The Death of Ponzi Schemes
So Social Security will be broke in seven years. First Bernie Madoff, now this. It’s like Ponzi schemes don’t even work anymore.
– Bill Muse, Top 5 Rumination
So Social Security will be broke in seven years. First Bernie Madoff, now this. It’s like Ponzi schemes don’t even work anymore.
– Bill Muse, Top 5 Rumination
There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
I ain’t Martin Luther King. I don’t have a dream, I have a plan.
— Spike Lee
Bad things are not the worst things that can happen to us. NOTHING is the worst thing that can happen to us.
— Richard Bach
Rob Long is a brilliant television writer who offers a weekly five minute commentary on KCRW. He outdid himself this week.
The very best thing about flattery is how incredibly flattering it is. If you’re on the receiving end of a nice blast of “you’re so wonderful” it barely matters – what am I saying, it doesn’t matter in the least! – if it’s true. If you really are wonderful. If the personal telling you how wonderful you are even thinks you are wonderful.
What’s important is that the person delivering the flattering cascade thinks you’re worth the butter. It’s like a kubuki moment: I’m probably lying, you know I’m probably lying, but you’re the kind of person it’s worth lying to.
And if you’re on the other side, if you’re delivering the flattery, it’s amazing how instantly it works, how immediately the recipient begins to glow and swan around. It’s like a sugar rush. It’s cheap, it rots your teeth and makes you fat, but for a few moments, you feel invincible. Flattery, done correctly, is the Cinnabon of human interaction.
It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.
— Charles Darwin
An intelligent mind is a mind which is not satisfied with explanations, with conclusions; nor is it a mind that believes, because belief is again another form of conclusion. An intelligent mind is an inquiring mind, a mind that is watching, learning, studying.