Saturday, March 16, 2019

Experts Always Exaggerate The Economy's Growth

We need a new bunch of experts:
President Trump likes to brag about the supposedly booming economy. So do other Republican politicians. Some journalists have gotten into the habit too, exaggerating the strength of the economic expansion, because it makes for a good story.

Here’s the truth: There is no boom. The economy has been mired in an extended funk since the financial crisis ended in 2010. G.D.P. growth still has not reached 3 percent in any year, and 3 percent isn’t a very high bar.

Last week, while attending an economics conference in Washington, I discovered one particularly clear sign of the economy’s struggles — namely, that it keeps performing worse than the experts have predicted.

Compendium of Posts Regarding Albuquerque Murals

Albuquerque Murals Project

Post 1 (October 15, 2013; 35 photos)

Post 1.5 (March 15, 2013; 3 photos)

Post 2 (February 19, 2015; 31 photos)

Post 3 (February 14, 2018; 11 photos)

Post 4 (February 25, 2019; 13 photos)

Post 5 (March 13, 2020; 25 photos)

Compendium of Posts Regarding Interesting Albuquerque Buildings

Post 1 (January 04, 2012; 16 photos)

Post 2 (March 15, 2013; 6 photos)

Post 3 (October 14, 2013; 2 photos)

Post 4 (August 05, 2015; 5 photos)

Post 5 (June 29, 2016; 10 photos)

Post 6 (August 25, 2016; 6 photos)

Post 7 (February 21, 2017; 8 photos)

Post 8 (February 28, 2019; 22 photos)

Post 9 (March 13, 2020; 8 photos)

Compendium of Posts Regarding Albuquerque Signs


Post 1 (May 25, 2011; 8 photos)

Post 2 (January 04, 2012; 6 photos)

Post 3 (October 20, 2012; 14 photos)

Post 4 (March 15, 2013; 7 photos)

Post 5 (October 07, 2013; 14 photos)

Post 6 (July 30, 2014; 12 photos)

Post 7 (August 21, 2014; 23 photos)

Post 8 (February 19, 2015; 4 photos)

Post 9 (August 05, 2015; 23 photos)

Post 10 (June 29, 2016; 9 photos)

Post 11 (August 25, 2016; 12 photos)

Post 12 (February 21, 2017; 5 photos)

Post 13 (February 14, 2018; 8 photos)

Post 14 (February 25, 2019; 53 photos)

Post 15 (March 13, 2020; 29 photos)

Continuing Blog Upgrade

I've been associating pictures with locations for five Albuquerque-area movies:

The Space Between Us;
First Snow;
After The Fall;
Elvis Has Left The Building; and,
Hamlet 2.

(Posts accessible through sidebar - Atlas of ABQ Filming Locations.)

It's been more laborious than expected. nevertheless, there is a tendency for film projects to use the same suite of filming locations, and it's interesting to see what they like.

More films upcoming, plus introductory posts on Albuquerque Buildings, Murals, and Signs. Plus, a new page on the recent "Greenbrier" project in Albuquerque.

Bringing Mammoths Back from Extinction?

John also passes this along:

Bone marrow and muscle tissue were extracted from the remains of a mammoth named Yuka that had been frozen in Siberian permafrost for 28,000 years in the study, published online in the journal Scientific Reports. Genomic DNA was compared against that of elephants, and the researchers confirmed that Yuka's DNA overlapped with the DNA and proteins specific to mammoths.

The team injected cell nuclei from the muscle tissue into mouse egg cells and observed the forming of structures that appear just before cell division starts. The researchers also found possible signs of repair to damaged mammoth DNA.

This marks a "significant step toward bringing mammoths back from the dead," said researcher Kei Miyamoto, one of the study's authors.

Winds Topple A Freight Train Off A Trestle Near Logan, NM

John passes this on:

Confronting Terror Personally

I reviewed my pictures of Christchurch from ten years ago to see if I accidentally captured images of these mosques, but no dice. I do have pictures of the Botanic Gardens, however - near one of the sites.

Sometimes you've just got to take action:
Aziz said he ran outside screaming, hoping to stop the gunman from entering the mosque. He added that the suspect ran back to his car to supposedly get another gun and Aziz used the opportunity to throw the credit card machine at him.

The gunman fired back but Aziz was able to dodge him by weaving through parked cars, which prevented the gunman from having a clear aim. At that moment, Aziz spotted a gun the suspect had forgotten on the floor, picked it up, aimed at the attacker and pulled the trigger, but nothing came out.

Aziz said the man ran back to his car to possibly pick up another firearm.

“He gets into his car and I just got the gun and threw it on his window like an arrow and blasted his window,” he said.

The gunman then got into his car and drove away yelling at Aziz that he would kill them all. The Christchurch resident said he chased the attacker down the street to a red light before he made a U-turn and drove away.

Police caught the man a few minutes later.

Friday, March 15, 2019

HAMLET 2 - Turn Off All Cell Phones

My excerpt from the 2008 Albuquerque-based movie "Hamlet 2." I've occasionally been in the position of announcing "no cell phones" to an assembled audience. Plus, I'm an alumnus of West Mesa High School!

Thursday, March 14, 2019

College Admissions Scandal Started in Sacramento

Cool! We're in the national spotlight:
The nonprofit foundation was supposed to be dedicated to helping “underprivileged students” secure an education, according to its Internal Revenue Service filings.

In reality, prosecutors said Key Worldwide was a conduit for funneling bribes to college sports coaches and to administrators of the SAT and ACT college-entrance exams.

The SAT and ACT officials allowed a phony test taker — a Floridian named Mark Riddell — to take the exams on behalf of Singer’s clients’ children at exam sites in West Hollywood and Houston, according to prosecutors.

Court records say Huffman, best known for her role on the TV show “Desperate Housewives,” spent $15,000 in phony donations to Key Worldwide in February 2018 to have a front take the SAT exam for her daughter.

Loughlin and her husband Giannulli spent a combined $500,000 to get their daughters designated as recruits to the crew team at USC — “despite the fact that they did not participate in crew,” according to court records.

Sunday, March 10, 2019

Cumulo-brella

Agitated Bird Disses The Pelican Mobile

On Saturday afternoon, the weather was warm enough that I left the back door into the laundry room open. An agitated bird entered the laundry room. The bird had a crest - it looked like a Phoebe. The pelican mobile.hanging in the laundry room was spinning around. It looked as if the agitated bird took exception to the mobile.

Medieval Diseases, Here

Charming:
Infectious diseases—some that ravaged populations in the Middle Ages—are resurging in California and around the country, and are hitting homeless populations especially hard.

Los Angeles recently experienced an outbreak of typhus—a disease spread by infected fleas on rats and other animals—in downtown streets. Officials briefly closed part of City Hall after reporting that rodents had invaded the building.

People in Washington State have been infected with the diarrheal disease shigella, spread through feces, as well as Bartonella quintana, or trench fever, which spreads through body lice.

Hepatitis A, also spread primarily through feces, infected more than 1,000 people in Southern California in the past two years. The disease also has erupted in New Mexico, Ohio, and Kentucky, primarily among people who are homeless or use drugs.
More Stories

Public-health officials and politicians are using terms like disaster and public-health crisis to describe the outbreaks, and they are warning that these diseases can easily jump beyond the homeless population.