You tell me if you think this is classless from the tendentious New York Times….




From The New York Times 3/16/09
Ron Silver, 62, Persuasive Actor and Activist, Dies

Ron Silver, a versatile actor and independent-minded political activist who played Henry Kissinger, Alan M. Dershowitz and Angelo Dundee on the screen and supported Bill Clinton, Rudolph Giuliani and George W. Bush on the stump, died at home in Manhattan on Sunday. He was 62.
The cause was esophageal cancer, which was diagnosed two years ago, his brother Mitchell said.
Mr. Silver, who won a Tony Award in 1988 in David Mamet’s high-speed Hollywood sendup “Speed-the-Plow,” was known for playing verbally deft, charmingly manipulative characters, and his persona off stage was, if not Machiavellian, then certainly engaging and persuasive. (A classless remark for a newspaper to print in a man’s obit)
Intellectually curious and informed — he spoke Spanish, studied Chinese and served on committees for the Council on Foreign Relations — he was nearly as connected in Washington as he was in Hollywood and on Broadway, giving him a life away from performing that few other actors could match. Actually, he had a performing life that not many actors could match, either.
His résumé was ample on stage, in the movies and on television. His Kissinger was in a 1995 television movie, “Kissinger and Nixon.” In “Reversal of Fortune,” the 1990 movie directed by Barbet Schroeder about the high-society trial of Claus von Bülow (Jeremy Irons), he played Mr. Dershowitz, Mr. von Bulow’s voluble lawyer. And he was Mr. Dundee, Muhammad Ali’s trusted cornerman, in the 2001 film “Ali.”
He played other real-life characters, including Bobby Riggs, the tennis player and huckster who played — and lost to — Billie Jean King in a celebrated “battle of the sexes” match in 1973, which was recreated in a television movie, “When Billie Beat Bobby,” in 2001.He played the rock ’n’ roll impresario Bill Graham in a one-man show by Robert Greenfield, “Bill Graham Presents.”
Mr. Silver also appeared on Broadway in David Rabe’s play “Hurlyburly,” another Hollywood satire, and in movies that included “Enemies: A Love Story” (1989), Paul Mazursky’s bittersweet comedy about a Holocaust survivor who somehow ends up with three wives, and “Blue Steel” (1990), directed by Kathryn Bigelow, about a commodities broker who becomes obsessed with a young policewoman (Jamie Lee Curtis) after he witnesses her shooting an armed burglar. On television he had recurring roles on several series, including “Rhoda,” “Chicago Hope,” “The West Wing” and “Veronica’s Closet.”
But Mr. Silver was busy as a nonperformer as well. An activist most frequently allied with left-wing issues, he was president of Actors’ Equity, the stage actors union, for most of the 1990s and was a co-founder of the Creative Coalition, a group that advocates for First Amendment rights, public education and arts support. He campaigned for Bill Clinton for president.
“I’m an actor by calling but an activist by inclination,” Mr. Silver said in a 1994 interview.
Still, he had contrary impulses (contrary? How so and to whom? Maybe to the The New York Times liberal impulses which it can’t ignore and sadly which spill out into its news reports and unfortunately to its obituaries!) , and he paid attention to them. He was an advocate for President Ronald Reagan’s “Star Wars” defense plan, and he supported Mr. Giuliani’s campaign for mayor of New York in 1994. In 2004, he made headlines when he was a featured speaker at the Republican National Convention in Manhattan, supporting the nomination of President George W. Bush for a second term, largely because of the president’s stance against Islamic terrorism. He supported Mr. Giuliani for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008.
Ronald Arthur Silver was born in Manhattan on July 2, 1946. His father, Irving, was an executive in the men’s wear business. His mother, May Zimelman Silver, worked in the city school system as an aide and a substitute teacher. Young Ron attended New York City public schools, graduating from Stuyvesant High School. At the State University of New York at Buffalo, he studied Spanish; he received a master’s degree in Asian studies at St. John’s University in Queens. He studied acting at the Herbert Berghof Studio.
Mr. Silver’s only marriage, to Lynne Miller, ended in divorce. In addition to his brother Mitchell, who lives in Newton, Mass., he is survived by his parents, who live in Manhattan; another brother, Keith, of Stamford, Conn.; a son, Adam, of Los Angeles; and a daughter, Alexandra, of Manhattan.
His acting awed them, his conservative streak confounded them, Mitchell Silver said.
“Ron’s politics, as far as I know, were not shared by anyone he knew, except for the people he knew because of his politics,” Mitchell Silver said. He paused and added, “He told me that he did vote for Barack Obama in the end.”

When Science Is a Siren Song

When a group of British academic researchers reported last spring that women fond of eating breakfast cereal were more likely to give birth to boys, the story was lapped up by journalists the world over. "Skip breakfast for a daughter, eat up your cereals for a son," advised The Economist, just one of many publications to seize on the report.

The problem with this fascinating study? It appears to be wrong. An analysis led by Stan Young of the National Institute for Statistical Sciences found that the original conclusion was based on poor statistics and is probably the result of chance.

So far, Young's rebuttal, published in January, has received little notice. That it is ignored by many of the media outlets that lavished attention on the original report isn't surprising; in fact, the most remarkable thing is how ordinary that lack of attention may be. A lot of science, it turns out, can't withstand serious scrutiny.

Thoughtful analysis by John Ioannidis suggests that more than half of published scientific research findings can't be replicated by other researchers.

Part of the problem is that we've been conditioned to trust university research. It is based, after all, on the presumably lofty motives of its practitioners. What's not to like about science carried out by academics who have nobly dedicated their lives to understanding the unknown, furthering knowledge and serving humanity?

Within academia's ivied walls the view is a bit different. The university is not a peaceable kingdom, and life is far more Hobbesian. Henry Kissinger was on to something when he observed that "university politics are so vicious precisely because the stakes are so small." In contrast to the academia-vs.-industry trope, hubris, self-interest and ambition are not checked at the university door; arguably, they are essential for admission and required for professional success.

University researchers are in a constant battle for recognition and the rewards associated with success: research space, speaking engagements, funding and autonomy. Consequently, while academic research is often described as "curiosity-driven," the reality is messier, as (curiously) many researchers tend to pursue the trendiest technologies and explore topics that happen to be associated with the most generous levels of research support.

Moreover, since academic success is determined almost exclusively by the number and prestige of research publications, the incentives to generate results are exceedingly powerful and can encourage investigators to see patterns that may not exist, to disregard contradictory observations that might be important, to overvalue data that might be preliminary or unreliable, and to embrace conclusions that deserve to be viewed with far greater skepticism

Obama's Poll Numbers Are Falling to Earth
It is simply wrong for commentators to continue to focus on President Barack Obama's high levels of popularity, and to conclude that these are indicative of high levels of public confidence in the work of his administration. Indeed, a detailed look at recent survey data shows that the opposite is most likely true. The American people are coming to express increasingly significant doubts about his initiatives, and most likely support a different agenda and different policies from those that the Obama administration has advanced.
Polling data show that Mr. Obama's approval rating is dropping and is below where George W. Bush was in an analogous period in 2001. Rasmussen Reports data shows that Mr. Obama's net presidential approval rating -- which is calculated by subtracting the number who strongly disapprove from the number who strongly approve -- is just six, his lowest rating to date.
M.E. Cohen
Overall, Rasmussen Reports shows a 56%-43% approval, with a third strongly disapproving of the president's performance. This is a substantial degree of polarization so early in the administration. Mr. Obama has lost virtually all of his Republican support and a good part of his Independent support, and the trend is decidedly negative.
A detailed examination of presidential popularity after 50 days on the job similarly demonstrates a substantial drop in presidential approval relative to other elected presidents in the 20th and 21st centuries. The reason for this decline most likely has to do with doubts about the administration's policies and their impact on peoples' lives.
There is also a clear sense in the polling that taxes will increase for all Americans because of the stimulus, notwithstanding what the president has said about taxes going down for 95% of Americans. Close to three-quarters expect that government spending will grow under this administration.
Recent Gallup data echo these concerns. That polling shows that there are deep-seeded, underlying economic concerns. Eighty-three percent say they are worried that the steps Mr. Obama is taking to fix the economy may not work and the economy will get worse. Eighty-two percent say they are worried about the amount of money being added to the deficit. Seventy-eight percent are worried about inflation growing, and 69% say they are worried about the increasing role of the government in the U.S. economy.
When Gallup asked whether we should be spending more or less in the economic stimulus, by close to 3-to-1 margin voters said it is better to have spent less than to have spent more. When asked whether we are adding too much to the deficit or spending too little to improve the economy, by close to a 3-to-2 margin voters said that we are adding too much to the deficit.
Support for the stimulus package is dropping from narrow majority support to below that. There is no sense that the stimulus package itself will work quickly, and according to a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, close to 60% said it would make only a marginal difference in the next two to four years. Rasmussen data shows that people now actually oppose Mr. Obama's budget, 46% to 41%. Three-quarters take this position because it will lead to too much spending. And by 2-to-1, voters reject House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's call for a second stimulus package.
While over two-thirds support the plan to help homeowners refinance their mortgage, a 48%-36% plurality said that it will unfairly benefit those who have been irresponsible, echoing Rick Santelli's call to arms on CNBC.
And although a narrow majority remains confident in Mr. Obama's goals and overall direction, 45% say they do not have confidence, a number that has been growing since the inauguration less than two months ago. With three-quarters saying that they expect the economy to get worse, it is hard to see these numbers improving substantially.
There is no real appetite for increasing taxes to pay for an expanded health-insurance program. Less than half would support such an idea, which is 17% less than the percentage that supported government health insurance when Bill Clinton first considered it in March of 1993.
While voters blame Republicans for the lack of bipartisanship in Washington, the fact is that they do not believe Mr. Obama has made any progress in improving the impulse towards cooperation between the two parties. Further, nearly half of voters say that politics in Washington will be more partisan over the next year.
Fifty-six percent of Americans oppose giving bankers any additional government money or any guarantees backed by the government. Two-thirds say Wall Street will benefit more than the average taxpayer from the new bank bailout plan. This represents a jump in opposition to the first plan passed last October. At that time, 45% opposed the bailout and 30% supported it. Now a solid majority opposes the bank bailout, and 20% think it was a good idea. A majority believes that Mr. Obama will not be able to cut the deficit in half by the end of his term.
Only less than a quarter of Americans believe that the federal government truly reflects the will of the people. Almost half disagree with the idea that no one can earn a living or live "an American life" without protection and empowerment by the government, while only one-third agree.
Despite the economic stimulus that Congress just passed and the budget and financial and mortgage bailouts that Congress is now debating, just 19% of voters believe that Congress has passed any significant legislation to improve their lives. While Congress's approval has increased, it still stands at only 18%. Over two-thirds of voters believe members of Congress are more interested in helping their own careers than in helping the American people. When it comes to the nation's economic issues, two-thirds of voters have more confidence in their own judgment than they do in the average member of Congress.
Finally, what probably accounts for a good measure of the confidence and support the Obama administration has enjoyed is the fact that they are not Republicans. Virtually all Americans, more than eight in 10, blame Republicans for the current economic woes, and the only two leaders with lower approval ratings than Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are Republican leaders Mitch McConnell and John Boehner.
All of this is not just a subject for pollsters and analysts to debate. It shows fundamentally that public confidence in government remains low and is slipping. We face the possibility of substantial gridlock along with an absolute absence of public confidence that could come to mirror the lack of confidence in the American economy that the Dow and the S&P are currently showing.

Health care summit at White House a first step to overhaul

Proposing “Universal Healthcare”

President Obama will kick off his effort to try to overhaul the nation's troubled health care system again today with an important misnomer.

There is an almost mystical number that that everyone - politicians, media, etc,. use for the so-called "uninsured" : 47mn. However, what no one will talk about - except the US Census Deptartment, is that many of the uninsured are not even Americans* . The way the media and politicians speak about this subject is often coded. They say "47mn people in this country (not 47mln Americans) don't have health insurance." Perhaps the reason is that no politician wants to have to discuss providing health insurance to millions of illegal aliens.


Now should the society decide to make the necessary expenditures to cover thousands of illegal aliens is another question -as well as forcing young adults to have healthcare insurance, but a question that should be asked honestly and debated in a transparent manner and not obfuscated the way it is now.







According to the US Census Department*:

Uninsured people in the USA who are NOT U.S. CITIZENS IS 45% or 10.2mln of the 47mln (22%)
Broken down by age, 18 - 34 years old 56.2% (19mln or 40% of the 47mln)do not have health insurance.



It's not such a "crisis" as the media makes it out to be: So in other words, fully 62% of the total uninsured are either non-Americans are young adults.

Of the remaining 35mln a good portion (19mln) are young people between the ages of 18 and 34 who, given free choice, have under their own cost/benefit analysis decided that paying a $1k p/month for health insurance they will most likely not need is not worth the costs.

All children, by the way, that don't have parental coverage, are covered by Medicaid. There is also State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).



* http://www.census.gov/prod/2007pubs/p60-233.pdf

What Are the Odds of a Depression?
International evidence suggests there is a 20% chance our stock-market crash will lead to much worse.

By ROBERT J. BARRO

Central questions these days are how severe will the U.S. economic downturn be and how long will it last?

The most serious concern is that the downturn will become something worse than the largest recession of the post-World War II period -- 1982, when real per capita GDP fell by 3% and the unemployment rate peaked at nearly 11%. Could we even experience a depression (defined as a decline in per-person GDP or consumption by 10% or more)?

The U.S. macroeconomy has been so tame for so long that it's impossible to get an accurate reading about depression odds just from the U.S. data. My approach uses long-term data for many countries and takes into account the historical linkages between depressions and stock-market crashes. (The research is described in "Stock-Market Crashes and Depressions," a working paper Jose Ursua and I wrote for the National Bureau of Economic Research last month.)

The bottom line is that there is ample reason to worry about slipping into a depression. There is a roughly one-in-five chance that U.S. GDP and consumption will fall by 10% or more, something not seen since the early 1930s.

Our research classifies just two such U.S. events since 1870: the Great Depression from 1929 to 1933, with a macroeconomic decline by 25%, and the post-World War I years from 1917 to 1921, with a fall by 16%. We also assembled long-term data on GDP, consumption and stock-market returns for 33 other countries, sometimes going back as far as 1870. Our conjecture was that depressions would be closely connected to stock-market crashes (at least in the sense that a crash would signal a substantially increased chance of a depression).

This idea seems to conflict with the oft-repeated 1966 quip from Paul Samuelson that "The stock market has predicted nine of the last five recessions." The line is clever, but it unfairly denigrates the predictive power of stock markets. In fact, knowing that a stock-market crash has occurred sharply raises the odds of depression. And, in reverse, knowing that there is no stock-market crash makes a depression less likely.

Our data reveal 251 stock-market crashes (defined as cumulative real returns of -25% or less) and 97 depressions. In 71 cases, the timing of a market crash matched up to a depression. For example, the U.S. had a stock-market crash of 55% between 1929-31 and a macroeconomic decline of 25% for 1929-33. Likewise, Finland had a stock-market crash of 47% for 1989-91 and a macroeconomic fall of 13% for 1989-93. We found that 30 cases where there were both crashes and depressions were also associated with wars. In fact, World War II is the worst macroeconomic event of the period, with strong U.S. wartime economic growth as an outlier.

In the post-World War II period, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries were strikingly tranquil up to 2008. The worst macroeconomic event in that period came in Finland in the early 1990s. Sweden also faced a financial crisis in the early 1990s, though it reacted quickly and is now being touted as a possible guide for leading the U.S. out of its current economic crisis.

Outside of the OECD, there have been many linked stock-market crashes and depressions since World War II -- including the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s, Mexico's financial crisis in the mid-1990s, the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, and Argentina's financial turbulence that lasted until 2002.

Looking at all of the events from our 34-country history, we find that there is a 28% probability that a "minor depression" (macroeconomic decline of 10% or more) will occur when there is a stock-market crash. There is a 9% chance that a "major depression" (a fall of 25% or more) will occur when there is a stock-market crash. In reverse, the chance that a minor depression will also feature a stock-market crash is 73%. And major depressions are almost sure to have stock-market crashes (our data show the probability is 92%).

In applying our results to the current environment, we should consider that the U.S. and most other countries are not involved in a major war (the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts are not comparable to World War I or World War II). Thus, we get better information about today's prospects by consulting the history of nonwar events -- for which our sample contains 209 stock-market crashes and 59 depressions, with 41 matched by timing. In this context, the probability of a minor depression, contingent on seeing a stock-market crash, is 20%, and the corresponding chance of a major depression is only 2%. However, it is still the case that depressions are very likely to feature stock-market crashes -- 69% for minor depressions and 83% for major ones.

In the end, we learned two things. Periods without stock-market crashes are very safe, in the sense that depressions are extremely unlikely. However, periods experiencing stock-market crashes, such as 2008-09 in the U.S., represent a serious threat. The odds are roughly one-in-five that the current recession will snowball into the macroeconomic decline of 10% or more that is the hallmark of a depression.

The bright side of a 20% depression probability is the 80% chance of avoiding a depression. The U.S. had stock-market crashes in 2000-02 (by 42%) and 1973-74 (49%) and, in each case, experienced only mild recessions. Hence, if we are lucky, the current downturn will also be moderate, though likely worse than the other U.S. post-World War II recessions, including 1982.

In this relatively favorable scenario, we may follow the path recently sketched by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, with the economy recovering by 2010. On the other hand, the 59 nonwar depressions in our sample have an average duration of nearly four years, which, if we have one here, means that it is likely recovery would not be substantial until 2012.

Given our situation, it is right that radical government policies should be considered if they promise to lower the probability and likely size of a depression. However, many governmental actions -- including several pursued by Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression -- can make things worse.

I wish I could be confident that the array of U.S. policies already in place and those likely forthcoming will be helpful. But I think it more likely that the economy will eventually recover despite these policies, rather than because of them.

Mr. Barro is a professor of economics at Harvard and a fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

So now bowing your head and taking a knee is a violation of the “Separation of Church and State”????


High court turns down coach's bid on prayer
School board prevails in E. Brunswick case

The U.S. Supreme Court has turned down an appeal from the East Brunswick High School football coach who was banned from bowing his head during student-led team prayers.
Without comment yesterday, the nation's highest court ended Marcus Borden's efforts to overturn a township board of education decision that as a public employee, Borden cannot mix religion with his work as a coach.
The high court's decision leaves intact a federal appeals court's April decision that Borden's desire to bow his head and take a knee during team prayer is an endorsement of religious activity at a public school.
Neither Borden, who has been the East Brunswick football coach since 1983, nor his attorney, Ronald Riccio, could be reached for comment yesterday afternoon.
Borden has been fighting for the right to bow and kneel in prayer with his team since November 2005, when he filed a federal lawsuit arguing the school district's regulations were overly broad. He won a U.S. District Court ruling in July 2006 in which a judge decided those rules were unconstitutional, but that decision was reversed at the appellate level in April 2008.
Riccio asked the Supreme Court in October to review the appeals court decision, arguing then that Borden's case was of national importance because "it addresses what public school educators are permitted to say and do when public school students engage in religious activities in their presence."
Richard Katskee, an attorney with the Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which represented the board of education in court, said in a prepared statement yesterday "children have a clear right to attend public schools without religious pressures being brought to bear by school personnel."
"Coach Borden was out of bounds, and the courts were right to blow the whistle," Katskee said. "I hope that other coaches and school personnel learn a lesson from this."
Todd Simmens, president of the East Brunswick Board of Education, in the same statement said "public school officials simply may not engage with students in religious activity."
"The board of education and district officials have, throughout this case, made certain no school employee supervises or otherwise participates in any type of prayer with our students," Simmens said. "Needless to say, the board is pleased that, in this case, the courts reaffirmed this long-standing constitutional principle."
The school district said Borden had a long history of leading prayers before he was ordered to stop after complaints from some parents. Borden resigned as coach in protest of the school board ruling in 2005, but rescinded the resignation within a week and hired Riccio to represent him in his quest to coach the team the way he had for more than two decades.

“I fooled them and won”