I was reading an article on California’s Proposition 65 in a journal called “Environment.” I’m now wondering whether I dare cite an article that appears alongside the following ad:
(The citation is William S. Pease (1991). “Chemical Hazards and the Public’s Right to Know: How effective is California’s Proposition 65?” Environment 33 (10), pp. 12-20.)
After skulking around nytimes.com message forums and reading exasperating commenters on The Atlantic, I decided to enter the “argument-by-comment” war on climate change by posting a comment on a Jim Manzi’s current meta-discussion of the climate debate. Typically, when I read these things the particular discussion is either so out-of-date or so dominated by nutjobs that I don’t feel like it’s worth contributing.
I don’t really know anything about Jim Manzi. But on this particular blog the level of discourse was pretty high and the latest post was fewer than four hours old. Plus I had just attended the Gordon Research Conference on Industrial Ecology (about which I can tell you nothing or I’d have to kill you– well, let’s say, “sequester” you). So I felt both qualified and compelled to respond.
I used my real name and linked to my blog, so I decided I had better go ahead and own up.
Bank stocks soar on financial regulation agreement (google / AP)
NEW YORK — Bank stocks shot higher Friday after an agreement on a financial regulation bill reassured investors that new rules won’t devastate financial companies’ profits.
Banks outdistanced the rest of the market after congressional negotiators agreed on a bill that increases the regulation of financial companies, but that doesn’t include some of the harshest provisions that the government originally proposed. The legislation imposes new rules on the complex investments known as derivates, but the rules aren’t as strict as investors feared. It also includes a far milder version of what’s been called the Volcker rule. That rule, named after former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, would have banned commercial banks from trading simply to increase their profits, a practice known as proprietary trading.
Analysts said the deal removes a huge cloud that has hovered over the financial industry for much of this year. Investors have feared that intense regulation would devastate bank profits. Now, the market seems to believe that financial companies would do well even with the new limits on their business.
“They come out of this big-time winners,” Bob Froehlich, senior managing director at Hartford Financial Services, said of financial companies. “Two years later, people will look back and say ‘My gosh, nothing really changed.’”
Just reading the Amazon listing for “Principles of Combustion” by Kenneth K Kuo and found that Amazon features “Statistically improbable phrases” for books it’s digitized. It displays unlikely phrases in order of their “improbability score” (Douglas Adams could not have done better himself).
Anyway, the SIPs for “Principles of Combustion” are entertaining. I particularly like “kth species”:
Key Phrases – Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
detonation and deflagration waves, detonation cell width, diffusion flame jets, limiting tube diameter, detonability limits, spin detonation, liquid fuel droplet, premixed laminar flames, reaction zone width, unconfined detonations, premixed gases, confined mixtures, detonation structure, detonation limits, fuel species, laminar diffusion flame, thermal and transport properties, burner rim, kth species, burner inlet, mass burning rate, j mwj, quenching distance, combustion problems, detonation wave
