Via Coogee Pavilion - “Hamlen Brook,” by Richard Wilbur, in which a trout swims …
Beneath a sliding glass
Crazed by the skimming of a brush
Of burnished dragon-flies across its face
In which deep cloudlets pass
And a white precipice.
Of mirrored birch trees plunges down.
That imagination
And focus and patience
Get you closer to your aspiration
And just cuz they give you shit
Don’t mean you have to take it
My words capture greatness
Sworn affidavits
When Intelligence Agencies Make Backroom Deals With the Media, Democracy Loses TruthOut Important, particularly if you aren’t familiar with or have forgotten the details about the Church Commission.
China: The Aging Dragon
The weight of the policies from previous decades hangs over China as it attempts to confront an upcoming demographic crisis
Paper Cuts, the book blog for the New York Times, has a conversation with Toni Morrison about her new novel "A Mercy" and the election of Barack Obama. This is a wonderful and rare treat.
Congratulations to Kim Kardashian
From the World Economic Forum:
OH MY PEOPLE! NewSpeak in 2018Kim Kardashian is an unlikely champion of statistics, but a tweet from the reality TV star in January 2017 contained a startling figure that has been named International Statistic of the Year.
She shared a table showing a range of violent or unexpected ways people meet their deaths annually in the United States. Kardashian’s aim was to highlight how many more Americans are killed by fellow citizens with guns, than by terrorists.
The table also revealed that lawnmowers are actually more deadly than terrorists.
According to the table below, first published by the Huffington Post, an average of 69 people are killed every year in accidents involving lawnmowers. By comparison 14 people are killed each year by terrorists. The killers in this category include Muslims inspired by jihadist philosophy as well as white, far-right extremists. Both categories include American citizens.
A Spy’s Guide to Thinking
WASHINGTON—Fooling themselves into believing things were going to be turning around, delusional sources reported Friday that 2018 will be the year it’s all going to fall into place. “No ifs, ands, or buts about it, everything is finally going to come together in 2018,” said Liam Thomas of Margate, FL, echoing the sentiments of others nationwide who had also completely lost touch with reality and had absolutely no evidence whatsoever to support their optimistic claims.
Is Your Child Lying to You? That’s Good New York Times
It's an Onion New Year!
Most People Believe They’re Self Aware. Research Reveals The Contrary
Our research revealed many surprising roadblocks, myths, and truths about what self-awareness is and what it takes to improve it. We’ve found that even though most people believe they are self-aware, self-awareness is a truly rare quality: We estimate that only 10%–15% of the people we studied actually fit the criteria. Three findings in particular stood out, and are helping us develop practical guidance for how leaders can learn to see themselves more clearly. …Read More
FOUR WORDS: BODY FLUIDS ON EQUIPMENT: Naked workouts are coming to your gym — what could possibly go wrong?
Donald Trump Didn’t Want to Be President New York Magazine. Assuming that Wolff’s reporting in Fire and Furyis accurate, we’re not living in Weimar Germany, but in a real-life remake of The Producers. Plot twist: Trump, who doesn’t want to win, dispatches sixteen (16) other candidates* on his way to capturing the Republican nomination. Plot twist: Trump, who doesn’t want to win,was Clinton’s preferred opponent (the “Pied Piper” email), and the Clinton campaign worked to “elevate” him. Plot twist: Trump, who doesn’t want to win, wins, defeating theother, and his second, party establishment. Who would believe this? The 2016 plotting is terrible. And such large portions! NOTE * Leaving out the perennials.7 wild details from the new book on Trump’s White HousePolitico. I would love to see a comparative review of Fire and Fury and Shattered.
Documents Reveal the Complex Legacy of James Angleton, CIA Counterintelligence Chief and Godfather of Mass Surveillance The Intercept. “Complex” as in “batsh*t crazy,” a salutary reminder in these days when any intelligence community perjurer, torturer, or entrapment artist can end up as a Hero of the Republic to liberal Democrats
The Conversation
2 Jan 2018
Politicians are told never to waste a good crisis. Australia’s electricity sector is in crisis, or something close to...Read more
A Nocoiner is a person who has no Bitcoin. Nocoiners (usually Socialists, Lawyers or MBA Economists ) are people who missed their opportunity to buy Bitcoin at a low price because they thought it was a scam, and who is now bitter at having missed out. The nocoiner takes out his or her bitterness on Bitcoin Hodlers, by constantly claiming that Bitcoin will crash, is a scam, is a bubble, or other types of easily refuted FUD. Nocoiners have little to no computer skills or imagination; even when they see the price of Bitcoin go up and its adoption spread they consider all Bitcoin users to be in a collective delusion, with only themselves as the ones who can see what is happening. This attitude comes from being steeped in the elitist priest cultures found at Harvard, Yale and Columbia, where anyone who is not part of their clique is treated with suspicion by default. The worst nocoiners are tenured academics and goldbugs. Nocoiners believe that the world owes them everything they want because they are part of an elite; they are hysterical liars, brats, prostitutes and losers.
I'm pretty sure Emin is a Nocoiner. Yesterday he made a Tweet about how Bitcoin going up was just a fad, and that a crash was inevitable. He's always talking Bitcoin down; if he had Bitcoin, he would never trash his own stash.