When you see a parent pass, and you literally are there, and you're sitting at that deathbed, man, and you have to tell them to go, it defines life for what it really is.“You know the world is going crazy when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, the tallest guy in the NBA is Chinese, the Swiss hold the America’s Cup, France is accusing the U.S. of arrogance, Germany doesn’t want to go to war, and the three most powerful men in America are named “Bush”, “Dick”, and “Colin.” Need I say more?”– Chris Rock
Viola Davis
Former FBI director James Comey's memoir likens Donald Trump to a mob boss
NATO faces a crisis of ideals as more of its Eastern European members slide into authoritarianism.
↩︎ The Atlantic
Trump’s erratic tweets on Russia and missiles perfectly mirror the storylines on an episode of Fox & Friends.
↩︎ The Week
↩︎ Lawfare
Tyler Cowen's Conversation with Agnes Callard
She is a philosopher at the University of Chicago, here is the transcript and audio. We covered Plato and Socrates, what Plato is on about at all, the virtues of dialog and refutation, whether immortality would be boring, Elena Ferrante, parents vs. gangsters and Beethoven vs. Mozart, my two Straussian readings of her book, Jordan Peterson, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the best defense of reading the classics, and the Agnes Callard production function (physics to classics to philosophy), all in suitably informationally dense fashion.
Here is one excerpt:
Trump’s erratic tweets on Russia and missiles perfectly mirror the storylines on an episode of Fox & Friends.
↩︎ The Week
↩︎ Lawfare
Tyler Cowen's Conversation with Agnes Callard
She is a philosopher at the University of Chicago, here is the transcript and audio. We covered Plato and Socrates, what Plato is on about at all, the virtues of dialog and refutation, whether immortality would be boring, Elena Ferrante, parents vs. gangsters and Beethoven vs. Mozart, my two Straussian readings of her book, Jordan Peterson, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the best defense of reading the classics, and the Agnes Callard production function (physics to classics to philosophy), all in suitably informationally dense fashion.
Here is one excerpt:
COWEN: I
have a friend who’s interested in longevity research…and he tells me
there’s maybe a 10 percent chance that I actually will live forever due
to possible scientific advances. I’m skeptical, but let’s just say I
were to live forever. How bored would I end up, and how do you think
about this question?
CALLARD: [laughs] I think it depends on how good of a person you are.
COWEN: And the good people are more or less bored?Yulia Skripal discharged from hospital Sky News. “For nearly a month both were in a critical condition, but they have recently made a remarkable recovery.” Indeed!
The Slowly Building Anger in the UK at the Government’s Handling of the Skripal Case The Blogmire (David Johnson). The story doesn’t match the headline, but gives quite a bill of particulars on inconsistencies in the official narrative.
Soviet scientist backs UK over Skripal poisoning FT. The story is a bit more nuanced than the headline.
Widow speaks on magistrate's death
The widow of a Melbourne magistrate who took his own life last month believes a crippling caseload… MoreFeds Raid Office of Trump Lawyer Who Paid Off Stormy Daniels This Is a Big Deal. Reason
Due Process Lewis Lapham
Former intelligence heavyweights endorse Trump’s CIA pick CNN. “More than 50 former US national security officials and lawmakers endorsed Gina Haspel…. Former directors of the CIA and national intelligence, secretaries of state and lawmakers who have chaired the Senate and House intelligence committees make up the list of signatories. The top intelligence officials include former CIA Directors John Brennan, Leon Panetta, Jose Rodriguez, George Tenet, Michael Hayden and former President Barack Obama’s Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.” In other words, The Blob, as a class, has effectively legalized torture, retroactively. That’s down to Obama: “Mr. Obama added that he also had ‘a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards.'” So no more of this nonsense about the “rule of law,” mkay? Well played, all.
Private Equity Wants You to Feel Good About Investing Bloomberg
Fledgling centrist party claims to have links to Tony Blair and son Guardian. Where’s Chelsea?
Zuckerberg emerges lightly grilled by US lawmakers FT. Facebook was up. They didn’t lay a glove on him.
Transcript of Mark Zuckerberg’s Senate hearing WaPo
Jason Kint: Here are 5 ways Facebook violates consumer expectations to maximize its profits Nieman Labs
‘The Organic Side, to Me, Is Scarier Than the Ad Side’ New York Magazine. Must-read interview with a former Facebook product manager: “I think Silicon Valley has changed. It still flies under this marketing shell of ‘making the world a better place.’ But under the covers it’s this almost sociopathic scene. Even me, when I had my shitty little start-up that I acquired, I was also in total asocial personality disorder mode, and I think it characterizes a lot of people in this world.”
Counting the millions of evictions Credit SlipsTuesday and Early Voting Sanders Institute. I loathe early voting, because it encourages partisan lock-in, and devalues post-early vote campaign events. All of the claimed advantages for early voting can be achieved by making Election Day a national holiday, which it should already be in any case (assuming the country values democracy).
Psychological Weapons of Mass Persuasion Scientific American
What’s Been Stopping the Left? Dani Rodrik, Project Syndicate
On the Silencing of Julian Assange Consortium News
Lovely Weather We’re Having … Now Who Will Save Us? Belt Magazine