By the Numbers
2011/07/10 Leave a comment
/…Our world is a parade of numbers!
It’s one way we determine accomplishments in politics, in business, in sports, in our lives….It’s one way we measure success and failure—
#…Derek Jeter of the Yankees…3004 hits, the only Yankee among the great Yankees to reach and surpass that plateau..
#…Oddsmakers placed 1 to 4 odds Jeter’s 3,000th would be a single. It was a home run!
#…The Blue Jays bullpen, has blown 14 of 32 saves, second last in the American League…
#…Zero the number of goals scored by TFC in the last two games………….
#… At 34, Yoshikazu Tanaka is Japan’s youngest billionaire. He owns Gree Inc. his country’s second largest networking company.
#…The unemployment rate in Greece is 16%, but the rate for those under 24 is 42.5%. In Spain 44.4% of those under 24 are not employed.
#…21-thousand is the number of part time jobs canadians found in May, 7-thousand the number of fulltime jobs!!
#…The people of Greece owe their government almost 60 billion dollars in unpaid taxes!!!
#…The 60 billion dollars is owed by 900,000 individuals and companies.
#…In the United States, for the first time, married couples make up less than half(45%) of all households.
#…This weekend in Toronto, the forecasters got the weather 50% right, that may be above their average!
#… Comedian Craig Ferguson observed “The Royal couple will be visiting 8 major cities during their 9 days in Canada.
That’s amazing to me, he continued, Canada has eight major cities???”
So now the narrative extruded from all those numbers in summation:
Derek Jeter has reached one of the loftiest plateaus in baseball that will be duplicated by very few because you need both skill and longevity to walk on it.
This time the oddsmakers got it wrong but normally they are right far more often than weather forecasters.
A baseball team can’t be thinking about a post season with a bullpen as bad as the one the Blue Jays management has put together. And we don’t expect
TFC(Toronto’s soccer team) to be in the playoffs either.
We are impressed, with the abilities, talent and good luck of one Yoshikazu Tanaka, now with a fortune of a billion dollars.
If there’s going to be major trouble in Greece and Spain you can expect it from those under 24. You cannot continue to expect law and good order in countries where
that large a segment of young people have no work!
I don’t know what we our business reporters are excited about. Many would not see the creation of that many part-time jobs as a good thing, when compared to the
pathetic number of fulltime jobs reported in May.
Now if the people of Greece came clean and paid the back taxes they owe the government…..the bankers in Germany and France would be smiling, but you can’t get blood from a stone.
In the United States what God has ordained, man has put asunder and the number of married couples continues well into the minority.
And one thing more:
Craig Ferguson is a mean man with mean jokes about our great country, the one NOT saddled with a debt of 14 trillion dollars!!!!
And so it goes:
“Although he may not always recognize his bondage, modern man lives under a tyranny of numbers.”
Nicholas Eberstadt
The Tyranny of Numbers: mismeasurement and misrule.
holidayatlarge 
By the Numbers-a sequel
2011/07/20 Leave a comment
/…5 major players have now been added to the casualty list that has enveloped The-News-of-the-World scandal:
Rebekah Brooks, former International News CEO-resigned. detained and questioned;
Chief of Scotland Yard, Paul Stephenson resigned; Paul Yates the Yard’s counterterrorism chief-quits
Sean Hoare, former news-of-the-world reporter and whistle-blower, one of the first
to accuse the paper of hacking and pinging-dead. Police call the death unusual but don’t think he was murdered!
Piers Morgan, arrogant TV host , the replacement for Larry King live is linked to, scandal tainted types like Brooks.
And today “Jonnie Marbles” enters the scandal as a foot-note. His claim to fleeting fame-throwing a shaving cream pie into the face of Rupert Murdoch.
/…17 the number of U-S states suffering under a heat dome that is pushing temperatures in usually cooler cities like Minneapolis into the 100 plus range.
It ‘s same kind of heat we were feeling monday across the Ontario South and the same kind of oppressive tropical heat we will be feeling thursday. 37 celcius-Oh Yeah.
/…The City budget committee is looking at a 774 Million dollar deficit but the Toronto Star and the Mayor’s critics claim–that can’t be right. it’s only
443 million!!! The Star which is still trying to come to grips with Ford’s victory last year, has become a pathetic critic of the Mayor and his efforts(some of which are silly)
to rein in spending. Like all deficit situations the problem isn’t a lack of revenue, it’s a lack of discipline.
Despite his lack of finesse in handling the deficit, he is the only Mayor since amalgamation making any effort to find those the economies of scale
that the Harris twits said would materialize for the taxpayers of Toronto, Etobicoke, York, East York, Scarborough and North York, if we would only submit to their ‘common sense’ plan.
Lies, lies and damn lies and we bought them!
And of course there’s fat in the operating budget of this city! In the late 90’s a Committee of Concerned Citizens in the Town of Caledon, tiny by comparison to Toronto
took just fifteen minutes with the Mayor and his staff to find 100-thousand dollars in savings without affecting services. Savings that the Mayor swore were not there.
Of course there’s fat in the Toronto budget. Probably about 200 million dollars. Those numbers and the re-allocation of resources would give us a balanced budget.
If you want a good look at how badly managed the city’s finances are check out the Sue-Ann Levy column(Sun-June 21st).
/…Does that mean we would need a 3% tax increase in 2012? maybe! especially if a tax increases means a budget surplus. But Mayor Ford’s suggestion that a tax increase next year would be fine
because we didn’t have one this year is the kind of foolish observation he needs to stop making!
/…one of the reasons for budgetary missteps is the failure to change spending plans; for instance Applefield drive in Scarborough is designated for a major refit– they plan to tear up the street, the sidewalks.
the curbs etc and make everything new. The fact is there is no reason to destroy what is perfectly functional and in need of some repairs!
Why is this being done–a city official told me,” it’s part of the five-year plan and it went into the hopper a long time ago.” If you’re short of money change it. “No, we can’t do that, it’s all part
of the plan.” The fact that the Councillor lives on this street wouldn’t have anything to do with the decision not to change the plan, would it?
/…Is it possible that at least one of the Wards in Scarborough has descended into the kind of blatant influence peddling so familiar in Louisiana, or is that Mississippi?
More on that in later editions of HolidayatLarge.
/…July 19, ten years ago the U-S national debt was 5-trillion, 705 billion, 50 million, 480 thousand, two hundred , 67 dollars and 56 cents: 5, 705, 050, 480, 267.56>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Gold on this day(july 19, ten years ago) was trading for $266 US dollars. This morning gold hit $1602!
/…Since filling the screens world-wide a week ago Wednesday, Harry Potter-deathly hallows(2) banked an estimated $307 millions dollars U-S.
/…The number ONE deli in Toronto is Zane Caplansky’s smoked meat emporium on College street and now those smoked meat sandwiches are coming to a place near you.
Caplansky has TWO trucks ready this week for lunch hour service and private events. Good luck to Zane Caplansky.
/…It’s a rare thing to see a Toronto Sports writer offer an opinion that is critical of fans and teams in this loser’s paradise, but that’s exactly what we got today
from Steve Simmons. Are Toronto sports fan suckers or just the most loyal dummies in all of Sportsdom? Read all about it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
/…And did the First lady of France, Carla Bruni really tell the French newspaper Nice-matin, the baby she is expecting, the Sarkozy’s first
is “unexpected and unhoped for.” Tough luck kid, life is problematic enough if they want you…can you imagine…….
/…And finally a 20 foot Animatronic Triceratops is available from Hammacher Schlemmer. This motion-sensing animatronic giant is just the thing
to give those neighbourhood kids a Halloween fright. Cost: $350,000 U-S!
/…”
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