Thursday, December 31. 2015
Photo: It's a dumb holiday, meaningless. Drinking until midnight with a silly hat on no longer appeals to me. Never did, really. Furthermore, I am meeting my trainer at our little gym at 5 tomorrow am to get the year started on the right foot. And champagne gives me heartburn.
I’m not convinced women who are on Tinder who say “no hookups” actually mean that.
Girls just want to have fun
Just 14 Percent of Families in the U.S. Structured Like the ‘Traditional’ Cleaver Family
I'm in the elite 14%
Yes, I Want My Son to Play Football
The University as Nursery
A film: Suffragette reminds us why it's a lie that feminists need men's approval
Why are guys the enemy?
‘We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing’
That's Lincoln
The Return of the 1920s - America is again caught between nationalists longing for the glories of an imagined
past, and activists invoking ideals the nation has never yet attained.
VDH: California, Leading from Behind
2015 was record year for federal regulation
More, please. Federal regulations are so much fun
I’m
not convinced women who are on Tinder who say “no hookups” actually
mean that. - See more at:
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/12/ninjaeconomics-on-tinder-from-the-comments.html#sthash.D8NZrvy2.dpuf
Big City Machines Losing Control of the Monster They Created
In Germany: Government Has Ordered Cover-Up Of Migrant Crime, Taken In 1.1 Million Migrants…
Sweden: Even Europe’s humanitarian superpower is turning its back on refugees
How ISIS Actually Lost Ramadi
Wednesday, December 30. 2015
Tuesday, December 29. 2015
Mr. Thompson goes through them, month by month. For example,
In November, “intersectional feminist” Rachel Kuo instructed the unthinking white masses on the preconditions of ordering takeaway from any “ethnic” restaurant. A list that includes being intimately acquainted with regional politics, colonial history, and issues of “labour equity and immigration policy” – all before ordering that hot tossed chicken and sticky rice. Meanwhile, the Guardian’s Osman Faruqi, a “Sydney-based writer and activist,” demanded that someone else – taxpayers on the other side of the world – should pay for his leisure activities. Specifically, by nationalising Twitter. Mr Faruqi was subsequently astonished to hear that many readers had assumed his article was a cunning satire of leftist entitlement. Apparently, this failure to appreciate his seriousness and insight merely “shows how right-wing our political debate has become.”
Interview here:
"The postcrisis perception, at least in the media, appears to be one of Americans being held down by Wall Street, by big companies in the private sector, and by the wealthy. Capitalism is on trial. I see it a little differently. If a lender offers me free money, I do not have to take it. And if I take it, I better understand all the terms, because there is no such thing as free money. That is just basic personal responsibility and common sense. The enablers for this crisis were varied, and it starts not with the bank but with decisions by individuals to borrow to finance a better life, and that is one very loaded decision. This crisis was such a bona fide 100-year flood that the entire world is still trying to dig out of the mud seven years later. Yet so few took responsibility for having any part in it, and the reason is simple: All these people found others to blame, and to that extent, an unhelpful narrative was created. Whether it’s the one percent or hedge funds or Wall Street, I do not think society is well served by failing to encourage every last American to look within. This crisis truly took a village, and most of the villagers themselves are not without some personal responsibility for the circumstances in which they found themselves. We should be teaching our kids to be better citizens through personal responsibility, not by the example of blame."
Monday, December 28. 2015
Sunday, December 27. 2015
I found the movie tedious. In addition, it ignored obvious factors which were crucial to the story:
For starters, everybody knew there was a US housing bubble and a mortgage bubble. Dr. Burry was not the only one, but the credit default swaps was a brilliant approach to shorting what was bound to fall sooner or later.
Everybody knew that a large number of mortgages were junk. You could read about it on the internets every day.
Everybody knew that, since Clinton, banks were required to expand mortgage availability to high credit risks. This was not voluntary.
Naturally, banks did not want to keep that junk on their books. They packaged them and sold them to sophisticated willing institutional buyers around the world, same as any other asset a bank did not wish to hold. Can't blame the bankers for doing that. It's their job to sell stuff. It's common sense.
One good thing was included: the slipperiness of the debt rating agencies.
In Honor Of "The Big Short", Here Is Michael Burry's Historic Commencement Speech - it's a dynamite speech
Everybody likes to find a scapegoat. Moral of the story, in my view: Bubbles happen, and always burst. Shorting bubbles makes sense. It just takes balls. Other morals: Abolish Freddie Mac And Fannie Mae - and the Fed. And the notion of "too big to fail."
Thursday, December 24. 2015
Wednesday, December 23. 2015
I know many native New Yorkers who talk like Trump. Not the WASPy East Siders with houses in Litchfield, but the real ones without pedigrees. Charismatic, entertaining, witty, fast-talking, pumped, brash, clever, commerce-oriented, not overly intellectual. I do not mean to say that he is a type, but people who know him find him warm, caring, highly-moral and of course, engaging and provocative.
As I have said, he is a bit of a Honey Badger.
This is not a political endorsement, but a cultural observation.
Trump’s latest treatise deploys subliminally sinister attack on Clinton
Tuesday, December 22. 2015
Higher ed: Subsidies Increase Tuition.
Of course they do. Institutions are greedy by definition. It is never enough.
At 108 US Colleges, More Than Half Of Students Haven't Paid Even $1 On Their Student Loans
Subsidies Increase Tuition
Monday, December 21. 2015
 Confessions of a For-Profit College Inspector
What Are Quantum Gravity's Alternatives To String Theory?
This is over my head
Winter Outlook Update: January - March 2016 to Feel Influence of Strong El Niño
It is passing strange how little jubilation the rescue of the planet has stirred.
I blame Star Wars.
What’s Really Going On With the Earth’s Climate
"Most Liberal" US College Unleashes Demands For "Deconstructing The White Supremacist, Capitalist System"
Bad Dining Hall Food Becomes Racial Grievance
Yale Students Sign Petition to Abolish First Amendment
The Democrats’ Theme for 2016 Is Totalitarianism
Dalrymple:
About twenty years ago I was in the company of right-thinking people (that is to say, people who thought differently from me), among whom was an eminent human rights lawyer of impeccably internationalist outlook. She was speaking with characteristic self-righteousness about a case in which someone’s newly discovered human rights had been infringed. It was shortly after the Rwandan genocide had taken place and, fed up by her moral complacency, I accused her of racism. How could she concern herself with this case, I demanded to know, when half a million people or more had just been slaughtered and the perpetrators were unpunished (as at that time they still were)? Was it because she was racist and did not consider that all those lost lives were important because they were black?
Bipartisan Achievements: Bigger Government, Worse Schools
The Stupid Party Collapse
Paul Ryan Budget Admits More Syrian Refugees Than There Are Republican Voters In Iowa…
The Cruzade, starring Ted Cruz
Regarding Its 'Migrant' Policies, Denmark Tells World to Drop Dead
How wrong of Danes to wish to be Danish
Has Europe Reached the Breaking Point?
ISIS Sets Its Sights on the East
Sunday, December 20. 2015
McInnes amuses:
Christmas is about many things, but a big part of it is indulging yourself. I’m all for that. Be crass. Be an ugly American. Laugh with your mouth full. The men who built this country didn’t do it so we could feel bad about ourselves. They did it so we could all prosper. I’m done feeling bad about being the best. We rule, literally. You’re welcome.
Related: Colonial New Englanders did not celebrate Christmas. In fact, it was illegal to do so in Boston. However, down South in New Amsterdam they had no such Puritanical tendencies.
It is easy for us Yankees to forget that New York was already a substantial, rowdy town when those Pilgrims accidentally landed in cold, damp, and God-forsaken Cape Cod in November. Of course, the Catholic Spanish were in America first. The Brits chased out the Spanish and the Dutch, and then we Brits chased out the French, and then Britain itself for foolish reasons, but it worked out pretty well anyway despite our having, over time, created a far more oppressive and burdensome State than Britain could have dreamed of. A commercial powerhouse, however.
Related: The Gift of the WalMagi
Saturday, December 19. 2015
Democrat Leaders Dance, Gloat, Declare Speaker Paul Ryan ‘Gave Away The Store’
Thus Ryan's reward for civil cooperation and compromise.
Friday, December 18. 2015
Thursday, December 17. 2015
 Camille Paglia assesses the parlous state of today’s feminism.
"The problem with too much current feminism, in my opinion, is that even when it strikes progressive poses, it emanates from an entitled, upper-middle-class point of view. It demands the intrusion and protection of paternalistic authority figures to project a hypothetical utopia that will be magically free from offence and hurt. Its rampant policing of thought and speech is completely reactionary, a gross betrayal of the radical principles of 1960s counterculture, which was inaugurated in the US by the incendiary Free Speech Movement at the University of California at Berkeley."
"When politicians try to tax corporations to death, the corporations are likely to take rational action"
A book: Klemen on Riebling, 'Church of Spies: The Pope’s Secret War against Hitler'
Ugly New Budget Deal Shows Why Americans Hate Washington
Was Marco Rubio Overrated All Along?
Trump’s Commanding Performance - Front-runner projects a kind of strength his opponents can't quite match
Congressman: Refusing Syrian Refugees Hurts National Security
No evidence California attackers were part of terrorist cell: FBI head
Pentagon's Move Against Bowe Bergdahl Was About Its Own Integrity
The military's real problem: Fewer Americans are joining
By keeping its distance from the escalating efforts to rid the region of Islamic State, Israel has strengthened its hand.
How Saddam’s men help Islamic State rule
Why Saudi Arabia's coalition against terrorists might not be all it appears
Women Suicide Bombers On The Rise Don’t Have Much Use For 72 Virgins. Here’s What They Get Instead
Obama's Middle East Delusions
Is Iran taking over Latin America?
Wednesday, December 16. 2015
Tuesday, December 15. 2015
Monday, December 14. 2015
Saturday, December 12. 2015
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The 
Photo: 55 Plus MPH: 
Sippican: 
When Americans Are Inactive, 
Amazon 
2015: 
Chart via 
You're Right.