10 Weekend Reads

August 15, 2015 7:00am by

Good Saturday morn! Pour yourself some cold brewed coffee, and luxuriate in these longer form, weekend works of art:

• Why Is Investing So Hard? (ETF Reference)
• The California “Energy Miracle” (Priceonomics)
• Inside the Family Battle for the Newman’s Own Brand Name (Vanity Fair)
• California Has a Plan to End the Auto Industry as We Know It (Bloomberg)
• The Kansas Experiment: My uncle Gene is a state legislator in Topeka. This year, he and his fellow Republicans tried to do something pretty drastic with the state budget. And I got to watch the whole thing. (NYT Mag)
• The Man Who Found the Titanic Is Not Done Yet: Thirty years ago, Bob Ballard discovered the wreck of the Titanic. He could have stopped there. Yet today, at seventy-three, he remains the world’s most vigorous ocean explorer. (Popular Mechanics)
• That’s Not Funny! Today’s college students can’t seem to take a joke. (The Atlantic) see also The Hell You Say: The new battles over free speech are fierce, but who is censoring whom? (New Yorker)
• We Do Abortions Here: Published in the October 1987 issue of Harper’s Magazine, “We Do Abortions Here” is a reflection on the experience of working as a registered nurse in an abortion clinic. (Harper’s Magazine)
• A Little Kelp From My Friends (Lucky Peach)
• ISIS Enshrines a Theology of Rape (NYT)

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Leslie Gelb, President Emeritus, Council on Foreign Relations.

 

 

Google Creates New Company Alphabet

Source: WSJ

 

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  2. VennData commented on Aug 15

    U.S. Credit Traders Send Warning Signal to Rest of World Markets!!!

    ​”…Investors yanked $1.1 billion from U.S. investment-grade bond funds last week, the biggest withdrawal since 2013, according to data compiled by Wells Fargo & Co. Dollar-denominated company bonds of all ratings have lost 2.3 percent since the end of January, even as the Standard & Poor’s 500 index gained 5.7 percent…”​

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-14/u-s-credit-traders-send-warning-signal-to-rest-of-world-markets

    ​Let me ‘splain something to you about markets. Traders are pulling out and going back in all the time. They have been running bond prices up and down for six years. That time they are right is when everybody says the markets predicted this.​ But in 1987, 1999, 2008, and 1929 markets didn’t know shit.

    Markets don’t predict ANYTHING. Someone just always happens to be right. Somebody always happens to be wrong.

    • bear_in_mind commented on Aug 15

      @VennData: “Markets don’t predict ANYTHING.”

      Sure they do — humans are irrational actors.

  4. theexpertisin commented on Aug 15

    Judiasm and Christianity have undergone periods of examination and re-thinking (Reformation) to accommodate societal maturation and scientific truths over the centuries. The rejection of slavery being one result.

    Islam needs a Reformation, God willing.

    • bear_in_mind commented on Aug 15

      @theexpertisin: I dunno how you get there (i.e. reformation) from here.

      The current ISIS situation reminds me of the phrase, “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” The actions undertaken by ISIS followers seem to reflect this paradigm, though using a religious cloak as a vain justification for their psychopathic conduct.

      Somewhat similar is the warped belief, “We must (rape and/or) murder the people to save the people.”

      These spasms have recurred through human history and afflicted peoples of virtually all creeds and colors. The ‘good news’ is that these suicide cults and mass murder regimes inevitably run their course, though at a horrific and enduring cost to all touched by it.

  5. swag commented on Aug 15

    Loving all this intrigue:

    Kaspersky denies faking anti-virus info to thwart rivals

    http://www.networkworld.com/article/2971553/security/kaspersky-denies-faking-antivirus-info-to-thwart-rivals.html#tk.NWWNLE_nlt_daily_pm_2015-08-14

    “On Friday, the Reuters news service ran a report charging that the security company had been deliberately classifying routine system files as malware, possibly causing such files to be flagged or deleted on user machines by competing anti-virus software.

    The story draws heavily from interviews with two ex-employees, quoted anonymously, who were reportedly familiar with the operation. They had charged that in at least some of the instances, Kaspersky Lab cofounder, Eugene Kaspersky, personally directed planting the file names in the company’s virus reports.”

  6. VennData commented on Aug 15

    ​Rauner demands changes in passed bill from 15 to grams down to 10 grams for decriminalization thresholds and 15 nanograms of THC per ml to 5! Or he’ll partial veto!

    http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-bruce-rauner-marijuana-decriminalization-amendatory-veto-met-0815-20150814-story.html

    What deft handling of the media as the Tribune puts Rauner of the front page for this important rewrite. This will get those distant suburbanites and down-staters on his side! Go Bruce “Ten-Gram” Rauner!

    ​A true GOP hero and media savant.​

  7. VennData commented on Aug 15

    Obama needs to be kinder, gentler. Or we should dismiss every logical policy he has.

    Start with the fanatical centrists: Martin Longman flies into a well-justified rage over a “centrist” column that concedes that the Iran deal is something we really need to do, effectively concedes that the arguments of the deal’s opponents are scurrilous and irresponsible — but condemns Obama for being “dismissive” of the opponents’ arguments.

    That’s something that happens to me all the time. I constantly get mail — and sometimes other peoples’ columns — condemning me, not for being wrong, but for being dismissive of the arguments of those I criticize. After all, these are important people, so they deserve to be treated with respect. Right

    Wrong

    http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/krugman/2015/08/14/r-e-s-p-e-c-t/

    More media “even-handedness.”. We wouldn’t want to offend our right wing subscribers.

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