I am an Iris What Flower Are You?

Today's new word is CORPORA

Corpus is the Latin word for body--of a man or animal, or all the writings or works of an author. Corps is a body of men. Corpulent means fleshy or obese. The city name Corpus Cristi means body of Christ. CORPORA is the plural of corpus. Yesterday at the coffee shop I pulled a little tag from an advertisement asking for people my age to participate in a hearing study by the Psychoacoustics Lab at Ohio State. (If you're interested call 614-292-1643--they pay.) I didn't know what a Psychoacoustics Lab does, so I looked it up.

In the Psychoacoustics Laboratory we are working on projects that investigate the ability of listeners to extract information from complex, time-varying sounds. These sounds are acoustically similar to speech, music or environmental sounds, but they do not require the cognitive processing necessary to recognize or understand those sounds. We are testing our model of peripheral auditory processing, which suggests that the auditory nervous system responds to the spectral center-of-gravity, COG, of the neural activity generated by such sounds. The COG is the “balance point” for this activity. As the COG changes over time, listeners hear changes in the sounds that are often described as rising or falling pitches.

I had a lot of fun poking around in the speech lab, for instance this vowel corner. I could hardly tell the difference between the women from Ohio and Wisconsin, but western North Carolina was really different.

Anyway, I came across, "The approach taken at the SPA Labs is data-driven and the focus is on constructing large corpora of speech which would provide conclusive answers to the questions asked." At first I thought it was just a collection of data, but I learned that this phrase is very specific to speech research--refers to a collection of recorded utterances used as a basis for language analysis.

Orvieto

We were hanging an art show today (Jan Kotch, Worthington) at the UALC Mill Run Church, and one of the paintings was of Positano. I mentioned we were in Italy last summer. "Would you go back," a fellow artist asked. In a minute. Here's an artist workshop in Orvieto in 2010.

Here's the artist's story. Amazing what faith, love and talent can do for you.

This and that from January 1982

While doing some laundry, I continued to go through an old box of letters and found one from early January 1982 updating our parents and siblings on what we'd done over the holidays. It's not particularly interesting, but it does have a familiar ring with weather and economy stories.

THE BRUCE TIMES NO. 12 JANUARY 1982

No matter what part of the country you are in the weather seems to be the topic--California with mudslides, Chicago area with -26, Florida with freezes, and Ohio with -50 chill factor. We had another 5 inches of snow today and it was quite wet, so I had to spend about 45 minutes shoveling the drive-way before I could get the car in.

I had an interesting free lance reseearch job this past week getting material for a medical illustrator on health insurance. I browsed the title, "The Hospital that Ate Chicago." The state of Ohio has the 2nd highest unemployment rate in the nation, and it has now been predicted that we will have a billion dollar deficit, and most of it will be from the education budget.

It has really been gloom and doom at work [Ohio State University], and it is virtually assured now that I will be out of work very soon. They are predicting as high as 20% cuts in OSU's budget, which would virtually paralyze the university. Someone was recalling that during the Depression, you had to bring your own toilet paper because the university couldn't buy any. Today we were told all purchasing would stop--including paper products and line charges for the computer.

I've applied for a job at Chem Abstracts as a Russian cataloguer. Two weeks ago I wouldn't have considered it.

No health czar, no hearings, no choice

We've got it anyway. SCHIP protecting "children," who are adults, and electronic records snooping to make sure our doctors won't be able to give us too much help or quality care. On this one issue alone, the Republicans should have stopped the "hear no evil, see no evil, smell no stench" routine. Obama didn't need a single Republican vote to launch his war on the economy.

"Two provisions in President Barack Obama's economic stimulus plan could give the federal government the authority to oversee the medical decisions made between doctors and patients, critics warn, which could result in the rationing of health care." Story here.

I can understand why the Democrats fall in line--he's their guy. They can see what's happening, but they've invested so much of their passion and belief in a false prophet, that even when the crash of planets doesn't happen, they prepare to climb on board the spaceship ready for the next lie. But why would the Republicans be willing to accept the blame? Arlen Specter of PA, and Olympia Snowe & Susan Collins of ME. RINOs helped stampede us into a recession. In case you haven't lived long enough to remember history, here's a picture of what we've had in my adult life.


The chart is from JWF, a site not known to me, but I was around then, and it looks familiar. If you disagree with the figures, take your questions to him. I recall paying 10.5% for a mortgage in 1988.

The President can pick 'em

Yes, I know his advisors are doing the selection and they are socialists, marxists and progressives, with a few Democrats huddled in a closet somewhere gasping for air as they are slowly strangled by the leftists, but I had walked through the room and caught the tail end of a news report, "Obama choses porn defender" or something like that. The media tend to get this messed up just to grab viewers, so this morning I googled "lawyer pornographer court" and up it came.

So apparently, President Obama's pick for deputy attorney general is David W. Ogden, characterized as a "porn lawyer" and a "hired gun" for the ACLU. There have been a few times in our history when the ACLU has been useful to freedom's cause, but mostly NOT. Let's assume here that you have no problem with our attorney general associating with scum, how about his reliance on foreign law to interpret the U.S. Constitution?

Here's his vita. Haaarvad of course.

David Ogden focuses on high-stakes disputes with complex legal and policy dimensions and serious financial implications. His clients include leading companies in the pharmaceutical, petrochemical, insurance, financial, airline, defense, automotive, media, and internet industries, as well as major trade and professional associations, nonprofit foundations, and individuals.

Successfully representing a multinational energy company in ICSID arbitration against a Latin American country concerning intellectual property rights

Obtaining summary judgment for a major US corporation declaring unenforceable in the United States, a $486 million foreign judgment

Representing two foreign air cargo carriers, who are leniency applicants, in ongoing worldwide antitrust litigation, including a US class action involving US and EU commerce and supervising defense of related class actions in Australia and Canada

Obtaining on behalf of a US based university with a foreign campus an anti-suit injunction halting foreign litigation brought against the university, preserving control over the university's foreign assets

Obtaining on behalf of a major foreign airline and successfully defending on appeal dismissal with prejudice of a purported federal court, state-law class action claiming improper retention of US and foreign taxes and fees

Representing the US subsidiary of a foreign corporation, and two US media organizations, in three separate investigations of alleged export control violations concerning China or Cuba

Representing a former US Cabinet Secretary with respect to Alien Tort Statute litigation arising from events in a Latin American nation

Representing a national insurance company with respect to an ongoing False Claims Act investigation by the US Justice Department

Persuading a state civil rights commission not to pursue discrimination charges against a national insurance company concerning homeowner's insurance premium levels, and successfully defending that victory through a series of state court appeals

Obtaining dismissal with prejudice on behalf of a major national mortgage lender of a putative nationwide discrimination class action seeking billions of dollars in damages on behalf of minority borrowers

Representing automobile dealers in an ongoing US Civil Rights Division investigation into alleged discriminatory lending practices

Sounds like a good old boy to me for the globalists, they're the ones with the money. It's a "living Constitution" as long as it helps their own wallet.

The 2012 Pelosi GTxi SS/RT Sport Edition

This is too much fun to miss.

Maybe if he weren't a tax cheat

we could trust him? Nah. He'd be doing Obama's bidding even if he were honest. Stocks fell again today. The markets have fallen continually since Obama became the candidate of the Dems in the summer. Why does Obama blame Bush for overspending when he's doing double triple time to out do him? Wasn't he a senator in a Democratic controlled Congress? Spending too much got us here; more spending takes us back to the 30s where FDR put us in a 10 year Depression. He's passing out lip-smackin' pork cracklins to his left wing buddies who put him in office.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner may have wanted to put an end to the never-ending credit crisis by announcing a comprehensive approach to saving the banking system, but all he succeeded in doing Tuesday was adding uncertainty. Forbes here.


"The Obama administration is scrambling to get a grip on the economy as it continues its descent, including rising unemployment, falling housing prices and mounting foreclosures. The government's solution is a one-two punch: $800 billion in economic stimulus and the financial system stability plan.

Geithner wants to reverse the damage done by the previous administration's ad-hoc reaction to the banking crisis, which he faulted Tuesday for being "inadequate" and slow."

Five most Obamaudacious comments on the stimulus

See original at Morning Bell for expansion and links for these statements.

1) No Earmarks: . . . there are billions of line-item spending elements to payoff leftist interest groups

2) 4 Million Jobs: According to the Congressional Budget Office Obama's plan could produce only 1.2 million jobs. And one in five of these jobs will be a government job.

3) Spending: the bill itself is all the proof you need the Obama and his leftist allies thoroughly love their chance to blow a trillion dollars. The Obama Trillion Dollar Debt Plan doubles the size of the Department of Education and creates 32 brand new government programs.

4) Free Lunches: Obama's Trillion Dollar Debt Plan is founded on the belief that government can provide endless free lunches to the American people.

5) Japan: "We saw this happen in Japan in the 1990s, where they did not act boldly and swiftly enough, and as a consequence they suffered what was called the “lost decade” where essentially for the entire ’90s they did not see any significant economic growth.” - This statement is audacity defined. No wonder support for Obama’s economic stimulus plan is sinking like a rock.

"In principle, more Americans say that tax cuts for individuals and businesses – rather than spending on programs and infrastructure projects – will do more right now to stimulate the economy and create jobs. Nearly half (48%) says that tax cuts will do more for the economy, while 39% views government spending as more effective." Pew Research, Feb. 9, 2009

Right, right, right, um, right, exactly, OK, right

That was the voice of the interviewer I heard off camera during a video interview of a "conversation about Vietnam and Iraq with the author and Lt. Col. Rick Welch of the U.S. Army Reserve, who is currently [no date but possibly 2007] on assignment in Baghdad."

http://sgurvis.com/sixties/60s_video.php

Sandra Gurvis who put this together to promote her book, "Where have all the flower children gone," appears to be a local writer. I wandered into her memoirs about the 1960s and the Vietnam War via a restaurant review. It gives me new respect for television interviewers, even the ones I don't care for. Filmed interviews need quality editing, lighting, background, staging, music, voice, etc. Gurvis didn't make the case why she was trying to compare the conflicts in Vietnam and Iraq. She jumped in to quash his positive points about why the U.S. forces were in the middle east. Having worked for 18 months in Iraq reconciling different cultures, he was polite and patient, so his performance was more professional and informed than hers. She had no content or expertise, interjecting myths, half-truths, and hyperbole from the 60s and anti-war rhetoric that made little sense in this "conversation."

This was a good lesson. Whether interviewing or simply sharing ideas in conversation, I need to resist the urge to interject little words to let the speaker know I am listening. It actually has the opposite affect.

Health insurance for all at what cost?

"News from Kobe, Japan, brought the tragic story of a 69-year old man who was critically injured in a traffic accident while riding his bicycle. Suffering from massive head and back injuries, his condition worsened as paramedics raced him from hospital to hospital — 14 in all — and none could accept him because they had no beds, staff, specialists or equipment. He died of hemorrhagic shock by the time a hospital was found for him, three hours after the accident." Story here.

It will take awhile for the nationalized health care we're getting under the "stimulus package" to totally disintegrate, around the time Obama leaves office.

Not even a toe tapped or a finger twitched

Watch the young ladies in formal wear behind Buddy Holly (who died 50 years ago with the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens) in this 1957 video. How did they do that--standing perfectly still. Was this dance at a school for the deaf?

Our President was born in a backward time

Lucky for him. His unmarried 17 year old American mother didn't abort him--abortions were accessible but not easy in the 1960s. And his Kenyan father was old enough to have benefitted from DDT which was controlling malaria in his home country. For malaria statistics today, take a look at Kenya, and its under 50 life expectancy. Millions and millions of Africans died when DDT was removed from the market by environmentalists before there was an adequate replacement or plan. And those figures for treated bed nets don't look too promising either, do they? Less than 12% of the children under 5 are sleeping under treated materials in Kenya. And they are still blundering today with the lives of Africans. Where else but Africa can you find large pools of women at-risk-for-HIV on which to try out your iffy drug studies?

Today's new word is ANON

There was no problem understanding the context. "It is good that we should ever and anon remind our hearts of the central creeds. . ." Shakespeare and Chaucer used anon, but what does it really mean? It comes from Middle English from Old English, anoon and anan combining two little words, on and an. My dining room dictionary, the Webster's 2nd International says: in one body state or direction; straight away; soon; in a little while; presently; then. My Webster's 9th Collegiate says, soon, presently, later, after a while. There is a park in Belleville, Illinois named, Ever and Anon park, which I think is a very pleasant name for a public space.

Lifestyle modification and pseudoscience

As I've noted before, I can usually understand the opening sentences and summaries of medical articles, but I'm over my head with the details, statistics and funny upside down numbers. So when Mike Mitka wrote in the January 14 issue of JAMA that two major studies exploring the benefits of lifestyle modifications for primary and secondary prevention of cardiovascular events (FIT Heart and HF-ACTION) failed to demonstrate what the researchers had hoped for, I decided it was time to turn to Sandy Szwarc's JunkFood Science. Sandy's good at explaining why failed studies are still called a success and why ideology trumps science.

Me? I usually say follow the money, whether it's Congress and earmarks (pork), Al Gore and carbon credits, or the latest diet and exercise fad that lands an academic a USDA grant. I think Sandy may be saying something similar (without my politicking), but read her whole article, just to be sure.

"The preventive health movement has become a major industry, though, and the healthy eating and lifestyle ideology has been an easy one to sell. Just like alternative modalities, everyone wants to believe in a simple magical solution that can keep them well. Various dietary ideologies have come and gone through much of human history, all giving food more power than the evidence supports. But, beyond preventing deficiencies, which is easily achieved for most people by eating an unrestricted and varied diet, food is primarily sustenance, not magic. Humans around the world have eaten very differently, with no one food or way of eating itself related to longer life.

Great myths of the great Depression

If you can count, you know that 1929-1941 (or 1943 by other research) is a very long time, and that both the Hoover Administration and the Roosevelt Administration created and fine tuned the so-called Great Depression with massive government interference. And now President Obama and the Reid Pelosi gang that can't shoot straight want to do it all over again and are lying to us about capitalism and about recovery. Why does anyone, president or pauper, want to recreate the pain of the 1930s? I've pointed out this article before, but in light of Obama's lies, it's worth another look.

"Old myths never die; they just keep showing up in economics and political science textbooks. With only an occasional exception, it is there you will find what may be the twentieth century’s greatest myth: Capitalism and the free-market economy were responsible for the Great Depression, and only government intervention brought about America’s economic recovery."

500 new jobs and $60 million more in salaries and expenditures for central Ohio

If you have a weak spam filter like my osu dot edu mail box, you’re probably getting a lot of mail about “enhancement” and “enlargement.” I suppose this reflects desperate times for gullible Americans, or eager spammers who think every one with a dot edu mailbox must be 19 years old, or maybe just poor IT security at OSU. No matter how many blocks I add to the word list, they just find more creative ways to discuss sex. Once in awhile there is interesting news in the mail box from Chip and Steve, from whom I hear often. Chip Souba, Vice President and Executive Dean for Health Sciences and Steven G. Gabbe, Senior Vice President for Health Sciences, OSU Medical Center. Today I learned:

"We are pleased to inform you that The Ohio State University Board of Trustees approved funds last Friday to proceed with interior design work for the final three floors of the Biomedical Research Tower (BRT). Floors 4, 5 and 6 were left as unfinished shells until the funding and research priorities for the space were identified.

This project will add approximately 72,000 usable square feet of research space to our Medical Center, which is absolutely essential to reach our goals of being a top-20 academic medical center and a top-10 cancer program nationally. It will eventually allow us to recruit as many as 42 new researchers and their staffs to Ohio State, which translates into 500 new jobs and $60 million more in salaries and expenditures for our local economy."

Now that’s the kind of expansion we can all appreciate, assuming it was not just part of another phony stimulus. And I can only hope that human embryos aren't part of that planned research--adult stem cell research is leaps and bounds ahead of embryonic, thanks to GWB holding the ethical line.

62%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

HT AmbivaBlog

Obama numbers dropping

Disapproval going up; approval going down.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Approval Index for Monday shows that 38% of the nation’s voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Twenty-four percent (24%) Strongly Disapprove to give Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of +14 (subtract disapproval from approval). . . Overall, 48% of voters believe that increased spending is generally bad for the economy. Sixty-two percent (62%) of voters would like the stimulus plan to include more tax cuts and less government spending.

Didn't he promise tax cuts during the campaign--95% of us were going to get them? Won't make any difference if he kills the economy, will it?

Parathyroid disease symptoms

I was listening to an interview with Fr. John Corapi about his illness, a benign parathyroid tumor. I don't see a date on this. Here are the symptoms of parathyroid problems. Sounds nasty, and difficult to diagnose. A high calcium level is one of the lab signals. Feeling old is also one of the symptoms.