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Articles Posted by scrabblehack

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  • The mathematician who saved hundreds of flight crews

    10/15/2020 4:45:41 PM PDT · by scrabblehack · 17 replies
    www.wearethemighty.com ^ | September 21, 2020 | Logan Nye
    Abraham Wald was a Hungarian mathematician, but his work with statistics in 1943 would prevent the Navy armoring exactly the wrong places on planes, saving the lives of countless flight crews who likely would have been shot down if their most vulnerable parts were left exposed. .... As Jordan Ellenberg wrote in How Not To Be Wrong, there was a running joke in the SRG that Wald's secretaries had to rip notepaper out of his hands as soon as he finished writing on it because he didn't have the clearance to read his own work. .... So the only planes...
  • Braves' Turner suspended by Kuhn

    01/05/2019 10:37:43 PM PST · by scrabblehack · 10 replies
    Washington Post ^ | January 3, 1977 | Washington Post
    Ted Turner, owner of the Atlanta Braves, has been suspended by baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn for tampering while trying to obtain the services of former San Francisco outfielder Gary Mathews. A spokesman for the commissioner said today the Atlanta owner would be suspended for one year, but no date has yet been set for the start of the suspension. Mathews was the Braves' first choice in the Nov. 4 re-entry draft, and he has signed a contract with the team. Turner, 38, reached in Atlanta, said he had been notified that the Braves must fortfeit their first round choice in...
  • Meet the Scientists Still in the Running for Congressional Seats

    10/24/2018 7:07:21 PM PDT · by scrabblehack · 11 replies
    The Scientist ^ | Oct 23, 2018 | KATARINA ZIMMER
    In 2018, an unprecedented number of individuals across the country with science and technical backgrounds made a run for Congress. Many of them were energized by the perceived anti-science rhetoric of President Donald Trump and his administration concerning the environment and health, and by a desire to bring more evidence-based decision making into politics. Although a handful of candidates have advanced to next month’s midterm election, many didn’t make it through the primaries. Of nearly 50 individuals with a science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM) background—all of them Democrats—who sought a House seat this year and were tracked by Science,...
  • Classified information in the digital age (vanity)

    07/16/2016 6:49:43 PM PDT · by scrabblehack · 14 replies
    Self ^ | Today | Self
    I pointed out in an earlier thread that back in the day, the provider of the information (an employee) bore the responsibility of verifying the clearance of the recipient (also an employee) AND the need to know. But those were the days before e-mail was widely available. Surely marking an e-mail with a (C) should not be considered adequate security! Shouldn't every classified e-mail be encrypted, with the decryption key pegged to the employee's security clearance? I will agree that such a policy would not have prevented Hillary's misdeeds, or Comey's whitewash of them. But then she couldn't have claimed...
  • Report: NFL sought to influence government head-trauma study

    05/24/2016 9:19:08 PM PDT · by scrabblehack · 10 replies
    Yahoo Sports ^ | 5/23/2016 | Jay Busbee
    A new congressional report has found that the NFL sought to improperly influence a major government study on connections between football and brain disease, according to documents obtained by ESPN's "Outside The Lines." (Update: the NFL has rejected the conclusions of the report.) The congressional research report indicates the NFL had given the National Institutes of Health a $30 million unrestricted gift in 2012, but later sought to pull $16 million in funding from that gift away from one researcher and reroute it to researchers working on the league's own brain injury committee. When the NIH declined to redirect the...
  • Experts Confirm Violin Played on Deck of Titanic

    03/16/2013 6:26:44 AM PDT · by scrabblehack · 18 replies
    newswer ^ | March 15, 2013 | Neal Colgrass
    A salt-stained violin that sank with the Titanic a century ago may soon come up for auction, the New York Post reports. Experts have authenticated the instrument, and say that bandmaster Wallace Hartley played it in the ship's final moments as he led his eight-member group in performing "Nearer, My God, to Thee." The violin turned up 10 days after the disaster, strapped to Hartley's body in a leather valise engraved with his initials. A gift from Hartley's fiancee, the violin had three owners before the current anonymous owner discovered it in his mother's attic seven years ago. "When we...
  • US House Chat

    10/09/2012 7:21:50 PM PDT · by scrabblehack · 15 replies
    10/9/2012 | self
    You can't believe polls any more, especially those conducted at the CD level. Also we're not in a position to conduct one. So let's look at past results, primaries, funding levels, maybe even economic indicators (local unemployment rate, etc.) to get a grasp on the next Congress.
  • Political Demographic Shifts

    08/21/2011 4:12:34 PM PDT · by scrabblehack · 22 replies
    Ruy Texeira and Michael Barone had a debate yesterday -- one of the questions that came up was whether the younger generation was more liberal because there was no Steven Colbert/Jon Stewart of the right. Barone's best response was that Jon Stewart occasionally runs an anti-Democrat story. But dang, there's been some funny stuff on this site. Surely someone could put together a news satire show appealing to young people -- maybe Fox News would air it?
  • Redistricting chat

    11/04/2010 7:57:42 PM PDT · by scrabblehack · 177 replies
    I don't know if others find this as interesting as I do but let's see. On another thread there was some discussion about whether PA-12 (Critz, Murtha's successor) would be eliminated in 2012. If the estimates at census.gov are any good, let's suggest some mapping strategies for any number of states. I'm guessing there won't be enough interest to break this into state-by-state threads.
  • Enterprise Zones - I realized my mistake 20 years too late

    08/23/2010 5:23:58 PM PDT · by scrabblehack · 6 replies
    Self ^ | August 23, 2010 | Self
    It's 20+ years late and I realize my mistake. Back in the 1980's, Jack Kemp boosted "Enterprise Zones." They were supposed to revitalize America's cities. Recently a friend has asked me for assistance in starting a small retail business. Of course the biggest obstacle is getting the startup capital. I was looking around and came across the HUD site. I then started looking at possible sites. To make a long story short, the commercial properties inside the zone I could find seemed like high risk sites to say the least. One main drag in town had some commercial properties (no...
  • AAFL needs cash infusion

    03/07/2008 7:00:35 PM PST · by scrabblehack · 1 replies · 179+ views
    The All American Football League could be closing down before its first kickoff. The AAFL released a statement early Thursday stating the six-team spring venture could be shut down until 2009 unless a new majority owner could be found — and quickly. The tone was more optimistic in a statement released late Thursday. “The All American Football League continues to progress toward its 2008 inaugural season. The league’s CEO, Marcus Katz, stated that discussions continue with several prospective investors and that negotiations for broadcast coverage of AAFL games continue to move forward. The start of preseason training camps will be...
  • Congress approves student loan forgiveness for public servants

    09/13/2007 4:09:21 AM PDT · by scrabblehack · 15 replies · 838+ views
    GovernmentExecutive.com through Google Cache ^ | September 7, 2007 | Brittany R. Ballenstedt
    Legislation that would provide student loan forgiveness for federal employees after 10 years of service will now move to President Bush's desk. The bill (H.R. 2669 ), sponsored by Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., was agreed upon by a conference committee Wednesday and cleared by the House and Senate on Friday. The president, who had threatened to veto the measure, has agreed to sign it. The legislation includes language that would make it easier for college graduates who have high student loan debt to accept lower-paying government and nonprofit jobs. High debt has often been cited as a major impediment to...
  • Cuomo probes practices of student-loan providers

    06/20/2007 9:08:20 PM PDT · by scrabblehack · 6 replies · 285+ views
    ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Some student loan providers have been setting rates based on the schools borrowers attend, a practice New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo likens to "redlining" in the home mortgage market. Cuomo said his office's investigation of the $85 billion industry found that a "significant number" of lenders rank colleges and universities on the loan default rates of their students and set interest rates on private loans higher for schools with poor records, according to a letter he sent Monday to the chairmen of two congressional committees. "In other words, just as lenders in the mortgage industry...
  • Sports maps

    02/17/2007 12:39:02 PM PST · by scrabblehack · 2 replies · 198+ views
    Map of NCAAF I-A Team Fan Areas Important: this map is highly inaccurate and should be understood only as a demonstration, and not as any kind of reliable data yet. It is based on only a few thousands of votes spread across all teams, across the country. Areas with virtually no data are shown in gray, and many boundaries are still expected to change their shape drastically. A map with more accurate boundaries will gradually emerge as the number of votes reaches the upper tens of thousands. Within the colored area associated with each team, more fans support that team...
  • Man of the Year

    10/25/2006 10:05:23 PM PDT · by scrabblehack · 6 replies · 270+ views
    self ^ | 10/24/2006 | scrabblehack
    I saw Man of the Year the other night -- it was funny enough. Afterward my girlfriend and I got into a discussion -- what would happen if massive vote fraud/computer error were discovered in a Presidential election? In the movie it was implied that a new election would be held. I thought of a few things....I had to look up the citations though. (1) If the fraud/error were discovered before the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December (3 U.S.C. 7), state legislatures could choose a method of selecting electors, so long as that method was completed by...
  • Mapping religion in America

    06/11/2006 4:37:31 AM PDT · by scrabblehack · 23 replies · 644+ views
    web blog ^ | April 3, 2006 | Geitner Simmons
    Why the difference between Wisconsin and Michigan? Consider the degree of religious adherence ? acknowledging one's membership in a particular religious grouping. According to this map, developed by the Cincinnati-based Glenmary Research Center, religious adherence is greatest in the middle of the country ? from Texas and Louisiana up through the Dakotas. Religious adherence in the Southeast, long dubbed the "Bible Belt," is more spotty that one might expect. The American West, with the exception of Utah, has long been described by scholars of the region as an area with weak religious intensity, and the map buttresses that conclusion. Religious...
  • Tennessee US Senate Primary

    05/19/2006 3:39:44 PM PDT · by scrabblehack · 2 replies · 984+ views
    Metro Pulse ^ | 5/19/2006 | Frank Cagle
    The Senate Horse Race Corker just off the pace in early going, plans move in final stretch by Frank Cagle The campaign for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Majority Leader Bill Frist has finally begun in earnest; television ads are running, polls are being conducted and debate schedules are being debated. Former Chattanooga Mayor Bob Corker has begun to spend some of his hefty campaign contributions and his name identification is beginning to rise. He is even out of the single digits where he began. He will have enough money to be a contender...
  • "Final deadline" for Jill Carroll

    02/11/2006 8:32:08 PM PST · by scrabblehack · 11 replies · 314+ views
    CNN ^ | Feb 11, 2006 | CNN
    Citing sources close to the kidnappers, Alrai Television in Kuwait reported Friday that U.S. journalist Jill Carroll's kidnappers set "a final deadline of February 26" for their demands to be met. It would be the second deadline set by her abductors, who have repeatedly said they will kill Carroll if the United States does not release all female prisoners it has in custody in Iraq. The kidnappers said they would be adhering to "rightful law" in killing Carroll, according to the private Kuwaiti station's chairman, Jassim Boodai. Boodai would not reveal the source, but said the information is "fresh."
  • Nazi stamped maps

    12/06/2005 8:48:44 PM PST · by scrabblehack · 13 replies · 1,247+ views
    e-mail
    I have done some investigating of copyright issues relating to maps issued under the Third Reich. From what I can gather, most of these maps are theoretically copyrighted. The maps issued by the German government were and are copyrighted (unlike U.S. government publications). The present German government, as the successor to the Reich, holds the copyright. Under the Nazi regime, school atlases and a variety of other publications that one might at first sight regard as government publications were issued by private corporations (many of which are still in business). Most of the demographic maps published by the Nazis were...
  • Let's get ready to run

    09/13/2005 8:04:05 PM PDT · by scrabblehack · 137+ views
    Foxnews.com ^ | Sept 12 2005 | Martin Frost
    Memo: Let's Get Ready to Run Monday, September 12, 2005 By Martin Frost I am writing you in your capacities as chairman of the Democratic Party’s top three national political committees: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) and the Democratic National Committee (DNC). It’s time to throw out the traditional playbook and be bold as you plan for the 2006 elections. There is a real possibility that next year’s contest will be a landslide for Democrats and you need to be prepared to win. Specifically, Emanuel and Schumer should file candidates for every single...