[y66]

The Lawyer Who Became DuPont’s Worst Nightmare

It is heartening to know there are still guys like Rob Bilott out there and law firms capable of doing the right thing when it conflicts with their bottom line.

Scary to think this story almost didn't get told and that PFOA is only 1 of 60,000 unregulated chemicals.

[y66]

Udacity offers job guarantee for new enrollees in its Nanodegree Plus program: you get a job within six months of graduation, or they give you 100% of your tuition back.

[mike777]

y66, on 2016-January-13, 17:41, said:

Udacity offers job guarantee for new enrollees in its Nanodegree Plus program: you get a job within six months of graduation, or they give you 100% of your tuition back.

who guarantees udacity whatever that is

in any case if your point is there is not guarantee in life ..ok ok ok

[y66]

Two serious fishermen are in a boat on their favorite lake. For two hours, it's all business: changing lures, casting and moving to the next spot. But no luck. Then one guy becomes restless and his buddy says: "that's the second time you've moved your foot in the last twenty minutes. Did you come out here to fish or to dance?"

[y66]

Fire at Virginia Smokehouse Leaves Pork-to-Table Movement Reeling

A sad day for pork lovers. A happy day for pigs. So it goes ...

[Aberlour10]

All I can say: cricket thread is dead

[jjbrr]

[y66]

Post Sand Snakes traumatic stress disorder?

[y66]

El New York Times lanzó nytimes.com/es hoy para los lectores que prefieren el español.

[kenberg]

y66, on 2016-February-08, 06:16, said:

El New York Times lanzó nytimes.com/es hoy para los lectores que prefieren el español.

Buena suerte.
I won't embarrass myself by attempting to say more.

[y66]

The NYT Upshot published a primer on negative interest rates today. Excerpt:

Quote

A decade ago, negative interest rates were a theoretical curiosity that economists would discuss almost as a parlor game. Two years ago, it began showing up as an unconventional step that a few small countries considered. Now, it is the stated policy of some of the most powerful global central banks, including the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan.

On Thursday, Sweden’s central bank lowered its bank lending rate to a negative 0.5 percent from a negative 0.35 percent, and said it could cut further still; European bank stocks were hammered partly because investors feared what negative rates could do to bank profits. The Federal Reserve chairwoman, Janet Yellen, acknowledged in congressional testimony Wednesday and Thursday that the American central bank was taking a look at the strategy, though she emphasized no such move was envisioned.

But as negative rates — in which depositors pay to hold money in bank accounts — become a more common fixture, there are many unknowns about what these policies mean for finance, for the economy and even for the definition of money. More

[kenberg]

y66, on 2016-February-13, 09:00, said:

The NYT Upshot published a primer on negative interest rates today. Excerpt:

A little competition might be healthy. If folks in Sweden would like to send me their money, I will agree to take it and only charge them 0.4% to do so.

[Al_U_Card]

Gee...banks charging us to "hold" our money....fox meet henhouse.

Back to Savings&loan and leave the robbery to thieves and the gambling to the casinos.

[y66]

For possible inclusion in the OBBOHTT Guide to Saying Farewell to Those With Whom We May Disagree:

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Posted on April 9, 2013 by yanisv aka Yanis Varoufakis, Professor of Economics at the University of Athens and former Finance Minister of Greece.

Farewell Mrs Thatcher: In spite of everything, you are being missed already

For the purposes of full disclosure, I write these words as someone who, back in the late ‘70s and throughout the ‘80s, joined countless picket lines and demonstrations against Mrs Thatcher’s regime, shouting on top of his voice (and to the detriment of his vocal chords): “Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, Out, Out, Out!”. Indeed, when I was putting this blog together, three years ago, I went so far as to write in the ‘About’ page: “My break from Britain occurred in 1987 on the night of Mrs Thatcher’s third election victory. It was too much to bear. Soon I started planning my escape.” And while my views on the Iron Lady have not changed one iota, I feel the need to express my sorrow for her passing; a sorrow that I have been feeling well before her death; indeed one that began to creep up on me a few short years after her ‘admirers’ in the Tory party sent her packing.

As the tributes fly in, following the announcement of Mrs Thatcher’s death, perhaps this small tribute from someone who opposed almost everything she stood for, and certainly her main economic, social and foreign policies, may be of some significance. Indeed, Mrs Thatcher was the sort of person that would appreciate a sworn enemy’s eulogy a lot more than the platitudes of the many sycophants that are piling up.

So, why is someone who kept screaming at ‘her’ “Out! Out! Out!” (when in government) is missing her after her final exit? The reason is simple and has to do with a combination of two attributes: First, she was the last British politician to have meant what she said. A ‘conviction politician’ as those rare birds were once called. Secondly, she had a sense of history that informed her actions. While I abhorred both her convictions and her historical take of the past, at least she had convictions and did base her thinking on an historical take that extended beyond the past… week of events. This combination is sorely missed in our current predicament when politicians are mere market research-driven simulations, and in which to have convictions is considered outdated, a sign of weakness, a relic of an antiquated past. With Mrs Thatcher, at least you could trust that she meant what she said. Oh how I miss that in a politician…

A time of death is not a time to offer a full critique of the life that just ended. It is a time to reflect generously on that life’s effect on all of us. I shall never forget the feeling of admiration for the way she addressed the House of Commons, of her formidable defence of her government and her philosophy (which was, in my estimation, that much more impressive given that both her government and her philosophy were indefensible). If I delve a little more (see below) on her contradictions, it is not out of an urge to diminish Mrs Thatcher; in fact, I believe deeply that we are all contradictory creatures and that the greater our ambition the greater the antinomies within us. And by golly, did Mrs Thatcher display great ambition and, thus, great contradictions!

She was the first woman Prime Minister but had little sympathy for the suffragettes (and the women’s movement in general) that broke the barriers to women’s progress, thus allowing her to rise up. She wanted to liberate Britons from the state but ended up granting Whitehall (Britain’s London-based functionaries) hitherto unheard of authoritarian powers. She sought to impose libertarian values, only to discover that she needed an autocratic state in order to do so (which explains nicely her fondness for, and defence of, General Pinochet). She preached judiciousness, on matters economic, and thrift, yet her government built the ‘British Miracle’ on the twin bubbles of real estate and the City created by spivs who worshipped her. She was keen to see the end of the old Etonian ruling circle but, unwittingly, created the conditions for the resurgence of that aristocratic clique (just take a look at the present cabinet). She championed a ‘share owners’ democracy’ but delivered a Britain in which ownership of businesses (and wealth) is more concentrated in the hands of a minority than at the time she became Prime Minister. She campaigned against totalitarianism in Moscow while insisting that Nelson Mandela was a terrorist who deserved to languish in gaol. Above all other contradictions, she argued passionately about a return to the Victorian moral life but gave rise to a regime in which it was impossible to imagine anything good being done for its own sake (as opposed to for profit).

Despite all these contradictions, the world was a better place when it allowed formidable personalities, like that of Mrs Thatcher, to rise to the top. It is highly questionable whether someone of Mrs Thatcher’s strong convictions and bravado could rise again to a position of genuine power. And this is, surely, a sad reflection on the world after Thatcher.

Lastly, on Europe, while it is true that Mrs Thatcher only turned against the European Union when the Labour Party turned pro-European, she was quite right on what monetary union meant in the absence of democratic checks and balances. Undoubtedly, her hostility to the Eurozone project had little to do with her commitment to democracy (given the way in which she diminished democracy at home, especially at the local government and regional level) and a great deal with having to cede her own prime ministerial power to Brussels, Frankfurt and Berlin. Whatever her motives, nonetheless, she was spot on when, in her final parliamentary speech as Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher, famously said about the Eurozone: “It’s all politics. Who controls interest rates is political. A single currency is about the politics of Europe.” Europe’s leaders and citizens can do a lot worse than to remember, and mark, these words.

[gwnn]

[diana_eva]

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WHY SHOULD YOU SIGN UP?
All these years your minorityness has just been sitting dormant with no possibility of being monetized. With the sharing economy opening up a whole new world in which everything can be monetized, we'd like to put your skin colour/gender/sexuality/religion to work!




ARE YOU ELIGIBLE?
Your minority-ness must be evident in photographs. So we're not interested in anyone who simply considers themselves to be from a disadvantaged socioeconomic background. When it comes to disabilities we are really only interested in good-looking people in wheelchairs. You must also be an "assimilated" minority who laughs sportingly along at offensive jokes rather than saying anything awkward -- remember who's paying you!

http://rentaminority.com/

[y66]

From Philip Galanes Feb 27 interview with Lupita Nyong'o and Trevor Noah:

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LN: We’re at this interesting moment when prejudice is in the subconscious a lot of the time. Where prejudice occurs before you’ve even had a conscious thought. The laws have changed, but now the battle is with the mind. And that’s much harder to get to.

TN: Especially when people feel attacked. People are always asking me, “Why aren’t you angry?” Because I grew up in a world where being an angry black person got you nowhere. It got you shot or arrested. There’s a place for anger, but you can get so much further with diplomacy and empathy. You have to feel for the other person, even if you think they’re completely wrong. And they think the same about you.

PG: But it seems unfair: being discriminated against and having to point it out gently.

TN: Freedom is hard work.

LN: And change only comes when the conversation is happening in all forms at all times. Not just one tactic is going to do it. It’s got to be a convergence.

PG: Not like the way we only talk about #OscarsSoWhite in February? Or gun violence after a mass shooting?

TN: That’s a function of the way we consume information. The media needs to move on or people won’t click. When I talk to journalists about how they get rated now, it’s not how good they are, it’s how many people click on their stories. You can’t write about an important issue every day because people will click on it less and less. It’s, what’s next?

LN: And sensation sells.

TN: But you know the irony of #OscarsSoWhite? If you were talking with two white people, they would get to discuss their achievements, their hopes and dreams, maybe a passion project. But we can’t not talk about the Oscars, or we get, “Don’t you care?” But if we do, we get, “Is that all you talk about?” It’s a vicious cycle.

LN: I feel like clapping and singing right now! You said that just right. It cuts down on human experience.

PG: Then let’s turn to your work: In “12 Years” and “Eclipsed,” you played characters that were truly pitiable. But I never pitied them; you took me someplace else.

LN: What attracted me to both projects was the agency of those characters. At first glance, they look like victims. But the writing offers them complexity. They’re deep. They have likes, strong dislikes, needs, fears. And as an actor, I’m always looking for that. Those are the things I need to hook onto. Because sympathy is not nearly as interesting as empathy. There’s so much more to learn by stepping into someone’s shoes than by saying “poor you” from a safe distance.

PG: It’s the same in comedy. You say some awful things, but we’re right there with you. Is it the laughter?

TN: It’s the reason doctors use laughing gas. It’s your body protecting you.

LN: From the pain.

TN: You laugh until you cry. People understand that once you step into a comic space, there is complete honesty — without judgment. And there are fewer and fewer places where we can be honest without repercussion. People are afraid of being attacked for their opinions. But what comedy does is bring us together: “Here’s the truth. Here’s how I feel.” And all of a sudden, you feel the audience going: “Yes, yes. I thought I was the only one.”

PG: Growing up under apartheid, were you in a big rush to tell the truth?

TN: Not really. We just love making people laugh. It’s an African thing: sitting around, talking as much trash as you can, getting people to laugh hard.

PG: But, Trevor, you had an extreme setup: a black mother and a white father who weren’t allowed to mix — legally.

TN: My story isn’t a pity story. It wasn’t a world of pity. We were in our lives.

LN: That’s the way you preserve your dignity.

TN: I thought I was lucky because I knew who my dad was. I knew kids who didn’t know their dad. True, I didn’t have access to him, but I knew how he felt. My mom was like: “Jesus didn’t have his dad, either. You have a stepdad.” People always make it seem like there’s one experience that’s the gold standard to aim for. I didn’t grow up that way.

LN: Neither did I. I think it came from watching TV from around the world. I knew there was my way and all the other ways.

TN: Did you ever see kids running upstairs in sitcoms and wonder what that was like?

LN: What I loved was when they walked in the front door and took off their coats. I loved those coats.

TN: Coats and stairs. I couldn’t believe a second floor was a real thing.

TN: One of the best things I ever learned was boxing. My trainer kept drilling into me: “Understand that I’m going to hit you in the face. You can’t get angry about it because then you’ll stop thinking rationally. I’m not trying to hurt you; I’m trying to win.” It’s a fantastic mind game. You have to think.

LN: You can’t let your emotions get the better of you. And if you’re on a winning streak, the last thing you want to do is pat yourself on the back.

TN: Not too happy, not too sad.

PG: But you’re both describing a world where you control your emotions. How about when your feelings get hurt or you feel jealous?

TN: Then you work harder.

PG: Let’s end with something surreal: You were not considered beautiful as children.

TN: God, no! I was the most nerdy, strange-looking kid. Big feet, ears sticking out. No question of girls. There was no question of asking one to the prom.

LN: I got stood up at my prom. He didn’t show up.

PG: And not beautiful?

LN: I was always confident, but I shed my tears. They told me I was too dark for TV. But I came to accept myself. And a lot of that had to do with Alek Wek, the way she was embraced by the modeling industry. Oprah telling her how beautiful she was. I was like, “What is going on here?” It was very powerful. Something in my subconscious shifted. That’s why this conversation is so important — because it burns possibility into people’s minds.

TN: I wish I could rewrite “The Ugly Duckling.” Because after the ugly duckling becomes a swan, people go around dumping on the swan, saying, “Oh, you swan, you don’t know what it’s like to be an ugly duckling.”

LN: I used to be teased and teased. They called me black mamba, awful names.

TN: Now they act like we’ve had it easy all our lives. I can’t help that my face fixed itself.

LN: You know what I gained? Compliments never grow old. They’re delightful every time.

[Winstonm]

It is not Islam that is the enemy but the belief systems the give rise to superstition. The real difference between Christianity and Islam is that the culture in which Christianity thrives no longer tolerates Christian terrorism. Islam, to a larger degree, is still trapped in an ancient culture that has not yet grown weary of outrage.

[y66]

From Angela Merkel’s Unpopular Goodness

Quote

Berlin — WHEN I returned to Berlin recently after a few months away, a friend asked me to try a new Chinese restaurant in Kreuzberg, a hip multiethnic neighborhood in the city. “It’s close to the subway station Kottbusser Tor,” he texted. “But take a cab, otherwise it’s too dangerous.”

I would have thought he was joking, but he is not the type. I asked the cabdriver, a young man of Turkish origin. Had Kottbusser Tor suddenly become a no-go zone? To my shock, he replied, “Yes, now that all these people from North Africa are here it has become really dangerous.”

I got out of the cab and looked around. Tourists strolling, a few people on bicycles in spite of the cold, women in head scarves pushing strollers. Had the city changed? It looked the same to me. But my friend is not prone to hysteria, and the cabdriver didn’t seem as if he was either, so the friendly scene suddenly seemed ominous.

That’s how one often feels in Germany these days. One tries to constantly make sense of the latest news and the seemingly contradictory reality.

[y66]