Happiness Formula
:) = Health + Money + Social Life + Meaning
!
(As outlined by Dilbert creator Scott Adams)
Echo Chambers?
One reason why “intellectuals” do not realise that they have shed their youthful liberalism is that they tend to socialise with people going through the same ideological shift, Dr Rockey said.
Detached from the broader electorate, they fail to notice that their views have become distinctly conservative.
“Politics is social,” Dr Rockey said. “There are two main factors – the first is that people compare themselves not to the population as a whole but to the people they know; the second is that political preferences change over time.”
(Via The Telegraph)
Colonoscopy Check-up
“It is sad to think people are no longer learning how to use the colon…” muses grammarian Lynne Truss in Eats, Shoots and Leaves, “not least because, in this supreme QWERTY keyboard era, the little finger of the human right hand, deprived of its traditional function, may eventually dwindle and drop off from disuse.”
Wherever you are, Ms. Truss, you may smile.
Sampling a single week in April from the New York Times, colon use appears both rampant and revisionary.
As Thomas Friedman says, “You’ve heard that saying: As General Motors goes, so goes America.”
Or Nicholas D. Kristof, who requests, “Note that terminology: ‘painted dogs.’”
And last, “I was puzzling over that one when it hit me: As a Catholic woman, I was doing the same thing.” Here it’s Maureen Dowd.
(Read the whole article at The Millions)
Taser Her!
Police Tasered an 86-year-old disabled grandma in her bed and stepped on her oxygen hose until she couldn’t breathe, after her grandson called 911 seeking medical assistance, the woman and her grandson claim in Oklahoma City Federal Court. Though the grandson said, “Don’t Taze my granny!” an El Reno police officer told another cop to “Taser her!” and wrote in his police report that he did so because the old woman “took a more aggressive posture in her bed,” according to the complaint.
(Via Courthouse News Service)
The Heart of America
Michael Bloomberg gets it:
The government has no right whatsoever to deny that right – and if it were tried, the courts would almost certainly strike it down as a violation of the U.S. Constitution. Whatever you may think of the proposed mosque and community center, lost in the heat of the debate has been a basic question – should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion? That may happen in other countries, but we should never allow it to happen here. This nation was founded on the principle that the government must never choose between religions, or favor one over another.
The right to worship or not worship as we please, and the right to do with our own private property as we please. Those freedoms are central to the experiment that is the United States.
Good Governance
Q: Prior to politics, you represented accused organized crime figures. What’s the biggest difference between politics and the mob?
A: My clients gave me their word, and their word was their bond. They always paid me. They always thanked me at the end of the day. In the political world, none of that happens. A politician’s word usually doesn’t mean a damn. His word is for the moment.
(Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman in Reason)
Bezos Baccalaureate
Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy — they’re given after all. Choices can be hard. You can seduce yourself with your gifts if you’re not careful, and if you do, it’ll probably be to the detriment of your choices.
(Address by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos at Princeton University)
Class Warfare
The ruling class’s appetite for deference, power, and perks grows. The country class disrespects its rulers, wants to curtail their power and reduce their perks. The ruling class wears on its sleeve the view that the rest of Americans are racist, greedy, and above all stupid. The country class is ever more convinced that our rulers are corrupt, malevolent, and inept. The rulers want the ruled to shut up and obey. The ruled want self-governance. The clash between the two is about which side’s vision of itself and of the other is right and which is wrong. Because each side — especially the ruling class — embodies its views on the issues, concessions by one side to another on any issue tend to discredit that side’s view of itself. One side or the other will prevail. The clash is as sure and momentous as its outcome is unpredictable.
Negative Equity
Altogether, just over 14 million of the 75 million owner-occupied homes in the United States are “underwater,” i.e., the homeowners owe more on their mortgage than their house is worth. About half of those owe at least 30% more than their house is worth today, and more than 1 in 4 are paying for mortgages 50% higher than the value of the house they are living in. If the housing market ever returns it’s 20th century norm of 3% annual appreciation, those homeowners might conceivably break even in another 50 years or so, give or take a few decades or generations.
The Nevada numbers probably demonstrate why Harry Reid is in so much trouble. Why he’s still neck-and-neck with Sharron Angle is another story.
(Charts created by: Calculated Risk)
Ambiance 