Wednesday, July 04, 2018

Taboos, trends and tears: The Independence Day

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
~ George O

If George O-well's words do not bother you, you do not belong to true democracy 

An Annual Rifftides Independence Day Reminder
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. —Benjamin Franklin America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and ... read more


You know the old joke about The NSW Bear Pit: That it’s likely like Hollywood for ugly people


I am, at the Fed level, libertarian;

at the state level, Republican;

at the local level, Democrat;

and at the family and friends level, a socialist.

~ Taleb, Nassim Nicholas. Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life (p. 100). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition. courtesy of BC hat tip PM




If you say something is 'likely', how likely do people think it is?
"When you use a word to describe the likelihood of a probabilistic outcome, you have a lot of wiggle room to make yourself look good after the fact." (Harvard Business Review)





Perhaps there’s a glimmer of hope for sanity to prevail ... 

When the world is falling apart, that’s when we need artists who are activists: why XOXO is returning in 2018.
↩︎ Waxy




Jeff Lipshaw on Self-Plagiarism (And The First And Second Laws Of Textual Physics)




If you believe in sanctity of many marriages as Don Trump does than this is the best of divorce times. For the wealthiest Americans, there may never be a better time to get divorced.
A change in the new Republican tax law will eliminate a tax break for alimony payments that are finalized after Dec. 31, prompting financial planners and lawyers to warn wealthy clients that if they have been contemplating filing for divorce, they better act fast.

↩︎ Goals ... Football Historical Charts via The Economist  Co-Founder of Vox Media Calls Ben Shapiro ‘The Jew Who Helps Other Jews Onto the Train.’“Topolsky deletes tweets 
The reluctant undertakers
“The person becomes a whole person again in death ... where in life, they may have been just a number.” (CityLab)


A century of government communications
"Influencing people to do things differently in their own interests remains a preoccupation of modern government communicators." (Civil Service Quarterly)

Legalise and tax pot to stop organised crime Macrobusiness
Non-Award winning MEdia Dragon is all about little-known events, and that of little-known places ... Scraps of ignorance and knowledge emerge–the kind of scraps that makes life and death even more mysterious than it should be ...


SSRN Logo (2018)Malcolm Gladwell's 12 Rules For Life (beginning at 11:55):

SSRN:  in my opinion, the greatest website on the Internet. ... [In a prior episode,] I talked about my love of law review articles. Well, where do you think I read law review articles? Not in law reviews — are you kidding? Why would I wait two years for some dusty publications to put something out? I read them on SSRN because that's where everyone posts their articles the minute they finish. In Manhattan, for years the most important source of gossip was Page Six of the New York Post. SSRN is Page Six for dorks.

Gladwell made these observations in connection with the paper, Pulling the Goalie: Hockey and Investment Implications:


Life was simply not like a detective novel: motives were not clear, events had not a single cause, things did not wholly explain themselves ... 

It is always the women who are the Watchers
And keepers of life: they guard our exits
And our entrances. They are both tomb and womb,
End and beginning. Bitterly they bring forth
And bitterly take back the light they gave.
The last to leave and still the first to come,
They circle us like sleep or like the grave.
Earth is their element, and it it lies
The seed and silence of the lighted skies,
The seasons with their fall and slow uprise,
Man with his sight and militant surmise.
It is always the women who are the Watchers
And Wakeners.
Ode to Mother Maria and her daughters Eva, Gitka, Lidka Aga 



This Is a Bully’s Language Medium. The left is so fucked:

This is someone celebrating — celebrating — that they helped get an event cancelled, and they’re openly admitting that they did it for NO OTHER REASON than that they had a personal vendetta against one of the organizers. I’ve met plenty of bullies before, and this is a bully’s language.
Nestlé Sued By Former Slaves, Defense Dept Censors Its Crimes, and More Lee Camp