Government is only a business. Past the roads, defense, and sewers, it sells excitement and self-satisfaction to the masses, and charges them an entertainment tax, exacted in wealth and misery. It cannot make cars, or develop medicines. How can it “abolish poverty” (at home or abroad), or Bring About an End to Greed or Exploitation? It can only sell the illusion, and put itself in a position where it is free from judgment of its efforts. It does this, first of all, by stating inchoate goals, “change, hope, fairness, peace,” and then indicting those who question them as traitors or ogres; finally, it explains its lack of success by reference to persistent if magical forces put in play by its predecessors and yet uneradicated because of insufficient funding.--David Mamet
In 1947, when Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano was published, he was considered a writer of Hemmingway quality, if not style. But he was an inveterate drunk. His poetic prose was called by Martin Amis "drunkenness recollected in sobriety" (instead of Wordsworth's "emotion recollected in tranquility.") He eventually drank himself to death ....but not before rather horrifying efforts at a "cure." A series of seven shock treatments having failed, Lowry underwent apomorphine aversion treatment: ten days isolation in a tiny cell illuminated by a red lightbulb, during which the patient is given apomorphine and all the alcohol he wants, but only subsistence food and water -- Lowry said afterwards that he became so thirsty that he drank his own urine. The idea is that the patient will drink himself into aversion after about five days; after ten days Lowry appeared in better spirits than he had been when he went in; after twenty-one days he seemed to have had enough; several days after that, he broke out of his treatment center, went on a two-day bender and returned, says one biographer, "roaring and very pleased with himself." That was in 1955! He died two years later.
Philosopher of science Robert Crease wrote that the Multiple Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Physics is ‘one of the most implausible and unrealistic ideas in the history of science’. But it does allow for magic, unicorns and miracles. And Game of Thrones!
New York Police Commissioner William J. Bratton announced the formation of a new 350-officer Special Response Group (SRG). Keep in mind that New York City already has a police force of more than 34,000 -- bigger, that is, than the active militaries of Austria, Bulgaria, Chad, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Kenya, Laos, Switzerland, or Zimbabwe -- as well as its own “navy,” including six submersible drones.
Golden oldie:
One of the things economists do to keep busy is compare costs of products over time and divide one by the other to get an "index." The good news, is that while the beef/veal price index has risen to a new all time high of 255.2, the pace of annual increase is now slowing down, and is is now "only" up 24% from a year earlier. The bad news, is that the price of alcoholic beverages, after posting two straight months of annual price declines, has once again started rising.
In 1947, when Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano was published, he was considered a writer of Hemmingway quality, if not style. But he was an inveterate drunk. His poetic prose was called by Martin Amis "drunkenness recollected in sobriety" (instead of Wordsworth's "emotion recollected in tranquility.") He eventually drank himself to death ....but not before rather horrifying efforts at a "cure." A series of seven shock treatments having failed, Lowry underwent apomorphine aversion treatment: ten days isolation in a tiny cell illuminated by a red lightbulb, during which the patient is given apomorphine and all the alcohol he wants, but only subsistence food and water -- Lowry said afterwards that he became so thirsty that he drank his own urine. The idea is that the patient will drink himself into aversion after about five days; after ten days Lowry appeared in better spirits than he had been when he went in; after twenty-one days he seemed to have had enough; several days after that, he broke out of his treatment center, went on a two-day bender and returned, says one biographer, "roaring and very pleased with himself." That was in 1955! He died two years later.
Philosopher of science Robert Crease wrote that the Multiple Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Physics is ‘one of the most implausible and unrealistic ideas in the history of science’. But it does allow for magic, unicorns and miracles. And Game of Thrones!
New York Police Commissioner William J. Bratton announced the formation of a new 350-officer Special Response Group (SRG). Keep in mind that New York City already has a police force of more than 34,000 -- bigger, that is, than the active militaries of Austria, Bulgaria, Chad, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Kenya, Laos, Switzerland, or Zimbabwe -- as well as its own “navy,” including six submersible drones.
Golden oldie:
One of the things economists do to keep busy is compare costs of products over time and divide one by the other to get an "index." The good news, is that while the beef/veal price index has risen to a new all time high of 255.2, the pace of annual increase is now slowing down, and is is now "only" up 24% from a year earlier. The bad news, is that the price of alcoholic beverages, after posting two straight months of annual price declines, has once again started rising.
Palomar 12's position in our galaxy and measured motion suggest its home was once the Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy, a small satellite of the Milky Way. Disrupted by gravitational tides during close encounters the satellite galaxy has lost its stars to the larger Milky Way. Now part of the Milky Way's halo, the tidal capture of Palomar 12 likely took place some 1.7 billion years ago.
A great inequality among men is the varying vulnerabilities of peoples to the risks applied by the natural world. Heat and cold, floods and drought, and animals, large and microscopic.
Joshua Slocum was a Canadian seaman and adventurer who, in 1898, became the first man to circumnavigate the globe on his own, traveling 46,000 mi (74,000 km) in three years. His account of the voyage, Sailing Alone Around the World, became a classic of travel literature and brought him worldwide fame. Regrettably, as he grew older, his mental health declined and he experienced periods of amnesia and mortifying behavior. In November 1909, he disappeared during another voyage and was declared legally dead 15 years later.
I regret I do not have a deep understanding of "Executive Orders" but does it not imply that such a decree could later be reversed by another such order? So that executives with good hearts and intentions could, by these non-legislative laws, create back-and-forth contradictory legal requirements that people begin to see as whimsical and unreliable. That sounds very Banana Republic to me.
Opprobrium: noun: 1. Strong criticism. 2. Public disgrace. From Latin opprobrium (reproach), from ob- (against) + probrum (infamy, reproach). Ultimately from the Indo-European root bher- (to carry), which also gave us bear, birth, barrow, burden, fertile, transfer, offer, suffer, euphoria, and metaphor. Earliest documented use: 1656.
Fanny Kelly wrote a book of her experiences as a kidnap victim of the Lakota Sioux. She is handled carefully now as she was quite politically incorrect; she hated the Sioux, and Indians generally.
One of her stories tells volumes about the Sioux concept of language. She was told to write a note to a commanding officer at a nearby fort and the Chief dictating the letter counted the words she wrote to make sure she was not sending anything more than he dictated.
Novelist Carson McCullers (1917-67), noted for her exploration of the dilemmas of modern American life in the context of the twentieth-century South, was born on February 19, 1917, in Columbus, Georgia.
Her first novel, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, published in 1940, delves into the lives of four isolated individuals—an adolescent girl, an embittered radical, a black physician, and a widower who owns a cafe—struggling to find their way in a small Southern town during the Great Depression. McCullers explored similar themes in later works such as The Ballad of the Sad Café and The Member of the Wedding. Her work is generally considered to be part of the Southern gothic school of writing, which includes writers such as William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, and Truman Capote.
Tempranillo is a red wine whose grape is most widely cultivated in Spain.Temprano means “early” and illo (“little one”) is a diminutive in the Castilian Language. This name comes from the fact that the vegetation cycle of tempranillo is shorter; hence is early ripening and harvests before other red grape varieties, and that the grape itself is smaller than other varieties.
The GDP in the U.S. rose 5% in the last quarter. 85% of the contribution to GDP from Household Spending on Services came from healthcare and insurance.
"The link is undeniable. When people are oppressed and human rights are denied -- particularly along sectarian lines or ethnic lines -- when dissent is silenced, it feeds violent extremism. It creates an environment that is ripe for terrorists to exploit," Obama said.
"..what makes these 17-year-old kids pick up an AK-47, instead of try to start a business?" US State Department Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf
"..we cannot kill our way out of this war”.---ibid
"There's a real attempt to make it a racial criticism. It has nothing to do with race," Giuliani said, pointing out that "he was brought up by the way by a white mother and white grandparents."--Giuliani on his criticism of Obama.
It is difficult not to think that these strange pronouncements as echoes from a parallel universe hinged to some as yet undiscovered logic.
The Futurist movement celebrated the techno-discord it saw on the horizon -- the rush of cars, the collapse of community, the shock of new and now, although it derided Romantic nostalgia. In 1909 the Italian poet F. T. Marinetti published his "The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism" in the Paris newspaper, Le Figaro. This is regarded as the birth of the Futurist movement. "Friends, away! Let's go! Mythology and the Mystic Ideal are defeated at last. We're about to see the Centaur's birth and, soon after, the first flight of Angels!... We must shake at the gates of life, test the bolts and hinges. Let's go! . . ."
An editorial writer has called the movie "American Sniper" "war porn."
A scientist doing science: According to The University of Buckingham, astrobiologist Milton Wainwright and his team of researchers from University of Sheffield and the University of Buckingham Centre for Astrobiology found this “microscopic metal globe” in the stratosphere of Earth. The balloon sent 27 kms in atmosphere to collect the debris from space stumbled upon this metal object.According to Express UK, the object is made up of titanium and vanadium which ejects liquid, said to be biological in nature. The discovery of an object that is the width of a human hair has prompted multiple theories of the origin of the object. The scientists reportedly believe it is an alien microorganism or a “seed” designed by “intelligent species” to create alien life on Earth.
Professor Wainwright is a British microbiologist of the Buckingham Centre for Astrobiology, University of Buckingham. He is the discoverer of “dragon particle” and “ghost particle” that they believe is a proof of alien life in space.
One week before the Lusitania's crossing, the Imperial German Embassy in Washington had posted admonitory advertisements in fifty American newspapers in a box beneath the Cunard Line's schedule. It reminded travelers that a state of war existed between Germany and her allies and Great Britain and her allies and that travelers sailing in the war zone on British or Allied ships did so at their own risk.
AAAAAaaaaannnnnndddddddd.......a picture of Palomar 12:
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