Some people have a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to lower the powerful to their own level, and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom. I believe that it is easier to establish an absolute and despotic government amongst a people in which the conditions of society are equal, than amongst any other; and I think that, if such a government were once established amongst such a people, it would not only oppress men, but would eventually strip each of them of several of the highest qualities of humanity. Despotism, therefore, appears to me peculiarly to be dreaded in democratic times.--deTocqueville
Hayek felt there is an enduring opposition between true individualism and rationalism, with the latter associated with socialism (and also fascism and communism). By rationalism, Hayek meant the hubristic view that with the aid of reason, human beings can plan a social order, subjecting it “to the control of individual human reason,” rather than relying on free markets, spontaneous orders, and the working of the invisible hand as described by Scottish Enlightenment thinkers such as Adam Smith, a founding individualist. Rationalists, in Hayek’s account, think that human beings can effectively design rules and institutions, a “fatal conceit” that “always tends to develop into the opposite of individualism, namely, socialism or collectivism.”
An interesting example of this rationalistic top-down ordering of society might be Bush's idea of imposing democratic processes on the Middle East by military action.
Who is....Pushkin?
Recent research shows that people who were asked to make a series of meaningless decisions ... showed poorer impulse control and lack of judgment about subsequent decisions. It's as though our brains are configured to make a certain number of decisions per day and once we reach that limit, we can't make any more, regardless of how important they are. One of the most useful findings in recent neuroscience could be summed up as: The decision-making network in our brain doesn't prioritize.
The processing capacity of the conscious mind has been estimated at 120 bits per second. Yet in 2011, Americans took in five times as much information every day as they did in 1986 -- the equivalent of 175 newspapers. We have created a world with 300 exabytes (300,000,000,000,000,000,000 pieces) of human-made information. If each of those pieces of information were written on a 3 x 5 index card and then spread out side by side, just one person's share -- your share of this information -- would cover every square inch of Massachusetts and Connecticut combined.
With a processing limit of 120 bits per second, this means you can barely understand two people talking to you at the same time. How will we manage this?-- much from The Organized Mind by Daniel J. Levitin
Apparently the famous tongue map showing areas of the tongue that are receptors for sweet, sour, bitter and salty--each with its defined place--is wrong. Apparently we are overwhelmingly hard-wired to enjoy sugar.
Mark Twain started an autobiography but never finished it. He asked that the draft be put aside and not read for a hundred years after his death--like the Kennedy assassination papers. This is what he wrote about slavery: "In my schoolboy days I had no aversion to slavery. I was not aware that there was anything wrong about it. No one arraigned it in my hearing; the local papers said nothing against it; the local pulpit taught us that God approved it, that it was a holy thing, and that the doubter need only look in the Bible if he wished to settle his mind --and then the texts were read aloud to us to make the matter sure; if the slaves themselves had an aversion to slavery they were wise and said nothing. In Hannibal we seldom saw a slave misused; on the farm, never."
He wrote this about his going to his mother to ask her to discourage a slave's particularly loud and persistent singing:. His mother said, 'Poor thing, when he sings, it shows that he is not remembering, and that comforts me; but when he is still, I am afraid he is thinking, and I cannot bear it. He will never see his mother again; if he can sing, I must not hinder it, but be thankful for it. If you were older, you would understand me; then that friendless child's noise would make you glad.'
Drug prices are rising, including generics. So why doesn't a cheaper alternative generic appear? Part of the reason is that — aside from having to buy a factory and get it compliant, etc. — the FDA user fees to get a new generic approved are in the 7 figures. That is a nice, large barrier to entry for would-be additional entrants to the market. Now, whose idea do you suppose that is?
Golden oldie:
http://steeleydock.blogspot.com/2013/06/making-national-politics-individual.html
Martin Luther King spoke of romantic love, eros, the love of friendship, philia , and then agape. "Agape is more than romantic love, agape is more than friendship. Agape is understanding, creative, redemptive, good will to all men. It is an overflowing love which seeks nothing in return. Theologians would say that it is the love of God operating in the human heart. So that when one rises to love on this level, he loves men not because he likes them, not because their ways appeal to him, but he loves every man because God loves him. And he rises to the point of loving the person who does an evil deed while hating the deed that the person does. I think this is what Jesus meant when he said 'love your enemies.'
I'm very happy that he didn't say like your enemies, because it is pretty difficult to like some people."
Hedge funds are buying homes.
Pushkin (1799-1837) was and is revered throughout Russia as the National Poet. His statue had been financed by public donations, and immediately became a symbol of the national literary consciousness. The dedication ceremony was seen as a battleground for those who wished to define that consciousness, with the speeches of Turgenev and Dostoevsky -- Tolstoy was already in the grip of his religious fundamentalism, and had declined to attend -- as the main battle. The Paris-living Turgenev represented the "Westernized" writers who promoted a more European outlook, while the peasant-loving Dostoevsky was the voice of what was exclusively Russian. He saw his Pushkin speech as an opportunity to promote his blend of mystical nationalism and devout Christianity over Turgenev's educated liberalism. The speech, or rather the wild enthusiasm which it inspired, is regarded as not only a historic moment in Russian literary history but the high water mark of Dostoevsky's public fame..
Pushkin was immune to the purges, icon-bashings and statue-topplings that swept the USSR in the 20th century, and his monument in Pushkin Square is as popular as ever today as a place for gathering and reading poetry.
Several studies indicate that it would have been biologically impossible for humans to evolve large brains on a raw vegan diet. They conclude that meat-eating was crucial in human evolution. However there are other studies that suggest men eating red meat are, pheromone-ly, less attractive.
In an open letter of criticism against the history advanced placement exam, 55 distinguished members of the National Association of Scholars (NAS) explained the teaching of American history faces “a grave new risk.” So-called “reforms” by the College Board, which holds a virtual monopoly on advanced placement testing across the country, “abandon a rigorous insistence on content” in favor of downplaying “American citizenship and American world leadership in favor of a more global and transnational perspective.” They state the exam tries “to de-center American history and subordinate it to a global and heavily social-scientific perspective.” “No longer will students hear about America as a dynamic and exemplary nation, flawed in many respects, but whose citizens have striven through the years toward the more perfect realization of its professed ideals.”
The revenge of Schopenhauer's academics.
“The continued fiscal stress is tempting states to continue, and even intensify, budgeting and accounting practices that obscure their true financial position, shift current costs on to future generations, and push off the need to make hard choices on spending priorities and revenue practices,” Mr Volcker said in a report released on Monday by the Volcker Alliance, a government reform group he founded in 2013.
Agamemnon, the military leader from Greek mythology, sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia to appease a goddess and improve his fortunes in war. When in Aulis, Agememnon killed a stag in a grove sacred to Diana. Angered, Diana stopped the winds so that the Greek fleet could not sail to Troy. The seer Calchas was called upon, and he announced that the only way the Greek fleet would sail was if Iphigenia was sacrificed. Agamemnon at first adamantly refused, but, under pressure, Agamemnon slowly gave in and he agreed to the sacrifice. It is the subject of a play by Euripides.
Terrell Owens played for 15 years in the NFL and made $80 million. He is now bankrupt. He has four children with four different women, with child support totaling $44,600 – each month. One in six pro football players declare bankruptcy in retirement.
Secretariat gave the finest performance of his career in the Belmont Stakes, completing the 1.5-mile race in a record 2 minutes and 24 seconds, knocking nearly three seconds off the track record set by Gallant Man in 1957. He also won by a record 31 lengths. Secretariat was euthanized in 1989 after falling ill. An autopsy showed that his heart was two and a half times larger than that of the average horse.
For every 1 million tons of oil that is shipped, about 1 ton is spilled.
Jiang Ming, who is now 37, was just eight when he climbed onto a train while playing at the local station, not realising that it was headed for Sichuan, more than 200 miles from his home in Shaanxi. He was forced to live on the streets after arriving in Qu County in Sichuan, and was later taken in by a local family who changed his name from Lan Junjun to Jiang Ming. He was reunited with his mother last month after considerable police effort--despite the fact that he remembered his mother's name.
Josh Earnest, White House press secretary, speaking about the Russian sanctions: "The commitment required by our European partners to implement and maintain these sanctions is significant. They have economies that are more integrated with Russia than the United States has, and so we recognize that many of the countries that we’re counting on to continue to enforce these sanctions are countries who do so at some sacrifice to their own economy."
"Electricity prices will necessarily skyrocket."
These guys demand a lot from others for their theories.
There is no correlation between rich countries unemployment rates and the share of immigrants in their populations.--from Philippe Legrain’s 2007 book, Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them
Horse latitudes: Two belts of latitude where winds are light and the weather is hot and dry. They are located mostly over the oceans, at about 30° lat. in each hemisphere, and have a north-south range of about 5° as they follow the seasonal migration of the sun. The term horse latitudes supposedly originates from the days when Spanish sailing vessels transported horses to the West Indies. Ships would often become becalmed in mid-ocean in this latitude, thus severely prolonging the voyage; the resulting water shortages would make it necessary for crews to throw their horses overboard.
Preying on hopes and dreams. Corinthian Colleges was one of the largest for-profit schools when it nearly collapsed last year and became a symbol of fraud in the world of higher education and student loans. According to investigators, Corinthian schools charged exorbitant fees, lied about job prospects for its graduates and, in some cases, encouraged students to lie about their circumstances to get more federal aid. Corinthian Schools include Everest, Heald College and WyoTech. In all, estimates are that about $3.6 billion in federal loans was given to Corinthian students.
AAAAaaaannnnnnddddd.... a picture of when galaxies collide:
NGC 7714, has been stretched and distorted by a recent collision with a neighboring galaxy. This smaller neighbor, NGC 7715, situated off to the left of the featured frame, is thought to have charged right through NGC 7714.
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