Friday, March 29, 2013

Random pictures - watches

Click on individual pictures to enlarge:
 


Click on individual pictures to enlarge...

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Random charts - racial progress





The abstract: "Progress in closing differences in many objective outcomes for blacks relative to whites has slowed,and even worsened, over the past three decades. However, over this period the racial gap in well-being has shrunk. In the early 1970s data revealed much lower levels of subjective well-being among blacks relative to whites. Investigating various measures of well-being, we find that the well-being of blacks has increased both absolutely and relative to that of whites. While a racial gap in well-being remains, two-fifths of the gap has closed and these gains have occurred despite little progress in closing other racial gaps such as those in income, employment, and education. Much of the current racial gap in well-being can be explained by differences in the objective conditions of the lives of black and white Americans. Thus making further progress will likely require progress in closing racial gaps in objective circumstances."

Great quotes - "archaeology"


“But at the end of the day John is going to have to choose, even if his choice isn’t [the panel’s] number one choice. Some people’s demands for archaeology should not influence the director’s decision going forward on what’s best for the agency.”

- Unnamed "former senior CIA official" blithely dismissing torture, the unauthorized destruction of footage of "... more than 90 tapes of often-brutal interrogations...", etc.

Saturday, March 9, 2013

Random chart - jobs


Source: Summary for Week ending March 8th. "...This shows the depth of the recent employment recession - worse than any other post-war recession - and the relatively slow recovery due to the lingering effects of the housing bust and financial crisis..."

Random chart - cardinals

Source: Geography of the Conclave: Where Do the Cardinals Come From? "... fully half of the cardinal electors are European (52%), and just 17% come from Latin America. In fact, 24% of the cardinal electors are from Italy, though less than 5% of the world’s Catholic population is Italian..."

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Great quotes - Walid Beg encore


“I am with al-Nusra Front against the Syrian regime – the Syrian people have the right to deal with the devil, with the exception of Israel, to confront the regime.”
- Walid Jumblatt's latest.

Some previous Walid Beg quotes:
Great quotesNov 27th, 2010
Great quotes - Oct 10th, 2010
Great quotes - Jan 10th, 2010
Great quotes - Jul 29th, 2009
Taking it back... - Oct 28th, 2008