Later On

The financial industry’s ownership of the Obama Administration has been clear for some time—and they own Congress (House and Senate) as well. But they’re have some trouble at the state level… but not to fear, the Obama Administration is there to apply pressure and protect bankers and banks. Gretchen Morgenson in the NY Times:

Eric T. Schneiderman, the attorney general of New York, has come under increasing pressure from the Obama administration to drop his opposition to a wide-ranging state settlement with banks over dubious foreclosure practices, according to people briefed on discussions about the deal.

In recent weeks, Shaun Donovan, the secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and high-level Justice Department officials have been waging an intensifying campaign to try to persuade the attorney general to support the settlement, said the people briefed on the talks.

Mr. Schneiderman and top prosecutors in some other states have objected to the proposed settlement with major banks, saying it would restrict their ability to investigate and prosecute wrongdoing in a variety of areas, including the bundling of loans in mortgage securities.

But Mr. Donovan and others in the administration have been contacting not only Mr. Schneiderman but his allies, including consumer groups and advocates for borrowers, seeking help to secure the attorney general’s participation in the deal, these people said. One recipient described the calls from Mr. Donovan, but asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation.

Not surprising, the large banks, which are eager to reach a settlement, have grown increasingly frustrated with Mr. Schneiderman. Bank officials recently discussed asking Mr. Donovan for help in changing the attorney general’s mind, according to a person briefed on those talks. . .

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Anil Dash blogs:

For the past several days, Apple’s stock has been rising high enough that the company has flitted between being the first and second most valuable company in the world. Regardless of the final value of the stock on any given day, it is without a doubt the greatest comeback or turnaround story in the history of American business: A single company has gone from being just 90 days away from shutting down to becoming the unequivocal leader in innovation, design, branding and now valuation, and the transformation happened in less than a decade and a half.

Most interestingly, there’s a unanimous consensus, from fans and detractors alike, both within and outside the company, that a single man bears the lion’s share of the credit for the vision, leadership and execution that’s made this achievement possible.

So, who is this man? He’s the anchor baby of an activist Arab muslim who came to the U.S. on a student visa and had a child out of wedlock. He’s a non-Christian, arugula-eating, drug-using follower of unabashedly old-fashioned liberal teachings from the hippies and folk music stars of the 60s. And he believes in science, in things that science can demonstrate like climate change and Pi having a value more specific than “3″, and in extending responsible benefits to his employees while encouraging his company to lead by being environmentally responsible.

Every single person who’d attack Steve Jobs on any of these grounds is, demonstrably, worse at business than Jobs. They’re unqualified to assert that liberal values are bad for business, when the demonstrable, factual, obvious evidence contradicts those assertions.

It’s a choice whether you, or anyone else, wants to accept the falsehood that liberal values are somehow in contradiction with business success at a global scale. Indeed, it would seem that many who claim to be pro-business are trying to “save” us from exactly the inclusive, creative, tolerant values that have made America’s most successful company possible. I side with . . .

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I think it’s the final. It now runs 46,000 words, up substantially from the first edition and up a fair amount from the fourth edition. I reduced font size to keep the number of pages close to the same, but the font is still large enough for ease in reading.

CreateSpace will review the PDF file, let me know, and I then order a copy of what I hope is the final proof. The Wife will do that proofreading: once I consider it truly done, and I’ve found all the errors I can, she reads it with a fresher eye. (It’s amazing, though, how errors will persist from edition to edition: I corrected some that have been in the book a long time—minor stuff, like “and and” and “you” for “your”: the eye just glides over those. But not this time.

Thanks to Steve of Kafeneio for the video and the article catch. This is important stuff. First, the video:

And the article in the NY Times Sunday Magazine by Gary Taubes that mentions this:

On May 26, 2009, Robert Lustig gave a lecture called “Sugar: The Bitter Truth,” which was posted on YouTube the following July. Since then, it has been viewed well over 800,000 times, gaining new viewers at a rate of about 50,000 per month, fairly remarkable numbers for a 90-minute discussion of the nuances of fructose biochemistry and human physiology.

Lustig is a specialist on pediatric hormone disorders and the leading expert in childhood obesity at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine, which is one of the best medical schools in the country. He published his first paper on childhood obesity a dozen years ago, and he has been treating patients and doing research on the disorder ever since.

The viral success of his lecture, though, has little to do with Lustig’s impressive credentials and far more with the persuasive case he makes that sugar is a “toxin” or a “poison,” terms he uses together 13 times through the course of the lecture, in addition to the five references to sugar as merely “evil.” And by “sugar,” Lustig means not only the white granulated stuff that we put in coffee and sprinkle on cereal — technically known as sucrose — but also high-fructose corn syrup, which has already become without Lustig’s help what he calls “the most demonized additive known to man.”

It doesn’t hurt Lustig’s cause that he is a compelling public speaker. His critics argue that what makes him compelling is his practice of taking suggestive evidence and insisting that it’s incontrovertible. Lustig certainly doesn’t dabble in shades of gray. Sugar is not just an empty calorie, he says; its effect on us is much more insidious. “It’s not about the calories,” he says. “It has nothing to do with the calories. It’s a poison by itself.”

If Lustig is right, then our excessive consumption of sugar is the primary reason that the numbers of obese and diabetic Americans have skyrocketed in the past 30 years. But his argument implies more than that. If Lustig is right, it would mean that sugar is also the likely dietary cause of several other chronic ailments widely considered to be diseases of Western lifestyles — heart disease, hypertension and many common cancers among them.

The number of viewers Lustig has attracted suggests that people are paying attention to his argument. When I set out to interview public health authorities and researchers for this article, they would often initiate the interview with some variation of the comment “surely you’ve spoken to Robert Lustig,” not because Lustig has done any of the key research on sugar himself, which he hasn’t, but because he’s willing to insist publicly and unambiguously, when most researchers are not, that sugar is a toxic substance that people abuse. In Lustig’s view, sugar should be thought of, like cigarettes and alcohol, as something that’s killing us.

This brings us to the salient question: Can sugar possibly be as bad as Lustig says it is? . . .

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I’m working on wrapping up the 5th edition and making good progress. I’ll be able to release the manuscript for review for the final proof later today, with hopes of getting the final proof for review by Friday.

I did take a break for a brief outing: to Whole Foods, where I discovered the Sunday morning famer’s market in their parking lot in full swing. Picked up eggs, mushrooms, fruit (pluots, strawberries, red raspberries, blackberries), and then to Whole Foods for greens (dandelion and red kale), some seitan, and other things. I found some locally made kraut that’s quite good: Farmhouse Culture. I got a jar of the Smoked Jalapeño:

Smoked Jalapeno Kraut is our California remix of El Salvadore’s curtido, a traditional cabbage dish normally made with fermented pineapple juice. We’ve replaced the tropical zing with smoky heat, adding fresh smoked jalapenos to a blend of raw cabbage, carrots, onions, and crunchy radish. Taste real outdoor-grilled flavor in every jar of this 98% raw kraut.

Uses: Pile it onto your nachos; in a grilled cheese sandwich; rolled into a burrito or as a condiment with any Latin dishes.

Ingredients: Organic cabbage, organic onions, organic carrots, organic daikon radishes, smoked jalapeno peppers, Sonoma sea salt.

And I also got a jar of the Horseradish Leek kraut:

Recently named the 64th best food to eat in San Francisco our crazy good Horseradish-Leek Kraut will tantalize your taste buds. Mild yet perky, this nose tickling kraut pairs beautifully with anything you can imagine. Spectacular with a steak, sublime on a sandwich, and magnificent by the mouthful, horseradish-leek kraut is destined to become a new classic.

Uses: Great for roasted veggies and meats, on sandwiches, with quinoa or other whole grains, and anything else you can thing of!

Ingredients: Organic cabbage, organic horseradish, organic leeks, organic carrots, Sonoma sea salt.

I’ve now tasted both: they’re great.

I’m getting many an uncontrolled giggle from A Pain in the Ass, on Netflix Watch Instantly. Among its virtues: excellent slapstick.

I find it hard to believe—I personally detest spoilers (if they’re so great, the author would include them in the text), but perhaps these findings have some validity for some people. The Wife, for example, is unbothered by spoilers. Bruce Bower’s report in Science News begins:

People who read the last page of a mystery novel first may be on to something. Giving away plot surprises generally makes readers like stories better, say psychology graduate student Jonathan Leavitt and psychologist Nicholas Christenfeld, both of the University of California, San Diego.

Volunteers especially enjoyed classic short stories, including mysteries and tales with ironic twists, after seeing spoiler paragraphs that revealed how the yarns ended, Leavitt and Christenfeld report in a paper published online August 12 in Psychological Science.

“Spoilers may enhance story enjoyment by making texts easier to read and understand, leading to deeper comprehension, or they may reduce readers’ anxiety about what’s to come, allowing them to focus on a story’s aesthetic details,” Leavitt says. These responses could explain why a favorite book can be read many times with undiminished pleasure, he suggests.

It’s also possible that spoilers amplify stories’ appeal by . . .

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The quest for rose-fragranced aftershaves has become a bee in my bonnet. This morning’s shave was with Kell’s Original Hemp/Aloe Blend English Rose, and I turned the tin on its side so you could see the rose petal embedded in the soap. I get really excellent lather from Kell’s Original soaps, this morning using the men-ü “artificial badger” synthetic brush. If you’ve not tried Kell’s Originals, I suggest you snap up a few tins now. With any artisanal vendor, it’s good to strike while the iron is hot, as it were.

Three passes with the Feather (razor and blade), then a splash of Saint Charles Shave Savory Rose aftershave: a very pleasant sort of dusty-rose fragrance, subdued and dignified.

Now we have Bank of America lobbyist caught on camera offering to “help out” Governor Rick Perry. The explanations from BofA are risible.

I came across hulled hemp seed (90 cal/2 Tbsp), high in omega-3, at Whole Foods. I got some and will add to my breakfast cereal, which now amounts to 1/4 c oat bran, 2 Tbsp chia seed, 2 Tbsp hemp seed, 1 c water, pinch salt, good grinding of black pepper: bring to boil, simmer until thick, add a couple of glugs of homemade hot sauce, top with egg over easy and Bac’Uns. Quite tasty. Big mug of tea on the side.

I even added some of the hulled hemp seed to lunch/dinner:

8 large cloves garlic, smashed with side of knife, peeled, minced, and allow to sit 15 minutes
2 habanero peppers, stem removed and then minced [hot while eating but nice lingering afterglow: 2 was the right number (they were smallish)]
3 oz extra firm tofu, cubed
4 scallions, chopped including all the green
1 yellow zucchini, cubed
3 large domestic mushrooms, halved then cut into thick slices
1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
pinch of salt
freshly ground pepper

I heated 2 tsp duck fat, then sautéed the above until the mushrooms released their liquid, then added

3 Tbsp dry Marsala
1 wad (size of golf ball) slivered dried tomatoes
2 big handfuls spinach leaves
1/3 c cooked “forbidden” (black) rice
good dash sherry vinegar
good dash homemade Worcestershire sauce

I covered and let that cook down some, then added

1 stalk and leaf of red chard, chopped
2 Tbsp hulled hemp seed

Cover and simmer for 20-30 minutes.

I top it with Bac’Uns—which I also use on salad. No wonder I buy it by the pound.

I would call that dish an example of “grub” (previously defined): food selected and cooked purely for nutritional value and balance (3 oz protein, small serving starch, veg, not more than 2 tsp added fat) and using what I had on hand without much regard for recipe. I definitely do like to include garlic and onion and some sort of greens (red kale, red chard, collards, or spinach, mostly, but I also like dandelion greens, regular or red, and mustard greens are a treat—but kale and collards are the nutritional heavy hitters), and zucchini, squash, eggplant, or the like for fiber.

Benjamin Ginsberg writing for The Scientist:

During my nearly five decades in academia, the character of the university has changed, and not entirely for the better. As recently as the 1970s, America’s universities were heavily influenced, if not completely driven, by faculty ideas and concerns. Today, institutions of higher education are mainly controlled by administrators and staffers who make the rules and increasingly set the priorities of academic life.

A recent study showed that between 1997 and 2007, the number of administrative and support personnel per hundred students increased dramatically at most schools—103 percent at Williams College; 111 percent at Johns Hopkins; 325 percent at Wake Forest University; and 351 percent at Yeshiva University, to cite some noteworthy examples. My book, The Fall of the Faculty, exposes this troubling reality.

The ongoing transfer of power from professors to administrators, who often lack academic credentials, has important implications for curricular and research agendas. On the surface, faculty members and administrators seem to share a general understanding of the university and its place in society. If asked to characterize the “mission” of the university, both groups usually agree with the idea that the university is an institution that produces and disseminates knowledge through its teaching, research, and public outreach efforts.

This similarity, however, is deceptive. To faculty members, scholarship and teaching are the lifeblood of academic life, and the university is an instrument necessary to achieve those ends. But to administrators, the faculty’s research and teaching activities are, first and foremost, means of generating revenues, not ends in themselves.

These differing orientations give administrators and professors divergent views of teaching and research activities. Administrators have what might be called a demand-side view of the curriculum. They believe that a college curriculum should be heavily influenced, if not completely governed, by the interests and preferences of potential customers—the students, parents, and others who pay the bills.

The faculty, on the other hand, views teaching as an end more than a means, leading them to take what might be called a supply-side view of the curriculum. Professors are more concerned with teaching topics they consider important than with placating students and other campus constituencies.

With regard to research, academics tend to take the view that . . .

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Very interesting — and convincing. (It wasn’t the atomic bomb that made them decide to surrender.)

Take a look.

Stephen Pinker writes in the Chronicle of Higher Education:

Since 9/11, pundits and politicians proclaimed that terrorism had made America “vulnerable” and “fragile,” and that it threatened to do away with “our way of life” or “civilization itself.”

A former White House counterterrorism official prophesied that by the 10th anniversary of 9/11, the American economy would be shut down by chronic bombings of casinos, subways, and shopping malls, downings of airliners by shoulder-launched missiles, and acts of cataclysmic sabotage at chemical plants.

It all seemed plausible at the time. But today tourists are vacationing, commuters are commuting, shoppers are shopping, planes are flying, and the modern state, our way of life, and civilization itself seem to have survived. Probably fewer than two dozen people have been killed by terrorists on American soil since 9/11, a death toll that is dwarfed by those from wars, automobile and household accidents, and other causes of death we routinely tolerate. Perhaps many terrorist plots were foiled by color-coded alerts, the confiscation of nail clippers at airports, and the girding of rural post offices with concrete barriers. But it seems just as likely that something was systematically wrong with the prediction that terrorism posed an existential threat to the West.

The discrepancy between the panic generated by terrorism and the deaths generated by terrorism is no accident. Panic is the whole point of terrorism, as the root of the word makes clear: “Terror” refers to a psychological state, not an enemy or an event. The effects of terrorism depend completely on the psychology of the audience. Terrorists are communicators, seeking publicity and attention, which they manufacture through fear. They may want to extort a government into capitulating to a demand, to sap people’s confidence in their government’s ability to protect them, or to provoke repression that will turn people against their government or bring about chaos in which the terrorist faction hopes to prevail.

Cognitive psychologists such as Amos Tversky, Daniel Kahneman, Gerd Gigerenzer, and Paul Slovic have shown that the perceived danger of a risk depends on two factors: . . .

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Megs has only a limited understanding of what the Roku does, petering out around the point at which the unit gets warm, but that’s plenty good enough for her. Here she is, crashing. The context:

Very interesting intervie at Wired by David Mosher:

IBM has unveiled an experimental chip that borrows tricks from brains to power a cognitive computer, a machine able to learn from and adapt to its environment.

Reactions to the computer giant’s press release about SyNAPSE, short for Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronic, have ranged from conservative to zany. Some even claim it’s IBM’s attempt to recreate a cat brain from silicon.

“Each neuron in the brain is a processor and memory, and part of a social network, but that’s where the brain analogy ends. We’re not trying to simulate a brain,” said IBM spokeswoman Kelly Sims. “We’re looking to the brain to develop a system that can learn and make sense of environments on the fly.”

The human brain is a vast network of roughly 100 billion neurons sharing 100 trillion connections, called synapses. That complexity makes for more mysteries than answers — how consciousness arises, how memories are stored and why we sleep are all outstanding questions. But researchers have learned a lot about how neurons and their connections underpin the power, efficiency and adaptability of the brain.

To get a better understanding of SyNAPSE and how it borrows from organic neural networks, Wired.com spoke with project leader Dharmendra Modha of IBM Research.

Wired.com: Why do we want computers to learn and work like brains?

Dharmendra Modha: We see an increasing need for . . .

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I picked a bad angle to show the amber clarity of my Kell’s Original soap: lovely stuff with a fragrance I really like. This is not the bitter almond of the Italian shaving soaps but a sort of sweet almond. Very nice lather, worked up with the Taylor of Old Bond Street “artificial badger” brush, and three very smooth passes with the Eclipse, which really does shave well (this morning with a Swedish Gillette blade). Then a good splash of TOBS Sandalwood, and I’m ready for a relatively light day: the proof copies of the 5th edition should arrive, and I’m planning to bike to my Pilates session.

Age-dependent food adaptation—plus very interesting findings on how the aging process stops after a certain age (and why). It’s behind a paywall, but this is an issue you might want to buy because of other interesting articles. It’s this one:

Full disclosure: I’ve been a New Scientist subscriber for decades. Well worth getting.

UPDATE: Part of the article is that, as we age, we should shift to a hunter-gatherer style of diet—that is, drop grains and dairy. This post has some ideas for such a diet.

In this blog, the serial comma is used for the simple reason that not using it leads to ambiguity: the famous example is “This book is dedicated to my parents, Ayn Rand and God.” Presuming for the sake of argument that the writer intended a series and is not actually claiming to refer to Ayn as “Mum” and God as “Dad”, then we can see that this writer has eschewed the serial comma and given the reader a hearty chuckle.

And I just encountered a proper use and the value of using the serial comma: from The Cambridge Companion to Lucretius, “a much shorter narrative mythological poem about the marriage of the parents of Achilles, Peleus and Thetis.” Even if the reader does not know the names of the parents of Achilles before reading this phrase, he knows them after, for clearly the omission of the serial comma shouts that the three are not children of the same parents, for it is not a series; rather, “Peleus and Thetis” is appositive to  [in apposition to? for?] “the parents of Achilles.”