CapitalistImperialistPig

Lumo weighs in on the Fed. As it happens, I share some of his concerns about being too quick to cut interest rates, but I'm more interested in some of his logic: I want to say one more thing: a strategic, political observation. Friends of the U.S. are much more likely to hold the U.S. dollars while the U.S. enemies have a much higher probability to bet against the U.S. currency. By weakening the currency, the Fed effectively helps the enemies of the U.S. financially while it punishes its friends. It is a very bad evolution for the American (and not only American) strategic interests. I wonder how likely that is. Sure, some people always bet on the home team, but I have my doubts that that plays a big role in the thinking of of the BOC or Saudi Arabia. Clearly, they both have an interest in a strong dollar, but does it go beyond political and economic calculation? I have my doubts. And that goes double for the trading desks at Goldman-Sachs et al.

I was sitting at the bar of a local bistro when an old acquaintance happened to come up. After a bit the the usual small talk (football, politics, string theory) he got this real serious expression on his face. "I've got a tough choice to make Cap," he says. "I happened to help this guy out of a very tight spot, and in gratitude he wanted to offer me a reward." So what was the problem, I wondered. "It seems that he wasn't just any guy," says OA. "He turned out to be a Genie." Maybe I snickered a bit here, because he rushed on: "He told me that he was empowered to offer me a choice. He said he could offer me one of three second class superpowers. I was suspicious of course, but I parried by asking him what a first class superpower was. He gave me a haughty stare for a second, and then went on: 'Your first choice would be a permanent purse. Any time you reach your hand in, you can pull out a one ounce solid gold coin.' ...

One little bit of the Prez's SOTU that I caught talked about doubling the budget for fundamental physics research. Is this restoration of the high energy physics funds that were cut? Something only for 2009?

My thoughts upon reading Endless Forms Most Beautiful , by Sean B. Carroll In the middle ages, says Prof Carroll, Europeans started eating with two knives, using one to spear their food and another to cut it. This redundancy opened an opportunity for one knife evolve to be more specialized for spearing, while sacrificing the cutting function. This division into knife and fork was followed by many more in sufficiently posh dining facilities - a veritable Cambrian explosion of cutlery. A similar redundancy made room for arthropod specializations. Early arthropods had so-called biramous, or forked limbs, lots of them, but each fairly similar to all the others. Each consisted of a lower, leg-like limb used for walking, digging, or swimming, and an upper gill branch, used for absorbing oxygen. The most dramatic arthropod changes have taken place in those who moved onto land. In the case of insects, only six legs have been retained, but many others have been converted to other uses: mou...

A good weekend for the O-man and South Carolina - for Edwards, not so much. I think Edwards is done - done in by the press, done in by the haircuts, but mostly done in by being in between a charismatic candidate and the powers that be. It would be hard to claim that our political process is likely to pick the best candidate or even a good candidate - but pick it does. Edwards had good positions on the issues, but clearly lacked the magic touch. One thing I don't see mentioned much, but that affects me, is the way he got taken to the cleaners by Cheney in 2000. I don't like any of the Republicans, but with any luck the worst of them could be gone after Florida.

Thomas Dent asks: Is this a reason to discard the theory?[ that contains Boltzmann brains]. The best reasons for discarding a theory are: it doesn't make testable predictions, or it makes such predictions but they are wrong. Try to stick that in your Boltzmann brain and see what it says. LM: Dear pig, please, avoid these off-topic, superficial, uninformed, pig-like, Woit-like clichés that have been parroted by your likes about 1,000 times. They are well below the level required at this blog. Predicting a lot of Boltzmann brains is surely a prediction, whether folks like you understand it or not. Nevertheless, this prediction can't be used to eliminate a theory. If you have nothing to say about this particular problem and if you (clearly) misunderstand all these questions completely, please shut your mouth or keyboard. Next time I will do everything I can do ban your domains because I don't want this garbage to grow here. Go to Daily Kos or Woit blog or another place that i...

Trying to read a little molecular biology again, I become aware of some habits of mind that unsuit me for the pursuit. I went through the citric acid cycle today, and found a couple of problems: my physicist brain wants to drill down to understand how everything works - why one molecular configuration has just so much more energy than another, and my stupid brain can't remember the names (much less molecular conformations) of all those intermediates.