John Robert Lewis: A Life Lived Well

The economy is so bad that…

From SimoleonSense.com:

The economy is so bad that…

I got a pre-declined credit card in the mail.

I ordered a burger at McDonald’s, and the kid behind the counter asked, “Can you afford fries with that?”

CEOs are now playing miniature golf.

If the bank returns your check marked “Insufficient Funds,” you have to call them and ask if they mean you or them.

Hot Wheels and Matchbox stocks are trading higher than GM.

Parents in Beverly Hills and Malibu are firing their nannies and learning their children’s names.

A truckload of Americans were caught sneaking into Mexico.

Motel Six won’t leave the light on anymore.

The Mafia is laying off judges.

BP Oil laid off 25 congressmen.

Congress says they are looking into the Bernard Madoff scandal. Oh great! The guy who made $50 billion disappear is being investigated by the people who made $1.5 trillion disappear!

Zach Wahls Speaks About Family

Video Link

Uh-Oh II

From DailyWealth.com:

Our national debt has doubled since 2005.

We've borrowed more money in the last five years than we had in the entire history of our government until then.

This isn't sustainable. The government's annual deficits now routinely surpass $1 trillion.

The first $1 trillion deficit came in 2008 – and the government explained it away as the consequence of the financial crisis. But we racked up another $1 trillion deficit in 2009 and yet another in 2010. We'll have another in 2011 and so on.

The government cannot increase tax revenues enough to cover our spending or repay our debts – ever.

Our annual deficits have become completely unlinked to taxes. Total federal income taxes and corporate taxes generate $1.1 trillion a year in revenue, and we still ran a $1.3 trillion federal deficit last year. So even if we increased tax revenues by 100%, we would still have fallen $200 million short. This is totally unsustainable.

We can't repay our debts.

Total debt outstanding in the U.S. currently exceeds $55 trillion. That's $681,165 in debt per U.S. family. There is simply no way to repay (or even maintain) debt of this magnitude using the income of the average American family, which is slightly less than $50,000 per family per year. Interest alone on these debts (based on a 5% rate) would total $34,000 per family every year. Total debt in the U.S. economy is unsustainable and can't be financed without printing vast new sums of money.

Martin Jacques: Understanding the rise of China | Video on TED.com

Martin Jacques: Understanding the rise of China | Video on TED.com

Joke of the day Mubarak and Obama

Obama: "Hosni, I think you need to write your goodbye letter to your people."
Hosni Mubarak: "Why? Where are they going?"

Actual Ads from UK Newspapers

From Casey's Daily Dispatch

FOR SALE BY OWNER. Complete set of Encyclopedia Britannica, 45 volumes. Excellent condition, £200 or best offer. No longer needed, got married, wife knows everything.

WEDDING DRESS FOR SALE Worn once by mistake. Call Stephanie.

FREE YORKSHIRE TERRIER. 8 years old.
Hateful little bastard.
Bites!

FREE PUPPIES. 1/2 Cocker Spaniel,
1/2 sneaky neighbor's dog.

It's all in the details!

From Casey's Daily Dispatch

A young monk arrives at the monastery and is assigned to helping the other monks in copying the old canons and laws of the church by hand.

He notices, however, that all of the monks are copying from copies, not from the original manuscript. So, the new monk goes to the abbot to question this, pointing out that if someone made even a small error in the first copy, it would never be picked up! In fact, that error would be continued in all of the subsequent copies.

The head monk says, "We have been copying from the copies for centuries, but you make a good point, my son."

He goes down into the dark caves underneath the monastery where the original manuscripts are held as archives in a locked vault that hasn't been opened for hundreds of years. Hours go by and nobody sees the old abbot.

So, the young monk gets worried and goes down to look for him.

He sees him banging his head against the wall and wailing.

"We missed the R! We missed the R! We missed the R!"

His forehead is bruised and he is crying uncontrollably.

The young monk asks the old abbot, "What's wrong, Father?"

With a choking voice, the old abbot replies,

"The word was......................

CELEBRATE

(Of course I know that it’s spelled “celibate,” but it’s funny nonetheless.)

Good One!

From Marginal Revolution

Picture

Girl Falls In Mall Fountain While Texting (BuzzFeed.com)

"Friends don’t let friends text and walk"

Eliminating Stress & Frustration :-)

THOUGHTS FOR THE NEW YEAR

From Ed Steer's Gold & Silver Daily

Throughout the rest of 2011...May you always make the right move.


May your cup runneth over with love.


May you always find shelter from any storm.


May you remain good looking and looking good!


May you find the perfect diet for your soul.
[If this face doesn't make you want to stop eating sausage, nothing will.]


May you find perfect balance in the company you keep.


May you have as much fun as you can, before someone makes you stop.


May the worst thing that happens to you come in slobbery pink and furry tan.


May you manage to make time for a siesta.


May all the new folks you meet be interesting and kind.


May your accessories always harmonize with your natural beauty!


Should your mouth be bigger than your stomach, may you have a chewing good time!


May you always know when to walk away...and know when to run.


And may your friends always bring you joy!


MAY YOU HAVE A WONDERFUL NEW YEAR FILLED WITH LOVE, HAPPINESS...AND HOPE

The New Yorker: What the Science of Human Nature Can Teach Us

" 'I guess I used to think of myself as a lone agent, who made certain choices and established certain alliances with colleagues and friends,' he said. 'Now, though, I see things differently. I believe we inherit a great river of knowledge, a flow of patterns coming from many sources. The information that comes from deep in the evolutionary past we call genetics. The information passed along from hundreds of years ago we call culture. The information passed along from decades ago we call family, and the information offered months ago we call education. But it is all information that flows through us. The brain is adapted to the river of knowledge and exists only as a creature in that river. Our thoughts are profoundly molded by this long historic flow, and none of us exists, self-made, in isolation from it.'

'And though history has made us self-conscious in order to enhance our survival prospects, we still have deep impulses to erase the skull lines in our head and become immersed directly in the river. I’ve come to think that flourishing consists of putting yourself in situations in which you lose self-consciousness and become fused with other people, experiences, or tasks. It happens sometimes when you are lost in a hard challenge, or when an artist or a craftsman becomes one with the brush or the tool. It happens sometimes while you’re playing sports, or listening to music or lost in a story, or to some people when they feel enveloped by God’s love. And it happens most when we connect with other people. I’ve come to think that happiness isn’t really produced by conscious accomplishments. Happiness is a measure of how thickly the unconscious parts of our minds are intertwined with other people and with activities. Happiness is determined by how much information and affection flows through us covertly every day and year.' ”

Read more @ What the science of human nature can teach us : The New Yorker

Uh-Oh!!

"...if China, which currently has one tenth the number of cars per capita as Americans, was to reach par with the US, we would need, by one estimate, seven more Saudi Arabia’s to meet their needs."

Read more @ buisnessinsder.com:

Funny Cartoons ...

4 Laughing Babies

Amazing Video: RNAi (14min)

A wayward petunia leads to the discovery of modest little molecules with enormous medical promise. Aired July 26, 2005 on PBS.
Link to Video.

Economics, the dismal science

Fidelity's former manager Peter Lynch:

"There are 60,000 economists in the U.S., many of them employed full-time trying to forecast recessions and interest rates, and if they could do it successfully twice in a row, they'd be millionaires by now ... As far as I know, most of them are still gainfully employed, which ought to tell us something."

Matters of Principle

In 1952, Noah S. “Soggy” Sweat, Jr., a member of the Texas House of Representatives, was asked about his position on whiskey. Here’s how he answered:

If you mean whiskey, the devil’s brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster that defiles innocence, dethrones reason, destroys the home, creates misery and poverty, yea, literally takes the bread from the mouths of little children; if you mean that evil drink that topples Christian men and women from the pinnacles of righteous and gracious living into the bottomless pit of degradation, shame, despair, helplessness, and hopelessness, then, my friend, I am opposed to it with every fiber of my being.

However, if by whiskey you mean the oil of conversation, the philosophic wine, the elixir of life, the ale that is consumed when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts and the warm glow of contentment in their eyes; if you mean Christmas cheer, the stimulating sip that puts a little spring in the step of an elderly gentleman on a frosty morning; if you mean that drink that enables man to magnify his joy, and to forget life’s great tragedies and heartbreaks and sorrow; if you mean that drink the sale of which pours into Texas treasuries untold millions of dollars each year, that provides tender care for our little crippled children, our blind, our deaf, our dumb, our pitifully aged and infirm, to build the finest highways, hospitals, universities, and community colleges in this nation, then my friend, I am absolutely, unequivocally in favor of it.

This is my position, and as always, I refuse to compromise on matters of principle.

3 techniques used by CIA analysts to see alternative perspectives

From Simoleon Sense :

Click Here To Read: 3 Techniques Used By CIA Analysts To See Alternative Perspectives

Excerpts (Via Office Hero Headquarters)

From the book Psychology of Intelligence Analysis, “Several techniques for seeing alternative perspectives exploit the general principle of coming at the problem from a different direction and asking different questions. These techniques break your existing mind-set by causing you to play a different and unaccustomed role.”

Thinking Backwards. One technique for exploring new ground is thinking backwards. As an intellectual exercise, start with an assumption that some event you did not expect has actually occurred. Then, put yourself into the future, looking back to explain how this could have happened. Think what must have happened six months or a year earlier to set the stage for that outcome, what must have happened six months or a year before that to prepare the way, and so on back to the present.

Crystal Ball. The crystal ball approach works in much the same way as thinking backwards. Imagine that a “perfect” intelligence source (such as a crystal ball) has told you a certain assumption is wrong. You must then develop a scenario to explain how this could be true. If you can develop a plausible scenario, this suggests your assumption is open to some question.

Devil’s Advocate. A devil’s advocate is someone who defends a minority point of view. He or she may not necessarily agree with that view, but may choose or be assigned to represent it as strenuously as possible. The goal is to expose conflicting interpretations and show how alternative assumptions and images make the world look different.

Click Here To Read: 3 Techniques Used By CIA Analysts To See Alternative Perspectives