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Friday, November 18, 2016

Axes For The Frozen Sea Inside: happiness is a pursuit, not a state of being...

Trust Fyidor to instruct MEdia Dragons that the cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month.
— Fyodor Dostoevsky, born on this date in 1821

Bathroom reading on empathy ... If you've never experienced pain, you can blame those who are in pain for being their own cause. But when you reach a point in your life that nothing you can do can reduce your own grief, at least you may find some pleasure in reducing someone else's...

It is Friday and time for a priceless tip How to make the perfect cup of coffee


Three Chinese and a Taiwanese are among eight arrested in Australia for allegedly smuggling 90 liters of liquid methamphetamine on a fishing boat off the eastern coast, following a joint China-Australia operation, the Australian Federal Police said.
Australian and Chinese authorities established Taskforce Blaze in November 2015 to combat the production and transhipment of methamphetamine and other illegal narcotics along the China-Australia corridor. The task force is the only joint partnership Chinese authorities have with any foreign agency.
"This successful operation again shows how law enforcement agencies from China and Australia working shoulder to shoulder with strong determination to combat multinational drug crimes, can have a strong impact on organized crime," Chinese officer in charge of the Command Center of Taskforce Blaze Deng Jianwei said in a statement.
Five men were arrested in the early hours of Friday last week after authorities searched a tender craft just off Sydney's Palm Beach, finding three barrels full of liquid methamphetamine estimated to be worth 54 million Australian dollars (US$40.33 million). They were charged with the importation and possession of a commercial quantity of a border controlled drugs.
"Since the inception of Taskforce Blaze a year ago this month, Australian and Chinese investigations have resulted in the seizure of approximately six tons of drugs and precursors - consisting of crystal methamphetamine, liquid methamphetamine, ecstasy and precursors," Australia's Justice Minister Michael Keenan said.-Xinhua
Chinese drug smugglers ambushed on boat at Sydney's Palm Beach

News from the Profession. Koalas Need to Show Up at Accounting Firms More Often (Caleb Newquist, Going Concern)

In 1940, a French novelist named Léon Werth joined the exodus fleeing the Nazis. He wrote an eyewitness account of his exile. He wrote like a man from the future ...


What Made Kafka Kafka? Insomnia

“Here’s a Kafkaesque approach to the creative process: staying up so late that, as you doze at the writing desk, insights slip out of your unconscious. This was, according to a new paper in Lancet Neurology, precisely what Franz Kafka himself employed.” How Kafka used dreams and insomnia to write creatively



New Report: HMRC’s “Building our Future” programme 

“HMRC, Building an Uncertain Future” -  The Curs Don't Work 

Labour and unions demand action on temp agencies' tax avoidance 

Business booms at NY Times, WSJ as showdown with Donald Trump looms Times Picayune.


Trump: Some Numbers LRB. This:
“Tony and Cherie Blair were not obscenely wealthy when they arrived in power in 1997. Today they are worth more than $75 million. Consider the working-class voters whom the Clintons or the Blairs exhorted to vote for them in the 1990s: they are probably worse off now than they were then. In effect the Clintons and Blairs surfed on their grievances and inequities, making themselves rich and leaving their voters in the dust. This hasn’t gone unnoticed, which is one reason the old politics is no longer working.”

It’s coming through a hole in the air
From those nights in Tiananmen Square
It’s coming from the feel
That this ain’t exactly real
Or it’s real, but it ain’t exactly there
From the wars against disorder
From the sirens night and day
From the fires of the homeless
From the ashes of the gay
Democracy is coming to the USA
It’s coming through a crack in the wall