Month: March 2012

On to the November Referendum

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Martin Omalley has signed Maryland’s gay marriage bill into law:

Amid cheers and camera flashes from a crush of onlookers, Gov. Martin O’Malley signed into law Thursday his bill legalizing same-sex marriage in Maryland — legislation that raises his national profile and, advocates say, gives momentum to those pushing similar measures in three states.

“The way forward is always found through greater respect for the equal rights of all,” said O’Malley, giving brief remarks before signing the legislation. “If there is a thread that unites all of our work here together, it is the thread of human dignity. … Let’s sign the bill.”

Opponents are already collecting signatures for a referendum, but I really think that they will lose the vote.

The public views on gay marriage are shifting with remarkable speed.

I’m Thinking that T Rex Was a Largely A Scavenger

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Some scientist simulated the bite of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, and determined that it had one of the strongest ever:

The tyrant lizard, also known as Tyrannosaurus rex, had the strongest bite of any known land animal, new research suggests.

“Our results show that the T. rex had an extremely powerful bite, making it one of the most dangerous predators to have roamed our planet,” study researcher Karl Bates, of the University of Liverpool, said in a statement.

………

The new estimate of bite force is higher than past estimates that relied on indent measures in which they pressed down the skull and teeth onto a bone until they got the imprints that matched those on fossils. In the new study, the researchers created a computer model of the dinosaur’s jaw by first digitally scanning skulls from an adult and juvenile T. rex, an allosaurus, an alligator and an adult human. They used these scans to model each animal’s bite.

“We took what we knew about T. rex from its skeleton and built a computer model,” Bates said. “We then asked the computer model to produce a bite so that we could measure the speed and force of it directly.”

The force exerted at one of T. rex’s back teeth would have been between 7,868 and 12,814 pounds-force (35,000 and 57,000 newtons). This force would be akin to having a medium-size elephant sit on you.

There has always been a debate about T. Rex, and whether they were primarily predators or scavengers.

The interesting thing is that, at least amongst today’s mammals, scavengers have stronger jaws, the hyena, for example, despite being less than half the size of a lion, has a stronger bite.

Basically, when you come late to the party, you need jaws that can pulverize bone to get the table scraps.*

So, I’m thinking that this extreme jaw strength, and the associated costs of maintaining that capability to the species, imply that the king of the dinosaurs was frequently dining on someone else’s left-overs.

*Yes, I am aware that the Hyena is actually a highly successful predator, and frequently, when you see them circling when the lions are eating, the hyenas have made the kill, and the lions have taken it over. It still means that they are going to eat what the lions leave after they have had their fill.

Dan Savage on Rick Santorum

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Glad not to be named Rick!

Dan Savaged is, of course, the genius who coined the nelogism for Santorum, “The frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the by-product of anal sex.”

Well, all I can say is that everyone in the United States named Rick is desperately hoping that he stops hating on the gay.

Dallas Fed President calls for Big Bank Breakup

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I’m stunned that someone at this high a level in the financial establishment would suggest breaking up the mega-banks. I don’t know what is leading to this, but he’s off Tim Geithner’s Christmas list:

The five biggest banks in the United States are too powerful and should be broken up, Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher said on Wednesday.

The financial crisis has left the five biggest banks even more powerful than before, he said at an event in Mexico City.

The five biggest U.S. banks are: JPMorgan , Goldman Sachs , Morgan Stanley , Bank of America , and Citigroup .

“After the crisis, the five largest banks had a higher concentration of deposits than they did before the crisis,” he said. “I am of the belief personally that the power of the five largest banks is too concentrated.”

The U.S. Dodd-Frank reform and consumer protection act includes mechanisms for regulators to break up large financial companies, but imposes high hurdles for such action.

“The purpose of Dodd-Frank was to reduce the concentration of power and we have a term called ‘too big to fail’… perversely, these banks are now even bigger, they are too ‘bigger’ to fail than before.”

Last month a group of consumer advocates, academics and economists said they wanted to end “too-big-to-fail” banks, starting with Bank of America.

Fisher continued his U.S. assessment by focussing on consumer demand, which he said is driving a pick-up in the economy although risks remain.

A welcome, if unexpected, development.

My guess, and I could be talking out of my ass, is that this is an artifact of the fact that he’s one of the most extreme inflation hawks at the Fed. 

Basically, I think that he thinks that Bernanke is keeping rates at the zero bound in order to allow the too big to fail banks to dig themselves out of their holes, and he is concerned that this will set the stage for inflation.

If I am right in my analysis, his statement is actually less shocking than it appears at first glance.

H/t Chris in Paris.

Alpha Mike Foxtrot

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H/t JR at the Stellar Parthenon BBS  for the pic

Andrew Breitbart is dead. It appears to be natural causes.

Normally, this would be the place where I take the high road, and when someone has died, if you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything, followed by a couple of inches of white space.

But I remember what he said when Edward Kennedy died:

Andrew Breitbart, a Washington Times columnist who oversees Breitbart.com and BigHollywood.com, tapped into the anti-Kennedy vein in the hours after the senator’s death was announced, posting a series of Twitter messages in which he called Kennedy a “villain,” a “duplicitous bastard” and a “prick.”

“I’m more than willing to go off decorum to ensure THIS MAN is not beatified,” Breitbart wrote. “Sorry, he destroyed lives. And he knew it.”

So, I will follow his example, and note that the only thing that he ever did to make the world a better place was to leave it.

I hope Shirley Sharrod continues her suit, and manages to get his damn fillings.