Mike Hudack

via Ezra Klein (via savingpaper) (via ziatroyano) (via clingtomymouth) (via bowfolk) (via robot-heart-politics) (via asprettyasasong)

Wes Anderson, in the recent New Yorker profile (via peterwknox)

davemorin:

A thinking weekend in the forests of Napa.

I need to get Designing Design. I’ll be heading to the bookstore tomorrow.

spiegelman:

Oregon Congressman Earl Blumenauer FTW

Einhorn: First, Let’s Kill All the Credit Default Swaps « naked capitalism

Tough call— I see the value of CDS but it’s so easy to abuse.  I guess abestos has it benefits too.

Asbestos is still mined, still used. The joint stock company is easily abused and caused financial turmoil on at least as great a scale as the CDS has. And look at how much value the joint stock company eventually created.

Hate the player, not the game. Did I really just say that?

aatombomb:

Brutal, fascinating, and based on what I’ve experienced and seen in the killing fields of Internet Sodom, spot fucking on:

He is embarrassed. He has been humiliated.

But he has stayed angry. The classes he attends as a condition of his probation demand that he admit a sexual desire for children. It is considered an essential step toward recovery. J told his instructor that he has no such desire. He never did. He was told that if he persists in this denial he will jeopardize his probation and could be sent back to jail.

So he pretends to be something he is not. He is good at it.

tedr:

Kris Krug is still amazing. He grabs a ‘bird of a feather’ table placard and takes a pix of everyone with it. (From ReThink: Hawaii - Geeks on a Plane (via kk+))

Awesome picture.

Reed Says ‘I’m Sorry’ for Role in Creating Citigroup - Bloomberg.com

This is the exact problem with Western capitalism and something I suspect I’ll harp about for the rest of my life. Our form of capitalism requires it’s companies to constantly be making more profit than before. Simply making as much of a profit as the previous quarter is considered a failure. It’s not possible for their to be endless growth in a world with fixed resources, capital and labor. It can be achieved temporarily, but never permanently. This principle destroys companies, economies and society with it.

I don’t think this is because of “Western capitalism”. It’s because of inertia. If you strive to manage the status quo you will naturally begin to collapse — your company will die. Profit margins will begin to erode, volume will decrease, employees will become unhappy.

You make another mistake. Resources are not finite. They grow over time. That is to say that we become more efficient. There may be a finite amount of nickel (for example) in the Earth, but over time we become better at mining it, we become better at preserving it, we become better at recycling it. Also, human labor becomes more productive over time thanks to increased knowledge, computers, robotics, et cetera.

Companies that don’t grow eventually die. Not because of “Western capitalism.” Simply because this is the way of the world.

President Obama | Weekly Address | The White House (via retropolitics)

Congressman Barney Frank,  who was present while police busted his partner for growing pot.

Jeff Miller adds,

The quote is his excuse as to why he was unaware that his partner was growing pot.  Yes, he expects us to believe that it takes a great outdoorsman to know what pot looks like.

I wish Frank had said: “It’s absurd that pot is illegal.  It’s just a plant, for crying out loud.”  But instead of saying something reasonable, he said something ridiculous.

It’s funny that Frank’s excuse is that he is not a great outdoorsman, while Sanford’s excuse was that he was a great outdoorsman.

(via squashed)