https://www.yahoo.com/news/m/af85c4ee-37c0-3628-afa9-8ce6a9a5e2de/ss_earth-just-narrowly-missed.html
Life takes us in many strange directions and wonderful discoveries. It never turns out the way we thought it would.
Wednesday, August 31, 2016
Tuesday, August 30, 2016
50 Top Celebrity's Net Worth
http://wizzed.com/50-celebrity-net-worths-that-will-shock-you/?utm_campaign=1-wizzed-arran-celebnetworths-us-desktop&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=yahoo
Monday, August 29, 2016
A Strong Indictment Of Capital Punishment
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/28/magazine/where-the-death-penalty-still-lives.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fmagazine&action=click&contentCollection=magazine®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=sectionfront
The Human Toll Of Terror
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/07/27/world/human-toll-of-terror-attacks.html?ref=world
An Uplifting Day
Mary Ann Nihart Elena and I are so sorry that we missed your birthday party and campaign launch. We were on a noble mission to help the family of a man dying of stomach cancer with a gift of school supplies for the kids and a couple of weeks of food supplies. We spent a lot of time with the family in Daly City. They are honest immigrants from Mexico who worked hard and have done well in the USA. (Donald Trump does not like people like this,by the way. ) Despite the sad ending that this man with three children faces, he was in good spirits and positive about the future. It really touched our hearts. It was a beautiful and an uplifting day.
Nojeh Air Base,Iran-Russian Staging Area For Bombing Isis
http://www.tehrantimes.com/news/405822/Nojeh-airbase-climax-of-Iran-Russia-defense-cooperation
Saturday, August 27, 2016
The Cyber Attack That Could Swing An Election
The cyber hack that could swing an election
‘The bizarre has almost become the norm in US politics this past year’
Is there anything that might cause Donald Trump to win the US presidential election? That’s the question political pundits are asking obsessively these days as the main parties’ campaigns take increasingly unpredictable turns.
A month ago Trump was almost level with Hillary Clinton in the polls but, since then, a series of gaffes has caused his numbers to slide. This week, for example, an IBT poll suggests Clinton now has a 12-point lead. While this might indicate that the Democrats are cruising for victory, the election has been so uncertain in recent months that nobody dares take anything for granted.
So what might suddenly cause momentum to swing again? To my mind, there are at least three factors to watch. The most obvious is that Trump himself implements a change of course, becoming much more professional and effective in running his campaign. That is hard to believe right now but the key person to watch is Kellyanne Conway, a pollster recently brought in to serve as campaign manager. Highly respected in Republican circles and regarded as a very effective operator, she might just possibly end up turning the campaign around.
A second factor is whether a nasty external shock occurs. Trump, after all, is a candidate whose campaign is built on stoking up fear, in the mould of former president Richard Nixon. If, God forbid, a big terrorist attack occurs — or something else that causes panic — this might play into Trump’s hands, particularly if his campaign had already shifted momentum under Conway.
However, there is a third possibility that has gained less attention: cyber hacking. This summer, the Democratic National Committee revealed it had suffered a cyber attack and that many confidential internal documents had been stolen. CrowdStrike, the cyber security group employed by the DNC, said the culprits were Russia’s intelligence services. This was denied by Moscow, but backed up by other cyber security groups such as Mandiant and Fidelis Cybersecurity.
This is a bizarre turn of events, by any standards, not least because some 20,000 internal DNC emails have now been released via WikiLeaks and a blogging site called Guccifer 2.0. But matters may get worse. CrowdStrike says one Russian hacking group, given the nickname Cozy Bear, was in the DNC system for at least a year. It is unclear what material has been taken but cyber experts believe Cozy Bear holds extensive secret documents, including confidential memos detailing the negative traits of Democratic candidates in this year’s US elections. (It is standard practice for campaign managers to try to assemble all the dirt on their own candidates in advance, so they are prepared in case their opponents try to attack them.)
…
If this is true — like almost everything else in the cyber security sphere, very little can be conclusively proved — it seems that only a small portion of the sensitive material has emerged. So it is possible that the hackers will leak this in the coming months, in a targeted way, trying to cause maximum damage. This week, for example, Guccifer 2.0 leaked data about the tactics that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee used in House races in Pennsylvania. This is the first time the hackers have tried to shape momentum in a local race. And if these leaks accelerate, they might stoke up more anti-Clinton feeling, particularly given the separate controversies surrounding Clinton’s personal email server. Or so the gossip goes.
On one level, this theory sounds almost fantastical and it is entirely possible that speculation will die away in a few months and that Clinton will romp to victory.
But the very fact that Washington is abuzz with these rumours right now illustrates two key points. First, just how strange this current election campaign has become on both sides and, second, the degree to which the bizarre has almost become the norm in US politics this past year. In this election we face a world of James Bond meetsAlice in Wonderland, where political boundaries are stealthily shifting, day-by-day. Stand by for more surprises — from Cozy Bear, or anyone else.
Illustration by Ulla Puggaard
Thursday, August 25, 2016
How Long Can Retirees Expect To Live Once They Reach 65 Years of Age?
To better understand the extent of longevity risk, it is worthwhile to consider a few points in great detail. Exhibit 1 provides period life table historical data from the Center for Disease Control to show remaining life expectancies for males and females at different points in history.
Between 1950 and 2010, the additional remaining years expected after age sixty-five increase by 4.9 years for males and 5.3 years for females. Much of these gains took place more recently. Over the course of twenty years—from 1990 to 2010—males reaching sixty-five added 2.6 more years, while females could expect 1.4 more years.
Though demographers debate extensively whether humans have reached the peak of our potential longevity, or whether we are on the verge of seeing someone make it to 150, it is reasonable for planning purposes to at least expect such longevity trends to continue. If longevity improves by about one year per decade, today’s thirty-five-year olds could expect to live three years longer than today’s sixty-five-year olds.
Exhibit 1: Historical Data for Remaining Life Expectancy at Age 65
| Male | Female | |
| 1950 | 12.8 | 15 |
| 1960 | 12.8 | 15.8 |
| 1970 | 13.1 | 17 |
| 1980 | 14.1 | 18.3 |
| 1990 | 15.1 | 18.9 |
| 2000 | 16 | 19 |
| 2010 | 17.7 | 20.3 |
| SOURCE: Center for Disease Control | ||
| http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/2011/022.pdf | ||
Recommended by Forbes
Continuing with the theme of longevity being conditional on age, the next exhibit shows how median remaining longevity evolves with age. For each additional year of life, remaining longevity reduces by a fraction of a year. For a male at sixty-five, median remaining longevity is about twenty-four years, but at age eighty-nine, longevity has not fallen to zero. It is still about five years.
Exhibit 2: Remaining Longevity (Median) By Age
Source: Own calculations using Society of Actuaries Mortality Tables
The next exhibit makes a similar point, with results expressed as the median age of death by age, rather than median remaining life expectancy. Longevity continues to increase as one survives into advanced ages.
Exhibit 3: Median Age of Death By Age
The next exhibit uses survival data to calculate the distribution for the actual age of death for sixty-five-year olds. This is the probability that each age will serve as your last. The figure helps highlight the uncertainties around longevity risk.
For instance, 10% of males will have died by 74.3, the median age is 88.9, and 10% are still alive by 98.4. The corresponding numbers for females are 75.8, 90.5, and 100.1 These wide ranges can make planning difficult.
Exhibit 4: Distribution for Age of Death for 65-Year Olds
The final exhibit shows the gender make-up for survivors overtime for a sixty-five-year-old couple in which one or both members of the couple remain alive. At earlier ages, there is still a high probability that both are alive.
Death tends to impact males sooner because of their shorter life expectancies. Widows become increasingly common for couples, which explains the proportion of females exceeding males. By age 100, there are very few remaining couples in which both members will still be alive.
Female survivors represent about 60% of the remaining survivors within these households, while male widowers are more than 35% of the survivors.
Exhibit 5: Distribution of Household Make-up by Age for 65-Year-Old Couples
Also on Forbes:
Wade Pfau: Professor at The American College and Principal at McLean Asset Management. His website: www.RetirementResearcher.com
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