History,” writes Bokonon. “Read it and weep!
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Entries from July 31st, 2011
History – “Cats Cradle” – Kurt Vonnegut
July 31st, 2011 · Comments Off on History – “Cats Cradle” – Kurt Vonnegut · History
Tags:Cynicism·History
Nothing – “Cats Cradle” – Kurt Vonnegut
July 31st, 2011 · Comments Off on Nothing – “Cats Cradle” – Kurt Vonnegut · History, Quotes
I remembered The Fourteenth Book of Bokonon, which I had read in its entirety the night before. The Fourteenth Book is entitled, “What Can a Thoughtful Man Hope for Mankind on Earth, Given the Experience of the Past Million Years?” It doesn’t take long to read The Fourteenth Book. It consists of one word and […]
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Tags:Cynicism·Quotes
Tiger Got to Hunt – “Cats Cradle” – Kurt Vonnegut
July 31st, 2011 · Comments Off on Tiger Got to Hunt – “Cats Cradle” – Kurt Vonnegut · Philosophy
Tiger got to hunt, Bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder, “Why, why, why?” Tiger got to sleep, Bird got to land; Man got to tell himself he understand.
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Tags:philosophy
Dancing Lessons from God – “Cats Cradle” – Kurt Vonnegut
July 30th, 2011 · Comments Off on Dancing Lessons from God – “Cats Cradle” – Kurt Vonnegut · Religion, Travel
As Bokonon says: “Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God.
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Nixon’s Sense of Humour – “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72”, Hunter S Thompson
July 30th, 2011 · Comments Off on Nixon’s Sense of Humour – “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72”, Hunter S Thompson · Conservative Politics, Extremism, Politics, Quotes, US Politics
Nixon was “a monument to all the rancid genes and broken chromosomes that corrupt the possibilities of the American Dream; he was a foul caricature of himself, a man with no soul, no inner convictions, with the integrity of a hyena and the style of a poison toad. The Nixon I remembered was absolutely humorless; […]
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A Nation of Used Car Salesmen – “Fear and Loathing: on the Campaign Trail ‘72” – Hunter S Thompson
July 30th, 2011 · Comments Off on A Nation of Used Car Salesmen – “Fear and Loathing: on the Campaign Trail ‘72” – Hunter S Thompson · Democracy, Electoralism, Politics, US Politics
If the current polls are reliable… Nixon will be re-elected by a huge majority of Americans who feel he is not only more honest and more trustworthy than George McGovern, but also more likely to end the war in Vietnam. The polls also indicate that Nixon will get a comfortable majority of the Youth Vote. […]
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Tags:Cynicism·US·us politics
“Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72”, Hunter S Thompson
July 30th, 2011 · Comments Off on “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72”, Hunter S Thompson · quote
Nixon was “a monument to all the rancid genes and broken chromosomes that corrupt the possibilities of the American Dream; he was a foul caricature of himself, a man with no soul, no inner convictions, with the integrity of a hyena and the style of a poison toad. The Nixon I remembered was absolutely humorless; […]
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Staffing – “Fear and Loathing: on the Campaign Trail ‘72” – Hunter S Thompson
July 29th, 2011 · Comments Off on Staffing – “Fear and Loathing: on the Campaign Trail ‘72” – Hunter S Thompson · Politics, US Politics
It was not until his campaign collapsed and his ex-staffers felt free to talk that I learned that working for Big Ed (Muskie) was something like being locked in a rolling boxcar with a vicious 200-pound water rat. Some of his top staff people considered him dangerously unstable. He had several identities, they said, and […]
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Tags:Politics·US·us politics
Everyone Left Rich – “The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine” – Michael Lewis
July 29th, 2011 · Comments Off on Everyone Left Rich – “The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine” – Michael Lewis · Economics, Policy
What’s strange and complicated about it, however, is that pretty much all the important people on both sides of the gamble left the table rich. Steve Eisman and Michael Burry and the young men at Cornwall Capital each made tens of millions of dollars for themselves, of course. Greg Lippmann was paid $47 million in […]
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Tags:Corruption·Finance·policy
Shared Risk – “The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine” – Michael Lewis
July 29th, 2011 · Comments Off on Shared Risk – “The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine” – Michael Lewis · Economics, Policy
The long answer was that there were huge sums of money to be made, if you could somehow get them re-rated as triple-A, thereby lowering their perceived risk, however dishonestly and artificially. This is what Goldman Sachs had cleverly done. Their—soon to be everyone’s—nifty solution to the problem of selling the lower floors appears, in […]
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