What Caught My Eye Today - Sarah Palin, Soccer, Space Weather, Demographics, Potpourri

Fred's Note: It seemed like forever since we have been enlightened by the great political minds of the day. Then out of the blue, Michele Bachmann took center stage by announcing she would not seek another term in office (an election which in all likelihood she would have lost). And now, in what can only be described as a feast of riches, the original "mama bear" has some fresh words of wisdom to bestow on us.

Sarah Palin - Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin criticized the Obama administration's decision to supply weapons to the rebels in the civil war in Syria, arguing that the U.S. should "Let Allah sort it out" until there is a stronger leader in the White House.  Oh snap. You go, girlfriend! 

"Militarily, where is our commander in chief? We're talking now more new interventions. I say until we know what we're doing, until we have a commander in chief who knows what he's doing, well, let these radical Islamic countries who aren't even respecting basic human rights, where both sides are slaughtering each other as they scream over an arbitrary red line, 'Allah Akbar,' I say until we have someone who knows what they're doing, I say let Allah sort it out."

Sarah Palin's grasp of foreign affairs is a marvel to behold isn't it? At least she got the 'Allah Akbar' reference correct, although the context might be a tad bit off. Though she has often served as the butt of jokes on NBC's "Saturday Night Live," Palin joked about the frequency with which the comedy show makes fun of her, saying she's provided an ample amount of jokes and jobs for comedians. "They should think of me as a friend. For a while there, I was providing more job security for the Tina Feys of the world and doing more for those employment numbers than Obama's ever done." On this Palin and I are in complete agreement. Sarah Palin has done far more to ensure the gainful employment of Tina Fey than Barack Obama could imagine in his wildest dreams.

Soccer - For those of you that follow such things, in addition to FIFA World Cup qualifying for next year's event, there is a warm-up tournament underway in Brazil called the Confederations Cup.  This story isn't directly related to either one, but does illustrate just how much passion there is for the beautiful game.  Unfortunately, in this case that passion, is not such a beautiful thing. Argentina has banned all fans of visiting teams from attending soccer games after a fan was recently killed by police at a game, the latest of more than 70 soccer fans killed at games in Argentina since 2000. Hundreds of visiting fans joined in a brawl which was broken up by police firing rubber bullets to disperse the crowd. Argentina's Security Minister said police would no longer use rubber bullets at sporting events, and also announced the ban on away fans saying that patrolling games was a waste of police resources.  On one hand, this seems a little extreme, not to mention the question of how a visitor ban could possibly be enforced.  But when you consider how many people of died and the cost of trying to keep unruly fans under control, you can sort of sympathize with the decision that was made.  Personally, I think this is mostly political posturing. The fact that such posturing has been deemed necessary is the tragedy here.

Space Weather - It's been a pretty tough year, climatically speaking, so far in much of the United States.  The end of 2012 saw the East Coast get shellacked by Super Storm Sandy while much of the mid-section of the country was suffering from record drought conditions. 2013 hasn't been much better. Torrential rains, deadly tornadoes and something called a 'derecho' (click here) have devastated the Midwest, while high winds have helped kickoff what looks to be one of the worst fire seasons on record across most western states.  And hurricane season has barely started. But consider this...it could always be worse. A severe geomagnetic storm—a sudden, violent eruption of gas and magnetic fields from the sun's surface—could prove particularly devastating. Magnetic storms can force Earth's magnetic fields to go temporarily haywire, overwhelming power grids. The biggest geomagnetic storm on record occurred in 1859, known as the 1859 Solar Super Storm or "Carrington Event (click here). An analysis conducted by Metatech for the Electromagnetic Pulse Commission and the Federal Emergency Management Agency found that the effects of a severe geomagnetic storm would not only be widespread, but long-lived. All kinds of sectors would be impacted by a power failure. Fuel, food, water, sanitation, communications, medical/health, finance, and transportation would all feel cascading effects. Many businesses rely solely on satellite navigation for transportation on land and sea, and cell phones would be vulnerable to interference. I can take clogged up toilets, food shortages and tainted water supplies, but when you start messing with my satellite TV, you are definitely poking the bear. Hurricane Katrina caused roughly $80 billion to $125 billion in damage, according to the report. A future geomagnetic storm could cost 10 to 20 times as much and take up to a decade to fully recover from.

Demographics - For the first time, America's racial and ethnic minorities now make up about half of the under-5 age group. If the significance of this is not yet evident, not to worry read on. Might I also suggest enrollment in a remedial statistics course. The new census estimates, a snapshot of the U.S. population as of July 2012, comes a year after the Census Bureau reported that whites had fallen to a minority among babies. Fueled by immigration and high rates of birth, particularly among Hispanics, racial and ethnic minorities are now growing more rapidly in numbers than whites. Stay with me now. The government also projects that in five years, minorities will make up more than half of children under 18. Not long after, the total U.S. white population will begin an inexorable decline in absolute numbers, due to aging baby boomers. Alright then, let's connect those dots, shall we? There are now about the same number of minorities in the under-5 age group as there are whites, and that number is growing. Logic dictates that most minority children in the under-5 age group will make it into the under-18 age group. At same time, a lot of whites at the other end of the age spectrum will, at some point in the not too distant future, begin to shuffle off this mortal coil.  So to summarize, more minorities entering the population than whites and more whites leaving the population than minorities.  Any questions?

Potpourri - In this edition we have a "why bother?", a "damn, that's a big number", and a "I'm sure this is probably important, but am not sure why".

• Surveillance - The U.S. federal government made 33,900 surveillance applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court from 1979 through 2012. The court approved all by 11, or 99.97%.
  I suppose it is mathematically possible that 33,889 of these surveillance applications were legitimate and that the court is doing its job adequately.  I just don't see how it is realistic.
• Data - An estimated 2.5 quintillion bytes of new data are created daily, due largely to the proliferation of smartphones and other mobile devices. 90% of all the digital data in the world has been created within the last two years.
  Bear in mind that data and information are two different things.  A cut cat video certainly constitutes data, but I challenge anyone to justify how watching Fluffy fall into the toilet would meet the definition of information.  
• Political Partisanship - Either the Democrats or Republicans control  both the legislature and the governorship in all by 13 states. As a result, blues states are moving to the left on issues such as same-sex marriage, abortion, unions and taxes, while red states are moving to the right.
  The author of the article I read that cites this factoid, made any interesting observation... America is splitting apart without an actual civil war.  Something to think about, wouldn't you say?

Did You Know? #31

Which nation collects the most tax revenue as a percentage of GDP in the industrialized world?

According to data collected in 2009, among the 34 members of the Organization for economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Denmark collects tax revenues amounting to 48.3% of its GDP. 

Rounding out the top 10 are Sweden (46.7%), Italy (43.4%), Belgium (43.2%), Norway (42.9%), Austria (42.7%), Finland (42.6%), France (42.4%), Hungary (39.9%) and the Netherlands (38.2%). 

The United States ranks 32nd, collecting 24.1% of its GDP in the form of GDP. Over the past 40 years, the United States has averaged 18% of GDP in tax collections, which matches projected costs for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and interest on the national debt in 2029.

What Caught My Eye Today - Papua New Guinea, Nicaragua, Michele Bachmann, Vocabulary

Nicaragua - Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega sent the National Assembly a proposed law that grants a 50-year concession to a recently formed Chinese company, HK Nicaragua Canal Development Investment Co. Ltd. (HKND), to build and manage a megaproject combo that includes an inter-oceanic canal, an oil pipeline, a “dry canal” freight railroad, two deepwater ports, two airports, and a series of free-trade zones. Fifty years seems like a long time, but consider how long it will take to build all this stuff not to mention the amount of time it will take to recoup the investment cost.  In that light this doesn't seem unreasonable. So what's the problem? No details about the canal project have been made public. Nicaraguans have no idea where the funding will come from, what the proposed canal route is, how long it would take to build, what the environmental toll would be, or even how much the project will cost. Lack of transparency, that's it? That's the big problem? This sort of thing happens all the time. Clearly, there must be something else that has folks concerned. The Chinese company is run by a telecom mogul and apparent canal enthusiast whose cellphone company recently won a full-service telecom operator license in a Nicaraguan bidding process. Now we're getting somewhere.  It does seem a bit peculiar that an infrastructure project of this size would be awarded to brand new company with no prior experience in canal building. Then again, the head of the company a "canal enthusiast" so that should good enough, right? China and Nicaragua do not have diplomatic relations, which adds a level of complexity to the project. Critics say it's unlikely that a private and untested Chinese company could do such a large project on its own, without the backing of the Chinese government. I think what was meant to be said is that China and Nicaragua have no official diplomatic relations.  A deal like this doesn't make it this far without some back channel wheeling and dealing.

Papua New Guinea - Violence linked to witch hunts is an increasingly visible problem in Papua New Guinea, a diverse tribal society of more than 800 languages and 7 million people. Experts say witch hunting appears to be spreading to parts of the country where the ruthless practices never took place before. There is no clear explanation for the apparent uptick in killings in parts of the South Pacific nation, and even government officials seem at a loss to say why this is happening. In a way I am somewhat encouraged that the government is confounded by the proliferation of witch hunting.  I'd hate to think that a government official might actually think that this sort of thing is rational in any way, shape or form. Some are arguing the recent violence is fueled not by the nation's widespread belief in black magic but instead by economic jealousy born of a mining boom that has widened the country's economic divide and pitted the haves against the have-nots. There's that wealth gap rearing its ugly head again. The United Nations has documented hundreds of cases of sorcery-related violence in Papua New Guinea in recent years and many more cases in remote areas are thought to have gone unreported. Until last month, the country's 42-year-old Sorcery Act allowed for a belief in black magic to be used as a partial legal defense for killing someone suspected of inflicting harm through sorcery. Let me see if I've got this right. There was an official law on the books called the Sorcery Act, and it has been in force for more than forty years? Where I come from, we don't call it 'sorcery'; we call it 'bat crap crazy'. Recent cases don't appear to be motivated by a genuine belief in the occult, but instead are a pretext under which the wealthy can be attacked by poorer neighbors, and, many times, get away with it. Are the naysayers, suggesting that this mob violence might not necessarily be driven by a desire to rid the world of witchcraft, but rather but a seething hatred of those who are better off than they are? Seems pretty far-fetched to me. 

Speaking of bat crap crazy...

Michele Bachmann - Facing a federal investigation of her campaign finances and a possible loss in November, Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann announced that she would not seek a fifth term in office. Say it ain't so.  Politics won't be nearly as entertaining without her pearls of wisdom. Bachmann is known for warning that President Barack Obama was an "anti American" socialist who was "turning our country into a nation of slaves"; that Obamacare will "literally" kill women, children and senior citizens; and that the Muslim Brotherhood has achieved "a very deep penetration" of the U.S. Government. According to Politifact, 75% of Bachmann's statements since 2009 were false, the highest of any elected official. So what? Since when did the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech mean that you had to speak the truth?   Fiction is much more interesting than fact, don't you think? As I see it, Bachmann was simply living up to the adage, "How can you tell if a politician is lying? His/Her lips are moving."  Way to stay true to your calling, girlfriend. She used a combination of sheer audacity and an "unrepentant, cable-ready persona" to propel the Tea Party movement to national prominence and even briefly lead the otherwise all-male field of the GOP presidential candidates in 2012. Ah yes, an achievement all Republicans can be proud of. 

The annual Scripp's Spelling Bee was held a few weeks backs. The winning word was 'knaidel,' which is a Jewish dumpling. This last item could be considered a spelling bee contestant's worst nightmare.

Vocabulary - The German language has lost its longest word thanks to a change in the law to conform with EU regulations. Rindfleischetikettierungsueberwachungsaufgabenuebertragungsgesetz, meaning 'law delegating beef label monitoring', was introduced in 1999.  Try saying that 10 times real fast. The 63-letter word came into being as a result of efforts to combat BSE, or mad cow disease. But with the European Union calling a halt to the testing of healthy cattle, the need for the word vanished. The longest German word in the country's official records is the 39-letter Rechtsschutzversicherungsgesellschaften, which is 'an insurance company that provides legal protection'. I find it curious that the word is almost as long as it's definition. Kind of makes you wonder why they bothered creating the word in the first place. English actually beats that record, with the 45-letter pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis which means 'a lung disease caused by the inhalation of very fine silica dust, causing inflammation in the lungs'. Alright friends, here's the throw down. See how many times can you work 'pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis' into the conversation at the next social gather you attend? That is if you can figure out how to pronounce it.

Did You Know? Know #30

What were the most popular baby names in the United States in 2012?

The Social Security Administration has announced the 2012 Most Popular Baby Names. The top 10 girls' names are: Sophia, Emma, Isabella, Olivia, Ava, Emily, Abigail, Mia, Madison and Elizabeth. The top 10 boys' names are: Jacob, Mason, Ethan, Noah, William, Liam, Jayden, Michael, Alexander and Aiden. Jacob remains the most popular name for boys for the 14th year in a row and has been in the top 10 for two decades. Sophia, which took the crown as the #1 girls' name last year, is a Greek name that means "wisdom."  It entered the top 10 in 2006. 

The most searched baby names so far in 2013, for girls are: Isabella, Millie, Sookie, Ann, Ella, Betty, Ellie, Emma, Eithne and Charlotte. For boys' the most searched names are: Jacob, Max, Liam, Ted, Mo, Aiden, Andy, Bertie, Ned and Gus.

What Caught My Eye Today - Wealth, Entitlement Programs, Venezuela

Wealth - I don't know why, but there is something about self-important think tanks producing reports that confirm what is already common knowledge that amuses me.The wealthiest 1% control 39% of the world's wealth, and their share is likely to grow in the coming years, according to a new report from the Boston Consulting Group. See what I mean? Yet another report indicating that the rich are getting richer. The world's total private wealth grew 7.8% in 2012 to $135 trillion. The top 1% control $52.8 trillion, and those worth $5 million or more control nearly a quarter of the world's wealth. The number of millionaires in the world surged by 10% last year, reaching 13.8 million. Those worth $5 million or more will see their wealth grow 8%, while those worth more than $100 million will see their wealth grow 9.2%. In the developed world - the U.S. and Europe - it's mainly stocks that is driving wealth. Stocks have been on a tear this year in the U.S., which has mainly benefited the top 5%, who own 60% of all individually held stocks. In my world, the stock market has obliterated any hopes I've entertained for retiring...ever. In developing markets, the main wealth creator is economic growth and savings. Let's take a closer look at the prospects for developing markets. The World Bank has projected global GDP growth of 2.4% in 2013. By comparison, sub-Saharan Africa looks to grow by 5% or more. Asia, driven primarily by China, is expected to do even better, with growth projections of 7.8%. Sounds rather promising, doesn't it. Then again... Africa ranks at the bottom of the Ease of Doing Business Index (meaning it is extraordinarily difficult to make a buck); it has one of the highest rates of HIV/AIDS (which no doubt has a negative impact on the working age population); and it has almost no banking infrastructure to speak of (which might put a bit of a damper on people's ability to save). How about our friends in Asia? While 7.8% growth would be phenomenal in the U.S. or Europe, it is a pretty dramatic slowdown for the likes of China, which had been posting double digit growth for several years. On top of that, the wealth gap issues confronting Asian nations, makes the problems we have in the U.S. pale by comparison.

Entitlement Programs - Lest you were under the impression that think tanks had a monopoly on publishing reports on stuff we already know, fear not. The U.S. government is doing its part to confirm the obvious as well. The underlying financial condition of Social Security and Medicare did not change greatly in 2012 and both are still on borrowed time according to separate annual reports. The trust funds for retirement and survivors benefits and a separate fund for disability payments, when considered together, have a projected depletion date of 2033, unchanged from last year’s annual report. After the reserves are depleted, continuing payroll tax receipts would be sufficient to pay three quarters of promised benefits through 2087. The Medicare Hospital Trust Fund – one of two funds that support the program – will have enough money to cover its obligations fully until 2026 – which is two years longer than predicted in last year’s report. What's this? A two year reprieve? Yippee! After that, the share of hospital costs that could be financed with payroll tax revenues would decline from 87% in 2033 to 70% in 2050 and later. Some 58 million Americans currently receive Social Security benefits.  So bottom line, all this talk of entitlements going bankrupt is a little extreme. The way I read this, is that in the next 15 to 20 years, instead of receiving a dollar's worth of benefit, I will get somewhere between 70 and 80 cents? Don't get me wrong, that sucks, but considering the performance of my retirement accounts, this is par for the course.

Venezuela - These poor slobs cannot catch a break. First, no toilet paper (click here) and now this... When it comes to Venezuela's growing scarcities, not even the Roman Catholic Church has received a dispensation. Church officials say food shortages and foreign exchange restrictions are causing a lack of ingredients needed to celebrate Mass: altar wine as well as wheat to produce communion wafers. They say the wheat flour used for the sacramental wafers is scarce and the supply of altar wine used for Holy Communion is threatened, which could force them to ration it. Venezuela's only producer of church-standard communion wine, recently informed the church that it can no longer guarantee production because it lacks some imported ingredients. Is anyone besides me curious as to what those "imported ingredients" might be. Wine is wine, is it not?  The shortage of wheat flour has compounded the problems for the church, because the host, or wafer, administered during Holy Communion must be made of wheat. The wafers are made by nuns in convents and parish houses.   I don't want to trivialize the spiritual well being of anyone, but come on -- rationing of communion wafers and altar wine? That's a little funny, don't you think?

Did You Know? #29

In the United States, how much more do CEOs earn than the average worker?

According to the AFL-CIO, chief executives of the nation's largest companies earned an average of $12.3 million in total pay last year, 354 times more than a typical American worker who took home $34,645 in 2012. The discrepancy in pay between CEOs and the average worker has skyrocketed over the years, peaking in 2000, when the gap was 525 times. In 1980, CEO pay was 42 times that of the average worker.