HALLOWEEN hits a new high tonight. Still, fewer people are planning on celebrating Halloween in 2007, according to the National Retail Federation survey. Around 59 percent will celebrate Halloween this year, compared to the nearly 64 percent that celebrated last year. Rist said that the drop-off occurs due to tightening economic conditions. However, those celebrating […]
US News magazine reported their listing of the best healthplans in the US based upon multiple criterion, which readers can peruse on their site. I was surprised that the health plans I was familiar with were rated the best. The Honor Roll recognizes the very best of the hundreds of commercial, Medicare, and Medicaid managed-care […]
India, China, Russia, and Turkey have been warned off dealing with Iran, especially concerning oil deals and infrastucture. But Iraq is making deals right and left. I have not updated the Turkey/Kurdistan situation from last week because it has a fast changing life of its own. Iraq and Iran signed an agreement to build pipelines […]
Cactus had a post that advocated freer use of marijuana. Here is another site that agrees. Most people conclude that marijuana carries no special analgesic relief that cannot be addressed by other pharmaceuticals. The FDA did studies decades ago that support that conclusion, but some scientists assert that the studies had flaws which rendered them […]
Executive Order 12866 of 1993 has been amended and shaped to include RPO (Regulatory Policy Officers) positions that in general have strengthened oversight since January, 2007. The issues could be summarized with the following:
LA Times carries an article about the beloved Twinkie. The Twinkie plant that used to smell wonderful as traffic passed, but has been replaced by Nordstrom and Nieman Marcus and condos on top floors, forced to move to Maine, and now only assembled in the US. Ouch! Although eight of the ingredients in the beloved […]
The drought monitor is a map over time of drought conditions in the US. The towns of Braintree, Hull, and others have declared water emergencies for use of water in the home (not the silly emergencies around lawn watering), declaring that they have only a three month supply in their resevoirs. Notice on the map […]
Learning myths, and evolution were mentioned in earlier posts. I thought I would post some information on the variety of approaches to these subjects about people andpersonality traits. The study of personality includes multiple approaches to the question of who we are and how and why we are similar and different to other indivduals. Some […]
This is just a little visual fun. Think about that saying “a billion here, a billion there, soon you’re talking about real money”. Personally, I think visuals like this need to be circulated more frequently so that people have a better understanding when the government or business speaks dollar amounts. It might help them pause […]
Earlier this week Econlog and Marginal Revolution had a good discussion about an article byTerry J. Fitzgerald in the Minneapolis Fed Review. The article goes into a great deal of detail about the weak performance of average hourly earnings in recent years. One point in the discussion was the new experimental measure of average hourly […]