As individuals and nations become increasingly interdependent, we have no choice but to develop a sense of universal responsibility.
-- Dalai Lama
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>>>>>>> 'news' you may have missed <<<<<<<
Good story - save Grandma's house - 12 year old - there is goodness ---
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Good story - cut waste - 100 million pounds - Ford - corporations aren't all bad ---
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Good story - AID's $13.5 million scholarship program in Lebanon - much more effective for stability than - $1.3 billion in tanks and planes to Egypt - one is for 'making people' - the other for killing people - 'win friends'? ---
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Good story - Time names only woman (Elinor Ostrom) Nobelist in economics to - 100 most influential list -"A conversation about economics solely between men is not a conversation: it's a frat party." ---
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Good story - Obamacare - 2 years worth - thanks J... ---
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Interesting - Ecuador - progress - low unemployment - coming out from recession - I thought there were more problems with the economy in Ecuador - maybe Carrera is good ---
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I thought this really good - women's work - when is stay at home work the most important? - if you're married have money? - but it's the lowest paying job if you pay for it i.e. teenagers, elderly, undocumented apparently can do much of it? - but it's idleness if you're unmarried on welfare? ---
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Life - science - 'know' > knowledge > power > new secular religion? > scientism - faith > life is richer than science? - think ---
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Science and Philosophy - physics -philosophy - religion? - why is there something? - not nothing? ---
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I thought this is 'life' today ---
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way ..."
--- Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, The Writer's Almanac
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And to Dickens - SCOTUS > Arizona/Immigration - regardless of the final decision, I thought this a good analysis of reality - depressing - human rights? - basic humanity? - not even important enough to consider ---
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It's even worse than it looks - extremism in Congress - one of the authors is from AEI - but still blames the Republicans - do I have to modify my feelings about AEI? - thanks D... ---
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... however awkward it may be for the traditional press and nonpartisan analysts to acknowledge, one of the two major parties, the Republican Party, has become an insurgent outlier — ideologically extreme; contemptuous of the inherited social and economic policy regime; scornful of compromise; unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence, and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition. When one party moves this far from the center of American politics, it is extremely difficult to enact policies responsive to the country's most pressing challenges.
--- It's Even Worse Than It Looks
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Productivity - median compensation growth - improved living standards - are they linked? - they used to be but not for the past several decades ---
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This isn't new but noone pays any attention - jobs - infrastructure - we can do it - we've done it before - where is the American initiative? - where is its 'can do' spirit? - we need to invest in the future ---
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"When you look at America, you have to concede that we have failed. Most Americans today are worse off than they were fifteen years ago. A full-time worker in the US is worse off today than he or she was 44 years ago. That is astounding – half a century of stagnation. The economic system is not delivering. It does not matter whether a few people at the top benefited tremendously – when the majority of citizens are not better off, the economic system is not working."
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Is IBM an example of Stiglitz quote? - interesting article - couple of interesting Steve Jobs' quotes - IBM cutting people in US and increasing with more but cheaper outside - I liked the line it's 'like getting 9 women to make a baby in one month' - about what some of the goals look like ---
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"If advertisers spent the same amount of money on improving their products as they do on advertising then they wouldn't have to advertise them."
-- Will Rogers, Evolving Excellence
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Did half a million Americans die and noone noticed? - sharp increase in American deaths when Vioxx was introduced and sharp decrease when it was removed - where was the media? - asleep? - or - are American lives just cheap? ---
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Homophobic - maybe you're gay - interesting - I've long thought there was a little of 'methinks thou doth protest too much' in some antigay protests ---
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More on 'methinks' - sex hypocrites - not new but listed in one place ---
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Arizona again - imaginary agendas - conspiracies - wonder when we'll start burning people at the stake again? ---
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Gas prices - financialization of the industry - or when metastastasized maybe casinolization is a better term - I thought this a good descriptive piece ---
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Financialization is a process whereby financial markets, financial institutions, and financial elites gain greater influence over economic policy and economic outcomes…..Its principal impacts are to (1) elevate the significance of the financial sector relative to the real sector, (2) transfer income from the real sector to the financial sector, and (3) increase income inequality and contribute to wage stagnation.
--- Thomas Palley
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"Speculators may do no harm as bubbles on a steady stream of enterprise. But the position is serious when enterprise becomes the bubble on a whirlpool of speculation. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. The measure of success attained by Wall Street, regarded as an institution of which the proper social purpose is to direct new investment into the most profitable channels in terms of future yield, cannot be claimed as one of the outstanding triumphs of laissez-faire capitalism…."
--- John Maynard Keynes, 75 years ago
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NYPD tactics - no longer just against persons of color or Muslims ---
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Violent America - another rampage of death - Arizona - militia/hate group - when will we make as much effort to really work on the hate groups rather than on teaching muslim wannabes how to become terrorists? - when will we recognize that hate groups have many people that are mentally unstable? - when will we accept that many of these are the result of 'war' experience ---
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Spring offensive - OCCUPY ---
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Cartoons:
What kind of name? ---
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Problem solving ---
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God and taxes ---
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Political theater ---
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“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”
--- Charles Darwin, daily zen
zzzzzzzzz
50s/60s/70s/80s - tree pollen - grass pollen - Spring