Caters news agency via Daily Mail
A new market for Apple?
June 6, 2016Midsommar approaches — light blogging forecast
June 5, 2016Time to take a few days off.
shades of green
summer pink
Italian cheese and obesity
June 5, 2016My attempts at losing weight are primarily undermined by my liking for cheese. Not that beer and rice and potatoes don’t contribute, but the connection with cheese is – for me – pronounced and immediate.
So I looked at some data on cheese consumption and obesity data for the US which is readily available. A similarity of shape between growth of obesity prevalence and cheese consumption is apparent. But the similarity is much more pronounced with the consumption of Italian rather than the total amount of cheese or just American cheese ……..
But avoiding Italian cheese as a sop to my cheese addiction is not going to help me…
Seine peaks at under 1982 level (and less than in 1955, 1945, 1924 and 1910)
June 4, 2016The politically correct – but imbecilic – view has been that the Paris flood levels are due to climate change.
The Seine peaked last night having reached a height of 6,1 m.
It reached 5.2 m in 2000, 6.13 m in 1982, 7.12 m in 1955, 6.85 m in 1945, 7.32 m in 1924 and 8.62 m in 1910. In 1658 it reached 8.96m.
Clearly reaching a level of over 6 m is not that unusual and happens regularly and with a frequency of roughly 3 – 4 times a century.
The Zouave statue at the Pont de Alma is often used to illustrate the river level. Note that the statue has been raised and in 1974 was 60 cm higher than in 1856.
But 6.1 m in 2016 is well above the “alert” level but it is almost 3 m less than has been seen before.
Paris Seine flood levels at the Zouave statue at Pont de Alma :image femmepaysage.wordpress.com
Even for a fanatic climate change believer, it seems particularly unintelligent to claim that global warming caused the 2016 Paris flooding.
Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. – RIP
June 4, 2016Cassius 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
Arrogant EU warning to Poland provides BREXIT with a proof
June 1, 2016That 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.
How come Facebook’s tracking never gets my preferences correctly?
June 1, 2016I 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.
Would Clinton or Trump be better for a global economic recovery?
May 31, 2016After 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.
Swedish church under attack from sanctimonious journalism
May 31, 2016Ekot (“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
The k2p blog 