The archives of my thousands of posts since 2005 that used to be at my old site have been copied over here, so that they are now available at both places.

Because of the size and other complications, the work was tedious and time consuming and I want to acknowledge my deep gratitude to Jason Thibeault over at lousy canuck for carrying out this huge task so efficiently and cheerfully.

One commenter to my previous post wondered if I could write about the Big Bang model, dark matter, dark energy, and so on in a manner accessible to the lay reader. This raises an interesting issue of what to do about the posts that I wrote before I moved here and which are currently archived on my old site. Those archives are in the process of being moved over here but I am not sure when that transfer will be completed.

People are welcome to browse the old category archives where they will find that I have written on a fairly wide variety of topics. If readers would like me to address a specific topic, I may be able to point them to one already written.

New readers at FtB may not be aware that on occasion I make people suffer through a multi-part series of posts on topics that I think require careful explanation. In this particular case, I wrote a 16-part series on the topic Big Bang for beginners that addressed the topic that was requested. Posts 8 and 9 in the series dealt with the role of dark matter and dark energy.

So please keep those requests and suggestions coming.

I have chosen as my comment policy that the first comment by someone has to be approved by me but once approved that person will be able to post comments freely.

I will try to check frequently and apologize in advance if work and other pressures result in delays and your first comment not appearing as soon as you might like.

The blogging software here is different from what I am used to so there may be some rough patches early on until I get the feel of things. If readers notice anything that can be improved upon, I would be grateful for their suggestions.

I’d like to thank Ed Brayton and the rest of the people at Freethought Blogs for inviting me to join them.

I am not new to blogging, however, having done it for nearly seven years over at my old site which contains the archive of old posts that I hope to copy over here in due course. My interests tend to vary over a lot of topics, in addition to the ones listed on the banner.

I would like to express my special thanks to Norm Nason, editor of the excellent web magazine Machines Like Us, and a person of many artistic talents whose work can be seen here, for designing the above banner.

New posts will commence as soon as I get the hang of the new system here which uses a different platform from the one I am used to.

So with that introduction out of the way, onward and upward!

A new study says that people start losing their brain powers as early as 45 years of age.

The results of the tests show that cognitive scores declined in all categories except vocabulary – and there was a faster decline in older people.

The study found a 9.6% decline in mental reasoning in men aged 65-70 and a 7.4% decline for women of the same age.

For men and women aged 45-49, there was a 3.6% decline.

Since my work involves mainly words, the lack of decline in vocabulary skills may be masking my decrepitude.

The study can be read here.

… and best wishes for the New Year to all the readers of this blog.

Since my family is visiting over the holiday week, blogging will be lighter than usual. Regular blogging will resume on Tuesday, January 4, 2012.

The new film version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is being released today.

I have not read the books but saw the Swedish trilogy of films and they were pretty good. They are also recent, all being released in 2009 so I don’t understand the reasons for this remake. The new version also takes place in Sweden and seems to have the same plot with the same characters and names, and the trailer seems awfully similar to the original, so I am baffled as to why it was done.

The only benefit seems to be to not have subtitles. I know that some people don’t like them but they don’t bother me in the least. In fact, after the film is over, I often cannot recall whether the film was in English or I was reading subtitles. Subtitles can also be an advantage because you don’t miss mumbled words and the spoken words do not get drowned by ambient sounds, not an insignificant factor when you are watching at home, and your dog can get excited by seeing a squirrel and let loose a fusillade of barks.

Maybe the reason is purely commercial. The books have been huge bestsellers and by making pretty much the same film but in English with a well-known star like Daniel Craig, Hollywood hopes to cash in on the phenomenon and make a bundle.

Yes, it’s that time of year to have fun seeing the people over at Fox News get into a lather over people not using the word ‘Christmas’ everywhere. The best part of this war is that it not only gives The Daily Show plenty of material for mockery, it also allows them to set the record straight, destroying the myth that the US used to always treat Christmas with somber veneration until we heathens destroyed its sanctity.

Face it, Fox News. You have lost the war on Christmas. It has become largely a secular event and there is no going back, however much you insist on saying “Merry Christmas”.

Four years ago, I made the obvious point of why spreading the wealth was much better for everyone than great inequality. (I wrote a whole series of posts on this but this particular one is the most relevant here.)

The oligarchy and its allies, especially those in the Republican party and Fox News, have fought against this, saying that rich people are ‘job creators’ and taxing them more means that they will invest less and hire less people. A billionaire venture capitalist named Nick Hanauer wrote an op-ed in which he debunks this idea and pretty much makes the same point that people like me have made.

I’m a very rich person… Even so, I’ve never been a “job creator.” I can start a business based on a great idea, and initially hire dozens or hundreds of people. But if no one can afford to buy what I have to sell, my business will soon fail and all those jobs will evaporate.

That’s why I can say with confidence that rich people don’t create jobs, nor do businesses, large or small. What does lead to more employment is the feedback loop between customers and businesses. And only consumers can set in motion a virtuous cycle that allows companies to survive and thrive and business owners to hire. An ordinary middle-class consumer is far more of a job creator than I ever have been or ever will be.
…
It is unquestionably true that without entrepreneurs and investors, you can’t have a dynamic and growing capitalist economy. But it’s equally true that without consumers, you can’t have entrepreneurs and investors. And the more we have happy customers with lots of disposable income, the better our businesses will do.

That’s why our current policies are so upside down. When the American middle class defends a tax system in which the lion’s share of benefits accrues to the richest, all in the name of job creation, all that happens is that the rich get richer.

And that’s what has been happening in the U.S. for the last 30 years.
…
One reason this policy is so wrong-headed is that there can never be enough superrich Americans to power a great economy. The annual earnings of people like me are hundreds, if not thousands, of times greater than those of the average American, but we don’t buy hundreds or thousands of times more stuff. My family owns three cars, not 3,000. I buy a few pairs of pants and a few shirts a year, just like most American men. Like everyone else, I go out to eat with friends and family only occasionally.
…
I can’t buy enough of anything to make up for the fact that millions of unemployed and underemployed Americans can’t buy any new clothes or enjoy any meals out. Or to make up for the decreasing consumption of the tens of millions of middle-class families that are barely squeaking by, buried by spiraling costs and trapped by stagnant or declining wages.

If the average American family still got the same share of income they earned in 1980, they would have an astounding $13,000 more in their pockets a year. It’s worth pausing to consider what our economy would be like today if middle-class consumers had that additional income to spend. [My italics]
…
We’ve had it backward for the last 30 years. Rich businesspeople like me don’t create jobs. Middle-class consumers do, and when they thrive, U.S. businesses grow and profit. That’s why taxing the rich to pay for investments that benefit all is a great deal for both the middle class and the rich.

So let’s give a break to the true job creators. Let’s tax the rich like we once did and use that money to spur growth by putting purchasing power back in the hands of the middle class. And let’s remember that capitalists without customers are out of business.

What Hanauer is saying is (or should) blindingly obvious to anyone who gives the topic a moment’s thought. Henry Ford said pretty much the same thing a century ago. But our oligarchy has gotten so out of control and so avaricious that they have to counter this renegade from their ranks and so naturally there has been pushback. In this interview Neil Cavuto of Fox News tries to faithfully serve his masters by challenging Hanauer.

Cavuto raises the idiotic argument that I have heard so often, that if Hanauer feels he should pay more taxes why does he not voluntarily send in a check instead of changing the tax rates for everyone?

That is the kind of argument that labels you as being either incredibly stupid or willfully obtuse. It is on a par with those anti-evolutionists who think that the question “If we descended from monkeys, how come there are still monkeys?” is a devastating argument against evolution. Those who are tempted to make such an argument should really think twice, unless they don’t mind people laughing at them.

Apparently that’s what a billboard company in north central Ohio said in refusing to put it up. However the company is quite willing to post religious billboards.

The whole story is quite bizarre. (Via Pharyngula)

This illustrates once again that religious people resort to the strategy of ‘taking offense’ because they have no rational arguments to counter those of the atheists.

[Update: For some reason, this post has attracted an enormous number of spam comments and so I have regretfully closed it for new comments.]