Estate taxes

(paraphrase) John Oliver:  "You (anti tax folks) shouldn't be complaining about the estate tax (which you call the death tax) because they are doing exactly what you want:  They are taking your money over your dead body."

pi day

As Terry reminds us this is pi day.

the cat

Weiner and Secrets on Sunday

Former Congressman Anthony Weiner's attempt to reenter politics included an apology that contained certain "inaccuracies" which lead George Stephanopoulos to say:

"You can't lie in your apology."

WRT Snowden David Brooks said:

" I believe that the government should have secrets for the same reason that I believe that middle aged people should wear clothes.  There are are some things that people ought not have to see."

Prodigies

I am told that there are only three areas of human endeavor in which prodigies arise and those are music, mathematics, and chess.

The three activities which have been the loves of my life have been music, mathematics, and chess.

Why could I not even have approached being a prodigy in any of them?

Oh, well.  

Secession!

I understand that the President has announced that he will respond to any petition which has 25000 signatures on it.
There are petitions requesting permission for this or that state to secede from the union.

I believe that Obama should accept their petitions and then answer them, more or less, as follows.  

 The eagle (our national symbol) which holds in his beak a banner of the symbol of our union:

                                                    e pluribus unum,

which means one out of many.  I thought that I should consult with them about it.

I found a group of them near a Hotel in California and The Eagles say:

"You can check out any time you like, but you can nevverr leave."

overheard

"I never vote.  It only encourages them."

Tired of the election?

 There is a video which captures our exhaustion.  One day last week this video from Colorado was the closing item on both the FoxNews Special Report news show and Jon Stewart's daily show.

If you are not, then imagine that you are in a swing state.

Life at the Round Table

I once knew a fellow named Chip Hallinan.  From time to time he lived in Commerce, TX a small town about 50 miles NE of Dallas, Texas.   I did not know him well, he was a friend of a friend.

I spent some time there in the summer of 1971 playing chess in the Round Table Café.  One day Chip was in the café looking for a ride.  His car was broken and he desperately wanted to get to Dallas.  He was asking all comers – Are you going to Dallas?  -- Do you know anyone who is going to Dallas? -- Do you know anyone who might be willing to go to Dallas?

Sometime later a group of very religious types wearing robes and the whole nine yards came in.  They looked like disciples who were going to break into chants at any minute.  Chip didn't bother with them since they did not look like good prospects for a ride to Dallas.  They began their rounds seeking converts and when they got to Chip the conversation went like this:

Disciple:   “Don’t you want to know Jesus?”

Chip:     “Not unless he’s goin’ to Dallas.” 

Campaign humor

Jay Leno to Obama: "What's this thing with Trump and you? It's like me and Letterman. I don't get it."
Obama: "This all dates back to when we were growing up together in Kenya."

Jay Leno Halloween Costume Idea: ‘Wear a Re-elect Obama Button - Go As a Journalist'

What happened to Obama?

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"Obama did a great job."  Biden

"The President is just too dignified to get in there and mix it up."   Sen. Michael Bennet, D (CO)

"Jim Lehrer was unfair."   various
 (he only gave Obama 5 minutes more than Romney)

"I debated an imposter." Obama

"Liar. Liar. Pants on Fire."  Al Sharpton and Jon Stewart

"Denver is 5000 feet high."   Al Gore sighed

Satire

This from Bloomberg:

Politico’s Paul Ryan Satire: The Joke’s on Them

A report this morning by Politico chief political correspondent Roger Simon includes this bombshell about Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan:

Though Ryan had already decided to distance himself from the floundering Romney campaign, he now feels totally uninhibited. Reportedly, he has been marching around his campaign bus, saying things like, “If Stench calls, take a message” and “Tell Stench I’m having finger sandwiches with Peggy Noonan and will text him later.”

The "stench" reference comes from a quote that Craig Robinson, a former political director of the Iowa Republican Party gave to the New York Times over the weekend: “I hate to say this, but if Ryan wants to run for national office again, he’ll probably have to wash the stench of Romney off of him.”
Needless to say, the political press and blogosphere have jumped on the story:
Times columnist Paul Krugman:

Can I say that even though I’m not exactly a fan of Mitt Romney’s, this is just bad behavior? You’re supposed to wait until it’s actually over before you do this kind of thing. Anyway, I like how Ryan is declaring independence: by using PowerPoint!

...

End of Bloomberg article excerpt

It is of course farce, but the list of believers is an indication of how the press will believe anything bad about Republicans.

The next time you read that Nobel Loreate Krugman has again said that we can spend our way out of debt, you might want to keep in mind how careful he is these days about what he believes.

Being a class A player

Joel Sappenfield, a photographer in Denton, Texas in the sixties and seventies was also chess player and was once asked by a beginner, "How good are you."  He replied that he was a class A player.  The questioner then wondered what it meant that he was a class A player (Category 1 in the new terminology).  I would have answered with something like:  "There are about 50,000 serious chess players in the US and being a class A player would have put him in the top 10% of those players."

Joel, not being a mathematician, replied somewhat differently:  "It means that if you play chess and you have beaten your mother, your sister, your brother, your father and all of you cousins, but you have never studied chess, then I can beat you.  (long pause) Every time."

About this time (while I was gone) there was a horrific accident in Denton in which a woman's head got cut off.  Consequently the press learned the word decapitated.  Joel was very amused by their reaction to it because, as he recalled it for me later, they used their new word at every opportunity - people got fingers decapitated and a foot was decapitated.  Joel worried that a thunder storm might decapitate the electricity.

Jimmy Fallon does the conventions

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If you like Obama (and maybe if you don't) you will like Jimmy Fallon's parody of James Taylor and the conventions.
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Teavangelist

Here's is a new word that doesn't even require a definition.

Studying studies

From the "Findings" report, Harper's Magazine, July 2012. "A Government Accountability Office study deemed ineffective a Pentagon study on the efficacy of Pentagon studies."

Word for today

The word for today is "bloviating".  It's fun to say and people may mistake you for George Will.

recognition

During these serious times, people of all faiths should remember these four religious truths:
 1. Muslims do not recognize Jews as God's chosen people.
 2. Jews do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah.
 3. Protestants do not recognize the Pope as the leader of the Christian world.
 4. Baptists do not recognize each other at Hooters.
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best statistics question ever

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By way of Raymond Johnson, the best statistics multiple choice question ever written on a chalkboard. Try not to think too hard.

If you choose an answer to this question at random, what is the chance you will be correct?

a) 25%

b) 50%

c) 60%

d) 25%


To see it on the blackboard go to best-statistics-question-ever .
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geek joke

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A physicist represents the scientific link between the operational perspective of an engineer and the theoretical inclination of the mathematician. This is illustrated by the following story (which makes fun of mathematicians, if not all three) that I have heard for as long as I have been in mathematics.

An engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician each notices (in separate places) a fire.

The engineer immediately runs a large bucket of water and pours it on the fire extinguishing it completely.

The physicist examines the fire, does some calculations, measures a precise amount of water, and pours it on the fire extinguishing it without a drop to spare.

The mathematician looks at the fire and says, "There exists a solution." and walks on.
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