Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
It took long enough: In November 2011, President Obama lamented that “some in Congress are trying to undo these automatic spending cuts” that were part of that August’s deal to raise the debt limit. “My message to them is simple: No. I will veto any effort to get rid of those automatic spending cuts to …
Continue reading "The Republicans Finally Figure it Out on the Sequester"
All glory is fleeting, I suppose: Andrew Jackson, the president whose divisive political instincts would shape the Democratic Party for generations, was born less than 20 miles from here, in the Waxhaw region between the Carolinas. Until the 1980s, “Old Hickory” was considered a near-great president, just a few notches below Washington, Lincoln and Franklin …
Continue reading "Old Hickory Falls Out of Favour in his own Party"
Political analysis and punditry can date awfully quickly. Nevertheless--and this is especially true in a place like the United States, whose structural continuity is exceptional--some pieces of political prose, especially when written in a historical context, can have relevance for several generations. One of those analyses--actually a series of essays not originally intended to be …
Tina Turner calls its quits on the U.S.: US pop legend Tina Turner, who has been living in Switzerland since 1995, will soon receive Swiss citizenship and will give up her US passport, Swiss media reported Friday. "I'm very happy in Switzerland and I feel at home here. ... I cannot imagine a better place …
Continue reading ""Proud Mary" No Longer Proud to be an American"
Today is Fake Inauguration Day in the United States. Our President, coming from a triumph many said would never happen, was actually sworn in yesterday. If I were him, and I wanted to stick it in the eye again to serious Christians, I would have done the thing on Sunday, the way other places do …
Continue reading "The Two Questions Many Churches Never Stop Answering I Never Asked"
The top end of the income scale, that is: A 39.6% rate applies to income above a certain threshold (specifically, income in excess of the “applicable threshold” over the dollar amount at which the 35% bracket begins). The applicable threshold is $450,000 for joint filers and surviving spouses, $425,000 for heads of household, $400,000 for …
Rubin nails it on this one: For those waking up this morning (January 2) wondering if the House passed the Senate bill, the answer is yes, they did. Thus, the country goes over the tax portion of the fiscal cliff, albeit a lower cliff than it was a few days ago. Other fiscal cliffs remain …
The turn of the year is generally a time when I try to reflect on serious issues of a broad nature. My first one was on my sorry contemporaries the Boomers, who are as much a plague now as they were six years ago. But there have been other topics: the Muslims, the Manhattan Declaration, …
Continue reading "The Two Underlying Assumptions Behind the Opposition to Gun Control"
Every now and then you'll hear a news item about someone's math problem being controversial (involving slavery, etc.) This gem has been around for a long time: it comes from Marvin Marcus' A Survey of Finite Mathematics (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1969). It's purpose is to illustrate the use of combinatorial matrix theory, and (stripping …
Continue reading "Math and the Middle East: Some Things Never Change"
I am amused at the persistence of the New York Times editorial Asians--Too Smart for Their Own Good? AT the end of this month, high school seniors will submit their college applications and begin waiting to hear where they will spend the next four years of their lives. More than they might realize, the outcome …
Continue reading "It's Hard to Admit When You're Inferior, Especially When You Are"
Positive Infinity 