As a fan of a wide variety of popular (and not-so-popular) music from the 1950s (and sometimes even earlier) up through the present, one of my bucket list projects for years has been to put together a list of my 100 favorite songs of all time. At some point I decided that, once I got around to figuring that out, I could put it out on a blog, for the infinitesimally small proportion of the Internet world that might be interested. So, here we are. While the Top 100 will be a major focus, I also plan to post on a variety of other musical (and occasionally non-musical) topics, in which you may or may not be interested. (If a particular posting doesn’t ring your bell, you’re only a few clicks away from a dancing cat video on YouTube.)

Tuesday, June 12, 2018

Beware the ‘mother of all credit bubbles’


 
Higher and higher levels of debt, this time mostly corporate (instead of home mortgages), packaged into “collateralized loan obligation” securities of decreasing quality. If this doesn’t bring back memories of the Crash of 2007, it should.

Did exactly 4,645 people die in Hurricane Maria? Nope.


 
That’s more like “4,645 ± 3,852”. Other attempts to ascertain the death toll come out around 1,000 – which is still much higher than the official figure of 64.

Sunday, June 10, 2018

June 8, 2018 – Giants 9, Nats 5 – Nationals Park


 
Attendance: 41,591
Duration: 3:04
Weather: 84 degrees, Cloudy
Wind: 5 MPH Out to Left
Umpires: HP: Kerwin Danley. 1B: Scott Barry. 2B: Carlos Torres. 3B: Paul Nauert.
 
Section 316, Row C, Seats 1-3
 
Game notes – Strasburg didn’t look like himself, yielding 3 runs and giving the visitors a lead they would never relinquish before leaving after the 2nd inning with what turned out to be right shoulder inflammation … Giants padded their lead in the 4th with a 2-run Gorkys Hernandez homer off Wander Suero, who gave up one more run in the 5th … Nats fought back on a 2-run Soto HR in the 4th, 2-run single by Harper in the 5th, and a pinch-single by Matt Adams in the 6th to pull within a run … rather than responding with a shutdown inning, the Nats bullpen (Kintzler/Grace) gave up 3 more runs in the top of the 7th, and the Nats managed only one baserunner over their last 3 ABs 
 
Other – large crowd for the Zim bobble, resulting in crowded concourses and long concession lines

There are ‘nuggets of truth’ to what Trump says about trade


 
Yes, there are instances in which countries use high tariffs, quotas and other barriers to protect some domestic industries and make it difficult or impossible to import certain goods.
 
Of course, the United States is one of those countries.