neonvincent

Time to resume my series of saved comments.  Tomorrow, I'm going to post some saved links.

This is the first of two installments about saved comments from January 2016.  I was traveling during the first two weeks of the month, so I saved my comments on my laptop, then transferred them to my desktop.  Good thing I did; apparently the video card on that has failed.  On the one hand, it confirms my feelings of urgency about posting my saved comments here, as they were driven by anxieties of hardware failure.  On the other, I was hoping the laptop would remain functional longer so that I could post the comments I saved on it.  Sigh.

I'm going to keep my comment on "Link round-up for 3 January 2016" at Infidel 753 above the cut, as it has a wider appeal for my readers here on Dreamwidth than the comments behind the cut.  That's because it's about all three trilogies of the Star Wars saga.

From Nablopomo on BlogHer:

So what is the NaBloPoMo theme of the month?
POEM
In honour of National Poetry Month in April, we've made the theme POEM -- which can go in a multitude of directions. First and foremost, you can try your hand at writing some poetry. We'll be presenting a few fixed forms as well as prompts for free forms. Make a personal goal to write a haiku-a-day, write an entire post in rhymed couplets, or argue the merits of Pinterest... in sestina form.

We'll be writing about our reactions to poems -- which poems have come up at important moments in your life? Which poems do you return to again and again? Which poems have changed your mood, given you comfort, or made you want to be a poet yourself?

We'll spend the month looking at reflections of poetry in nature and social situations. And we'll be featuring YOUR poetry weekly. So get your poem on.

When I first read the theme and description, I considered not participating, as I'm not big on poetry. I especially had a hard time squaring the theme with a blog about sustainability, science, and politics, although "poetry in nature" might work. Then I realized that there were some forms of poetry that I liked, limericks and song verses. Most limericks wouldn't be fit for a family blog, but I can always find a good song for my posts. So, I'm participating again this month.

• "She Blinded Me with Science" by Thomas Dolby in Nablopomo for April: Poem
• "Heat Wave" by Martha and the Vandellas in March was a heat wave for Detroit and other cities
• "(Nothing but) Flowers" by The Talking Heads and performed by David Byrne and Thomas Dolby in Post 500: (Nothing but) Flowers at TED
• "Dirty Laundry" by Don Henley and performed by CNN anchor Robin Meade in Olbermann on Letterman with bonus Dirty Laundry
• "Let the Good Times Roll" by The Cars in Auto sales up and that's no April Fools
• "Ignoreland" by R.E.M. in Rachel Maddow: Michigan is now Ignoreland
• "Why" from the album "Mystery to Me" by Fleetwood Mac in The first year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News: Part 3 of several

So what is the NaBloPoMo theme of the month?

GIFT
But we're not just talking getting presents: we're looking at how we treat ourselves, what are our talents, and what do we like to give others. What is the best gift you ever got? The best gift you ever gave? How do you like to open gifts? Are you a peeker? And what about all of those non-tangible gifts that we can bestow on one another throughout the day?

A Chinese ratings firm yesterday made financial history and downgraded the US' credit rating from A+ to A. Meanwhile, hot money flowing into hedge funds and gold saw gold prices yesterday shoot to a historic high of US$1,670 per ounce.

Reading Noah Smith reading John Cochrane solidified a thought I’ve been grasping at for a while: the extraordinary lengths to which the Chicago School is going to avoid a straightforward interpretation of the mess we’re in.
...
[A]t Chicago and elsewhere in the freshwater universe they’re playing Calvinball (and what a good coinage that was from Mike Konczal). All kinds of novel and implausible effects — effects that weren’t in any of the models they were using before the crisis — are invoked to explain why we’re in a sustained slump; strange to say, all of these newly invented models just happen to imply the need for tax cuts and a shrunken welfare state.

But I don’t think it’s just political bias: part of what’s happening, I’m sure, is intellectual embarrassment. These people come from a movement that declared, with great arrogance, that Keynesian economics was dead – then failed to produce a workable alternative, and now finds itself in what is very recognizably a Keynesian world. Recognizably, that is, to everyone but them, because admitting that Keynesian-type thinking is useful now would just be too humiliating.

The physicist Max Planck had this to say about progress in his field, "Science advances one funeral at a time." If economics works the same way, then the freshwater economists have exploited this process to make economics retreat, not advance. It will take decades of work by the saltwater economics departments churning out Ph.D.s to undo the damage.

So, Dr. Krugman, how many grad students are you advising these days?

Gas piped from an Oakland County landfill is helping General Motors hold down costs as it begins building small cars at the GM assembly plant in Orion Township, saving the company more than $1.1 million annually.

Energy savings have helped General Motors reduce the cost of building small cars in the United States at the company’s assembly plant in Orion Township.

Eric Stevens, GM vice president of global manufacturing engineering, said when production of the fuel-efficient 2012 Chevrolet Sonic and Buick Verano at Orion begin this fall, 40 percent of the energy to power the General Motors Orion Assembly Plant where the cars are built will come from a burning landfill adjacent to the plant on Brown Road.