson's dissertation supervisor was Weisskopf, and his doctoral students included Gordon Kane and Chris Quigg.

All societies that I have looked at do some kind of regulation of gender roles. In nearly every traditional society women have been relegated to roles with fewer political, economic, and social rights. The global crusade for women's rights has severely upset those traditional roles and consequently caused a lot of turmoil: reportedly, the issue that first incited the Ayatollah Khomeini public outrage was women getting the vote in Iran's parliament. It's a motivating factor in virtually every right wing movement, from Tennessee to the Middle East to India. Globally and in the US, men are feeling under attack. In the US, at least, men are losing ground in economics, social prestige and even life span. One aspect of this is the decline in traditional "strong back" type jobs on farm, factory, and more generally. The other aspect is the opening up of traditional prestige jobs in the professions and business to women. Of course I'm not trying to argue that t...

The NYT editorial board points the finger at Saudi Arabia as the prime exporter of the brand of radical Islam that animates ISIS, al Quaeda, and other extremists around the world. Saudi Arabia has frustrated American policy makers for years. Ostensibly a critical ally, sheltered from its enemies by American arms and aid, the kingdom has spent untold millions promoting Wahhabism, the radical form of Sunni Islam that inspired the 9/11 hijackers and that now inflames the Islamic State. The latest chapter in this long, sorrowful history involves tiny Kosovo. With a population of only 1.8 million people, Kosovo has sent more of its young people per capita than any other country to fight and die in Iraq and Syria. Since 2012, some 314 Kosovars have joined the Islamic State, including two suicide bombers, 44 women and 28 children. Even Belgium, widely seen as a hotbed of extremism after the attacks on Paris and Brussels, lags behind it in the recruitment rankings. The Saudi Monarchy has ...

If forecasts for the next week verify, most of the snow in Alaska, the Canadian Arctic, and Siberia will be gone next week. Much of the snow on the Arctic ice cap will also melt. Meanwhile, Arctic sea ice area and extent are tracking at record lows. From Arctic Sea Ice Forum (Jim Pettit): ADS-NIPR Extent: 10,880,319 km2 (23 May) Down 3,062,188 km2 (21.96%) from 2016 maximum of 13,942,507 km2 on 29 February. 7,702,864 km2 above record minimum extent of 3,177,455 km2 (16 September 2012). Down 43,644 km2 (-.4%) from previous day. Down 317,590 km2 (-2.84%) over past seven days (daily average: -45,370 km2). Down 1,413,128 km2 (-11.55%) for May (daily average: -61,440 km2). 1,126,654 km2 below 2000s average for this date. 708,050 km2 below 2010s average for this date. 436,128 km2 below 2015 value for this date. 1,007,308 km2 below 2012 value for this date. ... CT Area: 9,896,835 km2 (24 May [Day 0.3917]) Down 3,024,523 km2 (23.41%) from 2016 maximum of 12,921,358 km2 on 29 March [Day...

You have five books on a subject, but you still don't understand it. Your next move should be: (a)Give up and try something else. (b)Read (or reread) the books. (c)This time do the problems. (d)Buy another book. (e)Buy two more books. (f)b through e above.

“The society that puts equality before freedom will end up with neither. The society that puts freedom before equality will end up with a great measure of both” ― Milton Friedman As it happens, I think that Friedman's famous dictum has more the character of a "great truth" in Bohr's sense* than of an ordinary truth, but to the extent that it's true Cuba is moving slowly toward freedom. In this respect it is following in the footsteps of many formerly or in some cases, still officially Communist countries like Vietnam, China, and others. From Henry Graybar's Slate story, entitled Bartenders are winning, but Doctors are losing : The growth of the Cuban private sector over the past two decades has created some serious imbalances between skills and pay: A bartender with some generous foreign customers could make more in tips in a weekend than a doctor, each of whom is employed by the Cuban government, does in a month. A new reform could exacerbate that iss...