Jozef Imrich, name worthy of Kafka, has his finger on the pulse of any irony of interest and shares his findings to keep you in-the-know with the savviest trend setters and infomaniacs.
''I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.''
-Kurt Vonnegut
On April 3, 2020, DOJ Tax issued this press release: Lake Worth Businessman Pleads Guilty to Evading Taxes on Millions in Income, Stashing Funds in Secret Accounts Around the World, here.
The Procedurally Taxing Blog has an excellent posting today on the compassionate release of a notorious tax criminal, Morris Zukerman. Leslie Book, Court Grants Compassionate Release to High Profile Tax Felon Morris Zukerman (Procedurally Taxing Blog 4/20/20), here. The blog entry discusses the Court’s granting Zukerman release because of his physical characteristics (75 years old, diabetes, hypertension and obesity) and close physical incarceration with other inmates that might make him particularly susceptible to COVID-19 infection and serious consequences.
IT’S COME TO THIS: Hawaiian Brewery Under Investigation for Hand Sanitizer Giveaway. Absurd enforcement of liquor regulations harms public health efforts. “In other words: It’s against the law in Maui to give away hand sanitizer to people who buy liquor from you. And it’s also against the law to give liquor away to people who buy hand sanitizer from you.”
The Big Dog is tonguing for the tannins.
The King himself is bloody dribblin’ for a dram.
Will Professor Peter Doherty, almost inarguably the nation’s foremost expert on the current coronavirus pandemic, ever find his fabled Dan Murphy opening hours? Hard to say. Truly, one of the great mysteries of our time.
A shame there won't be the traditional Ed Balls Day Parade this glorious 28th, but stay safe and celebrate at home. #EdBallsDaypic.twitter.com/NDPWnVKbBm
MEdia Dragon is renowned for being in wrong applications when taking selfies or self-googling or tracking some matters of concerns. So even Nobel prize-winners can be considered as unreasonable ;-) in the eyes of human remains or organisation people resources ...
If you’ve found yourself needing a stiff drink more often than usual to get you through life in the time of coronavirus, it turns out you are in esteemed company.
Prof Peter Doherty, a Nobel Laureate for his work on immunology and patron of the Doherty Institute, which has been at the forefront of Australia’s response to the pandemic, gave people on the internet a much needed distraction on Monday after he confused the social media site Twitter for Google and inadvertently asked his more than 26,000 followers for the opening hours of the alcohol retailer Dan Murphy’s.
Jokingly asked by one Twitter user whether he was recruiting for a new clinical trial, Doherty mused that alcohol was a “whole lot safer than bleach”. When another follower suggested it was fortunate he hadn’t mistaken Twitter for Tinder, Doherty suggested that would be “profoundly sad”.
Prof. Peter Doherty(@ProfPCDoherty)
Yes, wires got crossed. Too much time in front of a screen.
United States regulators
settled a major corruption case with Italian oil company Eni that
allegedly bribed Algerian politicians through a middleman who controlled a constellation of
shell companies. Its subsidiary company, Saipem, signed “sham
contracts” with the intermediary who provided no real services. Eni did not
deny or admit the Securities and Exchange Commission’s findings but agreed to
pay $24.5 million and to not doctor financial records. But corruption expert
Alexandra Gillies said the settlement seemed “frustratingly weak.”
Via Richard Murphy "I was fascinated by a story in the FT this morning. This does, admittedly, largely relate to the US-based Domino's Pizza, but it's still relevant. As they note: Domino’s Pizza: boxing clever:"
"Let’s just order a pizza.” That Friday night mealtime capitulation has become a much more common refrain these days as government stay-at-home directives keep Americans homebound.
This has positioned Domino’s Pizza well to survive the fallout from the coronavirus crisis. The $14bn company dominates the US pizza delivery industry with nearly 6,000 stores. It said on Thursday that US same-store sales rose 1.6 per cent during the first quarter. That marks the slowest quarterly sales growth in nine years. But it is a more than decent performance. Especially when compared to the sales collapse forecast for chains that rely largely on dine-in customers.
It's confession time: sometimes we have a Domino's. Sometimes a dad needs a night off cooking, and can't face his sons' efforts. That's just the way it is.
But there's a curious fact in play here. Domino's is offering a vastly smaller than normal menu at present, and it's not impacting demand. Now that could just be because they're still open and people are desperate. But they are not the only takeaway functioning around here: I can assure you of that. And still they are seeing demand. Indeed, it's so big that they apparently need a smaller menu.
Now, here's the question: did they ever need the bigger menu in that case? And will they restore it after this is all over? Or have they discovered that people actually don't like that much choice and really don't want to wade through multitudinous, and often quite similar, choices?
If I was Domino's I would be giving serious thought to this. I suspect that there are lessons to be learned by them and many others after this is over. People do not like too much choice. It's why I like restaurants where I do not have to spend hours reading before the evening can begin. Just do something well please, and give me a few options, and I'm happy.
Domino's and others, please take note. This is the way the world may be going.
A 2016 survey of top AI researchers found that, on average, they thought there was a 50 percent chance that AI systems would be able to “accomplish every task better and more cheaply than human workers” by 2061. The expert community doesn’t think of artificial general intelligence (AGI) as an impossible dream, so much as something that is more likely than not within a century. So let’s take this as our starting point in assessing the risks, and consider what would transpire were AGI created. – Nautilus
Stoicism in a time of pandemic: how Marcus Aurelius can help | Books | The Guardian. (Tomorrow is the anniversary of Marcus' birth in 121.) With all of this in mind, it’s easier to understand another common slogan of Stoicism: fear does us more harm than the things of which we’re afraid. This applies to unhealthy emotions in general, which the Stoics term “passions” – from pathos, the source of our word “pathological”. It’s true, first of all, in a superficial sense. Even if you have a 99% chance, or more, of surviving the pandemic, worry and anxiety may be ruining your life and driving you crazy. In extreme cases some people may even take their own lives.
In that respect, it’s easy to see how fear can do us more harm than the things of which we’re afraid because it can impinge on our physical health and quality of life. However, this saying also has a deeper meaning for Stoics. The virus can only harm your body – the worst it can do is kill you. However, fear penetrates into the moral core of our being. It can destroy your humanity if you let it. For the Stoics that’s a fate worse than death.
