Friday Flotsam and Jetsam

Have a new miscellaneous thoughts and observations post up on Substack.

Hard to believe Larry Bird turned 66 yesterday. Makes one feel old. As always please subscribe, hit the Like button and share with others. Thanks for the assist.

Sometimes History Rhymes

The expansion of Roman power raised big debates and paradoxes about Rome's place in the world, about what counted as 'Roman' when so much of the Mediterranean was under Roman control and about where the boundary between barbarianism and civilization now lay, and which side of that boundary Rome was on. When, for example, at the end of the third century BCE the Roman authorities welcomed the Great Mother goddess from the highlands of what is now Turkey and solemnly installed her in a temple on the Palatine, complete with her retinue of self-castrated, self-flagellating, long-haired priests - how Roman was that? - SPQR

Emphasis added because it sounded familiar. I feel for the ancient Roman because I can imagine him walking along the Palatine, seeing these "priests" trying to curry favor with the Great Mother goddess and him saying to himself, "WTF?"

I feel you my Roman brother, I feel you.

Heh Heh

HT Some It's Just as Well

Quotes for Today

Some quotes that I hope may resonate with you.

"Vision without execution is hallucination." - Walter Isaacson

"If you open your mind too much - you brain will fall out." - Tim Minchin

"I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet." - Gandhi

"Learn enough from history to respect one another's delusions." - Will Durant

Heh Heh

Humor for People Who Know History and Current Events

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Live Your Best Life

What someone I never met taught me. Short essay - well worth the time.

"Time is short, so value it." So true but a lesson we need to be hit over the head with constantly. 

I've also added The Why Café to my book list at the author's suggestion. 

New Documents Shed Light on CIA's Connection to Lee Harvey Oswald

"The CIA knew far more about the lone gunman than then they are admitting even today." 

Ultimately, the release of the documents is not just about confirming or not confirming whether a conspiracy theory is true. It's about whether the government lied about what it knew.

Yes the government lied and continues to lie. It's what politicians and government officials do. And when Elon Musk jokes about not riding around in any open air parades any time soon - he's only half joking (with good reason).

Reminder

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Quotes for Today

Some quotes I hope may resonate with you.

"Outrage-generating clickbait is the natural resource extraction of journalism." - Paul Graham

"I like the libertarian view, which is to leave everyone alone. Even as a kid, I was annoyed by people who wanted to tell everyone how to live." - Clint Eastwood

"The things you think about determine the quality of your mind. Your soul takes on the color of your thoughts." - Marcus Aurelius

"I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do." - Robert Heinlein

Remember

Still One of My Favorites

Wednesday Flotsam and Jetsam

Have a new miscellaneous thoughts and observations post up on Substack.

"No man can tame a tiger into a kitten by stroking it. There can be no appeasement with ruthlessness." That quote from FDR is well worth remembering on Pearl Harbor Day. It is well to remember it when dealing with the enemies of America today as well. Please subscribe, hit the Like button, or share with others. 

Farnam Street Knowledge

What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast

Only problem for me is I no longer eat breakfast. I wait to at least 10:30 am to have my first meal of the day. 

Quotes for Today

Some quotes I hope may resonate with you.

"The truth is like a lion; you don't have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself." - Saint Augustine

"People who live far below their means enjoy a freedom that people busy upgrading their lifestyles can't fathom." - Naval Ravikant

"The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away." - Pablo Picasso

"Cry havoc and let loose the dogs of war." - Julius Caesar

Pearl Harbor

Funny Because Its True

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While Twitter Was Busy Silencing Conservatives, It Let Child Porn Fester

"Twitter has done more to stop child exploitation in the last month than probably the last 10 years. That's insane. It kind of blows my mind, frankly." - Elon Musk 

It is insane. Or evil. 

Twitter (pre-Elon) either allowed it or pretended to care. I want names! Names of anyone who distributed the material or even viewed the materials. Bring back public stockades for this!

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- I for one welcome our new AI overlords.

-  The four materials essential to modern civilization are cement, steel, plastics, and ammonia - and they all need fossil fuels to create. Interesting to me that the article appeared in Time. 

- Laughed too much at this

- On a lighter AI note

A Little Economics Humor

Quotes for Today

Some quotes I hope may resonate with you.

"If you do what everyone else is doing, you shouldn't be surprised to get the same results everyone else is getting." - Peter Kaufman

"Out of clutter, find simplicity. From discord, find harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity." - Albert Einstein

"If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you." - John 15:20

"The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware." - Henry Miller

Two Ways to Be Stupid

"There are two ways to be stupid: plain lack of brainpower, and ideology. The two are far from mutually exclusive though. If you're not intelligent enough, you're more likely to allow in an ideology that drags you even further down."

 - Paul Graham

Not Funny Because Its Probably True

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Monday Flotsam and Jetsam

Have a new miscellaneous thoughts and observations post up on Substack. 

Know most of my observations have been related to Twitter and Elon Musk lately but can't help it. It's both fascinating and confirmation to me and many others that what we suspected was true was actually true. As always please subscribe, hit the Like button, and share with others.

Farnam Street Knowledge

Rafael Nadal on the importance of doing the work, even when it's hard.

Quotes for Today

 Some quotes I hope may resonate with you.

"I was born not knowing and have only had a little time to change that here and there." - Richard Feynman

"Turn the circus off. Or at least know you're watching one." - Jim Breuer

"How can anyone read history and still trust politicians?" - Thomas Sowell

"I don't have talent, so I just get up earlier." - Henry Rollins 

They Only Show You the News They Want You to See

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Couldn't Help But Laugh at This

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The B-21 Raider Stealth Bomber

This is the B-21 Raider Stealth Bomber. Northrup Grumman and the US Air Force recently "unveiled" the new B-21. Here's my key take-aways from the article.

• The main role of the B-21 will be to provide strike capabilities that can penetrate through enemy air defenses at range
• Noticeably smaller than the B-2 which would make sense for stealth and range purposes
• The aircraft is intended for both day and night based missions
• The Raider is touted as being a "'multi-functional' aircraft with significant intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) and battle management capabilities"
• The first flight of the B-21 is not expected until sometime next year
• The current estimated cost for each B-21 "should be no more than $692 million in Fiscal Year 2022 dollars"
• The Air Force would like 145 total B-21's

 My one fear about the new stealth bomber is not about how undetectable it can be against ground radar but how detectable it might be from space.

Politics Explained

"To the best of my knowledge he had never even voted, and then someone must have told him something about politics, some convincing lie, or he read something - it's usually one or the other - and he stopped being funny and turned mean and silent. That wasn't so bad, but then he stopped being silent." - Charles Portis The Dog of the South

Woke Hollywood is Failing, and That's a Good Thing

Quotes for Today

 Some quotes I hope may resonate with you.

"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives." - Anne Dillard

"You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do." - David Foster Wallace

"It doesn't count unless you do it." - Doug Stanhope

"Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life." - Immanuel Kant

The Question Corporate Media Refuses to Ask

Saturday Flotsam and Jetsam

Have a new miscellaneous thoughts and observations post up on Substack.

Twittergate is by far the biggest story in the country right now but if you rely on corporate media (except Fox News and places like the NY Post) you'd probably be unaware. Please subscribe, hit the Like button, and share with others. Thanks and thanks to Elon Musk.

Pretty Much Where I Find Myself Today

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Chris “The Bear” Fallica is leaving ESPN for Fox

Will today be the Bear's last appearance on GameDay?

I'm a regular listener to the Stanford Steve and the Bear podcast so I have mixed emotions about the move because I selfishly don't want that podcast to end. I'm also curious to how this will effect Fallica's role working with Kirk Herbstreit's on the Thursday night NFL games on Amazon. 

Fallica is by all accounts a nice guy so I'm happy for him. I'm also wondering if Fox does any horse racing because that's also in the Bear's wheelhouse.

Twittergate

Elon Musk remained true to his word and yesterday released documentation on how Twitter suppressed the truth of Hunter Biden's laptop and interfered with the 2020 Presidential election. 

Matt Taibbi's Twitter thread is perhaps the best single source to summarize what the documentation revealed. 

The cover up is always worse than the crime although when you consider the things Hunter Biden's laptop contained (including child pornography) that means the cover up is of hideous, monumental proportions.

To quote the movie Serenity, "You can't stop the signal." The resultant political chaos, lawsuits, and hopefully jail sentences will have reverberations for decades and it just may be that yesterday Elon Musk got Donald Trump re-elected President in 2024. 

Quotes for Today

 Some quotes I hope may resonate with you.

"Time is what we want most, but what we use worst." - William Penn

"I come from a stupid family. During the Civil War my great uncle fought for the West." - Rodney Dangerfield

"A man is what he wills himself to be." - Jean Paul Sartre

"Good artists copy, great artists steal. And we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas." - Steve Jobs

If This is a Disease - I'm Chronic