“Some of the worst tyrannies of our day genuinely are ‘vowed’ to the service of mankind, yet can function only by pitting neighbor against neighbor. The all-seeing eye of a totalitarian regime is usually the watchful eye of the next-door neighbor.”
~ Eric Hoffer, The Ordeal of Change
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Here’s Exactly Why Tire Pressure Is So Important to Your Car
"The Problem With Calling Out Judges for Their Race: Donald Trump has no legal justification for questioning Gonzalo Curiel." Law professor Garrett Epps has this essay online today at The Atlantic.
"What propels people from 100 countries to come to this place to blow themselves up?" asks Scott Atran. To find out, the anthropologist talks with ISIS ...
After 17 years and $12 billion, Switzerland inaugurates world’s longest rail tunnel Los Angeles Times
Canaries and lorrakeets under the weather in Malchkeon garden Sever Saturday Storms Sydney
Scotland Bans Fracking, Forever OilPrice
A massive new study links being a workaholic to a myriad of other psychiatric disorders Quartz (resilc). Correlation is not causation. They point out that the ADHD might lead to overwork to compensate. And in no case did a majority of workaholics exhibit the “psychiatric disorder”.
Have you ever wanted to be a badger? A goat? The long, weird history of artists and intellectuals trying to become animals involves Tolstoy, Joyce, Heidegger... “I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my horse.”
Spanish Emperor Charles V Williams and Dyce (sic)
THE JOKES DO WRITE THEMSELVES. I’M JUST TRYING TO STOP THEM: 10-Foot-Long Snake Slithers Up Man’s Toilet and Latches Onto His Penis — for Half an Hour
Whether enjoyed or shunned, it is true that millions of people use various platforms for a whole number of reasons including the fear of missing out on something, anything ... The click of a button is all it takes to tell the internet read MEdia Dragon
Uber driver never met lawyer or asked to sue, and opposes aim of suit, but: “Guess that’s how lawsuits work” [Daniel Fisher] Related: Cyrus Farivar/ArsTechnica, Jack Schaedel via Fisher
Anger builds against CWA conspiracy to end Verizon strike WSWS
The Verizon Strike Proves the Internet Still Needs Humans Wired (Smarter Thinkers)
Who Can We Trust? Protester awarded $13400 after police officer made up charge at Martin Place rally
Simultaneously breaks my heart and enrages me:
~ Eric Hoffer, The Ordeal of Change
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Here’s Exactly Why Tire Pressure Is So Important to Your Car
"The Problem With Calling Out Judges for Their Race: Donald Trump has no legal justification for questioning Gonzalo Curiel." Law professor Garrett Epps has this essay online today at The Atlantic.
"What propels people from 100 countries to come to this place to blow themselves up?" asks Scott Atran. To find out, the anthropologist talks with ISIS ...
After 17 years and $12 billion, Switzerland inaugurates world’s longest rail tunnel Los Angeles Times
Canaries and lorrakeets under the weather in Malchkeon garden Sever Saturday Storms Sydney
Scotland Bans Fracking, Forever OilPrice
A massive new study links being a workaholic to a myriad of other psychiatric disorders Quartz (resilc). Correlation is not causation. They point out that the ADHD might lead to overwork to compensate. And in no case did a majority of workaholics exhibit the “psychiatric disorder”.
Have you ever wanted to be a badger? A goat? The long, weird history of artists and intellectuals trying to become animals involves Tolstoy, Joyce, Heidegger... “I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my horse.”
Spanish Emperor Charles V Williams and Dyce (sic)
THE JOKES DO WRITE THEMSELVES. I’M JUST TRYING TO STOP THEM: 10-Foot-Long Snake Slithers Up Man’s Toilet and Latches Onto His Penis — for Half an Hour
Whether enjoyed or shunned, it is true that millions of people use various platforms for a whole number of reasons including the fear of missing out on something, anything ... The click of a button is all it takes to tell the internet read MEdia Dragon
Uber driver never met lawyer or asked to sue, and opposes aim of suit, but: “Guess that’s how lawsuits work” [Daniel Fisher] Related: Cyrus Farivar/ArsTechnica, Jack Schaedel via Fisher
Anger builds against CWA conspiracy to end Verizon strike WSWS
The Verizon Strike Proves the Internet Still Needs Humans Wired (Smarter Thinkers)
Who Can We Trust? Protester awarded $13400 after police officer made up charge at Martin Place rally
Simultaneously breaks my heart and enrages me:
A cleaner who was sacked because he had a cup of coffee on the job has won an unfair dismissal case in the Fair Work Commission. In deciding the dismissal was unfair, Fair Work Commission vice president Adam Hatcher quoted the modern philosopher Alain de Botton: "Office civilisation could not be feasible without the hard take-offs and landings effected by coffee and alcohol." Uncivilised Office To be Shaw to be Shaw: sacked for having a cup of coffee on the job
World is allowing unthinkable things to happen, just as unthinkable things happened in Germany in the 1930s...Over 45 Million people trapped in modern slavery: Key Report MMXVI AD
“In all great works of fiction, regardless of the grim reality they present, there is an affirmation of life against the transience of that life, an essential defiance. This affirmation lies in the way the author takes control of reality by retelling it in his own way, thus creating a new world. Every great work of art, I would declare pompously, is a celebration, an act of insubordination against the betrayals, horrors and infidelities of life. The perfection and beauty of form rebels against the ugliness and shabbiness of the subject matter.” ~ Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran
Ya mad wee dafty: “Man faces hate crime charge in Scotland over dog’s ‘Nazi salute'” [Guardian]
“If the angst reached its zenith in the 1970s (Watergate, the fall of Saigon, gas lines, the hostage crisis), its nadir came in the 80s. Enervated by the tremors of punk and disillusioned by the failures of the Congressional class of ’74 and the impotence of the Carter presidency, America sighed a collective ‘What the fuck’ and decided to ring out the end of empire/end of days with the indulgence of third-century Romans.” Literary Hub
The Catholic Cure for Poverty Jacobin
Songs & Stories Live: Guy Clark (RIP 1941-2016):
“I loved you from the git go
and I’ll love you till I die,
I loved you on the Spanish steps,
the day you said goodbye.”
And I’m with him – and Robin:
“Now, he’s old and gray …
And he’s still jumpin’ off the garage …
All these years the people said, he was actin’ like a kid
He did not know he could not fly
And so he did.”
Sad day but we know where he has gone to carry on -
"When I die, don't bury me
In a box in a cemetary
Out in the garden would be much better
And I could be pushin' up homegrown tomatoes."
RIP Guy
FiveThirtyEight, 17/5/16. All they needed to be more open with their data
was the promise of a badge showing they did it
To Pay for Subsidies to Massive Corporations, States Are Waging War on Poor Families Common Dreams
The Iremonger books are new kid lit classics about the evils of capitalism Vox To Pay for Subsidies to Massive Corporations, States Are Waging War on Poor Families Common Dreams
Inside the Assassination Complex: Whistleblowing Is Not Just Leaking — It’s an Act of Political Resistance Edward Snowden, Intercept.
Taxpayers wasted billions of dollars on a war on cocaine that didn’t work, economists say Washington Post
TaxGrrrl, Schemes Targeting Elderly Not Limited To Tax-Related Scams. Some of the worst are do-gooder organizations pressuring people over the phone into sending them money.
Brazil prosecutors file 30 billion pounds lawsuit against Vale, BHP for dam spill Reuters
Rising anti-Semitism forces Jews out of Paris suburbs The Local
Malka Leifer’s brother speaks with her defence lawyer, Yehuda Fried, in the Jerusalem district court. The former principal of Melbourne’s Adass Israel girls school, who is facing 74 charges of indecent assault and rape against her students, will not be extradited to Australia. Adass Israel girls school Malka Leifer former Australian principal accused of child sex abuse avoids extradition
21st century reality TV Philippines’ president elect, Rodrigo Duterte, has caused new outrage this week ... There cannot be much surprise then that an anti-establishment figure is turning on the fourth estate. Duterte used all the outlets open to him during his campaign and given the headlines he regularly delivered, and the valuable international syndication that came with that, everyone was happy. Filipino political expert Julio Teehankee has noted this as “the emergence of a maverick president that is tailor-fitted for reality TV and the social media” Rodrigo Duterte No-filter President - Another Mad Marco in a Making
Henry on vindictive billionaires (and me). I worry more about vindictive non-billionaires. More directly to Henry’s point, I think there is a pretty clear libertarian mode of discourse about excess legal damages. And while libertarians may not have a good “public choice” solution to that problem, it is hardly the case that the bad outcomes there have been driven by billionaires, quite the contrary. The net effect of billionaires is to keep down the size of legal awards, for obvious reasons, and that tendency is likely to continue.
BTW, Thoughtful Profile of Dani Rodrik (pdf)
Larry Summers on why Americans don’t trust government: “Though the bridge took only 11 months to build in 1912, it will take close to five years to repair today at a huge cost in dollars and mass delays.”
Passing off cheap Vietnamese Basa (a Mekong Delta catfish) as the more expensive locally caught Dory
Catfish StoryII
Passing off cheap Vietnamese Basa (a Mekong Delta catfish) as the more expensive locally caught Dory
Catfish StoryII
The World’s Most-Spoken Languages In A Single Infographic
SO IT’S COME TO THIS: Rubio Personally Apologized To Trump For Implying He Had A Small Penis