http://dept.lamar.edu/kvlu/listen.html

It will be rebroadcast at 9am on New Year’s Day.

This website offers free downloads of the complete extant organ works of Johann Sebastian Bach, recorded by Dr. James Kibbie from 2007 to 2009 on original baroque organs in Germany.

Exactly which works should be recorded? More than 250 years after Bach’s death, it is by no means certain exactly what he composed. The selection of works for this series draws on the Bach Werke Verzeichnis, Kleine Ausgabe (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1998), supplemented by other recent scholarship, including the work of Prof. Christoph Wolff and the research of the Johann-Sebastian-Bach-Institut Göttingen. Bach’s organ transcriptions of works by other composers have been included. Dr. Kibbie has also recorded those works which survive only as fragments, leaving these works incomplete as they exist in the manuscript sources.

For the “dubious” works which may or may not be by Bach, Dr. Kibbie has chosen which to record, including especially those long associated with the Bach canon, such as the Pedal-Exercitium, the Kleines harmonisches Labyrinth and the “Gigue” Fugue. On the other hand, some works long identified with Bach are now widely regarded as spurious, and so have not been included (for example, the Eight “Little” Preludes and Fugues).

Bach composed for organs ranging from the 17th-century North German instruments he admired in his youth to the mid-18th-century organs he himself helped design during his Leipzig years. For these recordings, Dr. Kibbie has selected seven historically significant instruments matched to the varying stylistic requirements of the Bach repertoire.

[From James Kibbie - Bach Organ Works]

Last night on “60 Minutes” (HT IndianaJim) President Obama said to interviewer Steve Croft about tax cuts:

Steve, the math is the math. You can’t lower rates and raise revenue, unless you’re getting revenue from someplace else.

This answer reveals a deplorable understanding of either economics or math or both.

Revenues are the product of the “price” per unit (for example, the tax rate on a dollar of income) multiplied by the number of units for which that price is paid. If the percentage cut in the price per unit is smaller than a corresponding percentage increase in the number of units for which the now-lower price is paid, revenues don’t fall; they rise. The math, indeed, is the math.

Obama’s math works only in a bizzaro economic world – a world where changes in prices have no, or never more than a de minimis, effect on people’s behavior.

In that bizzaro world producers would never lower prices. (Why do so if lowering prices won’t result in a larger sales volume and higher revenues?) In that bizzaro world McDonald’s would charge $1,000 for each Big Mac. (Why not, if prices don’t affect people’s consumption choices?) In that bizzaro world no one would propose taxing cigarettes to discourage smoking. (Why do so if higher prices don’t affect behavior?) And in that bizzaro world no one would ever call for higher tariffs to protect domestic producers from foreign competition. (Why do so if raising tariffs does not reduce the number of imports that people buy?)

It’s one thing to question a claim’s empirical relevance; it’s quite another to dismiss it categorically as being an alleged violation of the laws of mathematics.

What sorry testimony about the “reality-based” political community that the current President of the United States believes it to be simply a matter of “math” that lower tax rates necessarily result in lower tax revenues.

[From Obama’s Math Works Only in BizzaroEcon World]

Staples is having a sale on hard drives; If you print this coupon and take it to the store, you’ll get an additional 20% off one item.

If your hard drive is under 500Gb, then get the Western Digital® Elements® 1TB External Hard Drive for $69.99 after a $10 instant coupon, -20% = $56 +tax

If your drive is larger, then get the Western Digital Elements 3TB USB drive for $119.99 after a $30 instant coupon. -20%= $96 +tax.

By David Rittgers

Department of Education officers employed a SWAT team because of unpaid student loans. I am not making this up:

Kenneth Wright does not have a criminal record and he had no reason to believe a S.W.A.T team would be breaking down his door at 6 a.m. on Tuesday…

As it turned out, the person law enforcement was looking for was not there – Wright’s estranged wife.

“They put me in handcuffs in that hot patrol car for six hours, traumatizing my kids,” Wright said.

Wright said he later went to the mayor and Stockton Police Department, but the City of Stockton had nothing to do with Wright’s search warrant.

The U.S. Department of Education issued the search and called in the S.W.A.T for his wife’s defaulted student loans.

This, along with the Jose Guerena case, demonstrates how the militarization of police terminology and tactics is incompatible with a free society. Police officers aren’t “operators” like Green Berets or Navy SEALs.

This is just one more reason to abolish the Department of Education and oppose police militarization and federal overcriminalization.

Department of Education SWAT Raid for Unpaid Student Loans is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog

[From Department of Education SWAT Raid for Unpaid Student Loans]

But in the 21 states that were fully affected [by the federal increase in the minimum wage in 2007], about 13,200 black young adults lost their job as a direct result of the recession, versus 18,500 who lost their job as a result of the minimum-wage mandates. “In other words,” write Messrs. Even and Macpherson, “the consequences of the minimum wage for this subgroup were more harmful than the consequences of the recession.” [From "The consequences of the minimum wage for this subgroup were more harmful than the consequences of the recession" from Reason-Hit & Run]

Time Out is offering a selection of its popular city guides for iPhone for free until May 2. Cities the guides cover include Melborne, London, Paris, Berlin, Buenos Aires, Barcelona, Sydney and Zagreb.

Each guide allows you to navigate a city’s tourist spots, nightlife and restaurants easily. As with all Time Out guides, they are written by locals so that you’re sure to get the best information available. Grab the guides while they’re free. Normal pricing is US$4.99 per app. You can download them all here.

Thanks to reader Greg for the tip.

Time Out offering free iPhone city travel guides until May 2 originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 28 Apr 2011 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments [From Time Out offering free iPhone city travel guides until May 2]

Today only, Office Depot offers the HP LaserJet Pro CP1525nw Wireless Color Laser Printer, model no. CE875A#BGJ, for the in-cart price of $149.99. Pad your order over $150 (this eraser costs 29 cents), and apply coupon code “48437290″ to knock the printer to $124.99. With free shipping, that’s $25 under yesterday’s mention and the lowest total price we could find by the same. Sales tax is added where applicable. Features include up to 12 ppm black, up to 8 ppm color, 802.11n wireless, Ethernet, and USB 2.0 connectivity, and more.
Of note, also today only, Office Depot retail stores offer this printer for $149.99. Plus, cut and extra $50 off when you trade in any other printer in-store. At $99.99, that’s the lowest total price we’ve ever seen for this printer.

[From dealmac.com: The best deals on iPod, iMac and MacBook. Find sales on Macs, new and refurbished Apple systems.]

Here is an updated version of Case-Shiller’s housing index for the country. (The source for the updating and the image is The Big Picture and TBP reader Steve Barry.) It is of course somewhat misleading because there is not a national housing market. But it does capture factors that affect all housing markets.

Some people explain the recent 15 years as being caused by “animal spirits” arguing that if you think prices of an asset will go up, then that belief can be sufficient to cause a bubble. True, no doubt. But what causes that belief to take hold. Some people say it’s just random. A fad. The madness of crowds. Could be. I suspect that the systematic attempt by federal government policy that began in earnest in 1995 and ran through the Clinton and Bush II administrations had a lot to do with it.

[From The housing boom and bust]