The Lion Queens – Australian women

Anna came home from work utterly exhausted and opened the front door. 

Upon walking inside, she said to her waiting husband, "Take off my clothes, right here, right now," and he slowly complied. 
 
Then she added, "Don't you ever wear my clothing again!' 

EXCLUSIVE: The Lion Queens – Meet the brave Australian women who look after big cats from zoos and the movie industry… and even let the deadly animals sleep in their beds with them Daily Mail 

The patron saint of internet warriors breaks down every type of troll Marie Claire. Useful.

New whale species identified? BBC

How to Avoid a Shark Attack Live Science

4 surprising reasons why clean energy is gaining on fossil fuels Grist 

Past's Long Shadows Economist

At Global Economic Gathering, U.S. Primacy Is Seen as Ebbing New York Times

The puzzle of friendship and love; The pain is worth it

No one travels
Along this way but I,
This autumn evening.
- Sydney Autumn Experience at Dusk

Get comfortable with being uncomfortable, because this is where the magic happens.  Trust increases with age, according to research, and we're getting older on a population basis, meaning that the older world we live in is also a more trusting world. 

“You can’t pile together enough good people to make a great one.”  The tendency is to like those who like us, to like those who offer us least harm, and to like those who benefit us. In that order probably The puzzle of friendship

Nothing beats a creative idea, and in a high-speed world Jugaad (in short, an innovative fix) hits pay dirt as a way to win. A few years ago I wrote the foreword for the book Jugaad Innovation, and was only too happy to recently endorse the follow-up, now out, Frugal Innovation: How to do more with less by Navi Radjou and Jaideep Prabhu.

Philosopher Daniel Dennett says the definition of happiness is to find something bigger than you are and dedicate the rest of your life to it.

Most people would agree that it’s pretty fantastic to experience something that takes your breath away – it makes you feel alive. Not only that, research has found that these moments of awe are good for our health. A University of California, Berkeley, study suggests that the feeling of awe we may experience during encounters with art, nature and spirituality has an anti-inflammatory effect, protecting the body from chronic disease.

Awe can also improve our relationship with time. A Stanford University study found that awe expands our perception of time by anchoring us in the present moment. People are therefore more likely to feel that they’re rich in time – and who doesn’t want that?

Vincent van Gogh once said that he’d rather die of passion than of boredom. He might have been referring to love for his work, but love in an emotional sense often brings both passion and heartbreak. Scientists think they’re close to uncovering a cure for love – but would we want it? Without it, we’d just have the moderated bit in the middle – boredom.  Lists of music of love and heartbreak

Bob Dylan, ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right’: “A bruised heart can turn the best of us into bitterly deluded fools… he gets in a spiteful parting shot – ‘you just kinda wasted my precious time’ – but he’s left arguing with himself. The object of his scorn is long gone.” 

I’ve said it before (or rather, I have quoted Tom Peters often). Fail Fast, Learn Fast, Fix Fast. A newly launched website, Recently Rejected pays homage to the creative process and the inevitability of rejection, shining a spotlight on unpublished, rejected or unfinished design work. 
Artist and art director Mario Hugo, creator of the site, is expectedly philosophical in an interview with Fast Company: “A lot of very interesting, artful creative stuff just isn’t right for the brief…the site is like the death rattle of an old file that would otherwise remain tucked in an older folder.”

Privatising Climate Change and Socialising Sydney Storms

Payday at the mill Portland Press-Herald. How private equity firm Cate Street Capital preyed on people desperate to “save the mill” and looted the state of Maine, with the help of the Pierce Atwood Law firm and the rest of Maine’s political class, including leaders in both parties. Ka-ching.

Broken umbrellas fill a bin on Oxford Street due to wild weather that has hit Sydney. Picture Cameron Richardson

• As it happened: Sydney lashed by inclement weather
• Three killed in Dungog as cyclonic weather batters
  
  
  
  Sydney's commuters and students returning from holidays on Tuesday can expect another wintry battering with a second day of heavy rains and strong winds predicted for the city.

Privatising Climate Change

Nine psychological reasons why we love lists

Neurio will recognize the electronic signature of everything in your home—no Internet connection needed One Single Device To Turn All Your Dumb Gadgets Into Slightly Smarter Gadgets

The internet is awash with information that’s been sliced and diced into bite-sized chunks. But why do we find it so appealing? Claudia Hammond explores the canny mind tricks behind the buzz Nine psychological reasons why we love lists

Facebook doesn't want to live in your analog world. It wants you to move farther into its digital one Facebook's 10-Year Plan To Become The Matrix

Why You Need Boredom, Distraction, and Procrastination in Your Life Lifehacker

These Are Easily The Most Gorgeous Maps Of The Moon Everio9

Young Maine couple give up city life, take on challenge at Monroe farm Bangor Daily News

Girls at islamic school banned from running teachers claim

Privatise Light Rail?

Democratic Differences Slate. Compares U.S. to U.K. elections.

Big Brother Is Watching You Watch

“The Ron Paul of the left”: Why Bernie Sanders is the cranky socialist 2016 needs Salon (Ryan R)

A New ‘Wrinkle in Time’ Wall Street Journal. Passage cut from early draft:

“But you don’t love security enough so that you guide your life by it, Meg. … Security is a most seductive thing. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s the greatest evil there is.

Letters to the Editor

Damien Haas ("Capital's Liberals cannot ignore light rail", Times2, April 17, p5) castigates the ACT Liberals for threatening to cancel the light rail project. Well, he would say that, wouldn't he, given his vested interests.

Here's a thought: if the project is such a winner as Mr Haas asserts, why is he not lobbying for it to be owned and operated totally by private enterprise and thus save taxpayers any cost, leaving all the undoubted profits to the private owners? 

Furthermore, as we all know, the private sector does things more efficiently and effectively than the public sector, so one would also expect the private investors to prefer to be free of having tostumble through a public-private partnership and, Iimagine, they would also feelrelief at not having to ask taxpayers to cough up for any (unforeseeable) losses they might encounter Privatise light Rail

Fueled by a wave of inversions

Letter From Orrin Hatch (Chair, Senate Finance Committee) to John Koskinen (Commissioner, IRS) Apr. 13, 2015

• The Hill
• Washington Examine

The greatest trick the rich ever pulled was making us believe they pay all the taxes Vox 

New York Times op-ed: Shaming Those Who Skip Out on Taxes, by Ricardo Perez-Truglia (Harvard) & Ugo Troiana(Michigan):

In 2006, according to an estimate by the United States Treasury Department, Americans underpaid their taxes by about $450 billion. For that year, that’s roughly equal to Pentagon spending, and more than the gross domestic products of Sweden and Switzerland.

Bloomberg, Ten Percent of S&P 500 Companies Avoid Paying U.S. Taxes:

When it comes to taxes, corporate America is getting a bit less corporate. And a bit less American.

Fueled by a wave of inversions, a record 54 companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index of leading U.S. firms are now at least partially exempt from the corporate income tax. That’s more than twice the number four years ago.

In Cvancara v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2013-20, the Tax Court disallowed a business expense deduction for a Snickers bar consumed while working.


Michael Graetz (Columbia), How Do We Fix America’s Tax System?:

The United States hobbles itself in today’s international economy by continuing to rely so heavily on income taxation. The truth is that we need a tax reform that is considerably bolder than either Congress or the president is now contemplating. We need to rebalance our federal tax system to take advantage of our status as a low-tax country by relying less rely less heavily on income taxation. To create a simple, internationally competitive and viable long-term solution to our fiscal requirements, we should return the income tax to its original purpose: the collection of a simpler tax on high-income earners who tend to have multiple income sources. In order to do that, we need to tax consumption—that is, sales of goods and services. By enacting a broad-based tax on sales of goods and services now used by more than 150 countries worldwide, we could use the revenues to finance an income-tax exemption of $100,000 of family income and to lower substantially the individual income-tax rate on income above that amount—freeing over 150 million Americans from ever having to deal with the IRS. Through payroll-tax cuts and debit cards to be used at checkout counters, we can protect low- and middle-income families from any tax increase.

Thirty-five-year-old billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes has traded up handsomely in line with his status as top of the BRW young rich list. The co-founder of software firm Atlassian has emerged as the $12 million buyer of the Centennial Park mansion of prestige car dealer Ian Pagent and his wife Maryanne.
$12 Million purchase by young Mike

John Passant Commentariat

Arabian Horse among tax stories

A musical parody based on a true story! Loopholes is the ultimate David and Goliath story of a man who, despite having his entire net worth threatened, actually uncovered loopholes -- allowing him to have the last laugh at the United States' most hated government agency, the IRS! Join us for the fun! The world premiere of Loopholes, A Pain In The I.R.S. at the Hudson Mainstage Theatre in Hollywood, Calijfornia

Peter Reilly, Tax Court Allows Multimillion Multiyear Arabian Horse Losses

Robert Wood, 10 Notorious Tax Cheats: Real Housewives Stars Teresa And Joe Giudice Faced A Staggering 50 Years

Robert Wood, Best And Worst Tax Excuses To Fix IRS Penalties, “Relying on a professional tax adviser is one of the classic excuses.”



Alan Cole offers A Friendly Reminder That Pass Through Businesses Exist (Tax Policy Blog):

Every once in a while we see blog posts from other tax research organizations, or even congressional offices, puzzled over the low collection of corporate taxes relative to GDP or relative to other tax revenues. Today we have another such post, from Citizens for Tax Justice. I believe I can allay that confusion.

It’s not confusion, it’s political mischief.

Career Corner. Long Hours Are the Root of All Your Busy Season Problems (Caleb Newquist, Going Concern). If you think you have a problem working long hours, try getting these things done without working long hours.

Bryan Camp (Texas Tech), Overlooked Costs of IRS Budget Cuts Will Hit Taxpayers Hardest:

The Internal Revenue Service takes a lot of hits, both from those who are paid to be critics like the National Taxpayer Advocate and from those who just pile on for the fun of it – politicians, pundits and the public.

The nastiest hit has come from Congress in the form of relentless budget cuts for the past five years. While there has been a fair bit of commentary on the effect of these cuts, commentators have missed two important points: (1) the cuts are deeper than most people think, and (2) their effect is both more subtle and insidious.

Bloomberg, An Emotional Audit: IRS Workers Are Miserable and Overwhelmed. A visit to one of the few places where they still offer on-site service. (Via the TaxProf)

Digesting Orwell

“Food-packet rhetoric, like most advertising, is mainly in the business of selling nice feelings. Especially on-trend these days is an ersatz, kitschy friendliness. On a bar of chocolate, for example, the manufacturers boast that “we use only the finest quality organic beans from our friends in the Dominican Republic”. (Isn’t it nice that they are friends?)” The Guardian on Glorious Good and Orwell

“Vintage/Anchor Books is now experimenting with selling short stories à la carte, through its Vintage Shorts digital imprint. Throughout May, to mark Short Story Month, Vintage will release a digital short story each day for 99 cents, the price of many iTunes singles.” The range is wide, form Poe, Chekhov, Imrich, and Cather to Alice Munro, Jhumpa Lahiri and Junot Diaz.

New York Times on Cold River story the same price as iTune song

"Don’t leave too much behind, or you’ll bury the good stuff.) She finds that a “shrine,” if you can manage it, is also a plus: “Choose a pretty place to live (or die) in,” Jackson writes, and “die young.” All these occurrences contribute to a compelling “personal myth,” which is worth a hundred good reviews  Bizarre complicated formula to dying as bohemian

Yemen: Saudi prince promises free Bentleys to bomber pilots who killed 1,000 IBTimes

Since 1945, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has maintained the Doomsday Clock—a clock with a minute hand that moves closer or farther from midnight (doomsday) every year depending on the direness of humanity's situation. This year, the clock is three minutes to midnight. That's two minutes closer to apocalypse than in 2014.
Here's When We're Going To Die: Check Out The Doomsday Dashboard

The labyrinth isn’t just an idea. It’s a physical thing as well. Gospodinov goes on to list the things in the world that are shaped in its image, among them DNA, the very building blocks of our existence, and our brains, the thought centers powering our own internal mazes of fears, desires, and emotions. This can’t be by accident. As he sits in the dark basement of his childhood home, locked away from others for forty-eight days straight now by choice, Gospodinov takes on the persona of the minotaur. Jumping backwards and forwards through time he happens upon a startling discovery
Gospodinov’s novel reminds us that we must never forget that we are not alone. We must never lose sense of who we are, who we were, where we come from, and where we’re going. And we must never stop sharing the resulting stories of our wondrous explorations with the world at large because we must allow ourselves to feel everything or be doomed to feel nothing at all.
Nostalgia