Well this is good news
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Martian water!
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What sorcery is this?
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Something I find really sick about all this is that the refugees coming from Syria are often spending in the region of thousands of dollars each to buy passage on rickety boats, bus fares, food and frickin life jackets (you know, to hopefully not die when your rickety boat capsizes). And yet an incredibly safe and easy flight from Izmir to Berlin is currently going from about £60.
European governments could charge refugees a fee of a few thousand dollars towards the cost of emergency accommodation and language lessons - or purely to milk them for cash - and they'd STILL be getting a better deal in purely financial terms than they get with people smugglers (not to mention not needing to put their lives at risk). Obviously this wouldn't be as good as just letting people in for free but, you know, imagine if our governments were just hugely exploitative assholes rather than actively murderous assholes.
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This is all very interesting, but I don't think the real mark of inauthenticity is media polish - it's supporting policies that play well in the media and help you win elections even when you know (or really should know) are morally wrong.
Let us not forget that David Cameron supported drug decriminalisation when he was a junior MP and so demonstrably knows that current government policy is a horrific mistake. Yet he supports publicly, because that he thinks that necessary to stay in power. Likewise, I'm sure he knows that letting migrants die trying to enter Europe is a horrible thing to do, but tries not to let his conscience both him in order to support the party line.
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"Why [did not] the highly productive agriculture, commerce and handicrafts he describes [in the Yangzi Delta]... spawn something more like classical English industrialization[?]... He argues that institutional structure, surplus available for investment, and the educational level of the workforce were all quite adequate, and that there was widespread interest in productivity-enhancing technological change.... [He] finds his answers in geography and the supply of natural resources. In particular, he emphasizes a dearth of energy sources that he says gave Jiangnan production a marked bias away from anything energy-intensive, creating what he calls "a super light industrial" economy... few trees... not very many large work animals... no coal or peat, and, being at sea level, relatively little water power. Conditions were even unfavorable for the large-scale use of wind...." Bradford Delong
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"The idea of translating Shakespeare into modern English has elicited predictable resistance in the past. To prove that the centuries were not so formidable a divide, the actor and author Ben Crystal has documented that only about 10% of the words that Shakespeare uses are incomprehensible in modern English. But that argument is easy to turn on its head. When every 10th word makes no sense—it’s no accident that the word decimate started as meaning “to reduce by a 10th” and later came to mean “to destroy”—a playgoer’s experience is vastly diluted." WSJ
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"When injected into the brains of mice, the mesh unfurled to 30 times its size and mouse brain cells grew around the mesh, forming connections with the wires in the flexible mesh circuit. The biochemical mouse brain completely accepted the mechanical component and integrated with it without any damage being caused to the mouse." IB Times
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Where exactly is the distinction between regulation and plain trolling? Some of these proposed rules would do nothing except force Uber to offer a slightly worse service... which I guess would make its competitors look good in comparison, but hardly helps consumers
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:( :( :(
"Official police figures published this week show that 49 people are murdered every day across the country, equivalent to one every half hour, a figure described by one politician as being “what one would expect from a country at war”. It marked an increase for a third consecutive year after the murder rate more than halved over the first 18 years of post-apartheid democracy." Guardian
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"I can recall no head of the army and no serious academic strategist with any time for the Trident missile. It was a great hunk of useless weaponry. It was merely a token of support for an American nuclear response, though one that made Britain vulnerable to a nuclear exchange. No modern danger, such as from terrorism, is deterred by Trident... But the money was spent and the rest of the defence budget had to suffer constant cuts – and soldiers left ill-equipped – to pay for it." Guardian
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"Wherever there have been attempts to include economic crimes as part of the transitional justice process — they have simply failed. Where corruption has been excluded from the transitional justice agenda, either by design or oversight — such as with SA’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission — the problem festers. Those networks stay in business, and rather than face justice they invite members of the new elite to the table." BD Live
>>><<<
Martian water!
>>><<<
What sorcery is this?
>>><<<
Something I find really sick about all this is that the refugees coming from Syria are often spending in the region of thousands of dollars each to buy passage on rickety boats, bus fares, food and frickin life jackets (you know, to hopefully not die when your rickety boat capsizes). And yet an incredibly safe and easy flight from Izmir to Berlin is currently going from about £60.
European governments could charge refugees a fee of a few thousand dollars towards the cost of emergency accommodation and language lessons - or purely to milk them for cash - and they'd STILL be getting a better deal in purely financial terms than they get with people smugglers (not to mention not needing to put their lives at risk). Obviously this wouldn't be as good as just letting people in for free but, you know, imagine if our governments were just hugely exploitative assholes rather than actively murderous assholes.
>>><<<
This is all very interesting, but I don't think the real mark of inauthenticity is media polish - it's supporting policies that play well in the media and help you win elections even when you know (or really should know) are morally wrong.
Let us not forget that David Cameron supported drug decriminalisation when he was a junior MP and so demonstrably knows that current government policy is a horrific mistake. Yet he supports publicly, because that he thinks that necessary to stay in power. Likewise, I'm sure he knows that letting migrants die trying to enter Europe is a horrible thing to do, but tries not to let his conscience both him in order to support the party line.
>>><<<
"Why [did not] the highly productive agriculture, commerce and handicrafts he describes [in the Yangzi Delta]... spawn something more like classical English industrialization[?]... He argues that institutional structure, surplus available for investment, and the educational level of the workforce were all quite adequate, and that there was widespread interest in productivity-enhancing technological change.... [He] finds his answers in geography and the supply of natural resources. In particular, he emphasizes a dearth of energy sources that he says gave Jiangnan production a marked bias away from anything energy-intensive, creating what he calls "a super light industrial" economy... few trees... not very many large work animals... no coal or peat, and, being at sea level, relatively little water power. Conditions were even unfavorable for the large-scale use of wind...." Bradford Delong
>>><<<
"The idea of translating Shakespeare into modern English has elicited predictable resistance in the past. To prove that the centuries were not so formidable a divide, the actor and author Ben Crystal has documented that only about 10% of the words that Shakespeare uses are incomprehensible in modern English. But that argument is easy to turn on its head. When every 10th word makes no sense—it’s no accident that the word decimate started as meaning “to reduce by a 10th” and later came to mean “to destroy”—a playgoer’s experience is vastly diluted." WSJ
>>><<<
"When injected into the brains of mice, the mesh unfurled to 30 times its size and mouse brain cells grew around the mesh, forming connections with the wires in the flexible mesh circuit. The biochemical mouse brain completely accepted the mechanical component and integrated with it without any damage being caused to the mouse." IB Times
>>><<<
Where exactly is the distinction between regulation and plain trolling? Some of these proposed rules would do nothing except force Uber to offer a slightly worse service... which I guess would make its competitors look good in comparison, but hardly helps consumers
>>><<<
:( :( :(
"Official police figures published this week show that 49 people are murdered every day across the country, equivalent to one every half hour, a figure described by one politician as being “what one would expect from a country at war”. It marked an increase for a third consecutive year after the murder rate more than halved over the first 18 years of post-apartheid democracy." Guardian
>>><<<
"I can recall no head of the army and no serious academic strategist with any time for the Trident missile. It was a great hunk of useless weaponry. It was merely a token of support for an American nuclear response, though one that made Britain vulnerable to a nuclear exchange. No modern danger, such as from terrorism, is deterred by Trident... But the money was spent and the rest of the defence budget had to suffer constant cuts – and soldiers left ill-equipped – to pay for it." Guardian
>>><<<
"Wherever there have been attempts to include economic crimes as part of the transitional justice process — they have simply failed. Where corruption has been excluded from the transitional justice agenda, either by design or oversight — such as with SA’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission — the problem festers. Those networks stay in business, and rather than face justice they invite members of the new elite to the table." BD Live
I like your posts - thank you. Fun, informative, zany at times. When you write things like this...
ReplyDelete"Something I find really sick about all this is that the refugees coming from Syria are often spending in the region of thousands of dollars each to buy passage on rickety boats, bus fares, food and frickin life jackets (you know, to hopefully not die when your rickety boat capsizes). And yet an incredibly safe and easy flight from Izmir to Berlin is currently going from about £60."
I wish you could see me standing and applauding. Thanks!