Author: ATinNM

On a scale of earth shattering importance this ranks very low but to me it is a sad day.  

James Doohan, 85, died at 5:30 AM at his home in Redmond, Washingtn.  The cause of death was pneumonia and Alzheimer’s disease according to his agent and friend Steve Stevens.

Doohan was born in Vancouver, Canada in 1920.  He joined the Canadian Army during World War II when he was 19 and became an officer in artillery.  He was among the Canadian forces that landed on Juno Beach on D-Day.  Later that night he was machine-gunned, taking 6 rounds: one took off his middle finger, four in the leg and one directly into a silver cigarette case in a breast pocket.  (So much for smoking always being bad for your health!)

After the war, on a lark, he took an acting class in Toronto, found he had talent, and went on to win a scholarship with the New York Neighborhood Playhouse.  He went on to work as a character actor in films and television.  

The role that brought him to mass notice was as the Chief Engineer for the United Federation of Planets Starship Enterprise.  And notably for a line that was never, actually, used, “Beam me up, Scotty!”

In 1998 Mr. Doohan was asked if he ever got tired of hearing that line.  “I’m not tired of it at all,” he replied.  “Good Gracious, it’s been said to me for just about 31 years.  I’ts been said to me at 70 miles an hour across four lanes on the freeway.  I hear it from just about everybody.  It’s been fun.”

Here’s to you, Scotty

On July 16, 1945 at roughly 5:29 A.M., Mountain War Time, in a remote location in the northern part of the White Sands Missle Range near the small village of San Antonio New Mexico the first nuclear blast was ignited.

The blast created a depression at the center of which, approximately where the gantry stood, is a small obelisk with a plaque reading “Trinity Site, Where the World’s First Nuclear Device Was Exploded on July 16, 1945.”

Attaching the bomb to the 100 foot gantry.

Oddly enough the area in which “Gadget” – the name of the Trinity bomb – was exploded is known as Jornada del Muerto (Journey of Death.)
The mathematics of the blast said the effect could not be predicted.  Some thought the reaction would be self-limiting.  Some thought it would consume the earth in an uncontrolled chain reaction.  They didn’t know.  Some thought it wouldn’t work.  They didn’t know.

It worked.

Legend has it that J. Robert Oppenheimer, leader of the scientific team, quoted this verse from the Bhagavad-Gita when he observed the fireball:

If the radiance of a thousand suns
Were to burst at once into the sky,
That would be like the splendor of the Mighty One…
I am become Death,
The shatterer of Worlds.

In Alamagordo, 60 miles away, birds started falling from the sky, dead.  For several days no birds would be seen or heard in Alamagordo.  In the Capitan Mountains of New Mexico, 82 miles away, a woman preparing breakfast in a logging camp noted a light rising to the west and, again, the eerie silence.  No birds were singing.  No insects were humming.  Silence.  In Portales 220 miles away people awoke to a sun rising in the West.  

It happened 60 years ago, today.  Along the Jornada del Muerto.  

Barry Ritholtz over at The Big Picture has looked at the latest revisions to the GDP estimate for the first Quarter and asks:
 

… at what point do we cross the line from maintaining a healthy optimistic outlook to cynically manipulating data in boldfaced contradiction of reality?

A couple of definitions:

GDP: The total market value of all final goods and services produced in a country in a given year and the value of exports, minus the value of imports.  GDP includes only goods and services produced within the geographic boundaries of the country.

GDP Deflator: Current dollar GDP divided by constant dollar GDP. A ratio used to account for (i.e., eliminate) the effects of inflation.  

Economists apply the GDP deflator to the GDP to be able to compare the first quarter of 2004 to the first quarter of 1973.  It’s a statistical ‘trick’ but a valid one.  

Most of the time.

And that’s when the latest numbers get hinky.  

The latest number from the Commerce Department (I won’t link as I assume either you know where it is or you don’t care) revises the 1st Quarter (1Q) of 2005 from the original 3.1% to 3.8%.  An upward revision of this magnitude or approximately $64,400,000,000 is unusual – to say the least.  To put that figure in perspective it roughly equals the total average income from 69,621,621,620 jobs, roughly 1/2 of the total US workforce, at an estimated average US salary of $37,000/year.

It’s big.

This isn’t impossible.  One of the reasons the Commerce Department crunches these numbers is to be able to get an objective overall summation of what the economy is doing.  It may very well be the US economy is booming along & doing just ducky – Thank You very much.  And if this was happening this would be great.

But …

Mr. Ritholtz puts it like this:

Within GDP data, the revision of the Residential Housing is simply too hard to believe: This is data that’s widely available from the NAR amongst others. To get there, you need a significant DROP in home prices.

Buh-da-Buh-da-Buh-da.

Yup, you got it.  Or as Mr. Ritholtz writes:

Yesterday’s upwardly revised GDP data is believable only if you accept the premise that HOME PRICES WENT DOWN IN Q1 2005.  

I’m not going to recapitulate Mr. Ritholtz’s analysis, you can get that at the link, but it is easy to see this is what is called “bullshit” (sorry for the economics jargon.:-)  There is no evidence house prices fell in the 1Q but rather the opposite.  Jerome has writ many a diary expounding on this so I’m not going to go there, either.

The reason this gets interesting is the GDP number is used by financial journalists to write about things – such as the economy – they don’t understand.  While there are valid uses for the quarterly GDP numbers in the financial press they are used as a superficial means to give an superficial impression of what is happening in the economy and the numbers are rarely subject to analysis within the differing media.  

Additionally, the revision can be used by the GOP to attempt to shore-up President Bush’s plummenting approval ratings on his handling of the economy.

With that it becomes clear why the number was revised.

Good old Rep. Walter Jones of North Carolina.  The dude who wanted to change ‘French Fries’ to ‘Freedom Fries’ cuz all dem dang blasted cheese eating Surrender Monkies has joined a bipartisan group of House Representatives to call on President Bush to ” to begin plans for a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.”
And why does the good Rep. Walter Jones of North Carolina want President Bush to give a time table?

“After 1,700 deaths, over 12,000 wounded and $200 billion spent, we believe it is time to have this debate and this discussion on this resolution,” said Jones, a member of the House Armed Services Committee.”

Well pone my corn and hush my puppies.  

“Other sponsors are Republican Rep. Ron Paul, a former Libertarian presidential candidate from Texas; Democratic Rep. Neil Abercrombie of Hawaii, another Armed Services Committee member; and Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who sought the Democratic presidential nomination as an antiwar candidate last year.”

Golly gee, whizdang.  Good old pa’traotic Amurkin Rep. Walter Jones of North Carolina joining that librul (Stalin order takin’) pinko-commie Rep. Dennis Kucinich a’ tellin’ President Bush what to do.

Criminey.  Don’t that just beat all?

The full story is at CNN.

[From the diaries by susanhu.] The following are selections from an article from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer entitled: STARTLING STUDY ON TOXINS’ HARM WSU FINDINGS SHOW THAT DISORDERS CAN BE PASSED ON WITHOUT GENETIC MUTATIONS

I’m trying to get a handle on this but anyway you look at it this is stunning and exciting news.  If this is supported by further experimental evidence implications start with a revolution in evolutionary biology and go on from there.
Read the link and be prepared for a shock. Teaser quotes follow:
It’s just a study involving a few rats with fertility problems in Pullman, but the findings could lead to fundamental changes in how we look at environmental toxins, cancer, heritable diseases, genetics and the basics of evolutionary biology.

Skinner’s team at WSU and colleagues from several other universities report in today’s Science magazine on what they believe is the first demonstration and explanation of how a toxin-induced disorder in a pregnant female can be passed on to children and succeeding generations without changes in her genetic code, or DNA.

The report in Science, entitled “Epigenetic Transgenerational Actions of Endocrine Disruptors and Male Fertility,” also sounds like an attempt to avoid attention. That’s unlikely to work. The findings prompt serious and, in some cases, disturbing questions about a number of basic assumptions in biology.

The standard view of heritable disease is that for any disorder or disease to be inherited, a gene must go bad (mutate) and that gene must get passed on to the offspring.

What Skinner and his colleagues did is show that exposing a pregnant rat to high doses of a class of pesticides known as “endocrine disruptors” causes
an inherited reproductive disorder in male rats that is passed on without any genetic mutation.

It’s not genetic change; it’s an “epigenetic” change. Epigenetics is a relatively new field of science that refers to modifying DNA without mutations in the genes.

“It’s not a change in the DNA sequence,” Skinner explained. “It’s a chemical modification of the DNA.”

… the common wisdom has been that any artificially induced epigenetic modifications will remain as an isolated change in an individual. Because no genes get altered, the changes cannot be passed on.

“We showed that they can be,” Skinner said.

The standard view is that the environment has no direct influence, except in how it may favor or discriminate against the creatures with the latest genetic mutations.

The WSU study, Skinner said, suggests the possibility that environmental factors such as toxins may also directly cause heritable changes in creatures. “Epigenetics may be just as important as genetics in evolution,” he said.

UPDATE

I can’t find a copy of _Science_ nor can I get a hold of anybody. But let me give a couple of links to help put this in perspective.

The Endrocrine system is comprised of the glands that produce hormones. See here for a discussion.

Endocrine _disruptors_ are a group of pesticides containing choline, among other man-made chemicals. See here for more information.

Epigenetic Inheritance is the transmission of information (broadly defined) to descendents *without* being encoded in the DNA sequence of a gene. You will find explication here.

I note, from this reference, “…epigenetic heredity seems to exist transgenerationally in complex organisms can be explained by allowing for minor epigenetic changes not affecting totipotency. This puts some constraints on the extent to which epigenetic changes can be brought upon DNA, but it allows for EISs to play direct evolutionary roles.”

I’m just going to give a short precis of what this all means.

From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer article, “If a pregnant woman is exposed to a pesticide at the wrong time, the study suggests, her children, grandchildren and the rest of her descendants could inherit the damage and diseases caused by the toxin — even if it doesn’t involve a genetic mutation.”

In short, the use of Endocrine disrupting pesticides potentially affect _the rest of human existence_!

A study conducted at Dartmouth Medical School suggests low levels of arsenic exposure may may also trigger Endocrine disruption. Is this, too, Epigenetically transmitted? Who knows?

In Evolutionary Theory there is a problem in describing how to allow for the production of specific beneficial (and unbeneficial) heritable variation in response to environmental signals. Epigenetic Inheritance fits the bill perfectly. I want to stress Epigenetic Inheritance is an expansion of – addition to – the current Theory of Evolution *NOT* a replacement *of* the current Theory.

I was avoiding work and gamboling about the web when I ran into this little gem of unreason on the CNN Money page.

Quote:

“Existing home sales jumped to a record last month as persistent low mortgage rates helped keep the real estate market sizzling.”

“The real estate group [National Association of Realtors] said the strong sales are a sign the market is fundamentally strong, and not in a possible bubble.”
I see.  

If home sales and the prices of homes were falling we would be in a bubble.  But since sales and prices are rising we are not in a bubble.  The standard definition of a bubble is, of course, falling prices and sales.  Known to every financial anaylst.  Yup. Yup. Yup.

The the intersection of the groups chief economist with reality can be gauged by:

“…David Lereah, the group’s chief economist, said in a statement. “When we look at recent job gains, we see all the positive factors coming together to coincide with a powerful demographic demand for housing.”

Not only are we not in a bubble the labor market is doing just great.  Unemployment is falling, job creation is steaming ahead, and businesses are finding it hard to find workers to fill jobs.  

The mind boggles.

Now that I’ve been eddicated on how to post an image I simply have to post a version of a financial chart that I have loved since I saw my first copy in 1988.  

In the graph above, the nominal DJIA is shown in blue, and the DJIA, deflated by M3 (yellow), is shown in red.  This chart demonstates the real return, the return in constant dollars (PPP), from 1960 to 2001 averaged 2.5% compounded annually.

(M3 is the measure of the total amount of bucks running around the universe.)  

You can read the entire article here.

This chart ends in 2001.  Since 2001 the Fed has been increasing M3 by 4 to 5 percent per year.  So for all you stock investors – remember to take-off an average of 4.5%/year for the past 4 years to determine your net return.

As we all need a dollop of weirdness ere now & again.

Sports  Illustrated is reporting from the CNN website the Italian Mafia was attempting to fix races by doping horses with … Viagra.  This unique application for the legal … um … ‘adult recreational’ drug of choice was – I think it safe to say – unforeseen by the developers and has not been through the standard clinical trials.

Money quote:

“It was not clear how Viagra affected the horses’ speed.”

Gosh.  I am glad we have them professional journalists, with ethics & all that there stuff, to inform us lowly slobs that it is unknown how human sex drugs affect horses.  Whodathunkit?

Second, what the devil?  I mean.  I mean.  I mean.   Who in the their right mind would even think there is a connection between running fast and – you know.  As a researcher and, I hope, a member of the Reality Based Community I tend to support and encourage scientific investigation.   But nude speed trials with some of the experimental subjects in a ‘certain condition’ (ipso phallic?) staggers even my warped imaginaton.  

Certainly the Ancient Greeks perfected the Noble Art of running-around-in-the-all-
together-in-front-of-God-and-everybody but it is my understanding it was not with a rigorous (so to speak) requirement.

But then, perhaps, my education lacks completeness.

This is the first installment in an occasional series (Read: Whenever I feel like it) on logic.  

Why I’m Doing This

The first reason – or justification – is I like logic.  I find logic interesting, fascinating, and – to be open about it – fun.  

The second reason, is logic is widely misunderstood.  Often people claim to be making a logical argument when the actuality is they ain’t.  A logical argument (Applied or Formal) has strict requirements to which the argument must conform.  If it does conform it is “logical.”  If not, not.  

Point 2B is something that most people either do not know or forget: a logical argument is not necessarily (and I’ll define that in a moment) True.  The “Truth Value” of a logical argument is a separate issue.  You can have a False Truth Value from a valid chain, or cascade, of logical relationships.

Definitions

Logic – from the ancient Greek logos meaning ‘rational words’ related to reasoning in the sciences, philosophy, and everyday life.  In Formal Logic the abstract structure of the argument is the fundamental subject under examination or development.  Applied logic adapts this machinery for use in a special subject where the matter – what you are talking about – is as important as the means.

Truth Value – A hot issue in “The Philosophy of Logic” I am going to elide (i.e. hand wave around) this for the simplest definition – the assignment of 0 (False) or 1 (True) to a logical proposition, statement, or argument.  (Note:  Yup, I’m asserting the Law of the Excluded Middle.)

Valid: correct deployment of Formal Logic.

Thesis: What is being argued for or examined.

Proposition: reason to accept or reject the Thesis.

Statement: a logical declaration capable of being analyzed.

Axiom: an unanalyzable declaration.

Argument, Complete: a chain, or cascade, consisting of Axioms, Thesis, Propositions, and Statements resulting in a Conclusion with the last 4 being assigned or capable of being assigned Truth Value(s).

Argument, Incomplete: an chain, or cascade, that does not include all the elements of a Complete Argument but either has or can have assigned Truth Value(s).

(More riveting prose after the break!)
Necessary: universally True or False.

Possible: existentially or sometimes True or False.

You like this stuff?  Are you insane?

Yes and I hope not.

What I have done is declared, with some precision, exactly what I mean when I use a word.  This is crucial to reasoning, overall, and necessary (always required, see?) for a logical argument.  Partially this requirement stems from the development of logic but also from the fact that, in logic, I can do some pretty strange things.  If I want to, tho’ why I would escapes me, I can declare:

1 != 0 AND 0 != 1; where {!=} means ‘definitional equal.’

And I’ve just made 1 = 0.  In my argument you would see ‘1’ but know without shadow of doubt that I really mean ‘0’.  

This is rather silly but there is a serious point to it.  

Kurt Godel proved the logical consistency of the Axiom of Choice which states: if you have a set of sets then there exists a set consisting of one member from each of these sets.  

And your immediate reaction is: Who Cares?  

But the Axiom of Choice is absolutely vital in higher mathematics and several fields, Number Theory for one, would collapse without it.  And, on the face of it, the Axiom of Choice seems reasonable but …

In 1963 another mathematical logican P. J. Cohen proved the negation – Thesis: Axiom of Choice is False – is also logically consistent and therefore valid.  To put the strong case forward, if the Axiom of Choice is False then natural numbers cannot be assigned properties.  Therefore, arithmetic has no relationship to reality.

Oops.

Fortunately, Godel also proved that statements exist in a formal system that cannot be proven or disproven – The Incompleteness Theorem – given a set of axioms.  So if we want to “save” arithmetic (and why not?  I mean, what the heck! It’s Saturday & we’re just goofing off anyway) we expand the set of axioms to include the Axiom of Choice and Life Is Good.

Wait a Cotton-Picking Minute!  Didn’t You Just Palm That Card?

(Mix two metaphors and call me in the morning.)

NO!

Because it is clearly stated what is being done and the Axiom of Choice is an axiom which, by definition, is unanalyzable.  We have the choice of asserting it, or not asserting it.  And there is no rule against, but rather a rule approving, writing QED under any propositional chain leading to a valid conclusion inclusive of the assertion of the Axiom of Choice.

(QED – Quad erat demonstratum or, in English, ‘I done dood it – neener, neener.’)

What we have done is applied the Existential (“Sometimes”) quantifier to our conclusion rather than the Universal quantifier.  Which, again, is perfectly acceptable.

What the #^&*! is an “Existential quantifier”?

Ah, you’ll have to wait until the ->next installment<- of “The Strange Loner Writes Again.”

That disappeared 5 nanoseconds after it appeared.

Mr. Stirling Newberry’s diary Monetary Insanity Continues is an overview of why the Bush economic policy is a disaster waiting to happen.

Mr. Newberry always writes Good Stuff but this is really good and deserves better than sinking into the night.

If you are interested in an analysis of Bush’s Social Security proposal check out the Jason Furman article on the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities website. This is long but well worth the read. Thanks to Angry Bear for the link.