Nate P

We live in an era where

Employee of the year

In this fascinating photo we see a neon salesman’s sample case from the 1930s. Below you can find a close up of the business card inside the case that shows the sample case is from a company called Dorwart Signs in Lancaster, PA.

Funnily, when you think of the time period of the 1930s many people may conjure up images in black and white, yet here’s this briefcase full of bright neon lights. Imagine the wow factor people must have had when the salesman opened the case.

Listen to the difference in reverberation time of a balloon pop in a reverberant field versus an anechoic field. This footage was taken during an acoustical tour sponsored by Sound Advice/Ecore International in Lancaster, PA.

Do you like cats? Would you like to buy a house for your cat(s)? If you answered yes to these questions your search is over. Welcome to 669 County Road 8235 in Stanford Concho, Arizona (MLS #215144).

For the low price of US$240,000 this 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom, 2,500 sq. ft. cat shrine can be all yours for you and your feline companions. As per the listing description:

Single Family Detached – Contemporary eccentric full log sided custom home on 20+/- acres for the cat fancier! If you love cats this is the home for you! If not bring your sandblaster! Custom build, hardwood kitchen cabinets (Oak, Lacewood, and Bocote) artistically accented with river rock. Cat walkways and in great room Medieval cat castle with different levels (stone). All interior doors custom built (wood). Must see to believe it does exist!!! Once in a lifetime find extremely fun home!

Still not convinced? Check out the video tour and photos below and I’ll meet you in Arizona with the signing papers, don’t forget your cheque book!

[via Century 21 High Country]

Jimmy Kimmel recently brought back Snoop Dogg for a new segment of Plizzanet Earth. If you haven’t seen the original Iguanas vs Snakes clip from Planet Earth II, check it out, it’s a must watch.

A couple’s wedding day is one of the happiest and most memorable in their lives. And sometimes couples will spice things up by hiring an offbeat officiant to perform their ceremony. I went to a wedding in January that was officiated by a drag queen, and it was easily the most fun wedding I’ve ever been to.

But if your idea of fun is hanging out with a grizzly bear, this Russian couple has you covered.

Photo Credit: Caters News Agency

The couple, Denis and Nelya, both 30 and both from Moscow, hired Stepan, a 350 lb grizzly, to be their ring bearer. Stepan assisted with the ceremony, and posed for lots of pictures, like this one where he gave the new bride a kiss:

Photo Credit: Caters News Agency

Denis told the press that inviting Stepan to the wedding was a “fantastic experience,” but of course it wasn’t without anxiety. “We both knew Stepan is a very kind bear but still it is a huge, unpredictable animal so we were a bit scared, but still happy to be able to make our dream come true.”

Photo Credit: Caters News Agency

Photo Credit: Caters News Agency

Pictured: Stepan posing for a photo with Denis, who’s probably wishing he hadn’t worn salmon-scented cologne. 

At one point in the wedding, Stepan stepped in to officiate the ceremony itself.

Photo Credit: Caters News Agency

The wedding photos were taken by photographer Olga Barantseva.

Photo Credit: Caters News Agency

This isn’t the first time Stepan the bear has been in the news. In 2016, he appeared in a photo series with his owners Svetlana and Yuriy Panteleenko. The photos showed the three of them in scenes from their daily life, and really underscore just how tame Stepan is.

Photo Credit: Caters News Agency

According to Svetlana and Yuriy, in the 23 year’s Stepan’s lived with them, he’s never gotten out of control. “He absolutely loves people and is a really sociable bear – despite what people might think, he is not aggressive at all. We have never been bitten by Stepan,” Yuriy said.

Which is good, because he weights 350 pounds and stands at over 7 feet tall. To fuel a bear that size, Yuriy and Svetlana have to feed Stepan about 55 pounds of fish and eggs. Per day.

When he’s not stealing the show at Russian couples’ weddings, Stepan’s favorite activity is snuggling up on the couch with Yuriy and Svetlana and watching TV. (Must be a big couch.)

Photo Credit: Caters News Agency

Denis and Nelya’s wedding was just how they imagined it, Denis said. “It is such a special feeling to hug a real, huge bear, and you cannot compare it to anything else. We will absolutely remember this day forever.” 

No kidding.

h/t: Daily Mail

The post Russian Couple Gets Married…With A Bear. Seriously. appeared first on AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com.

Did you see it? It’s there, hiding in plain sight. A venomous copperhead snake (Agkistrodon contortrix). Take another look, see if you can spot the little guy.

If you found it, well done! Now watch your step. Copperheads tend to ‘freeze’ instead of slithering away, and as a result, many bites occur from people unknowingly stepping on or near them (source). If you’re still having trouble spotting him, check out the outlined photo below.

Matt Yglesias says Mark Zuckerberg could do the world a favor by deep-sixing Facebook:

It makes people unhappy and it's destabilizing politics around the world. He should shut it down. He won't starve.

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) April 21, 2017

He bases his call to action on research like this:

Overall, our results showed that, while real-world social networks were positively associated with overall well-being, the use of Facebook was negatively associated with overall well-being. These results were particularly strong for mental health; most measures of Facebook use in one year predicted a decrease in mental health in a later year. We found consistently that both liking others’ content and clicking links significantly predicted a subsequent reduction in self-reported physical health, mental health, and life satisfaction.

This particular study is prospective and longitudinal: it begins with a group of people and follows them for a couple of years. The benefit of this is that you get more than a mere association. If all you had was a set of data showing that (a) Facebook use is (b) correlated with poor mental health, you'd have no way of knowing if A causes B or B causes A.

This longitudinal data still doesn't answer the question conclusively. It could be that as people become depressed, they spend more time on Facebook. In fact, maybe without Facebook they would have gotten even more depressed. Who knows? You'd almost literally need to track day-by-day mental health and Facebook use to find out.

But I'm totally willing to believe that Facebook is evil even without hard evidence. The casually brutal insults almost certainly outweigh the praise for a lot of people. It instills a sense of always needing to keep up with things every minute of the day. It interferes with real-life relationships. It takes time away from more concentrated activities that are probably more rewarding in the long run.

This doesn't apply to all Facebook users. In fact, I'd guess that it applies to only 10-15 percent of them. But that's enough.

It doesn't matter, of course. Mark Zuckerberg surely disagrees, and anyway, he couldn't shut down Facebook even if he wanted to. He may nominally control the company, but shareholders still have rights. Preventing the CEO from blowing up the company because he's feeling guilty about something is certainly one of them.

On the other hand, perhaps we could at least set an age limit for Facebook. If you aren't allowed to drink before age 21, surely you shouldn't be allowed to use social media either. I'd bet the latter is more dangerous than the former.

“My eight-year-old daughter did this at home on her own. It started when she wanted to purchase an app and she couldn’t. It wound up being five pages long. I think she’s going to be a computer whiz. And yes, the “Oh my gosh, look!” is, indeed, a reference to ‘I Like Big Butts.'”

(submitted by Erin) 

On Saturday January 21, 2017, Women’s Marches took place in cities around the world. While the primary march in Washington D.C. was estimated to have drawn some 600,000 people, ‘sister marches’ were held in over 500 cities across the United States and over 100 cities across the globe.

Estimates of over 3.3 million people are said to have participated in various marches across the United States alone. If true, it would mark the single largest day for a demonstration in the US. [source]

With so many participants there was no shortage of creative, funny, strange and random protest signs. Here are some of the standouts from this past weekend.

David, an Instagrammer from the UK, has two great loves: movies, and his cat. Fortunately for us, he’s found a way to combine them, in a project he calls Movie Cats.

(via Sad and Useless)

David, an Instagrammer from the UK, has two great loves: movies, and his cat. Fortunately for us, he’s found a way to combine them, in a project he calls Movie Cats.

(via Sad and Useless)

In a historic find, the tail of a 99 million year old dinosaur is seen intact and perfectly preserved in amber; including bones, soft tissue, and feathers. The finding was reported in the latest issue of the science journal, Current Biology.

According to National Geographic, ‘this marks the first time scientists have been able to clearly associate well-preserved feathers with a dinosaur and in turn gain a better understanding of the evolution and structure of dinosaur feathers.’ [source]

The amber sample was discovered in a mine in the Hukawng Valley of northern Myanmar. Amber from this region is believed to contain the world’s largest variety of animal and plant life from the Cretaceous period.

The research, led by paleontologist Lida Xing of the China University of Geosciences, was funded in part by the National Geographic Society’s Expeditions Council. You can read the full story on this fascinating discovery on National Geographic.

“I was cleaning out my Mom’s house when I found this picture of me with my cats.”

(via source)

“I was cleaning out my Mom’s house when I found this picture of me with my cats.”

(via source)

The post Nineteen Lives appeared first on AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com.

This scene from the season premier of Planet Earth II might be the most intense nature sequence ever filmed.

There’s a new pollster on the block, so no track record.   But an interesting technique

www.scribd.com/...

 

 

TARGETSMART AND WILLIAM & MARY RELEASE POLL OF OHIO LIKELY VOTERS

-Clinton 40, Trump 37 Latest Survey Shows-

September 26, 2016

 – 

 Hillary Clinton holds a narrow, 3-point lead over Donald Trump in Ohio, 40 to 37 percent, with 8 percent of voters supporting Gary Johnson, according to a new poll of likely voters released today by TargetSmart and William & Mary. Recently forming a partnership to produce original research in key battleground states, TargetSmart and William & Mary developed a unique approach to determining a “likely voter” model for this poll.

 

The research team first weighted the survey data to mirror all registered voters on the TargetSmart voter file, and then applied a second round of weights based solely on respondents’ likelihood to vote, as measured by TargetSmart’s General Election Turnout score, one of many predictive models

housed on the TargetSmart voter file.  “Having the ability to use TargetSmart’s turnout score to weight the data takes much of the guesswork out of determining a likely voter model,” said Ron Rapoport, John Marshall Professor of Government at William & Mary.

It is 821 Likely voters, with a mix of telephone and online interviews.    I’m a professor at William and Mary, and I know the professor involved — he is very solid and reliable (and the student quoted is in my class).   But I know nothing of the technique they are using.   Still, it’s nice to be up 3 in a state that some people falsely claimed the campaign is giving up on (Bill is there in a couple of days).

Short on arms but not on heart, the 65 million-year-old carnivore makes a historic run on American Ninja Warrior

“One of my friends just sent me her kid’s homework. After the answer at the bottom, I can see this kid is going places.”

(via source) 

“One of my friends just sent me her kid’s homework. After the answer at the bottom, I can see this kid is going places.”

(via source) 

The post New Proverbs appeared first on AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com.

Imgur user doomhandle shared his recently completed Tyrant Imperial Star Destroyer and it’s awesome. Measuring 4 ft, 7 in (1.4 m) long and weighing over 70 pounds (32 kg); it also features a three-level interior with characters, ships and removable sections.

The design is based on the 2014 LEGO Star Destroyer Set (75055) and the custom-design was built entirely with readily available LEGO pieces. It’s about 20 times the size of the official LEGO Star Destroyer set which allows for a lot more customization inside.

I’ve included exterior and interior shots below, but be sure to check out the full 45-picture album on Imgur where doomhandle goes into far more detail about the build and components of the ship.
 
[via doomhandle on Imgur]

Picture of Green’s Windmill by Kev747 at the English language Wikipedia.

In 1828, an English corn miller named George Green published a paper in which he developed mathematical methods for solving problems in electricity and magnetism. Green had received very little formal education, yet his paper introduced several profound concepts that are now taught in courses on advanced calculus, physics, and engineering. My aim in writing this post is to give a brief biography of this great genius and provide an introduction to GreenFunction, which implements one of his pioneering ideas in Version 10.4 of the Wolfram Language.

George Green was born on July 14, 1793, the only son of a Nottingham baker. His father noticed young George’s keen interest in mathematics, and sent him to a local school run by Robert Goodacre, a well-known science popularizer. George studied at Goodacre Academy between the ages of eight and nine, and then went to work in his father’s bakery. Later he ran a corn mill built by his father in Sneinton, near Nottingham. He is said to have hated his work at the bakery and the corn mill, and regarded it as annoying and tedious. In spite of his onerous duties, George appears to have continued studying mathematics in his spare time, retreating to the top floor of the 16-meter-high mill, shown above, for this purpose. In 1828, he published the results of his rigorous self-study in “An Essay on the Application of Mathematical Analysis to the Theories of Electricity and Magnetism,” one of the most influential mathematical papers of all time.

Green’s paper of 1828 introduced the potential function, which is well known to students of physics. He also proved a form of Green’s theorem from advanced calculus in this paper. Finally, he introduced the notion of a Green’s function that, in one form or another, is familiar to students of engineering, and is the theme for this post. By sheer chance, Sir Edward Bromhead, a founder of the Analytical Society, purchased and read a copy of Green’s paper. With his encouragement, Green entered Gonville and Caius College in Cambridge University at the age of forty, and eventually became a fellow of the college. He continued to publish papers until his untimely death in 1841, possibly due to lung complications arising from his work at the corn mill. Sadly, recognition for his mathematical work had to wait until 1993, when a plaque was dedicated to his memory in Westminster Abbey. Today, the Green’s Mill and Science Centre in Nottingham carries on the work of promoting George Green’s reputation as one of the greatest scientists of his age.

I will now give an introduction to GreenFunction using concrete examples from electrical circuits, ordinary differential equations, and partial differential equations.

The basic principle underlying a Green’s function is that, in order to understand the response of a system to arbitrary external forces, it is sufficient to understand the system’s response to an impulsive force of the DiracDelta type.

As an illustration of the above principle, consider a circuit that is composed of a resistor R and an inductor L, and is driven by a time-dependent voltage v[t], as shown below:

The current i[t] in the circuit can then be computed by solving the differential equation:

L i´(t)+R i(t)==v(t)

Let’s assume that the voltage source is a battery supplying a unit voltage. Next, suppose that you close the switch S for a fleeting moment at time t = s and then quickly throw it open again. The current induced in the circuit by this impulsive action can be computed by applying GreenFunction to the left-hand side of the above differential equation:

The initial value of the current is assumed to be zero, since the switch was open until time t = s:

Here is the result given by GreenFunction for this example:

The following plot for s = 1 shows that the current is 0 for all times t t = 1, and finally decreases to 0 with the passage of time:

The behavior of the circuit in the above situation is usually called its impulse response, since it represents the response of the circuit to an impulsive voltage.

Next, suppose that you close the switch at time t = 0 and leave it closed at all later times. Thus the voltage steps up from its initial value 0 to a constant value 1, and can be modeled using the HeavisideTheta function:

The step voltage can be visualized as follows:

You can now compute the current in the circuit by performing the following integral involving the voltage and the Green’s function:

The integral computed above is essentially a weighted sum of the Green’s function with the voltage source at all times s prior to a given time t, and is called a convolution integral.

As the plot below shows, the current for the step voltage source gradually increases from its value 0 at t = 0 to a steady-state value:

The behavior of the circuit in the above situation is usually called its step response, since it represents the response of the circuit to a step voltage.

Finally, suppose that the voltage source supplies an alternating voltage—for example:

You can once again compute the current in the circuit by performing a convolution integral of the voltage with the Green’s function, as shown below:

You can also obtain the result using DSolveValue as follows:

As the plot below shows, the current settles down to a steady alternating pattern for large values of the time:

To summarize, the Green’s function encodes all the information that is required to study the response of the circuit to any external voltage. This magical property makes it an indispensable tool for studying a wide variety of physical systems.

The two-step procedure for solving the differential equation associated with a circuit, which I discussed above, can be applied to any linear ordinary differential equation (ODE) with a forcing term on its right-hand side and homogeneous (zero) initial or boundary conditions. For example, suppose you wish to solve the following second-order differential equation:

Assume that the forcing term is given by:

Also, suppose that you are given homogeneous boundary conditions on the interval [0,1]:

As a first step in solving the problem, you compute the Green’s function for the corresponding differential operator (left-hand side) of the equation:

The following plot shows the Green’s function for different values of y lying between 0 and 1. Each instance of the function satisfies the zero boundary conditions at both ends of the interval:

You can now compute the solution of the original differential equation with the given forcing term using a convolution integral on the interval [0,1], as shown below:

Here is a plot of the solution, which shows that it satisfies the homogeneous boundary conditions for different values of the parameter a:

Green’s functions also play an important role in the study of partial differential equations (PDEs). For example, consider the wave equation that describes the propagation of signals with finite speed, and that I discussed in an earlier post. In order to compute the Green’s function for this equation in one spatial dimension, use the wave operator (left-hand side of the wave equation), which is given by:

Here, x denotes the spatial coordinate that ranges over (-∞,∞), t denotes the time that always ranges over [0,∞), and u[x,t] gives the displacement of the wave at any position and time.

You can now find the Green’s function for the wave operator as follows:

The following plot of the Green’s function shows that it becomes 0 outside a certain triangular region in the x-t plane, for any choice of y and s (I have chosen both these values to be 0). This behavior is consistent with the fact that the wave propagates with a finite speed, and hence signals sent at any time can only influence a limited region of space at any later time:

The Green’s function obtained above can be used to solve the wave equation with any forcing term, assuming that the initial displacement and velocity of the wave are both zero. For example, suppose that the forcing term is given by:

You can solve the wave equation with this forcing term by evaluating the convolution integral

The following plot shows the standing wave generated by the solution:

Finally, I note that the same solution can be obtained by using DSolveValue with homogeneous initial conditions, as shown below:

Green’s functions of the above type are called fundamental solutions and play an important role in the modern theory of linear partial differential equations. In fact, they provided the motivation for the theory of distributions that was developed by Laurent Schwartz in the late 1940s.

The ideas put forward by George Green in his paper of 1828 are stunning in their depth and simplicity, and reveal a first-rate mind that was far ahead of the times during which he lived. I have found it very inspiring to study the life and work of this great mathematician while implementing GreenFunction for Version 10.4 of the Wolfram Language.

Download this post as a Computable Document Format (CDF) file.

With all the focus on trade agreements from both the Sanders and Trump campaigns, there are a lot of issues that are being overlooked. The graph above is from an article by Ben Casselman titled: Manufacturing Jobs Are Never Coming Back. It shows that, while manufacturing output in this country has increased over the last 7 years, jobs have been slow to return. The reason: automation.

Here’s the problem: Whether or not those manufacturing jobs could have been saved, they aren’t coming back, at least not most of them. How do we know? Because in recent years, factories have been coming back, but the jobs haven’t. Because of rising wages in China, the need for shorter supply chains and other factors, a small but growing group of companies are shifting production back to the U.S. But the factories they build here are heavily automated, employing a small fraction of the workers they would have a generation ago.

The story Abha Bhattarai tells about Thomaston, GA is an example of what he is talking about.

Not so long ago, this rural town an hour outside Atlanta was a hotbed of textile manufacturing.

In the late 1990s, there were six major mills here. Their machines spun children’s clothing for Carter’s, made tire cords for B.F. Goodrich and produced bed sheets for J.C. Penney, Sears and Walmart.

In all, they employed about 4,000 workers.

By 2001, all of those jobs were gone.

What has happened here in the 15 years since then tracks the slow comeback of manufacturing in the United States. Two textile companies have come in, investing millions in new technology and adding about 280 jobs in this town where one-third of the residents still live below the poverty line. It is becoming more affordable to produce textiles in the United States as machines become more efficient, companies say. Major firms are more willing to pay higher prices for domestically sourced products, and rising wages in China mean there is less of an advantage to making products overseas.

I am reminded of what David Simon said years ago about what he was witnessing that became in inspiration for his HBO series The Wire.

We are in the postindustrial age. We do not need as many of us as we once did. We don’t need us to generate capital, to secure wealth. We are in a transitive period where human beings have lost some of their value. Now, whether or not we can figure out a way to validate the humanity of the individual, I have great doubts...

As for the characters on the program, their lives are less and less necessary. They are more and more expendable. The institutions in which they serve are indifferent to their existence...

I didn’t start out as a cynic, but at every given moment where this country has had a choice - its governments, institutions, corporations, its social framework - to exalt the value of individuals over the value of the shared price, we have chosen raw unencumbered capitalism. Capitalism has become our god. You are not looking at a marxist up here, but you are looking at somebody who doesn’t believe that capitalism can work absent a social framework that accepts that it is relatively easy to marginalize more and more people in this economy. Capitalism has to be attended to. And that has to be a conscious calculation on the part of society, if that is going to succeed. Everywhere we have created an alternate America of haves and have-nots. At some point, either more of us are going to find our conscience or we’re not.

All of that was happening years before the Great Recession and isn't necessarily a result of trade agreements. It points to the need to attend to capitalism in a way that puts the value of human beings into the equation of our social framework. In other words, it requires that we expand our moral imagination.

We report the first use of a ring cavity to both enhance the output power and dramatically narrow the linewidth ($<1\,$MHz) of blue light generated by four wave mixing in a rubidium vapour cell. We find that the high output power available in our cavity-free system leads to power broadening of the generated blue light linewidth. Our ring cavity removes this limitation, allowing high output power and narrow linewidth to be achieved concurrently. As the cavity blue light is widely tunable over the $^{85}$Rb 5S$_{1/2} \,\,F=3$ $\rightarrow$ 6P$_{3/2}$ transition, this narrow linewidth light would be suitable for second-stage laser cooling, which could be valuable for efficient $^{85}$Rb BEC production.

In an ongoing Instagram series entitled #dinodinaseries, photojournalist Jorge Saenz uses toy dinosaurs to add a creative twist to his travel photos.

The project was recently featured on Instagram’s official account which boasts over 144 million followers. They explained:

The Argentine photojournalist imagines names and distinct personalities for the creatures who lead adventurous lives as the subjects of his #dinodinaseries. “Dina (the big green Stegosaurus) is more aggressive and instinctive; Spiny (Spinosaurus) is mostly ironic; Brachy (a brown Brachiosaurus) is the romantic girlfriend of Dino, but very critical of male behavior,” says Jorge. His captions, written from the dinosaurs’ point of view, reveal an alien perspective of humans and Earth — as if the toys time traveled from prehistory. As his dinosaurs explore our world, even Jorge isn’t always in control of their fate. “Dinoldo, a very intellectual one, for example, sought refuge in Cuba … And a beautiful Velociraptor was lost in an avalanche of sand.”

To see more of the #dinodinaseries follow @jorgesaenzpy

[via GallowBoob, Instagram Official]
 

Ok Go is back with another creative music video for their latest single, “Upside Down & Inside Out”

The hydrogen in your body, present in every molecule of water, came from the

In our January/February issue of the Washington Montly, Leah Douglas has a review of a new book by Marion Nestle, a nutritionist and professor of sociology and food systems at New York University. Soda Politics: Taking on Big Soda (And Winning) details some of the successes in reducing soda consumption, from reducing its availability in schools to enacting restrictions on how it is marketed to children. But it’s also a comprehensive look at how Big Soda seeks to protect its market.

Some of the more disturbing sections of Soda Politics detail how Big Soda uses its power to fight efforts by federal and local authorities to reduce soda consumption or in any other way threaten their dominance. The industry has, for instance, long been a pioneer in the use of sham grassroots advocacy groups—sometimes called “astroturf” groups—to support their efforts. Such groups are designed to artificially shape public opinion by making it seem like ordinary consumers without an industry bias are in favor of low industry regulation. Nestle identifies seventeen astroturf groups funded by the American Beverage Association, a soda industry trade group, from Maryland to California to Vermont. These groups seek to turn public opinion against issues like soda taxes, container size restrictions, and limits on marketing soda to children.

Astroturfing is such a disreputable practice that no blogger I know would risk their credibility by engaging in it. Yet, corporations do this routinely. Maybe it’s time for a new bloggers’ ethics panel.

Make sure you read the whole review so you can see how these bastards operate.

Matt Yglesias has written an article that probably won't be embraced by the partisans on the far left or the far right. It's titled: 2015 Was the Year Congress Started Working Again. He begins by listing their accomplishments and adds some commentary.

Among some of the things Congress accomplished: The main federal statute governing K-12 education got an overhaul. So did the federal disability insurance system. A long-running dispute about federal highway funding got resolved, as did a long-running dispute about Medicare payments. Last but by no means least, December saw a whole bunch of tax changes featuring good news for low-wage workers and a broad set of business interests. Congress even passed a law to ban microbeads in bath products to help protect the nation's fisheries.

These aren't all good bills, and almost none of them are what anyone would consider a great bill, but in a way that's the point. Legislation passed in 2015 because congressional leaders went back to doing what congressional leaders are supposed to do in times of divided government: compromise to pass bills that don't thrill anyone but do make both sides happier than they would be in the absence of a bill.

We all know that people like Sen. Ted Cruz aren't happy about any of this. There are plenty of people on the left who aren't thrilled either. But as Yglesias points out - it is a clear improvement over the government-by-crisis dynamic we saw previously.

Unlike Yglesias though, I don't see the productivity resulting from the fact that President Obama is now a lame duck or that Congressional leaders don't have much of a stake in any of the Republican presidential contenders.

What those explanations miss is that in 2015, Republicans took control of both Houses of Congress. Simply obstructing Democrats was no longer a viable strategy. Initially they eschewed government-by-crisis in favor of passing bills that would force President Obama to use his veto pen. That strategy started to fall apart almost immediately when the lunatic caucus wanted to shut down the Department of Homeland Security over the President's immigration executive orders.

All of the compromises Yglesias listed happened when the Republican leadership abandoned the lunatic caucus and sought ways to work with the Democrats. And that, my friends, is precisely why John Boehner is no longer Speaker of the House. The lunatic caucus rebelled.

So what is the new Speaker to do? Here's what Siobhan Hughes reports:

House Speaker Paul Ryan starting this month will push to turn the chamber into a platform for ambitious Republican policy ideas, in a bid to help shape his unsettled party’s priorities and inject substance into a presidential race heavy on personality politics.

Right out of the gate for the new year comes this:

We owe it to the country to take our best shot at repealing #Obamacare while Pres. Obama is still in office. https://t.co/X6l59mv8vI

— Paul Ryan (@SpeakerRyan) January 1, 2016

It looks to me like Speaker Ryan is going to once again try to herd the cats of the lunatic caucus in an attempt to rack up symbolic votes that will be stopped by a presidential veto (if not in the Senate first). One has to wonder how that will fly with the angry/fearful right. Meanwhile, the rest of us will be stuck with a do-nothing Congress once again.