October 08, 2004

Left

Ronald Reagan
I didn't leave the Democratic Party. It left me.

August 25, 2004

Bob Dylan by Joan Baez

I heard a squeaky little rat singing in the Village .

August 08, 2004

How not to allocate assets

Harry M. Markowitz..

I should have computed the historical co-variance of the asset classes and drawn an efficient frontier. Instead I visualised my grief if the stock market went up and I wasn’t in it – or if it went way down and I was completely in it. My intention was to minimize my future regret, so I split my contributions 50-50 between bonds and equities.

August 07, 2004

Short is the new tall

My wife is 5' 12". She wears high heels to announce how happy she is to be tall. I wear flip-flops to announce how happy I am to look ridiculous. Think Bernie Ecclestone without the money.

August 04, 2004

Titles for the film

Sven and Nancy
Sweet F.A.

July 31, 2004

Thought for the day

A woman can have about 1 child per year for 30 years.
A man can have about 1,000 per year for 60 years.

Vision statement of the day

We will strive to make as much money as we can without going to prison.

July 30, 2004

Reality mugged by a liberal

Naomi Klein..

..there is something about George Bush's combination of ignorance, piety and swagger that triggers a condition in progressives I've come to think of as Bush Blindness. When it strikes, it causes us to lose sight of everything we know about politics, economics and history and to focus exclusively on the admittedly odd personalities of the people in the White House. Other side-effects include delighting in psychologists' diagnoses of Bush's warped relationship with his father and brisk sales of Bush "dum gum" - $1.25.

This madness has to stop, and the fastest way of doing that is to elect John Kerry, not because he will be different but because in most key areas - Iraq, the "war on drugs", Israel/Palestine, free trade, corporate taxes - he will be just as bad. The main difference will be that as Kerry pursues these brutal policies, he will come off as intelligent, sane and blissfully dull. That's why I've joined the Anybody But Bush camp: only with a bore such as Kerry at the helm will we finally be able to put an end to the presidential pathologising

A liberal mugged by reality

Tom Junod..

As easy as it is to say that we can't abide the president because of the gulf between what he espouses and what he actually does , what haunts me is the possibility that we can't abide him because of us—because of the gulf between his will and our willingness. What haunts me is the possibility that we have become so accustomed to ambiguity and inaction in the face of evil that we find his call for decisive action an insult to our sense of nuance and proportion.

July 29, 2004

Link Test

best columnist here's why
worst columnist here's why

Trifling matters

A warrior should not say something fainthearted even casually. He should set his mind to this beforehand. Even in trifling matters the depths of one's heart can be seen.
Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai

Who should manage England after Sven ?

Clive Woodward.
Pay these rich young men nothing to play for England.
Discipline them to win in the last minute, not ot throw it away.
No kissing.
Jonny Wilkinson will take penalties.

June 19, 2004

In the beginning...

...was the word.
Then more words.