The hang over from "Shock and Awe" continues

"Donald Trump is a baleful influence on American politics in my view, but he’s not wrong about everything. Part of the reason for his popularity is that he refuses to carry Republican baggage from the Iraq war."

-Spengler, from the opening paragraph to this post.  Concluding paragraphs here:

"The trouble is that most Americans don’t trust us Republicans with military power. The last time they gave us a blank check, we lost 5,000 lives, took 52,000 battle casualties, sent 900,000 returning veterans to VA hospitals, spent $1 trillion, and disrupted millions of lives (with 1.5 million troop-years of deployment) with little to show for it. Iran’s regional hegemony began with the Bush administration’s 2005 decision to back the pro-Iranian Iraqi Shi’ite leader Nouri al-Maliki. George W. Bush stuck with Maliki throughout, because he believed that democracy would fix Iraq and the rest of the region. And as long as we refuse to admit our mistakes, the voters won’t trust us. Why should they? The present mess in the Middle East arises from policies that both Obama and the Republican mainstream supported.

"It’s painful that we have to hear the truth from the likes of Donald Trump. Sen. Ted Cruz has criticized American mistakes in Iraq, but hasn’t gotten the same level of public attention. Americans will begin to trust Republicans only after we admit that we made mistakes in the past, and promise that we will not demand great sacrifices from them in pursuit of ideological experiments like “democratic globalism.” And Heaven help us if Trump takes on the mantel of truth-teller."

Home...........................................

Whispering in my ear.............................

Santana and Everlast.......................................Put Your Light On

Vibrational............................................

     Because emotions emit a vibrational energy field, they affect and determine the people who are in our lives.  Life events become influenced by our repressed and suppressed emotions on the psychic level.  Thus anger attracts angry thoughts.  The basic rule of the psychic universe is that "like attracts like."  Similarly, "love promotes love,"  so that the person who has let go of a lot of inner negativity is surrounded by loving thoughts, loving events, loving people, and loving pets.  This phenomenon explains many scriptural quotations and common sayings that have puzzled the intellect, such as, "The rich get richer and poor get poorer," and "Those who have, get."  As a general rule, therefore, people who are carrying the consciousness of apathy bring poverty circumstances into their lives, and those with a prosperity consciousness bring abundance into their lives.

-David Hawkins, as excerpted from Letting Go:  The Pathway of Surrender

You're just being silly............................

.....................................if you don't check in with David Kanigan's wondrous tumblr daily.  Just saying.

Fifty years ago......................................

New cars...................................................

1965 Shelby Mustang

1965 Plymouth Fury III

1965 Rambler Marlin

1965 Ford Falcon

Inseparably interwoven..............................

"The world is a tissue of involvements inseparably interwoven with bothers.  It is no solution to get rid of the second by abolishing the first.  If the only way around distress is to stop loving, well, then, let us be men about it and settle for distress."

-Robert Farrar Capon

Watch Pooh's head.......................

via

That's what I do.........................

via

Not so sure about this one.........................

From a simpler time.................................

Little Eva...............................................................Loco-motion

May I have your attention........................?

"Attention is a currency. We choose how to spend it, just like we spend our time, energy and money."
-Carl Richards, as excerpted from here

via

If only it was that simple.......................

....................................friend Bilbo on religious freedom.

Be advised......................................

“In a jungle full of totalitarian monsters liberal democracy needs teeth.”
-Robert Conquest

Conquest was brought to our attention here

Fifty years ago...............................

At the movies................................007...................Thunderball

In an essay about "confirmation bias".............

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,one of my favorite thinkers shows some confirmation bias:

"It is generally possible to predict what people will think about abortion from what they think about climate change, and vice versa; and those who are concerned about wealth inequality tend to favour gun control, while those who are not, do not. Why, since these seem wholly unrelated issues, should this be so? Opinions seem to be based more and more on what team you belong to and less and less on your assessment of facts."

On change..............................................

"If you wish information and improvement from the knowledge of others, and yet at the same time express yourself as firmly fix'd in your present opinions, modest, sensible men, who do not love disputation, will probably leave you undisturbed in the possession of your error."
-Benjamin Franklin

borrowed from here

No, no, no, no....................................

Chad & Jeremy.........................................A Summer Song

Confounded.........................

     Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them;  whereas they are not only different, but have different origins.  Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness;  the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices.  The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions.  The first is a patron, the last a punisher.
     Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil;  in its wrong state an intolerable one.............
-Thomas Paine, from the beginning of Common Sense

Hidden.....................................

“Why do we marry, why take friends and lovers? Why give ourselves to music, painting, chemistry or cooking? Out of simple delight in the resident goodness of creation, of course; but out of more than that, too. Half earth's gorgeousness lies hidden in the glimpsed city it longs to become.” 
-Robert Farrar Capon

He asks.........................

..................................Are God and the mob always on the same side?   The answer gently wafts by, "Not so much."   Full post is here.  A wee excerpt here.

Nothing has changed in this regard: the Internet is wringing with moral indignation, and the pundits are kept busy by it. Goldberg rightly sees that the effect of the imposed, ideological libertinism — as it is taught by our current elites, through the schools and the media and the courts they control — is only to change the rules of the game. The game itself continues. What is condemned was previously applauded; what is applauded was previously condemned; but the mob moves on. So long as it is still provided with scapegoats to damn, in the Forum of public opinion, one sin will do as well as another. New sins will always be invented to fill the space from which the old sins were winkled; the witches in Macbeth promised no less.

Fifty years ago..................................

At the movies.............The Duke...........The Sons of Katie Elder

Tempting...............................

The Deep Lagoon    larger image, description and copyright here

It is tempting to view the vast and
luminous heavens as 
the body of the Tao.
That would be a mistake, however.
If you identify the Tao with a particular
shape, you won't ever see it.

-Verse 28, Hua Hu Ching

I started to clip an excerpt....................

................................................from this blog post about varieties of laziness, but then couldn't decide which one.  The whole damn thing is worth reading.

This is absolutely not true.......................

........................................We didn't have shag carpet.

via

Stare at this for three minutes............I dare you

Jefferson Airplane...........................................Somebody To Love

Fifty years ago........................................

The Beatles............................................................I'm Down

Is this a great country, or what....................?

The crew of Apollo 11 filed a Customs Declaration on their return to Hawaii from the moon.  Who knew?

Back story, and a bit more (enlargeable) paperwork, here.

Neil Armstrong's first step on the moon

Never a dull moment.............................

.....................................................................with Guanciale.

Chill................................

Diana Krall and Friends.............................................Route 66

Wrap your body round my soul....................

Mountain....................................................Nantucket Sleighride

Milton Friedman quotes...........................

...............................The guy was pretty smart.  Do yourself a favor and read some of these.  Here is #5  of twenty:

 "Workers paying taxes today can derive no assurance from trust funds that they will receive benefits from when they retire. Any assurance derives solely from the willingness of future taxpayers to impose taxes on themselves to pay for benefits that present taxpayers are promising themselves. This one sided 'compact between the generations,’ foisted on generations that cannot give their consent, is a very different thing from a 'trust fund.' It is more like a chain letter."

Speaking of chain letters, it has been a long time since I've received one.

thanks craig

I see friend Kurt is on the case as well.

On words and their meanings......................

   
     To ensure quality then, excellence must be an earned word, attributed by others to us, not proclaimed by us about ourselves.  It is the responsibility of good leaders to make sure that words remain attached to the meanings and ideals they represent.
-Ed Catmull,  Creativity, Inc.:  Overcoming The Unseen Forces That Stand In The Way Of True Inspiration.

Investing.................................

If I paid more attention, I believe there may be a way to "time" the market based on the timing of waves of calls we get from investment salesmen peddling oil & gas or other commodity investments.  When they get around to calling us, it surely means they have run out of real buyers.  Occasionally - for educational and entertainment purposes only - I will listen to the full sales pitch.  Usually though, in the interest of saving time for the both of us, I interrupt the pitch and say, "Sorry, I won't be buying your product. We have all of our money tied up in real estate."  Sometimes the sales guy wants to argue my point, but typically they - thankfully - just hang up.  My way of avoiding the sales pitch has all the benefits of being true.  ALL of our money is in real estate.  However, that doesn't stop me from reading investment advice blogs.  Like this one, offering ONE way to invest, and SIX ways not to invest.  Looks like sound advice to me.

Two wee excerpts:
"If you’re not a financial professional, try not to spend too much time, energy, or brain space on this investing task. Simplicity and modesty can actually put you way ahead of the pros trying to do fancy things with their investment portfolios."

"Well, the best time to be in the market is always thirty years ago. But you can’t get there from here unless you start today."

thanks

Fifty years ago...............................

Smokey Robinson & The Miracles................Going To A Go Go

Gettin' there.......................................

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It is a complicated world.....................

Ben Casnocha spends some time in Germany.   Here is his report.  A wee excerpt here:

NSA spying on German officials, including Merkel’s cell phone, came up over and over again. All of the Americans on the trip were surprised at how upsetting the spying scandal was to the German government and German people. Although I don’t know what the Americans gained through the spying operation, it seems incredibly unlikely that the benefits outweighed the costs. The damage to the trust and cooperation between the two countries appears to be immense. “Are we friends or just partners?” This is a question Germans asked over and over. There’s a difference in their minds. Friends cooperate in all sorts of ways that partners would not; friends do not spy on each other.

Chill............................................

Dave Brubeck................................................Take The A Train

Later.....................................

Kings and Queens step aside.......................

George Thorogood & The Destroyers................Bad To The Bone



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So, I've been reading my Mencken............

When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental — men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost... All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
-H. L. Mencken,  Baltimore Sun (26 July 1920)

If only the Intertunnel...........................

...........................had existed in the old days (like when I was in school).  Have some fun with your history lessons:

Question:  Did Thomas Jefferson actively pursue a "courageous struggle against slavery"?

Answer A:  Darned right he did.  Case made here.

Answer B:  Surely you jest.    Case made here.

We report.  You decide.

Conflicted........................

"Observing heated political conflict in the U.S. today, one does not know whether to shake one’s head in sadness or to be thankful that it provides a relatively non-violent outlet for group hatred."
-Arnold Kling, as excerpted from this post

Fifty years ago.................................

The Beau Brummels........................................You Tell Me Why

Interaction...............................

The gestation of  Toy Story 2 offers a number of lessons that were vital to Pixar's evolution.  Remember that the spine of the story - Woody's dilemma, to stay or to go - was the same before and after the Braintrust worked it over.  One version didn't work at all, and the other was deeply affecting.  Why?  Talented storytellers had found a way to make viewers care, and the evolution of this story line made it abundantly clear to me:  If you give a good idea to a mediocre team, they will screw it up.  If you give a mediocre idea to a brilliant team, they will either fix it or throw it away and come up with something better.
      The takeaway here is worth repeating:  Getting the team right is the necessary precursor to getting the ideas right.  It is easy to say you want talented people, and you do, but the way those people interact with one another is the real key.  Even the smartest people can form an ineffective team if they are mismatched.  That means it is better to focus on how the team is performing, not on the talents of the individuals within it.  A good team is make up of people who complement each other.  There is an important principle here that may seem obvious, yet - in my experience - is not obvious at all.  Getting the right people and the right chemistry is more important than getting the idea right.

-Ed Catmull,  Creativity, Inc.:  Overcoming The Unseen Forces That Stand In The Way Of True Inspiration

Interaction...........................continued

    
      This is an issue I have thought a lot about over the years.  Once,  I was having lunch with the president of another movie studio, who told me that his biggest problem was not finding good people;  it was finding good ideas.  I remember being stunned when he said that - it seemed patently false to me, in part because I'd found the exact opposite to be true on Toy Story 2.  I resolved to test whether what seemed a given to me was, in fact, a common belief.  So for the next couple of years I made a habit, when giving talks, of  posing the question to my audience:  Which is more valuable, good ideas or good people?  No matter whether I was talking to retired business executives or students, to high school principals or artists, when I asked for a show of hands, the audiences would be split 50-50.  (Statisticians will tell you that when you get a perfect split like this, it doesn't mean that have know the right answer - it means they are all guessing, picking at random, as if flipping a coin.)
     People think so little about this, in all these years, only one person in an audience has ever pointed out the false dichotomy.  To me the answer should be obvious:  Ideas come from people.  Therefore, people are more important than ideas.

-Ed Catmull,  Creativity, Inc.:  Overcoming The Unseen Forces That Stand In The Way Of True Inspiration.

Justice is served..........................

"This is a great little story by itself, but then the defense attorney, Drew Justice, went and committed an act of pure awesomeness."

Acts of pure awesomeness deserve to be read.  If it pleases the court, please read this.

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First World Problems..............................

..........are never a problem at the First World Problem Store.

via

Better watch your speed.........................

The Grateful Dead...................................................Casey Jones

Instant............................................

L'homme est libre au moment qu'il veut l'être.
Man is free at the instant he wants to be.
-Voltaire

cartoon via

Dimly.........................................

Nous cherchons tous le bonheur, mais sans savoir où, comme les ivrognes qui cherchent leur maison, sachant confusément qu'ils en ont une.
We all look for happiness, but without knowing where to find it:  like drunkards who look for their house, knowing dimly that they have one.
-Voltaire

Fifty years ago...................................

The Beau Brummels...............................................Laugh Laugh

Cultivate.....................................

La vie est hérissée de ces épines, et je n'y sais d'autre remède que de cultiver son jardin.
Life is bristling with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to cultivate one's garden.
-Voltaire

About 40 light-years across......................

"A false science makes atheists, a true science prostrates men before the Deity"
-Voltaire

APOD description and larger photo here

Not unlike this blog................................

On parle toujours mal quand on n'a rien à dire.
One always speaks badly when one has nothing to say.
-Voltaire

cartoon via

Love will find us in the end.......................

The Moody Blues.......................................Lost In A Lost World

Difficult to imagine a better CD............

Sitting here, minding my own business, with a CD playing,  not-so-quietly, in the background.  The home-made playlist:

The Beatles
     While My Guitar Gently Weeps  
     All You Need Is Love

Dave Mason
     Look At Me Look At You
     All Along The Watchtower

Grassroots
     Let's Live For Today

Marshall Tucker
     Running Like The Wind
     Dream Lover

U2
     New Year's Day
     Sunday Bloody Sunday

The Zombies
     She's Not There

Roger McGuinn
     Dreamland

Led Zeppelin
     Stairway to Heaven

Kansas
     Dust In The Wind

Youngbloods
     Get Together

Mountain
     Theme From The Imaginary Western

On expressing a living, flexible thinking.....

      So what Montaigne criticizes the philosophers for is not that they express their opinions, far from it:  opinion is precious and is a stimulus to further thought.  Where they go wrong is in tricking their ideas out as absolute truths.  But we can think of the world, or God, only on the basis of our own selves and the contingencies of our lives.  this is why the philosopher can never attain certainty, merely communicate personal convictions.  In other words, a philosophy expresses first and foremost what is felt and thought by a human being in a given society at a specific moment in history.  People of a pessimistic temper will produce philosophies imbued with pessimism, just as optimists will be inclined to view mankind and the world through optimistic eyes.
      What is phony is erecting our philosophy, our vision of human beings, the world or God into a universal system.  Two centuries before Immanuel Kant, Montaigne put metaphysics to death.  This helps us understand the objective he was pursuing in the writing of the Essays:  expressing a living, flexible thinking that follows the ups and downs of everyday life, one that is subjective and far removed from any dogmatic pretention.

-Frederic Lenoir,  Happiness:  A Philosopher's Guide

Checking in with Montaigne..............

“The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness. ” 

“The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.” 

“When I am attacked by gloomy thoughts, nothing helps me so much as running to my books. They quickly absorb me and banish the clouds from my mind.” 

“If I speak of myself in different ways, that is because I look at myself in different ways.” 

"There is nothing more notable in Socrates than that he found time, when he was an old man, to learn music and dancing, and thought it time well spent.”

“Man is certainly stark mad; he cannot make a worm, and yet he will be making gods by dozens.” 

“I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly.”

"Life itself is neither a good nor an evil: life is where good or evil find a place, depending on how you make it for them.”

“Que sçais-je?" (What do I know?)” 

Wiki on Michel de Montaigne is here.

An equation...............................

    It's almost as if Montaigne's temperament could be reduced to an equation:  a low but accurate view of one's own nature plus a capacity for wonder and astonishment at the bizarreness of creation equals a calming spirit of equipoise.  He was, as Bakewell puts it, "liberated to lightheartedness."  He seemed to maintain an even keel, neither surrendering to exuberance when things were going well nor falling into despair when they weren't.  He created a prose style that embodied graceful nonchalance and then tried to become as cool as his writing.

-David Brooks,  The Road to Character

So, you think you understand the Middle East?

David Goldman thinks he does........................

 What makes the outcome of the Iran nuclear deal so dangerous is that none of the parties to the agreement has thought through the consequences of its actions, least of all Iran itself. They are not so much sleepwalkers, as historian Christopher Clark characterized the combatants who stumbled into World War I, as waking fantasists.

Full essay is here.

Fifty years ago..................................

The Moody Blues....................................................I'll Go Crazy

99 rules....................................

I suspect these were written by a 40-something, but they are still worth reading.  A few keepers:

1.   Measure yourself only against your previous self.

3.   Ignore the boos. They usually come from the cheap seats.

26.   Read more. It allows you to borrow someone else’s brain.

27.   Stand up to bullies. You’ll only have to do it once.

28.   Admit it when you’re wrong, and forgive yourself for your mistakes.

86.  Don’t use the word “closure” or ever expect it in real life.

Ah, Trump and the "radical middle"...................

A brash showboat and celebrity, self-promoter and controversialist, silly and mocking, a caricature of a caricature, Donald Trump is no one’s idea of a serious presidential candidate. Which is exactly why the radical middle finds him refreshing. Not an iota of him is politically correct, he plays by no rules of comity or civility, he genuflects to no party or institution, he is unafraid of and antagonistic toward the media, and he challenges the conventional wisdom of both parties, which holds that there is no real cost to illegal immigration and to trade with China.
-Matthew Continetti, as excerpted from here

Where's the fun in being practical..........?

The starting point for any solution to the Greek crisis, or the continuing problem of US mortgage default, should not be to ask who is to blame but what is likely to work.   Morality does not come into it.   Better the non-judgmentalism of St Luke’s gospel:   “And if you lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye?   For sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again.”
-John Kay, as excerpted from here

Now that I discovered you.....................

The Moody Blues.................................................For My Lady

Indeterminacy.....................................

Turing was particularly interested in the math at the core of quantum physics, which described how events at the subatomic level are governed by statistical probabilities rather than laws that determine things with certainty.  He believed (at least while he was young) that this uncertainty and indeterminacy at the subatomic level permitted humans to exercise free will - a trait that, if true, would seem to distinguish them from machines.  In other words, because events at the subatomic level are not predetermined,  that opens the way for our thoughts and actions not to be predetermined.

-Walter Isaacson,  The Innovators:  How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution

Here's a novel approach..............

"Don’t buy what someone wants to sell you.  Instead, research what you need, and buy that."
-David Merkel, as excerpted from here

Pursue vs. Ensue............................

"Don't aim at success - the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue... as the unintended side-effect of one's personal dedication to a course greater than oneself."

-Victor Frankl

Sort of like blogging..................................

via

Fifty years ago...............................

The Moody Blues....................................................I Don't Mind

Believe it or not, this was written in 1955...........

      Like the machines which delight and enthrall them, the masses are neither good not bad.  Machines have made our lives complicated and intellect has made our minds restless.  Poise, assurance and serenity seem to be beyond our grasp, and to gain a false sense of security the individual blends with others in a new entity, the mass.  The spectre of the mass hovers over public affairs, industry, business, social life and manners.  The great danger with the mass is not right thought or wrong thought but the utter absence of thought.   The immense impact of mass media on our lives encourages passivity, acquiescence, conformity.  The mind is benumbed and the will paralysed.   Instead of courageous independent thinking, there is a susceptibility to words, to symbols of crude emotion.  The collective wisdom of the masses is a misnomer for surrender to emotionalism.  Those who manipulate the people acquire great influence.  Politics has become a gamble in mass psychology.   It was the masses that stoned the Bastille; it was the masses that responded by collective rapture to Hitler-in-the-brewery.  It is the masses who are being exploited today for ideological crusades.  The leaders of public opinion use the techniques of propaganda for controlling public opinion.

-Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan,  Recovery of Faith

Recognizing that feeling........................

"I am in much dismay at having gotten so amazing a quagmire and botheration with these Numbers that I cannot possibly get things done today ... I am in a charming state of confusion."

-Ada, Countess of Lovelace, as extracted from here

Till the end of time.............................

Boz Scaggs...................................................Love Me Tomorrow

Forfeiture.................................

"We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people."
-Arthur Schopenhauer

cartoon via

A chance......................................

"There's no human condition, however humble or wretched it may be, that doesn't have a chance for happiness offered to it every day:  to achieve it, all that you need is yourself."
-Jean Giono

Fifty years ago..................................

The Fabulous Flippers......................................................

Awe........................................

“How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, “This is better than we thought!  The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant?”  Instead they say, “No, no, no!  My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.”  A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.” 
-Carl Sagan

image (enlargable with description) via

Unchecked................................

       Sin is not some demonic thing.  It's just our perverse tendency to fuck things up, to favor the short term over the long term, the lower over the higher.  Sin, when it is committed over and over again, hardens into loyalty to a lower love.
       The danger of sin, in other words, is that it feeds on itself.  Small moral compromises on Monday make you more likely to commit other, bigger moral compromises on Tuesday.  A person lies to himself and soon can no longer distinguish when he is lying to himself and when he isn't.  Another person is consumed by the sin of self-pity, a passion to be a righteous victim that devours everything around it as surely as anger or greed.
       People rarely commit the big sins out of the blue.  They walk through a series of doors.  They have an unchecked problem with anger.  They have an unchecked problem with drinking or drugs.  They have an unchecked problem of sympathy.  Corruption breeds corruption.  Sin is the punishment of sin.
-David Brooks,  The Road To Character

Acknowledging that.............................

................there are pockets in the country that this will hurt, on the whole, this has to be a wondrous trend.

enlargeable chart here

It's a fairytale so tragic...........................

Bruce Springsteen............................................Countin' on a Miracle

Only.........................................

“There is only one unpardonable sin, and that is to withhold pardon from others.”
-Robert Farrar Capon

Dealing with the authoritarian ambitious......

Comedians as canaries in the mine shaft..............



via

The problem with advice......................

via

Fifty years ago............................

At the movies.....................................................Ship of Fools

Beauty.........................................

This looks like fun....................................

Jeff points the way to Jim Benton's Intertunnel home.  A few samples:

On quality....................................

How long must we sing this song...............?

U2..............................................................Sunday Bloody Sunday

Anaesthetised........................................

"Our conscience is anaesthetised by dogma."
-Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

Opening paragraphs..........................

     In May 1833, when she was seventeen, Ada Byron was among the young women presented at the British royal court.  Family members had worried about how she would acquit herself, given her high-strung and independent nature, but she ended up behaving, her mother reported, "tolerably well."  Among those Ada met that evening were the Duke of Wellington, whose straightforward manner she admired, and the seventy-nine-year-old French ambassador Talleyrand, who struck her as "an old monkey."

-Walter Isaacson,  The Innovators:  How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution

-the curious amongst you, wondering how Ada Byron fits in with the "digital revolution," may want to go here.

Fifty years ago.............................multi-culturalism

Noel Deschamps............................................................Te Voila
                  (The Zombies' She's Not There in French)

It is the little things..............................

To admit that you begin the day planning to change the world certainly sounds grandiose, maybe even delusional.  Yet I believe that you do change the world every day, whether you intend to or not.  Often it only takes a small act to make a big difference.
    You change the world of your spouse or kids, depending on how you interact with them before you leave the home.  A little extra time and attention or a tender moment of affection changes their world for that day.  And it reminds you of what is important when the mad dash to the office irks you and makes you feel that the day is off to a rough start.
     You change the world of another driver when you allow her to change lanes abruptly without blaring your horn, recognizing that she, too, is human and fallible.  Of course, you alter her world in a different way if you blast your horn, yell, and gesture obscenely.
     You also change the world of a coworker, a customer, a vendor, or a cafeteria worker with your smile or your frown.
     No, these aren't dramatic changes.  They won't alter the course of world affairs or bring about a cure for AIDS.  But who's to say that these little changes don't have a cumulative, profound effect in the lives of others and, ultimately, in your own life?

-Mark Sanborn

Well, most investors are people...........

Even with access to more information than we know what to do with, some investors are still able to focus exclusively on only those facts that back up their current line of thinking.
-as extracted from this A Wealth of Common Sense post