Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr., aka Muhammad Ali passed away last night at the age of 74.
I first saw him win the Light Heavyweight Gold medal – on film – at the Rome Olympics in 1960. We had no TV then. He has floated like a butterfly in my view of the world for over 50 years.
RIP.
“Marcellus vanquished Carthage,
Cassius laid Julius Caesar low.
And Clay will flatten Douglas Jones
with a mighty measured blow!”
1960 Olympic gold medallist
That the European Union does take away national sovereignty is obvious even if David Cameron may argue (now) that it doesn’t. Even though I think that we must eventually evolve away from nation states, the EU is not a development in that direction. It involves surrendering autonomy – away from the “nation” to the faceless, supercilious, self-righteous, European Commission and the European parliament. Poland may be pursuing policies that its EU members disapprove of, but surely that is Poland’s prerogative.
BREXIT supporters have a clear example of how the EU fancies itself a super-state and one which thinks it has the right – if not necessarily the power – to dictate to its members how to think. Like it or not, the Justice Party was elected “democratically” in Poland. The European Commission is far from being any kind of democratic institution. It is an executive body. There is something deeply disturbing about EU bureaucrats telling an elected government what it may or may not do. The self-righteous arrogance of the European Commission is often offensive.
The EU executive has given Poland an official warning that changes to its constitutional court endanger the rule of law in the country.
Frans Timmermans, vice president of the European commission, said he had written to the Polish government warning that recent alterations to the workings of Poland’s highest court posed “a systemic risk to the rule of law”.
The publication of a formal opinion ratchets up pressure on Poland and marks the first time that the EU executive has criticised a member state under its rule-of-law procedure.
After Poland’s Law and Justice (Pis) party came to power, the Polish parliament passed a law allowing the government to appoint the judges of its choosing to the highest court and not recognise those chosen by its predecessor, the liberal Civic Platform party.
Legal experts advising the Council of Europe have concluded that the changes breach the rule of law, democracy and human rights.
If Poland refuses to back down, it could face the ultimate sanction of being stripped of EU voting rights, although Brussels is keen to avoid that scenario.
I am not sure if BREXIT is good or bad for the UK, but there should be little doubt that staying within the EU does mean giving up a large measure of sovereignty. It is surely better for the EU that the UK remain a member. But the best for both the UK and the EU, I think, is for reform of the EU. I remain convinced that a vote in favour of BREXIT vote will only cause the EU to finally make real concessions rather than the cosmetic changes offered to Cameron. A BREXIT vote is – after all – only the start of a long negotiation. But the negotiation could be real and not just a PR exercise. Of course the UK would need a real negotiator – and that isn’t either Cameron or Corbyn.
I don’t much care that Facebook is tracking me – and now “on and off Facebook through cookies”. But their analysis of whatever tracking they do is suspect. At least in my case, the tracking analysis does not seem to be very effective (or even intelligent).
Facebook cookie monster
Facebook’s choice of “top stories” – which seems to be their enforced default condition – never matches what I would consider top stories on my news feed. I keep switching back to “most recent” and what I get is something close to – but not exactly – the most recent posts (or comments). Some posts are suppressed and some are elevated. In this age where they are supposedly tracking my every move, why cannot they manage something as simple as just following a time stamp? It is pretty clear that their over-complicated, over-sophisticated algorithms cannot leave well alone. Why must they always try to “add value” (and fail) by revising time?
For the last 5 days Facebook has been showing this irritating message
To help personalize content, tailor and measure ads, and provide a safer experience, we use cookies. By clicking or navigating the site, you agree to allow our collection of information on and off Facebook through cookies. Learn more, including about available controls: Cookies Policy.
As the WSJ points out, Facebook is trying to show an increased “value” to its advertisers (presumably to fool them into paying higher rates). Personally I thin the advertisers would be throwing their money away. The pages that Facebook suggests for me are very, very rarely of any relevance – or even of interest – for me. I cannot remember ever having clicked on an advertisement on Facebook. I don’t suppose I am in the main target group for Facebook advertisers, but surely the much-touted sophistication of their algorithms can do better. I am not especially impressed by the quality of the selections made for me.
I find Google ads are much more closely aligned to my interests. In any search for news stories, I always ignore the first few paid-for references. They are invariably low quality stories. But I have been known to click – not very often but a few times – on their ads. Ads on WordPress sites are generally very relevant to the main story (interspersed with regular ads for porn sites but these are easy to ignore).
I suspect that Facebook are claiming far more for their algorithms and their capability of selection of target audiences than they can actually achieve. (That they do suppress news they don’t like is now pretty well proven).
Facebook has set out to power all advertising across the Internet.
To that end, the social network and online advertising company said Thursday it will now help marketers show ads to all users who visit websites and applications in its Audience Network ad network. Previously Facebook only showed ads to members of its social network when they visited those third-party properties.
The change is a subtle one, but it could mean Facebook will soon help to sell and place a much larger portion of the video and display ads that appear across the Internet. The change will also intensify competition with Alphabet Inc. subsidiary Google, which dominates the global digital-advertising market, and a wide range of other online ad specialists.
“Publishers and app developers have some users who aren’t Facebook users. We think we can do a better job powering those ads,” said Andrew Bosworth, vice president of Facebook’s ads and business platform.
But my advice to Facebook advertisers would be to double check any claims Facebook makes about how well they are able to select their target audiences. From the little I have seen, they are not particularly good.
All I really want is that my news feed follow the fundamental time-stamp and that “most recent” gives me the most recent posts – without suppression of some and elevation of others. Google seems to know my mind better than Facebook does.
After 8 years of an American Democrat administration the recovery from the global financial crisis of 2008 has still not gathered steam. Europe, with its EU chains, is no longer capable of leading a global economic recovery. (I note that the UK or Germany could have played a bigger part in a global recovery if they were each unhampered by EU membership). China and India, together and if their economies were in phase, could also have led a recovery. But the Chinese growth story has stalled and is out of phase with the Indian growth. The US certainly could have, and could still, lead a recovery. But Barack Obama has been too risk averse (read too scared) to take any real leadership role. So while the US is recovering, very slowly, it has not really contributed to being the global economic motor it could be. The primary reason, of course, is that public spending is much too high and, in consequence, taxes are higher than necessary. Obama has elected to print money (quantitative easing) rather than attempting to get the fundamentals right. The EU is still printing money and public spending is little less than profligate. Spain and Portugal are next after Greece and France is not very healthy. They are all pursuing traditional socialist policies of trying to get out of the economic hole by increasing public spending (with newly printed money of reducing value). And with the structure of the EU being what it is, they hold back the countries which have much sounder fundamentals.
The question is, who of Clinton or Trump would contribute more to a global recovery?
Certainly public spending would be higher with Clinton than with Trump. Public infrastructure spending – which is now necessary in the US – would probably be more likely with Clinton. But her choice would be to print money or to increase taxes. Obama took the easy way out and printed money. Whether Clinton would have the nerve to either cut non-infrastructure spending or to raise taxes is uncertain. She may not dither like Obama, but she is not any less risk-averse. Assuming she did increase taxes, she would probably increase corporate rather than personal taxation and that is always a “growth killer”. Small businesses would be hard hit. As Europe has demonstrated so well, minimum wage legislation only destroys – for ever – the entry-level and low-qualification jobs. Clinton will find minimum wage legislation tempting and may fall into the trap of destroying jobs. There seems little chance that a Clinton administration would contribute any more to a global recovery than Obama has.
What Trump might or might not do is uncertain. It is possible that he might address the fundamentals and really reduce the size of the bureaucracy. Or he may increase defence spending and try to balance the books by cutting welfare spending. He could take the measures to help small businesses and it is here, with small businesses, that real growth and wealth creation is generated. Or he may just help the large corporations which creates fewer jobs and favours the wealthiest.
The Clinton path will be “more of the same”. Not much to gain but probably not much worse than with Obama. The Trump path is unknown. It has a much larger upside than anything Clinton has to offer, but it has a much larger downside as well. A Trump path is full of risks. If the economic downsides with a Trump Presidency could be limited and he helped small businesses more than large corporates, then he could contribute to a global revival which Clinton would be incapable of. But the risk is significant.
I remain of the opinion that The US choice is now high risk with Trump or low gain with Clinton.
Ekot (“The echo”) is the news service of Swedish national radio, Sveriges Radio. But some of their “journalists” often amaze by their triviality. They are self-righteous, sanctimonious and politically correct to an extraordinary degree. They – more even than any extreme teetotal organisation – see any kind of “public money” spent on any kind of alcohol as the Mother of all Original Sin. They are so convinced of their own reserved places in heaven that their self-righteous reporting is almost embarrassing to listen to.
This morning they were particularly pathetic.
They released a so-called “investigative report” into the sinful travels of the Swedish Church (financed partly from tax money). Horror of horrors! Some of the travel costs included meals. And even worse – some of the meals were accompanied by the devil ALCOHOL. The breathless report of their intrepid journalist was in hushed tones commensurate with the moral decrepitude now taking over the Swedish Church.
Politicians and church employees in the Swedish church go on expensive trips abroad, often to well-known tourist resorts and cities, an investigation by Ekot has found. For example, in 2014 traveled a total of 99 people from Huddinge went on a five-day conference at a hotel on the shores of Malta. …… The Huddinge parish conference, which also featured instance pool-side meetings, medieval fencing and a city walk, cost 800 000 kronor. By comparison, the trip cost more than twice as much as the parish received from collections that year.
The Huddinge conference in Malta is one of many similar staff travel trips within the Swedish Church. ……
6.2 million Swedes are members of the Swedish Church. It is their money, the so-called church fees – that are charged automatically on their taxes – which for the most part finance the activities of the Church.
Oh Dear!
Less than $1000 per person for 5 days in Malta (including travel and hotels and meals and ALCOHOL) and – if one were to pay attention to Ekot – the Swedish Church was on a slippery slope to hell.
I note that Swedish Radio is financed entirely by public money. Generally Ekot does a good job. Their relatively few foreign correspondents are particularly good. But their domestic and trainee reporters have a fairly low standard. Some of them are little better than parasitic copy-cats who merely repeat stories from larger press institutions. And far too many have a smarmy political correctness which makes one cringe.
One of our local churches. St Maria Church Risinge from the second half of the 12th century
It is almost certain that the onset of the 2016 monsoon can be declared today (29th May). Based on rainfall alone, the criteria for “onset” are fulfilled. However the formal Monsoon Onset over Kerala (MOK) is still a subjective call. Attempts are ongoing to establish objective criteria.
The date of the MOK is declared by IMD every year based on subjective estimates prepared by operational forecasters. …….
‘‘Although the onset of monsoon is associated with changes in the atmospheric circulation features in the lower and upper troposphere, a sustained increase in the rainfall at the observatory stations of Kerala and the island stations over the south-east Arabian sea is an essential feature of the monsoon onset. It is difficult to quantify these precisely and so the experience of the forecaster plays a key role in declaring the date of monsoon onset in individual years.’’
The IMD forecaster, while declaring the date of the MOK, has been taking into consideration subjectively the following features
- the rainfall should be widespread over Kerala and adjacent areas, with large rainfall amounts at individual stations;
- this rainfall persists over several days;
- the lower-tropospheric westerlies in and around Kerala should be strong and deep; and
- the air should be rich in moisture (high relative humidity) up to at least 500 hPa. However, there is no widely accepted objective definition of the MOK.
There also have been attempts to derive objective methods for the MOK. …..
Skymet describes the criteria as:
at least 60% of the 14 weather stations across Kerala and coastal Karnataka should record 2.5 mm rainfall or more for two consecutive days. ….. Simultaneously, the depth of the westerly winds should be up to 600 hPa (or 12000 ft high), from the equator to 10°N Latitude, and between Longitude 55°E and 80°E. The zonal wind speed over the area bounded by Latitude 5-10°N and Longitude 70-80°E should be around 25 to 35 kmph in the lower levels. The OLR value should also be less than 200 Wm-2 in the box confined by Latitude 5-10°N and Longitude 70-75°E.
The rainfall criteria have been met today. Skymet writes:
…… we watch out for more than 2.5 mm of rainfall for consecutive two days in at least 60% of the stipulated 14 weather stations across Kerala, coastal Karnataka and Lakshadweep. These stations are Minicoy, Aminidivi, Kollam, Thiruvananthapuram, Kannur, Punalur, Alappuzha, Kottayam, Kochi, Thrissur, Kozhikode, Thalassery, Kasargode and Mangalore.
As of now, more than 60% of the available 14 stations have already received more than 2.5 mm of rain for the last 2 days. As for the masses, Monsoon-like rainfall activity has already commenced in the region. The following rainfall figures (in millimeters) recorded over the last 3 days suffice for the above statement.
Monsoon onset 2016 rainfall (graphic Skymet)
So far, so good.
It seems highly probable that the formal declaration of the onset of the monsoon over Kerala (MOK) will be declared for today or tomorrow. The signs are encouraging that 2016 monsoon rainfall will be classified as “good” (upto 10% above the long-term average) and may even be declared to be in “excess” (>10% above long term average).
The Guardian is blatantly biased – but that’s perfectly OK. They tend to be quite selective in choosing which stories to report and which to ignore and that, too, is perfectly OK, since they make no secret of the agendas they pursue. Their opinion pieces nearly always cherry pick information to suit their point of view and I have no problem with that. Their spelling mistakes are legendary (perhaps they need to have an Indian-American with the spelling bee gene as a spell checker). But they do not make up the “facts” they do report.
Except, it seems, they sometimes do.
The Guardian has retracted 13 articles by a freelance writer Joseph Mayton who has been writing for them since 2009. They have also deleted extracts from his other articles which could not be verified. Mayton denies he has fabricated his stories – but his protests which claim unprofessionalism as a defence – are not very convincing.
Guardian editor Lee Glendinning writes:
…. we acted immediately to investigate when sources claimed that they had not spoken with the writer of the piece they were quoted in.
The article in question, from February, was by a freelance journalist, Joseph Mayton, who began writing opinion pieces for the Guardian in London in 2009, while based in Egypt. He contributed several opinion pieces before starting to write occasional US news stories, on a freelance basis, in May 2015 from California. These stories ranged from coverage of wildfires to issues related to marijuana farms, urban vineyards and whale deaths on the coast.
When Mayton was unable to provide convincing evidence that the interviews in question in the February article had taken place, we hired an independent fact-checker to investigate all of his prior work, which comprised 37 single-byline articles published between 2015 and 2016, seven shared byline stories from the same period, and 20 opinion pieces written from 2009 to 2015.
In an investigation that included approximately 50 interviews, our fact-checker found articles that contained likely or confirmed fabrication, including stories about two events that organizers said he didn’t attend. Dozens of sources could not be found – either they had no online presence or they were anonymous and could not be substantiated – and several people quoted in Mayton’s articles either denied speaking with him or giving the quotes attributed to them. …..
….. In light of the extent of the fabrication and the uncertainty surrounding many of the articles, we are removing 12 of the news stories, and one opinion piece from the Guardian website. In the articles that remain, quotes and information that could not be verified have been removed, and we have published footnotes on each article page to outline this. There were other stories which proved accurate, with no corrections needed, and have been left as is.
I use The Guardian as one of my key benchmarks for liberal-left opinions. I don’t expect objectivity from them and I hardly ever agree with their viewpoint but I do rely on their veracity.
And so I am very glad to see them take this action to protect, at least, their reputation for accuracy in the facts they do report.
h/t – Retraction Watch
Indian Americans now totally dominate the US Spelling Bee competition. It was the third straight year of joint winners at the 2016 Scripps National Spelling Bee. Nihar Janga, 11, of Austin, Texas, and Jairam Hathwar, 13, of Corning, New York, were declared co-champions at the National Spelling Bee on Thursday.
May 26, 2016; National Harbor, MD, USA; Jairam Hathwar, 13, of Painted Post, N.Y. (L), and Nihar Janga, 11, of Austin, Texas (R), celebrate as co-champions during the 2016 Scripps National Spelling Bee at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center. Image : Reuters
Seventeen out of the last twenty one winners (from 1999 to 2016), including all champions for the most recent nine years (from 2008-2016, including 2014, 2015, and 2016’s pairs of co-champions, for a total of twelve champions during this interval), have been Indian Americans, reflecting the recent dominance of students of this community in this competition. Indian Americans make up less than one percent of the U.S. population. In 2016, Nihar Janga from Austin, Texas, became the youngest ever champion when he won the title at the age of 11.
The 2016 Scripps National Spelling Bee featured co-champions for the sixth time in the competition’s history, the previous occurrences having been in 1950, 1957, 1962, 2014, and 2015. (Wikipedia)
It must be genetic. But for some reason the spelling gene does not express itself in India. Obviously some epigenetic factor is in play.
My hypothesis is that all Indians have the spelling gene but it is only expressed when triggered by a geographical factor to be found only in the US.
Related:
Why are Indian-Americans sweeping the US spelling bee?
The UK will most likely vote to remain in the EU, much to the EU’s relief. The fear of being an outsider in Europe will likely be stronger than the fear of surrendering sovereignty and law-making powers to Brussels. This referendum will not be the catalyst for change that the flawed EU concept desperately needs. Instead of using the referendum as a weapon, Cameron has not had the courage to confront the ideologues and has missed his opportunity to be the Great Reformer. He has used the referendum weapon more for domestic purposes than for pressuring the EU.
But the cracks in the flawed Franco-German vision of the Holy European Empire will remain. In fact, the cracks will only get wider. While the centre (Brussels) tries to expand by bringing in new countries, the countries at the eastern border will take their own line. The strains on the Euro will grow greater as Brussels expansionism brings in countries with weaker economies. The Euro zone, far from being a homogeneous region of uniform economic strength, will be in constant crises and bailouts. The conflict between the free movement of wealth creators (labour) and the free movement of wealth consumers (welfare tourists) will remain as long as the huge variation in economic conditions across Europe remain.
There will be a tug-of war between the expansionists and the likes of Poland and Hungary and Austria when it comes to accepting Muslim countries (Bosnia and Turkey primarily). Kosovo is also such a country but is not yet fully recognised as a country.
Cameron has missed his chance to roll back some of the excesses in Europe. The European Parliament has become the most useless and least democratic parliament in the world. And the European Commission, rather than being a disseminator of best practices, has become a body where the lowest common standard applies.
Of course, the UK needs to stay in the EU – for both the good of the UK and of the EU. But the EU needs to be drastically thinned down and vigorously cleaned up. Common sense has to return and replace the orthodoxy of the Holy European Empire.
EU colonial expansion
The k2p blog 