Super-rich private equity stars rue ‘lousy’ reputation, say they are misunderstoodReuters
Here are Hasan Minhaj’s 27 best jokes from the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner
Why does psychoanalysis work quicker with men than with women? Because when it's time to return to one’s childhood, the man is already there Stephen Colbert on Morning Show
100 Words By 10 Writers On 100 Days: To mark President Donald Trump's first 100 days in office, 10 writers summed up their emotions in 100 words
Giving the Behemoths a Leg Up on the Little Guy NYT. On Net Neutrality
As the famed social philosopher, Jamie Lannister, said in the Game of Thrones:
Mark Geragos files $100 million lawsuit against Ja Rule and the other organizers of Fyre Festival because rich people can’t be forced to live like poors without consequences. [Variety]So many vows…they make you swear and swear. Defend the king. Obey the king. Keep his secrets. Do his bidding. Your life for his. But obey your father. Love your sister. Protect the innocent. Defend the weak. Respect the gods. Obey the laws. It’s too much. No matter what you do, you’re forsaking one vow or the other
The Power Of A Collective Story In Times Of Repression And Fear
A chilling, inspiring tale from Communist Poland. “In that courtroom, in a split-second during Jaromar’s speech, my classmates and I connected in the mutual understanding of something profound, something that gave us power.”
Trump on presidency: ‘I thought it would be easier’ The Hill
Eitan Hersch on political hobbyism and its dangers (pdf)
George Steiner grew up trilingual, soaked in high culture. Few critics or scholars have been as wide-ranging or provocative. He is the last of the great elitists... Moidragons »
Science succeeds because it's evidence-based, which has built public trust. That's now at risk, for reasons technical and cultural... Trust
https://youtu.be/HaHwlSTqA7s
View the Full List of Fortune Global 500George Steiner grew up trilingual, soaked in high culture. Few critics or scholars have been as wide-ranging or provocative. He is the last of the great elitists... Moidragons »
Science succeeds because it's evidence-based, which has built public trust. That's now at risk, for reasons technical and cultural... Trust
https://youtu.be/HaHwlSTqA7s
Visualize The Global 500 – “People visit and revisit the Global 500 for lots of reasons, chief among them: job prospects, sales leads, corporate research and investor information. And bragging rights, of course. Below are two visualizations that allow you to explore the Global 500. On the map you’ll find every one of the headquarters from the 2016 list. The line chart below it displays how each of the companies on the 2016 list has moved through the ranks for the past 20 years.”
OUR FECKLESS ELITE: Charlie Martin: The War Crimes and International Law Scam
GEORGE SOROS, INTERNATIONAL MAN OF MYSTERY: “In Hungary, It’s a Duel to the Death between the P.M. and ‘Dr. Evil,’” Michael Walsh writes, advising, “Keep an eye on Budapest — what happens there will ripple westward. The whole world will soon be watching.”
Men in power have always tried to insulate themselves from criticism and punishment. Doree Shafrir’s Startup is a sharp-witted debut novel that peels back the layers of those structures, revealing those in power who grasp to maintain their privilege at all costs. The title signals an ordinariness that acts as a preview of what’s to come, a wink and a nod from a friend who asks if we see this, too. At its core, it’s a book about average men doing bad things and the women who take control of the narrative from them.
GEORGE SOROS, INTERNATIONAL MAN OF MYSTERY: “In Hungary, It’s a Duel to the Death between the P.M. and ‘Dr. Evil,’” Michael Walsh writes, advising, “Keep an eye on Budapest — what happens there will ripple westward. The whole world will soon be watching.”
Men in power have always tried to insulate themselves from criticism and punishment. Doree Shafrir’s Startup is a sharp-witted debut novel that peels back the layers of those structures, revealing those in power who grasp to maintain their privilege at all costs. The title signals an ordinariness that acts as a preview of what’s to come, a wink and a nod from a friend who asks if we see this, too. At its core, it’s a book about average men doing bad things and the women who take control of the narrative from them.
Startup’s prose channels the youthful energy of a new tech company from the start. We quickly meet Mack McAllister, founder of the fictional startup TakeOff. McAllister serves as an all-purpose stand-in for startup culture’s best and worst elements, and he’s on the verge of securing millions in funding for his business. The book doesn’t hold many surprises, and it’s clear from the onset that his hubris will bring him down. Mack — who compares himself to Steve Jobs because he made a piece of mildly successful software — creates his own problems; like many men in power, he can’t wait to cast those problems as someone else’s fault, so he directs his anger toward Isabel, his subordinate and office attraction.
The Final Stage of the Machiavellian Elites’ Takeover of America Truthdig
NEW VIDEO FROM DENNIS PRAGER: Why Isn’t Communism as Hated as Nazism?
NEW VIDEO FROM DENNIS PRAGER: Why Isn’t Communism as Hated as Nazism?
They are themselves the greatest beneficiaries of the global meritocracy — and that very fact serves to validate its worth. They live in or near urban centers that are booming with jobs in tech, finance, media, and other fields that draw on the expertise they acquired in their educations at the greatest universities in the world. They work hard and are rewarded with high salaries, frequent travel, nice cars, and cutting-edge gadgets. It’s fun, anxious, thrilling — an intoxicating mix of brutal asceticism and ecstatic hedonism.The problem is that growing numbers of people — here in America, in the U.K., in France, and beyond — don’t see it like this at all. Or rather, they only see it from the outside, a position from which it looks very different. What they see is a system that is fundamentally unjust, rigged, and shot through with corruption and self-dealing.They see Marissa Meyer, the CEO of Yahoo, taking home a cool $186 million in stock (on top of many millions in additional salary and bonuses) for five years of “largely unsuccessful” work. . . .And this is how things appear at this historical moment: The world is run by an international elite that lives in a rarified world of seemingly boundless power and luxury. Though the members of this elite consider their own power and luxury to be completely legitimate, it is not. It is the product of a system that’s rigged to benefit them while everybody else languishes in declining small cities and provincial towns, eking out a dreary existence, toiling away their lives in menial service-sector jobs or scraping by on disability checks while seeking out a modicum of fleeting joy in the dumbstruck haze of a painkiller high.
Something that can’t go on forever, won’t.
Feibelman, Adam, Law in the Global Order: The IMF and Financial Regulation (April 29, 2017). New York University Journal of International Law and Politics (JILP), Vol. 49, No. 3, 2017. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2960643
“It is widely accepted that the framework of international financial regulation does not rely on traditional international legal institutions or arrangements. This conventional account misapprehends the scope of international monetary law and the role of the International Monetary Fund, a treaty-based international institution. It miscasts the Fund as only a monitor of its members’ compliance with agreements forged elsewhere. In fact, although the Fund is largely known for its conditional lending function, it is a regulatory institution charged with enforcing formal obligations of its nearly universal membership, including members’ obligations with regard to their financial policies. The Fund’s primary regulatory role is to conduct bilateral surveillance of its members’ performance of these obligations and multilateral surveillance to “oversee the international monetary system in order to ensure its effective operation.”
Feibelman, Adam, Law in the Global Order: The IMF and Financial Regulation (April 29, 2017). New York University Journal of International Law and Politics (JILP), Vol. 49, No. 3, 2017. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2960643
“It is widely accepted that the framework of international financial regulation does not rely on traditional international legal institutions or arrangements. This conventional account misapprehends the scope of international monetary law and the role of the International Monetary Fund, a treaty-based international institution. It miscasts the Fund as only a monitor of its members’ compliance with agreements forged elsewhere. In fact, although the Fund is largely known for its conditional lending function, it is a regulatory institution charged with enforcing formal obligations of its nearly universal membership, including members’ obligations with regard to their financial policies. The Fund’s primary regulatory role is to conduct bilateral surveillance of its members’ performance of these obligations and multilateral surveillance to “oversee the international monetary system in order to ensure its effective operation.”
Nett, Katharina and Lukas Rüttinger 2016: Insurgency, Terrorism and Organised Crime in a Warming Climate. Analysing the Links Between Climate Change and Non-State Armed Groups. Berlin: adelphi.
“Over the past ten years, both our understanding and awareness of the links between climate change and security have increased tremendously. Today the UN, the EU, the G7 and an increasing number of states have classified climate change as a threat to global and/or national security. However, the links between climate change, conflict and fragility are not simple and linear. The increasing impacts of climate change do not automatically lead to more fragility and conflict. Rather, climate change acts as a threat multiplier. It interacts and converges with other existing risks and pressures in a given context and can increase the likelihood of fragility or violent conflict. Taking the state of play on the links between climate change and fragility as a starting point, the report Insurgency, Terrorism and Organised Crime in a Warming Climate addresses the question of how the impacts of climate change are a contributing factor in the rise and growth of non-state armed groups.”