Thanks, but I will stick with real estate......

 

Ben Carlson updates his market performance chart:

Well, that explains a lot..................

As everyone from ancient times till today knows, clerks and accountants think in a non-human fashion.  They think like filing cabinets.  This is not their fault.  If they don't think that way their drawers will get all mixed up and they won't be able to provide the services their government, company or organisation requires.  The most important impact of script (writing) on human history is precisely this:  it has gradually changed the way humans think and view the world.  Free association and holistic thought has given way to compartmentalisation and bureaucracy. 

-Yuval Noah Harari,  Sapiens:  A Brief History of Humankind

When it comes to government policy...........

..................................................................it pays to remember:

"The most important truth about policy is that there is no Truth."

-Arnold Kling, as culled from here

Giving "free trade" a bad name.......

Monitoring TTIP as a member of the European Parliament, I saw plainly enough what was going on: Big multinationals in Europe were getting together with big multinationals in the U.S. and lobbying for more regulation. By combining the most restrictive rules in the EU and the U.S., they aimed to raise barriers to entry and to give themselves an effective monopoly.

-Daniel Hannan, as culled from here

Among the liberal elite..............

...........................................................McSweeney's takes a stab.

Sensing this is true....................

"Someone who has spent his life as a heterosexual white male will never be able to understand how an incorrectly-made sandwich could trigger a trauma."

-Philipp Oehmke. as extracted from his essay Has Political Correctness Gone off the Rails in America?

A problem with statistics..............

"Therefore, it could look like the economy is stagnating and experiencing very low rates of growth using GDP as the measure of economic performance, even though our standard of living could be improving significantly."
-Mark J. Perry, as excerpted from this post highlighting the almost freeness of music these days.  His message is hard to ignore when you consider we all walk around with an awful lot of computing power in our pockets.

Ouch! An attack on the herd.................

"One could not be a successful scientist without realizing that, in contrast to the popular conception supported by newspapers and mothers of scientists, a goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid."

-James Watson, as quoted here

Ouch.......................................

Fred Reed's latest rant:


"I love it: Donald Trump’s campaign reveals the establishment for what it is, a swamp of corruption  as fetid as those of Latin America. It is better entertainment than Vaudeville. The frantic scramble to rig the primaries, change the rules, and thwart the voters–anything to defend their cozy entanglement of political tapeworms–makes absurd any pretense of democracy."


And if that is not enough for you, try this on for size:


"It’s wonderful. The GOP is looking for someone that Hillary can beat. She would squash Kasich or Cruz like stepping on bugs. Trump might actually win. This the Republicans strive to avoid. What could make more sense?


"But it does make sense. The Republicans try desperately to ditch the only Republican candidate who could win the Presidency because…Hillary is one of them. Because, as every sentient being has by now noticed, the Republicans and Democrats are members of the same corrupt club of blood-sucking parasites, the action arm of the corporations, Wall Street, the Israeli lobby, and those who want the US to control the world at any cost–except, of course, to them. They are panicked at the rise of someone who might put first the interests of America. Better Hillary, a fellow parasite, than Trump, who isn’t."


And this is just Fred getting started.


The "elites" have struggled to understand the Trump phenomenon.  One doesn't have to agree with Fred Reed to sense that there are an awful lot of people who relish the opportunity to poke a finger or two in the collective eyes of the Washington D.C./New York City axis.

When you think about it...................

..........from a certain point of view, this is a real accomplishment:

circa 2008

circa  2015

If you really want to make your mind reel, go here.

a start.............................

       John, Stevo, and I have been collectively sober for eighty-four year.  It's a start.
      John found refuge among the people he had hurt and neglected.  I still had some little grudgelets and feared he would leave us again, but the three of us were slowly growing up.  That, grace, and exhaustion with myself allowed me to forgive.  I did not want to keep score anymore.  I always won, but got booby prizes.

-Anne Lamott,  Small Victories:  Spotting Improbable Moments of Grace

Twenty-nine days.......................

...................of following your own directions.  The tale is told here.

The wonder of politics, circa 2015...........

“If you’re keeping score, in the past month Trump has bitch-slapped the entire Republican Party, redefined our expectations of politics, focused the national discussion on immigration, proposed the only new idea for handling ISIS, and taken functional control of FOX News,” Adams blogged, frighteningly. “And I don’t think he put much effort into it.  Imagine what he could do if he gave up golf.”
-as excerpted from this Daily Beast post

GoooooooooooooooooooooooooOAL..........

We played a lot of foosball back in college.  This is a first:

via

Striving.......................................................

via

A measure of competency.......................?

"Corporations, like all human institutions, are great engines for making mistakes. The only reason they seem so competent is that companies who make too many mistakes go out of business, and we don't have them around for comparison." 
-Megan McArdle, as excerpted from this post

GOOOOOOOAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!

via

Hate it when that happens...................

source, and more fun with explosives, here!

To speak.........................

......................or not to speak?     That is the question.

The Execupundit has tallied the answer.

Tried and true..........................

"All too often, the ones who are aggressively seeking the theory of the day don't have a lot to show for what they did yesterday."
-Seth Godin

art via gapingvoid