Grantham: ‘Twas Capitalism That Killed Capitalism
How capitalism became disconnected from social good, leading to hope for a “strong leader” will take on the rich and powerful
CCTV footage purportedly showing the deadly assault in Malaysia on the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un by a woman, who is believed to have wiped a fast-acting poison on his face, has been released by Japanese broadcaster Fuji TV.
TONY BLAIR: “I want to be explicit. Yes, the British people voted to leave Europe. And I agree the will of the people should prevail. I accept right now there is no widespread appetite to re-think. But the people voted without knowledge of the true terms of Brexit. As these terms become clear, it is their right to change their mind. Our mission is to persuade them to do so.”
Given what’s happened to Labour since Blair left office, his new anti-Brexit campaign seems like a non-starter. Who would call for a second referendum, now that Blair’s party has rejected his reforms, and Britain has rejected Blair’s party?
In Praise of Gut Feeling
As if by intuition, flipping through a new favorite publication—Kinfolk, a “slow lifestyle magazine” published in Denmark, printed in Portland, Oregon—I came across a book excerpt about this very phenomenon. In Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious (2007, Viking), noted German psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer explains the phenomenon of how “following our hunches can help us make better choices than dutifully weighing up the pros and cons.”
Can Uber Ever Deliver? Part Eight: Brad Stone’s Uber Book “The Upstarts”– PR/Propaganda Masquerading as Journalism
By Hubert Horan, who has 40 years of experience in the management and regulation of transportation companies (primarily airlines). Horan has no financial links with any urban car service industry competitors, investors or regulators, or any firms that work on behalf of industry participants Brad Stone’s new book “The Upstarts,” is subtitled “How Uber, Airbnb, […]
MISSED IT BY THAT MUCH: The tale of how the USSR almost invented the internet.
Many of today’s digital utopians draw inspiration from a real world attempt to implement electronic socialism: Salvador Allende’s abortive 1970s programme that sought to rationalise and democratise the planning of the Chilean economy through a nationwide network of telex machines. “Project Cybersyn” was cut short by Pinochet’s coup, but, helped by the surviving images of its iconic retro-futurist central operations room, the episode continues to symbolise radical aspirations to harness technology to break through to an alternative economic system.
Trust, truth and the fourth estate. "It seems we have a paradox. We should only trust journalists if they tell the truth but the only resource we have for learning the truth is the press." (The Ethics Centre)
New engineered material can cool roofs, structures with zero energy consumption TechXplore. “This sounds almost too good to be true.”
The World as Representation The Archdruid Report
TRUMP MIGHT BE ‘MENTALLY UNSTABLE
New on LLRX.com – The value of microblogs for research and information sharing – Are you overwhelmed by social media applications, many of which are not permitted to use in your private or public work place. If so this guide by Pete Weiss offers several alternatives to assist you with lightweight applications that bypass controversy in favor of utility.
When following links, online news consumers could recall the name of the news outlet 56% of the time – “Anyone who wants to understand today’s news environment faces a challenge: How to discern the nuances of digital news habits when Americans’ attention spans are fractured, human memory is naturally limited and news comes at them every which way.
Nearly 56,000 bridges called structurally deficient
In The Age Of Personalized AI, Are Teachers Becoming Obsolete?
“Developments in education technology promise to assist teachers and school systems in supporting struggling students by providing individualized instruction. But at what cost? As a teacher, it’s difficult to adapt to and embrace a machine that—at least for part of the time—takes over for me. The processes of teaching and learning are complex and innately human; I value the time I take to develop relationships with my students. But it’s hard not to wonder if that time could better be spent with adaptive learning technology.”
Powerful new accountability agency emerges from
Queensland’s #railfail. A new watchdog will oversee the
long process of rebuilding Queensland Rail from the ground up, after senior
leaders lost control of the organisation. Last year’s #railfail stemmed from
organisational paralysis that was brewing for years. Continue
reading…
Via GOOD – “Shortly after President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning travel from seven predominantly Muslim countries, assistant library director Rebecca McCorkindale created a sign to let immigrants and longtime residents alike know “Libraries Are For Everyone.” It was a simple message, but it quickly gained global momentum. After publishing a blog post about the sign on February 2, McCorkindale checked her email the next day to find messages from librarians around the world wanting to use the image in their respective languages. Some might consider it a bold move for a librarian to take a political stance during such polarizing times. But McCorkindale sees it as a rather simple choice, telling PBS, “Libraries are the heart of a community, for anyone and everyone that lives there, regardless of their background. And so we strongly believe that libraries are not neutral. We stand up for human rights.”
- See also via PBS – Why these librarians are protesting Trump’s executive orders
Oroville Dam’s flood-control manual hasn’t been updated for half a century Sacramento Bee and Oroville Dam: Crews work into the night to bolster eroded spillway as next storm approaches Sacramento Bee
Joshua D. Blank (NYU) & Leigh Osofsky (Miami), Simplexity: Plain Language and the Tax Law, 66 Emory L.J. 189 (2017):
In
recent years, federal government agencies have increasingly attempted
to use plain language in written communications with the public. The
Plain Writing Act of 2010, for instance, requires agencies to
incorporate “clear and simple” explanations of rules and regulations
into their official publications. In the tax context, as part of its
“customer service” mission, the Internal Revenue Service bears a “duty
to explain” the tax law to hundreds of millions of taxpayers who file
tax returns each year. Proponents of the plain language movement have
heralded this form of communication as leading to simplicity in tax
compliance, more equitable access to federal programs, and increased
open government.