Monday, January 27, 2014

Is Smoking A Scapegoat?

he headline this morning: "Ex-Marlboro Man dies from smoking-related disease..." In the article you read, "Lawson died Jan. 10 at his home in San Luis Obispo of respiratory failure due to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, his wife, Susan Lawson said Sunday." LOS ANGELES (AP) — Eric Lawson, who portrayed the rugged Marlboro man in cigarette ads during the late 1970s, has died. He was 72.  Ex-Marlboroman dies from smoking-related disease.

Average life expectancy for a man in the US born today is 76, for a male born in 1941 it was 63.1 years, so in effect Lawson exceeded his life expectancy by almost 10 years and they are blaming his early demise on smoking:  Life expectancy in the USA, 1900-98

Now here is the thing, they do not know that his COPD was of a result of his being a smoker, for people who have never smoked suffer from it as well, they assume that it was. If it is COPD is a result from smoking then why is there a gender difference? In 2009, more than 70,000 females died compared to almost 64,000 males. Women are about twice as likely to be diagnosed with chronic bronchitis as men. In 2011, 3.3 million men (29.6 per 1,000 populations) had a diagnosis of chronic bronchitis compared to 6.8 million women (56.7 per 1,000 populations).  ChronicObstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) Fact Sheet.

Granted that the majority of people who subcumbul to COPD were/are smokers, and this is a strong correlation. When they talk about risk factors they are talking about things in common with those who historically have suffered with COPD. Other risk factors of COPD include exposure to air pollution, secondhand smoke and occupational dusts and chemicals, heredity, a history of childhood respiratory infections and socioeconomic status. Ibid

From these I will just select two to point to the weakness of their argument. First, secondhand smoke, The World Health Organization's first study on SHS is a textbook example of the right way to conduct an epidemiological study. Unfortunately for them, it yielded unexpected results. They responded by doing a second one, a meta-analysis that allowed them to extract the results they wanted. The participants consisted of 650 patients with lung cancer and 1542 control subjects. Patients with smoking related diseases were excluded from the control group. None of the subjects in either group had smoked more than 400 cigarettes in their lifetime. On March 8, 1998, the British newspaper The Telegraph reported "The world's leading health organization has withheld from publication a study which shows that not only might there be no link between passive smoking and lung cancer but that it could have even a protective effect."  The WHO Study


Now I would like to turn to of the other risk (correlation) factor they associate with COPD, and that is air pollution.
The first television came into my neighborhood in 1952; I was 9 at the time. In the evening after our chores were done the kids in the nearby houses would all converge in Mr. Harington’s front room, sit on the floor, and watch TV. I remember many of the shows that were presented to us free except for the cost of watching the commercials. There were the Howdy Doddy Show, Ozzie Nelson, Sugerfoot, The Rifleman, The Grand Old Opry, and many more, but we kids had to watch, if we were to watch at all, what the adults decided to watch

We were at the beginning of the Cold War, with a hot war going on in Korea. The government was conducting above ground Atomic Bomb tests out west, and there was a push to make them do the test underground. I remember watching a Talking Head show (they did not call them that then) about the cost of doing above ground testing in human disease due to the radioactive fallout. I remember distinctly someone arguing that the incident of death by lung cancer would increase by a certain percentage do to people breathing in the fallout down wind. Well, guess what, most of the US was downwind from where the test was being done.

In fact, according to the cancer institute, knowing would still help, because most of the 7,000 to 70,000 extra cancers that the radiation may produce have not yet been diagnosed.  Cancer Studyon 50s Bomb Test Is Released

"Earlier this month, the first results of the RPHP health study were released in an article in the International Journal of Health Services. Baby teeth of St. Louis baby boomers who died of cancer by age 50 had more than double -- 122 percent more -- the Sr-90 concentration than did Boomers who are alive and healthy. This research, known as a case-control study, is the first evidence that bomb tests harmed Americans using actual levels of fallout in human bodies. It is not yet possible to estimate the number of cancer victims from fallout, but it appears that the CDC estimate of 15,000 deaths is too low." The hugemushroom clouds from atom bomb tests of the 1950s and 1960s are anunforgettable part of the American saga.

Here is the point I am making, while the government’s CDC slants their report to make it seem like smoking is all by itself responsible for that vast majority of incidents of COPD while in fact it could just as well be the combination of breathing in the fallout on top of smoking that is causing the increase in lung cancer. In 1940 11% or a rate of 120.1 per 100,000 of all deaths were attributed to cancer, in 1950 it was only 14%, but by 1975 this has risen to 23% or a rate or 268.2 per 100,000 deaths. Almost everyone smoked from 1930-40 until the big push to make it unacceptable by blaming all lung cancer on it.  LeadingCauses of Death, 1900-1998

In my opinion the government does not want to accept the responsibility for poisoning the air with fallout and has found a convenient scapegoat.


Sunday, January 26, 2014

Mind Numb Robots

…“Another way of putting it, I guess, is that the issue has been the inability of my message to penetrate the Republican base so that they feel persuaded that I’m not the caricature that you see on Fox News or Rush Limbaugh, but I’m somebody who is interested in solving problems and is pretty practical, and that, actually, a lot of the things that we’ve put in place worked better than people might think”…   – President Barack Obama (New Yorker Interview)

So, there it is, Obama believes that everyone who does not accept that his is the correct vision for America are mind numb robots of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, or their likes.  He does not believe, according to theses words, that the people who disagree with him can think for themselves and come to the conclusion that his agenda should be opposed. 

Saturday, January 25, 2014

Playing With The Multiplication Table

Copyright unknown

This is going around on Facebook now, and it got me to thinking about when I had time on my hands how I used to play with it.

You can do the whole table like that in a 100×100 grid; I used to do it for fun. You will find many other patterns if you do. In this example, if you will note that there is a difference of 1 between the 2nd column and the 3rd one from left to right. If you diagonal up (from the 10 to the 8) the difference is 2. This stays 2 as you go up the column (9 to the 7, etc.). Then increase the jump from 10 to 7 and the difference is 3, 9 to 6, etc.

They are more fun patterns you can find in numbers:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0
4 5 6 7 8 9 0
5 6 7 8 9 0
6 7 8 9 0
7 6 5 4 3 2 1
8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Note how the number line up differently in the top half than they do in the bottom half. All the 2s, 3s, 4s, etc., line up diagonally from left to rig going up. Then from the 7 down point they start angling from left to right again, but going downwards instead of upwards (did you notice that I reversed the order of the count at 7 to a down count?). To can fill a 100×100 grid, I will settle with a 10×10 matrix for this post, do the multiplication table within it and you will find many more patterns.

What it looks like without the inversion of the count until reaching 0:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0
4 5 6 7 8 9 0
5 6 7 8 9 0
6 7 8 9 0
7 8 9 0
8 9 0
9 0
0 0
1 0
2 1 0
3 2 1 0
4 3 2 1 0
5 4 3 2 1 0
6 5 4 3 2 1 0
7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0
8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0
0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

Below is a 10×10 grid of counting from 1 to 10 up and down the matrix:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2
4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3
5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4
6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5
7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6
8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0

Note how the 0s cut the table in half, and how all the other numbers line up diagonally. If you start with the 1 in the upper left corner and go diagonally down to the 0 on the lower right you will see the increment is by 2s. If you add number at equal distances from the 0 at the upper right in a column to its corresponding row the sum will be 10.
Below is the count by 1s, 2s, 3s, etc., which is the multiplication table. Pick any number and you will see that its column matches its row.

1  2    3      4   5    6    7     8   9  10
2 4    6      8  10 12  14   16 18  20
3 6    9      12 15 18 21   24 27  30
4 8   12    16 20 24 28  32 36  40
5 10 15    20 25 30 35 40 45   50
6 12 18    24 30 36 42 48 54   60
7 14  21   28 35 42 49  56  63  70
8 16  24  32 40 48 52  64  72  80
9  18 27  36 45 54 63  72  81   90
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

If you can ignore the misalignment you will note that as you go down a column, regardless of its number, that it will correspond to the same increment as you go across a row with the same number. You will see that the down count on the left column is mirrored on the right column, but starting one row down and with 2 instead of 1. If you look at the 9’s column you will see that the right side of the numbers are a down count from 9 to 1. The right side of the 8’s column from the 5’s row is an up count by 2s to the top, and a down count by 2s to the bottom. The 5’s row and column make a cross of 5’s from left to right and top to bottom.

If you start with the 10 at the lower left and work up diagonally to the 0 on the upper right, you find this pattern: (1)0, 18,24, 28, 30, 30, 28, 24, 18, 0. If you fold between the 30s the numbers all lay on top of each other. There are many more patterns in the table, look at it and tell me what you can find.

The point of this is to point out the symmetry found in math, and while math can be used in modeling nature, there is no such symmetry in nature above the atomic and molecular level.



Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Zeno's Paradoxe

Could not get the video to load, so click on this link to see it:

One minus one plus one minus one - Numberphile
It seems to me that there is a bit of bait e and switch going on here.  When you say, 1+2+3+4+5… it implies to me that the series under consideration is the set of all positive integers from 1 on into ∞, and does not include any negative numbers nor any fractions.  When the gentlemen in the video started breaking up the set into subsets via the brackets, and adding in negative numbers he changes the car actor on the set initially under consideration into an entirely different set of integers.

Then when he started mixing the 3 different sets of (I did study set theory, back in the day) it reminded me of when doing differential equations and had to solve three equations with three unknowns, by substitution parts of one equation into another as you worked to the solution.  But here you have sets not equations, and I am not convinced that 1+2+3+4+5… = - 1/12.

I recall an algebraic proof going around back then that proved 1=2, however, if you substituted numbers for the letters as the proof was worked out you would see that at one time a number had to be divided by zero to reach the results of 1=2.  In the part where he talks of Thomson’s Lamp I was reminded of one of Zeno's paradoxes, “That which is in locomotion must arrive at the half-way stage before it arrives at the goal.” as recounted by Aristotle, Physics VI:9, 239b10.  Suppose you want to catch a stationary bus. Before you can get there, you must get halfway there. Before you can get halfway there, you must get a quarter of the way there. Before traveling a quarter, you must travel one-eighth; before an eighth, one-sixteenth; and so on.

When I Got my BS in Electronics I took a job right out of school with General Electric in New Berlins, WI, working on integrating all the different components from the various vendors into a working Cat Sacnner (as they were called then).  I also soon there after enrolled into Marquitee Universite’s Graduate program in Electrical Engineering.  That turned out to be a big mistake as GE started working me 60-70 hours a week to meet the demand for their whole body scanner.

I bring this up to tell you about a homework assignment I got in one of my math classes, prove that between 1 and 2 there is an infinite number of positive numbers.  Now intuitively I knew that this was true, but I never, back then, could figure out how to express it.  I had to drop out of that program to meet my obligations to GE and my growing family.  Bty there were 10 students in that class and if just one of us understood what the professor was lecturing on he would not go over it.

However, last night after reading this post I went to bed and could not sleep for thinking of that math problem from so long ago, and this is what I came up with:

lim┬(1→2)(1+1/1)^∞ 〗=2,(1+1/2)=1.5,(1+1/4)=1.25.(1+1/8)=1.1125,…



Do you think I solved it?



Friday, January 17, 2014

This man was arrested for clicking ‘like’ on a Facebook status:

Now there is more to this story than I am going to tell you, the part I am telling points to the perils of clicking a "LIKE" on Facebook, "The host of a Memphis online radio show was arrested Tuesday after he “liked” the Facebook status of a woman who filed a restraining order against him. [snip] Murphy, who has apparently filed a restraining order against Matthews since the end of their relationship, showed police multiple screenshots of Matthews’ Facebook Like, after which he was arrested and charged with violating a court order, according to Radio Ink. Matthews has since been released on $1,000 bail."

I reckon that this ranks right up there with bragging about doing doing something illegal online, or posting incriminating pictures and videos. Remember those walls do have eyes, and the cops are watching.


This man was arrested for clicking ‘like’ on a Facebook status:


Thursday, January 16, 2014

Common-Sense Solutions

Arne Sorenson, President and CEO at Marriott International, said “Last year, the Senate passed a forward-looking immigration bill that offers many common-sense solutions to the problems that plague our current system and would be a boon to the economy. It seems that politics have kept and will keep the House from passing that particular measure.” [snip] “If the U.S. had the same share of global travel it had in 2000, the U.S. would be welcoming roughly 35 million visitors every year. We estimate that would create one million more jobs in the U.S. As unemployment inches downward, we also need a functioning immigration system that helps us staff positions that might otherwise go unfilled, especially in our seasonal resorts. Our sector is already one of the bright spots in the economy – we’ve seen 14 consecutive quarters of job growth. Just imagine how much brighter it would be with these changes.”  AT's CEO says more guest workers needed:



I have some nitpicking to do with Mr. Sorenson's opinion:

"common-sense solutions", the use of "common sense" in an argument like this is the say as saying that it is a "no brainer", which is to say that if you oppose the idea being put forth you have no common sense, whatever that may be, or that you do not have a brain.  In effect what they are saying is that if you disagree, you are an idiot.

"... we’ve seen 14 consecutive quarters of job growth."  These 14 quarters of job growth he is touting is a growth rate less than the number of workers entering into the workforce.  To brag about it, he has to ignore all the people who have dropped out of the workforce during these same quarters. Another 1.2 million people dropped out the USworkforce in January:


"...As unemployment inches downward, we also need a functioning immigration system."  Again he neglects the fact that we have millions upon millions of Americans who have dropped out of the workforce who are more that capable of filling the "million more jobs" he says that his industry could create.

"...we also need a functioning immigration system..."  Our immigration system would work just fine if the laws on the books were inforced


"... a functioning immigration system that helps us staff positions that might otherwise go unfilled,"  Here in lies the crust of his desires, he want people who will work for the wages he wishes to pay, which means immigrants, for he know that to hire American's he would have to pay the "Living Wage" that Progressive scream so loud for from Walmart.



Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Identity thieves gear up to steal your tax refund

I was just reading (I use that term a lot don't I) that "Identity thieves gear up to steal your tax refund".  Now I have never understood why so many people set their deductions so low that the government owns them a lot of money at the end of the year.  When you do this what you are doing is lending, interest free, that money to the government.  They will not do that for you, if you are lagging in your payment to them they charge you interest.

Imo it is much better to set your deductions such that you owe them a little at the end of the year, they way they have lent you the money interest free.  There are two other advantages to this.  First identity thieves cannot steal what is not there to steal.  And secondly ObamaCare's IRS cannot collect any fine they may impose upon on you for not buying their so called affordable care.

Sunday, January 12, 2014

Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind

The teenager who was accused of raping a younger classmate and dumping her outside of her house in Maryville, Mo. in 2012 will not face sexual assault charges, a prosecutor recently announced. He will serve two years of probation, do 100 hours of community service, and pay restitution of $1,800 to the victim’s family. Barnett has also been ordered to apologize to his victim.

He was 17 and she was 14 at the time of the incident. “The girls admitted drinking alcohol in Daisy's home before sneaking out of the house and leaving with the boys, some of whom were friends with her older brother. Daisy claimed that when she got to the party, she was given a clear liquid that she drank before being taken into a bedroom and raped while a second boy recorded the act on his cellphone.”  ORIGINAL STORY

So the girls get drunk, go over to a party and get fucked and called it rape.  They are blamless victems right?  Hell no.  Have you heard the shocking news of state and local regulations that make it illegal to warm up your frozen car is now hitting home in Texas, Maryland, Ohio, West Virginia, Colorado, Wisconsin, South Carolina – even some cities in Minnesota. The reason for these laws is usually linked with the increased of vehicles being stolen, and some of them carry hefty fines for enticing car thieves to commit their crimes. The laws are a little fuzzy on the newer technology of “auto-start” vehicles specifically designed for the comfort of their drivers and passengers.  WARMING UP YOUR CAR ILLEGAL!

If the owner of a car carries some responsibility for tempting thieves of opportunity (you leaving the keys in the car gave them the opportunity) then those girls proffered themselves and should bare a large part of the responsibility for the results of their actions.  Girls should not get drunk and go over to hang out with boys and not expect to get fucked.  And, no boys should not fuck drunk girls, but they do.  I remember back when a lot of women would go bar hopping to get drunk so that they could do what they would not do sober, and I suspect that a lot of women are still doing this today. You take the world as it is, not as you would have it.

I am not excusing bad behavior, but in my opinion the girls’ own choices and actions put them in that bed that they made and had to sleep in.  Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind. 



Friday, January 10, 2014

Christie Blocking Lanes


You know up until yesterday it seemed to me that the Progressives were doing their best to coronate Christ Christie the Repubs' next presidential nominee just like they did everything they could to help McCain to get it. And now over some lanes being blocked on a bridge they are spending all their air time and print talking about how he has MOST LIKELY blew his chances at winning the White House.

I put the 'most likely' in caps above because I think it is just a dog and pony show and they still really want him for the nominee, but they need a distraction right now to be able to stop talking about former Defense Secretary Robert Gates book which paints Hillery, Biden, et al. in a bad light. Mark my word, Christie will be pushed back to front runner by the MSM next month.

Why do you think they want Christie to be the nominee? I think it is the same reason they wanted McCain, just as there were a lot of conservatives and Veterans who would not vote for McCain, they want Christie because they believe that there are a lot of Tea Party voters who will not vote for him. And they may be right, for while I held my nose and voted for McCain I will not vote for Christie, and I am not a Tea Partier.

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

I Hate Income Inequality

Now that he is back from his $4 million Hawaii vacation he is launching into his, "I Hate Income Inequality" mode and try to reignite class warfare in the US to help elect more Progressives to office. You will not hear him speak of the extremely poor job market that his policies have given birth to, nor of how ObamaCare is also strangling small businesses, but you will hear a lot of talk about extending the time in which you can collect unemployment, and how the minimum wage should be raised.

Yesterday I heard him say, to paraphrase, "I never met a person who would rather take unemployment over the pride of earning it with a job..." Well, I have come across more than a few who were in employment that had job offers, but, wisely from their standpoint, would not take them for they would lose money if they did. I cannot speak to everyone on long term employment, but I know that there are jobs that are looking for workers that would rather take unemployment of welfare then take them.

I have been the recipient of unemployment insurance two times in my life, the first time when I was discharged from the Marines, the second when a company I was working for downsized and laid me, along with a lot others, off. MY benefit expert that time before I was able to find a new job, and there was no talk of an extension. Then I was fired for having been convicted of a DWI and could not draw unemployment as the state considered that being fired for cause (long story), and I had to make do as best I could until I found my next job.

I tell you all of this to show that I am not without empathy for those who are out of work, but nevertheless I do not think that the taxpayers owe them an extension. There are other sources of help than the government, i.e., the taxpayer, such as families, friends, churches, etc., oh but I forgot, the government has been hard at work for the last century to take these roles away from the people and make you dependent upon government whenever you need help.

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Understanding how the NSA activities impacts YOU

Understanding how the NSA activities impacts YOU. “I’m not anti-government, I’m just pro Freedom”. Whether or not you think Snowden was a traitor or a hero; the fact remains that “the bell cannot be unrung”.

I highly recommend that any and everyone who has an interest in freedom click on this link and bookmark it. As you scroll down reading the text a video will play, when it stopes read the text below that and as you progress down the page a lot more videos will play explaining the issue and opinions held, and the ramifications for us all.

The Guardian has taken the lead in compiling this an impressive interactive piece and published it online. It includes easy to understand graphics, and interviews conducted with people in and around the industry, explaining the issues. It is definitely worth sharing with everyone you know who cares about freedom.



Sunday, January 5, 2014

10,000 Kauri trees to plant.

Now talking about freezing rain we are getting in these here parts today, of course you know about the co2 alarmist who got themselves stuck in the melted ice in the anartic? In any case they abandon their ship and crew and were helicoptered to another icebreaker, but lo and behold the ice that has all melted has trapped that ship, the Snow Dragon, too. Now I hear that a US Coastguard's Polar Star icebreaker is sailing that way to help free the Snow Dragon.

What you have not probable heard about is that the one who organized this stunt had promised to plant about 800 Kauri trees in Northland to cover its carbon footprint of all the diesel burnt to sail their ship down into the coldest part of the world to prove that the ice was all melting and we were never to have any more show in there here parts (that would not break my heart) if we did not stop putting so much co2 into the air. 

Expedition leader Chris Turney said more trees would be needed than earlier estimated but he was yet to work out how many. I wonder where they are going to get the 10,000 Kauri trees to plant.

Saturday, January 4, 2014

Wealth Transference

This is why nobody believes Obama when he touts our recovering economy: According to a Pew Research Center study, in the first two years of this recovery the mean net worth of households in the upper 7% of the wealth distribution rose by an estimated 28%, while the mean net worth of households in the lower 93% dropped by 4%. 

The QEs have helped the rich, the one who can invest in the stock market, and the government, but left high and dry (or should I say low and stuck) the ones who have to work for a living, retired, or on welfare (which includes the unemployment dole) and are more worried about their next tank of gas than which stock is a good deal.  For them they have had to borrow, sell, or hock to get along which explains the drop in their net worth.

Thursday, January 2, 2014

World's climate warming faster than feared, scientists say

Headline this morning: World's climate warming faster than feared, scientists say

"Scientists say the world’s climate is warming faster than feared because previous predictions were too “optimistic” and overestimated the cooling impact of clouds"  link

Well which are you goina believe their updated models or your lying eyes and shivering bodies?

How, pray tell, can it be warming faster than they feared when we have had no warming at all for going on 19 years?


"As the planet marked its fourth hottest year on record, a study published in the journal Nature found increasing levels of carbon dioxide will lead to thinner ocean clouds and reduce their cooling impact, causing temperature rises of at least 5.6F (3C) over the course of the century."  link

Meanwhile unnoticed in its second draft of the Fifth Assessment Report the IPCC has slashed its global-warming predictions, thus implicitly rejecting the models on which it once so heavily and imprudently relied.  It had broadly agreed with the models that the world will warm by 0.4 to 1.0 Cº from 2016-2035 against 1986-2005. But in the final draft without a word of explaination it quietly cuts the 30-year projection to 0.3-0.7 Cº, saying the warming is more likely to be at the lower end of the range, equivalent to about 0.4 Cº over 30 years. If that rate continued till 2100, global warming this century could be as little as 1.3 Cº according to the IPCC’s report.

Just how do you reckon that account for the fact that in spite of the co2 level going up to 400 parts per million (ppm) and no effect on cloud formation and distribution driving a higher temperature thus far?


They don’t what they say is, “This increases the amount of sunlight and heat entering the atmosphere and, as a result, increases the sensitivity of our climate to carbon dioxide or any other perturbation.  The result is that when water vapour processes are correctly represented, the sensitivity of the climate to a doubling of carbon dioxide – which will occur in the next 50 years – means we can expect a temperature increase of at least 4°C by 2100.”  Which means that they expect co2 to rise to 800 ppm within 50 years.  Well if it does it will not be from the trifling amount of co2 that man is released into the atmosphere as compared to all the natural releases.  Over the past 250 years, humans have added just one part of CO2 in 10,000 to the atmosphere. One volcanic cough can do this in a day.  link