These range from stupid to insulting to clever to lascivious (and I don’t get to use that word often enough… which makes me lugubrious). For example:
Many more at https://medium.com/backyard-theology/the-worst-ever-church-signs-c908845e5a31.
Daniel Treisman, a UCLA political scientist… analyzed 218 episodes of democratization between 1800 and 2015 and found they were, with some exceptions (such as Danish King Frederick VII’s voluntary acceptance of a constitution in 1848), the result of authoritarian rulers’ mistakes in seeking to hold on to power.
According to the Bloomberg Opinion article, the five major mistakes are:
I am curious to see what will happen with Vladimir Putin.
Archived article from Bloomberg Opinion: https://archive.ph/CyYaf. Original paper (34 pages, conclusions start on page 28; plus eight pages of references and 14 pages of Appendices including tables): https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w23944/w23944.pdf:
Common mistakes include: calling elections or starting military conflicts, only to lose them; ignoring popular unrest and being overthrown; initiating limited reforms that get out of hand; and selecting a covert democrat as leader. These mistakes reflect well-known cognitive biases such as overconfidence and the illusion of control.
When Les Milne was 31, his wife Joy detected that his odor had changed. And some ten years later, his personality began changing. He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, and at a Parkinson’s support group, Joy realized that all the sufferers there had that odor. But she had detected it years before other symptoms were noticeable:
Parkinson’s begins slowly, taking years or maybe even decades before symptoms such as tremors appear, Kunath says. “Imagine a society where you could detect such a devastating condition before it’s causing problems and then prevent the problems from even occurring,”
And it’s not just Parkinson’s:
Joy’s superpower is so unusual that researchers all over the world have started working with her and have discovered that she can identify several kinds of illnesses — tuberculosis, Alzheimer’s disease, cancer and diabetes.
NPR article for laypeople: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/23/820274501/her-incredible-sense-of-smell-is-helping-scientists-find-new-ways-to-diagnose-di. Scientific paper: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acscentsci.8b00879.
Remember to mouse over the image for a bonus note: https://xkcd.com/1357/.
You’ve heard this refrain before — giving money to homeless people is not the best way to help them because it might be squandered, or spent on harmful habits. But a new Canadian study makes a powerful case to the contrary…. Researchers gave 50 recently homeless people a lump sum of 7,500 Canadian dollars (nearly $5,700). They followed the cash recipients’ life over 12-18 months and compared their outcomes to that of a control group who didn’t receive the payment. The preliminary findings, which will be peer-reviewed next year, show that those who received cash were able to find stable housing faster, on average. By comparison, those who didn’t receive cash lagged about 12 months behind in securing more permanent housing.
“One of the things that was most striking is that most people who received the cash knew immediately what they wanted to do with that money, and that just flies in the face of stereotypes,” Williams told CNN. For example, she explained some cash recipients knew they wanted to use the money to move into housing, or invest in transportation — getting a bike, or taking their cars to the repair shop to be able to keep their jobs. Others wanted to purchase computers. A number of them wanted to start their own small businesses. “People very much know what they need, but we often don’t equip them with the intervention or the services that really empowers them with choice and dignity to move forward on their own terms,” Williams said.
Although note that the group of homeless people was preselected:
Project participants were carefully screened for program eligibility to ensure the highest likelihood of success. Eligibility criteria include: age of recipients, length of time homeless, Canadian citizen or permanent resident, and degree of functionality (mental health and severity of substance and alcohol use). Our goals in designing these criteria were to support participants to the highest degree possible, assess their readiness for change, and reduce any risk of harm.
Fifty individuals were randomly selected to receive a one-time cash transfer of $7,500.
Still useful, though:
The study shows there are advantages for the taxpayer, too.
According to the research, reducing the number of nights spent in shelters by the 50 study participants who received cash saved approximately 8,100 Canadian dollars per person per year, or about 405,000 Canadian dollars over one year for all 50 participants.
CNN report: https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/09/americas/direct-giving-homeless-people-vancouver-trnd/index.html.
New Leaf Project: https://forsocialchange.org/new-leaf-project-overview.
An interesting (to me, at least) overview of how vital oil was in all theaters of WWII.
Millions of pages have been written about the tactics and strategies of World War II, but relatively little about how almost every major decision of that conflict was conditioned by the need for one commodity without which no modern army can operate – oil.
You may not be aware of these tidbits (emphasis mine):
Though it varied from campaign to campaign and unit to unit, as much as 70 percent of German supply transport remained horse-drawn throughout the war. There were 5,375 horses assigned to each infantry division. In fact, as the war dragged on and petroleum became even more critical, horses became more important to the German war effort rather than less.
…
An appropriate postscript to Japan’s defeated drive for oil occurred shortly after its surrender, when a detachment of U.S. sailors went to arrest Gen. Hideki Tojo for war crimes. He attempted suicide, and it took two hours to find an ambulance with enough fuel to take him to a hospital.
http://www.eiaonline.com/history/bloodforoil.htm. 4,900 words. (By the way, this appears to me in very tiny print. Use the “+” button a few times to enlarge.)
Note: NSFW (Not Safe For Work)! And I’m afraid to look up parts 1 through 22.
(The article calls this “Conunto Granada” but it appears to actually be “Conjunto Granada.” You can hear one song at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbe3kHPFiPg. I am hardly an expert on salsa, but the sound does not seem to be much better than the album cover.) https://medium.com/@Colinthecrypto1/the-worst-album-covers-in-the-world-part-23-6d5c8dee656f
A discussion of what it takes to amend the US Constitution and how it’s happened in the past.
CNN: You put the 27 amendments into four essential waves. There’s the Bill of Rights amendments, the Reconstruction amendments, this era of progressive amendments and then the Civil Rights era amendments. What era are we in right now?
KOWAL: I would say that we’re at the end of the fourth long dry spell. After the Bill of Rights era it was 61 years before another amendment was added to the Constitution.
And then after the Reconstruction amendments, it was four decades until the progressive amendment era.
And then it was another four decades until the ’60s and the Civil Rights era where there was this permanent change.
As of now, it’s been 50 years. … So if past is prologue, we’re in the what might be the end stages of just the cyclical dry spell. … There are indicators that suggest that in the foreseeable future, not immediate future, but foreseeable future that there could be a dramatic opening for new amendments.
…
Long periods of gridlock and closely divided government tend to lead to a frustration that over time forces people to turn to more drastic remedies. When short term change is thwarted, people start to focus on the long term.
If you were to analogize today to another period in history I would look at the period of the late Gilded Age — the late 19th century and early 20th century.
- Then, as now, the country was sharply polarized along regional lines. At that time, it was the East and West versus the heartland. Today, it’s the Red State/Blue State divide. The politics was gridlocked.
- There were many closely fought elections for president.
- Party control of Congress switched every few years throughout that period.
- There were two elections in which the Electoral College delivered the presidency to someone who did not win the popular vote.
The suggested Amendments are:
Electoral College — I think my No. 1 choice would be eliminating the Electoral College and making clear that the people choose our President. The Founders, the Framers, were unwilling to do that in 1787 and many of them thought it was an absurd idea. But the truth is Americans believe that the people should choose.
Equal Rights — Second, I would say the Equal Rights Amendment because next year will be the 100th anniversary of when it was first promulgated…
Supreme Court — Third, I think would be rationalizing our system for selecting Supreme Court justices. The framers talked about judiciary as the weakest branch. They had no idea that it would be as powerful as it is, and they had no idea that people would live so long and stay on the court for 30, 40 years.
Voting — Fourth, I would say is a voting amendment. The framers made a fateful choice: instead of deciding the question of who is eligible to vote, they left it to each state to determine and they use a kind of a rule that sounds outmoded today… What they should have done was to enshrine a universal right to vote as the foundation of a democratic society.
Congressional succession — The fifth one, I think, is a technical one, but it’s one where we’ve not done the smart thing for a long time. It would be an amendment to deal with a flaw in the way we replace members of the House of Representatives…. When a member of the House dies or leaves office, every state using its own system calls a special election that takes months…
https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/09/politics/us-constitution-amendments-what-matters/index.html
Roxanne by The Police:
Inspired by their time in Paris, Sting wrote Roxanne as the story of a man who falls in love with a prostitute after having observed many such ladies outside the band’s hotel room. With a seedy and almost teasing tone to the song, it seemed that the laugh heard at the beginning of Roxanne was something added intentionally. After all, it seemed to compliment the song’s tone and subject matter perfectly.
However, this was revealed to be a complete accident that the band decided to keep in the final recording. It turns out that while in the studio, Sting had wanted to sit down and relax for a moment. Rather than sit on a chair, the singer inadvertently rested his buttocks on the studio’s piano and produced a sound that everyone felt was both amusing and somewhat appropriate for the song.
Also:
https://medium.com/the-riff/5-famous-mistakes-in-iconic-songs-437a1ee2a549
The Register is a Brit technology news publication. One of its features is the BOFH (Bastard Operator from Hell) and his young helper the PFY (Pimply-Faced Youth).
HR has asked the BOFH for all emails (including sent, deleted, and archived emails) for some kind of investigation. BOFH asks for more information on what they need:
“Okay, no problems. Now, do you want his personal email as well?”
“People shouldn’t be using company email for personal business.”
“Yeah sure, and they shouldn’t be using the company photocopiers to check on the progress of suspicious moles on their arses either – but we all do it.”
“What?”
“Not our OWN photocopiers obviously. No, I use the one up in Human Resources.”
https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/17/bofh_2022_episode_11/
Laugh / learn links log 