James M. Taylor, senior fellow for environment policy at The Heartland Institute, was a guest on Platts Energy Week on New Year?s Day. James was joined by former Rep. Bob Walker (R-PA) to talk about energy policy and the GOP candidates for president.
?
Among other points, James notes that ?there are consequences? to ?jumping off the cliff? due to faulty global warming science. James also points out that we are an ?energy-rich nation? and we need to get ?Washington, DC out of the way? so energy technology can advance and drive economic growth.
Here's the video: http://bcove.me/0g02mqb4
(EDITORS NOTE: Taylor is labeled as being ?For Rick Perry.? James has volunteered to be an informal environmental policy advisor for the Rick Perry campaign. The Heartland Institute does not endorse any candidate for president, and Taylor does not perform his consulting duties on behalf of the organization.)
According to a brief report that just went live at Reuters, Sprint is "merging its sales and marketing operations for its business and consumer operations in a streamlining that includes the departure of four top executives." Reportedly, that news was delivered by none other than CEO Dan Hesse himself, who has been in the news a fair amount since 2012 began. Reportedly, the carrier is aiming to "gain efficiencies" in a market where hordes of customers snap up services as individuals, but actually use services tied to "employer-related contractual discounts." Hesse's exact words? "As the wireless market has evolved, the lines between consumers and businesses have blurred." Evidently, they've blurred enough to oust four unnamed bigwigs, too.
Bain, Barack and Jobs, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times: ...Mr. Romney claims that Mr. Obama has been a job destroyer, while he was a job-creating businessman. For example, he told Fox News: ?This is a president who lost ... two million jobs...? He went on to declare, of his time at the private equity firm Bain Capital, ?I?m very happy in my former life; we helped create over 100,000 new jobs.?
But his claims about the Obama record border on dishonesty, and his claims about his own record are well across that border. Start with the Obama record. It?s true that 1.9 million fewer Americans have jobs now than when Mr. Obama took office. But the president inherited an economy in free fall... So how much of that Obama job loss took place in, say, the first half of 2009?
The answer is: more than all of it. The economy lost 3.1 million jobs between January 2009 and June 2009 and has since gained 1.2 million jobs. ... So Mr. Romney?s claims about the Obama job record ... are deeply misleading. Still, the real fun comes when we look at what Mr. Romney says about himself. Where does that claim of creating 100,000 jobs come from?
Well, Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post got an answer from the Romney campaign. It?s the sum of job gains at three companies that Mr. Romney ?helped to start or grow?: Staples, The Sports Authority and Domino?s.
Mr. Kessler immediately pointed out two problems with this tally. It?s ?based on current employment figures, not the period when Romney worked at Bain,? and it ?does not include job losses from other companies with which Bain Capital was involved.? ... Hey, if pluses count but minuses don?t, everyone who spends a day playing the slot machines comes out way ahead! ...
Mr. Romney?s claims about being a job creator would be nonsense even if he were being honest about the numbers, which he isn?t.
At this point, some readers may ask whether it isn?t equally wrong to say that Mr. Romney destroyed jobs. Yes... The real complaint about Mr. Romney and his colleagues isn?t that they destroyed jobs, but that they destroyed good jobs.
When the dust settled after the companies that Bain restructured were downsized ? or, as happened all too often, went bankrupt ? total U.S. employment was probably about the same... But the jobs that were lost paid more and had better benefits than the jobs that replaced them. Mr. Romney and those like him didn?t destroy jobs, but they did enrich themselves while helping to destroy the American middle class.
And that reality is, of course, what all the blather and misdirection about job-creating businessmen and job-destroying Democrats is meant to obscure.
Posted by Mark Thoma on Friday, January 6, 2012 at 12:33 AM in Economics, Politics, Unemployment
You say you don't care about dating a hottie?Public release date: 5-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Hilary Hurd Anyaso h-anyaso@northwestern.edu 847-491-4887 Northwestern University
New methodology suggests mate preferences hover just outside of conscious awareness
EVANSTON, Ill. --- Stating that you don't care if you land a partner who is "hot" or "sexy" is relatively commonplace. But what people say they want and what they actually want are often two very different things when it comes to romantic attraction.
However, a new methodology that measures people's implicit, split-second responses gets around this problem. Research from Northwestern University and Texas A&M University measures whether people's implicit preferences actually predict how much you like the hotties.
"People will readily tell you what they value in a romantic partner," said Eli Finkel, associate professor of psychology at Northwestern and co-author of the study. "But study after study shows that those preferences don't predict whom daters are actually attracted to when they meet flesh-and-blood partners. Now we can get under the hood with this quirky methodology to see what people actually prefer in live-interaction settings."
Paul W. Eastwick, assistant professor of psychology at Texas A&M University and lead author of the study, says that the findings raise questions about the way we determine what people want in a partner.
"If a person tells me, for example, that she doesn't care about how attractive a guy is, our research suggests that her claim isn't worth all that much," Eastwick said. "Instead, it would actually be more useful to measure her reaction times on this new task."
Focused on physical attractiveness, the implicit measure in this study was based on reaction times to various words flashed in the middle of a computer screen. Participants' task was to quickly sort synonyms of "physical attractiveness" with other words that they happen to like, such as tequila, or motorcycles, or romance novels. According to the researchers, the people who perform well on this task have a strong implicit preference for physical attractiveness.
Along with Eastwick and Finkel, other co-authors of the study include Alice H. Eagly, professor of psychology and faculty fellow in the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern, and Sarah E. Johnson, a doctoral graduate of Northwestern.
"In many cases, people's consciously stated attitudes and preferences predict their behavior quite well," Eagly said. "But in the case of attraction, people's implicit, unconscious preferences seem to do a better job."
A number of psychology studies reveal a disconnect between stated preferences for partners and actual choices. Most of the studies use explicit measures in which people consciously report what appeals to them in a partner. In this new study, the implicit measure that the researchers developed predicted how much the participants liked physically attractive potential partners, both at a speed-dating event and in a face-to-face interaction in the laboratory.
"People's reports of why they like certain partners might not be especially accurate," Eastwick said. "But that doesn't mean that romantic desire is random. The reasons might still be there, hovering just outside of conscious awareness."
The study, "Implicit and Explicit Preferences for Physical Attractiveness in a Romantic Partner: A Double Dissociation in Predictive Validity," appeared in the November issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
You say you don't care about dating a hottie?Public release date: 5-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Hilary Hurd Anyaso h-anyaso@northwestern.edu 847-491-4887 Northwestern University
New methodology suggests mate preferences hover just outside of conscious awareness
EVANSTON, Ill. --- Stating that you don't care if you land a partner who is "hot" or "sexy" is relatively commonplace. But what people say they want and what they actually want are often two very different things when it comes to romantic attraction.
However, a new methodology that measures people's implicit, split-second responses gets around this problem. Research from Northwestern University and Texas A&M University measures whether people's implicit preferences actually predict how much you like the hotties.
"People will readily tell you what they value in a romantic partner," said Eli Finkel, associate professor of psychology at Northwestern and co-author of the study. "But study after study shows that those preferences don't predict whom daters are actually attracted to when they meet flesh-and-blood partners. Now we can get under the hood with this quirky methodology to see what people actually prefer in live-interaction settings."
Paul W. Eastwick, assistant professor of psychology at Texas A&M University and lead author of the study, says that the findings raise questions about the way we determine what people want in a partner.
"If a person tells me, for example, that she doesn't care about how attractive a guy is, our research suggests that her claim isn't worth all that much," Eastwick said. "Instead, it would actually be more useful to measure her reaction times on this new task."
Focused on physical attractiveness, the implicit measure in this study was based on reaction times to various words flashed in the middle of a computer screen. Participants' task was to quickly sort synonyms of "physical attractiveness" with other words that they happen to like, such as tequila, or motorcycles, or romance novels. According to the researchers, the people who perform well on this task have a strong implicit preference for physical attractiveness.
Along with Eastwick and Finkel, other co-authors of the study include Alice H. Eagly, professor of psychology and faculty fellow in the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern, and Sarah E. Johnson, a doctoral graduate of Northwestern.
"In many cases, people's consciously stated attitudes and preferences predict their behavior quite well," Eagly said. "But in the case of attraction, people's implicit, unconscious preferences seem to do a better job."
A number of psychology studies reveal a disconnect between stated preferences for partners and actual choices. Most of the studies use explicit measures in which people consciously report what appeals to them in a partner. In this new study, the implicit measure that the researchers developed predicted how much the participants liked physically attractive potential partners, both at a speed-dating event and in a face-to-face interaction in the laboratory.
"People's reports of why they like certain partners might not be especially accurate," Eastwick said. "But that doesn't mean that romantic desire is random. The reasons might still be there, hovering just outside of conscious awareness."
The study, "Implicit and Explicit Preferences for Physical Attractiveness in a Romantic Partner: A Double Dissociation in Predictive Validity," appeared in the November issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
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Ford Motor Co of Canada said on Wednesday it was Canada?s top-selling automaker in 2011 for the second consecutive year, boosted by sales of its F-Series pickup truck.
Ford said it sold 275,978 vehicles in Canada last year, 3% more than in 2010. Truck sales again made up about three-quarters of its total sales.
?Full-sized trucks are experiencing record-breaking sales in Canada,? said Scott Cauvel, vice-president of sales at Ford Canada.
The F-Series was the top-selling vehicle in Canada for the second year in a row in 2011.
Ford was also Canada?s leading auto seller for the month of December, selling 19,381 vehicles, a dip of 0.5 percent from a year ago.
?We are optimistic that the Canadian auto industry will continue to grow in 2012,? Cauvel said in a statement.
Earlier, Chrysler Canada said it chalked up its best retail sales in nine years in 2011 and was also the No. 1 market share gainer in the country for the second year in a row.
The Detroit-based automaker said its sales rose 13% last year to 230,992, lifted by sales of its Ram pickup trucks. For the month of December, sales increased 2 percent to 14,628 vehicles.
?We experienced our highest retail sales results since 2002 and have two of the ?Top 5? best-selling vehicles in the country with our Ram truck and Dodge Grand Caravan,? Chrysler Canada President and Chief Executive Reid Bigland said in a statement.
(Reporting By Nicole Mordant in Vancouver; editing by Rob Wilson)
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Public release date: 5-Jan-2012
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