Thursday, January 19, 2017

Super Bowl: World's 15 Fake Minutes Starts Now

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
— E. M. Forster, born around this date in 1879

"To be nobody-but-yourself - in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else - means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting." E E Cummings
~ B C who was born around this time in MM 😎

Story image for superbowl from Forbes

Watch Past Super Bowl Commercials That Have Captured The Spirit ...

Before 1984, Super Bowl commercials were a time to mute the TV and refill the dip. But that year Apple debuted the now-iconic 1984 ...

Curious, I looked to see what it was responding to. TurboTax, it turns out, will have a (pretty awesome, actually) new Super Bowl ad, starring Kathy Bates: Continue reading

Revenue authorities act on Panama Papers investigations
Revenue authorities have shared their findings on investigations arising from the Panama Papers into the role of tax intermediaries, including financial institutions, advisers, lawyers, and accountants, who facilitate tax evasion and avoidance.
This was the third meeting of the Joint International Taskforce on Shared Intelligence and Collaboration (JITSIC) group of senior officials of tax administrations, which convened at the OECD to discuss progress on compliance activity, exchange information, and further understand the role of Mossack Fonseca and its relationship with other intermediaries. It involved simultaneous exchange of information based on legal instruments under the OECD and Council of Europe Multilateral Convention and tax treaties.
Source: OECD JITSIC website (Vice Chair Chris Jordan) and media release, 18 January 2017t

 Public service high flyers must-wait for their money

Why do companies break the law? Poor morals on the part of their executives, perhaps. But another basic economic explanation is that companies are more likely to break the law if the upsides of doing so outweigh the risks. If either the odds of getting caught or the penalties for lawbreaking are too low, then companies will find it profitable to engage in illegal behavior....
The economics of corporate crime Washington Post
Former millionaire property mogul Stephen Larkin was jailed for eight months for blaming a dementia-stricken friend for 62 traffic fines


… R.T.'s Commonplace: Notes from a senile and insane blogger





“The poets (by which I mean all artists) are finally the only people who know the truth about us,” James Baldwin wrote in his sublime 1962 meditation on the artist’s struggle, just as John F. Kennedy was preparing to address poetry, power, and the artist’s role in society in what would become one of the most poetic and powerful speeches ever delivered.

When Robots Take All of Our Jobs, Remember the Luddites Smithsonian Magazine 


What Oxfam’s misleading stat gets wrong about inequality Felix Salmon, Fusion (J-LS). I’m glad Felix did the heavy lifting. The annual Oxfam study always reaches screechy conclusions based on an indefensible methodology and refuses to clean it up (I assume because Oxfam gets headlines that then help in fundraising). Income and wealth inequality are already extreme, yet Oxfam seems to feel the need to make stuff up.

 Permanent Reality Check team will target false stories or facts being shared on social media


Shamoon disk-wiping attackers can now destroy virtual desktops, too
 

Two held over alleged hacking ring targeting Italian elite

What Does It Take To Make A Built Community Truly ‘Sustainable’?


Is it bike paths? Innovative water use systems? Less greenhouse gas? Sure, but that won’t earn Australian developers the coveted six stars. “It’s about going back to that old adage of community: people, walkability, liveability, places for the kids to play. [We want to] change the way people think about how they live.”
Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer, has been identified in reports as the author of a dossier that claims Russia collated a file 
Steele, 52, who runs London-based Orbis Business Intelligence, was widely named as having compiled the dossier, which contains unverified allegations that Russian security officials have material on Trump including lurid sex videos that could be used to blackmail him Christopher Steele, ex-MI6 officer, named as author of Trump dossier


Podcasts and Literary Criticism




It's hard to convince people these days that one lonely person can budge the vast stone wheel of apathy. The truth, though, is the same as it ever was: One pair of willing hands might inspire thousands or millions to push. That's the way the world is changed: hand by hand - frame by frame ...

 History teaches that there’s one kind of disaster we probably don’t have to worry about: the one everyone is worrying about. The majority of “elites” didn’t foresee the fall of Rome, Great Depression or WWII, and they’re no Nostradamus now. Man’s end may come, but it’s more likely to be authored by the geopolitical climate than the natural one ...

The TV adaptation — reboot? reimagining? — of the Coen Brothers’ Fargo, which they produce, has been quite good in its first two seasons.

 … NCAC: Statement in Support of the Right to Publish

National Review, If You Are Too Triggered by Lessons About the Crucifixion, You Cannot Be a Religious Scholar


1) Industry leaders are feeling bullish about the effect of fake news on news media. (2) How to destroy the fake news business model.  (3) This media columnist wants you to stop saying "fake news" but, then again, someone had warned us two months ago the term would backfire. (4) How many people really die of starvation and thirst every day? Full Fact checks it. (5) When is a fact check not a fact check? When it is not something you can measure objectively. (6) Apply to be a Google fellow at Full Fact. Deadline is Feb. 1. (7) Myths and truths about the Zika-carrying Aedes Aegypti. 
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