Michael Flynn's Blog, page 80

Stats on Parade

Something is Different This Time

Here is a chart from the New York Times showing the past six recessions.  Each line is a different recession and shows the ratio of the non-farm payroll k months into the recession to the non-farm payroll at the beginning of the recession.  The horizontal axis is number of months into the recession. 




Here's a quick quiz.  Which of these recessions saw massive governmental surgical intervention and which were simply nursed and allowed to heal themselves? 

Bride of the Age of Unreason

The Archimedes Palimpsest

I have not forgotten my promise to explain the topology of function spaces.  Part II is coming soon!  Meanwhile....

Some may remember our friend Mr. Walker and his marvelously reductive and tendentious rendering of something he called "The Christian Dark Ages," by which he meant what regular historians call the Middle Ages.  In a curmudgeonly mood, I commented on it with The Age of Unreason.  Eventually, someone kindly informed him of this -- his own site makes no prov...

Kool Stuff

This is Kool

All of Britain under snow:


And there, on the left, peeking out from under a cloud, a spot of Green.  Ireland, of course. 

Quote of the Day

Today's Quote

To debate the truth or falsity of traditon is like asking whether Julia Child's recipe for Bouillabaisse is true or false? -- Lee Harris, paraphrased

Security Kabuki

Barn Door, This is Horse.  Horse, This is Barn Door

According to the Associated Press:

The State Department says it has revoked the U.S. visa of the Nigerian man suspected of trying to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight over Detroit on Christmas Day.

Spokesman P.J. Crowley said Tuesday that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's visa was one of several the agency has revoked since the Dec. 25 incident as the result of a review into security procedures ordered by President Barack Obama.
Call me a crazy r...

The Wonderful World of Statistics

Save Lives!  Suck No Lemons!

A Bit of Nostalgia

The Feast of St. John Neumann



For some reason, LJ won't let me post.  Something about Unicode-8 or something.  Undoubtedly they think the notice is informative.  Meanwhile, I posted it on the TOF Spot
tofspot.blogspot.com/2010/01/bit-of-nostalgia.html

I could post that much, so perhaps it was one of the photos that was causing trouble. 

A Day to Remember

Where Were You On....

Senator Gordon Nye would always remember where he was on December 7, 1941. 

The isolationist Senator was addressing an America First rally when he was passed a note informing him of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor,. 

Whereupon he warned his audience against rumors spread by warmongers.h/t Al Nofi

Some things never change. 

Oh! Them Golden Slippers!

Mummers Day! 

[image error]
The Greater Kensington String Band from today's parade


Greater Overbrook String Band, from a past parade


Duffy String Band (from 2002)

This year's parade was on Channel 17.  Video clips in the right hand margin won't allow embedding, so you have to watch them there.
www.myphl17.com/

For some photos of today's strut:
www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/homepage/2010_Mummers_Parade.html

The Future is Now, or Then

Fashion in the Year 1960

according to the year 1940


Wearing a dress of the year 1960, Miss Futurama, Betty Crain, presents Harvey D. Gibson, chairman of the board of the New York World's Fair, with the General Motors streamlined car of 1960 in these photos from 1940.

Indiana girls, employees of General Motors, stand by as "Miss Futurama" Betty Crain, of Kokomo, Indiana, presents Harvey D. Gibson, chairman of the Fair Board of Directors with a model of a 1960 streamlined automobile during the...