(from http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/trump-says-his-gut-more-reliable-everyone-elses-brains?cid=sm_fb_maddow&fbclid=IwAR26prHQczR9CRP4taBiw-uyqI2aXsla37umpw1P6qAKkk1brbX6eAhEjgU)
". . . I have a gut, and my gut tells me more sometimes than anybody else’s brain can ever tell me . . . "
(from https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/11/trump-general-motors-subsidies-threat?fbclid=IwAR0uCf7rjN_SK2HIE3OuUgxYvCZKRFAZ9_9cHzTBVSCA_K3r7DyMQdc_WLU)
". . . the president of the United States threatening to punish a private company for making a decision based on market realities that are partially his fault is . . . really something! But the whole thing takes on some extra hilarity when you realize, for the 927th time this year, what this not-at-all-smart guy is unintentionally proposing. As Dan Primack points out, subsidies for G.M.-specific electric vehicles do not exist. Rather, there are industry-wide federal tax credits of up to $7,500 available for purchasers of U.S. electric cars, with “aggregate caps of 200,000 vehicles per manufacturer.” In other words, getting rid of the subsidy in its current form would hurt both American consumers and other auto manufacturers. . ."
". . . "One of the problems that a lot of people like myself, we have very high levels of intelligence but we're not necessarily such believers," Trump said during a freewheeling 20-minute Oval Office interview with The Washington Post. . . Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech University, said . . . that the president's comments risk leaving the nation vulnerable to the ever-growing impacts of a warming planet. . . "Facts aren't something we need to believe to make them true - we treat them as optional at our peril," Hayhoe said. "And if we're the president of the United States, we do so at the peril of not just ourselves but the hundreds of millions of people we're responsible for.". . ."
". . . Here are three traits . . . (of). . . people who by any reckoning are very intelligent. They all know it. A lifetime of quietly comparing their ease in handling intellectual challenges—at the chess board, in the classroom, in the debating or writing arena—with the efforts of other people gave them the message. Virtually none of them (need to) say it. . . They know what they don’t know. . . the most consistent marker of real intelligence. . . generally the cliche is true: The clearest mark of intelligence, even “genius,” is awareness of one’s limits and ignorance. . . On the other hand, we have something known as the Dunning-Kruger effect: The more limited someone is in reality, the more talented the person imagines himself to be. Or, as David Dunning and Justin Kruger put it in the title of their original scientific-journal article, “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments.” . . . Odds are that the world’s most flamboyant illustration of this dangerous misperception, despite his claimed omniscience, would not even recognize the term, nor its ominous implications in his case. . ."
Heard somebody say
They overheard you
Just the other day
A simple word
About the way we get along
If only I were sure
Of the semantics
Having doubts 'cause I'm
One hopeless romantic
Could it be
You're slipping away from me
What will I do
If what I'm thinking is true
And you want to be
Really free of me
I won't last very long
Very far from your heart
And this third-hand intelligence
Might be the way that it starts.
Heard somebody say
They thought they saw you
Walking in their way
You were not alone
They said he didn't look like
Thinking to myself
Must be mistaken
Try not to believe
but still badly shaken
Why would you
Deceive me in things you do
So many years
Sharing our laughter and tears
Lasted very long
Maybe I was wrong
Not to ask you
Why you feel
We've drifted apart
And this third-hand intelligence
Might be the way that it starts
Are my sources reliable
Wait and see
Wait and see
Is my psyche too pliable
It could be
It could be
If somebody said
The sky was falling
Would you believe it's true
And change your direction
From spinning round
When it hits the ground
That's just not true
Any believers are few
When you've seen it all
It could never fall
Any more than
I think you could
Tear us apart
And this third-hand intelligence
Might be the way that it starts
(from https://twitter.com/MichaelSteel, former chairman of the Republican National Committee)
“. . . just shut the hell up and get on the helicopter. Give us a rest from your crazy. You don’t know the 9th circuit from a circuit breaker. It’s Thanksgiving for crying out loud. Let us be thankful for your silence. You’ve said enough this week.”
. . . of bad U.S. choices do NOT justify the current administration's stance of Saudi Arabia, but indeed illustrate is error, IRRESPECTIVE of relative administrations' political affiliation. . . ((It's not blue against red, black against white, liberal against conservative, them against us. It is CORRECT against INCORRECT)
". . . In 1964, the U.S. overthrew (Brazilian President João) Goulart in one of the most violent CIA-backed coups up to that time. . . Goulart’s U.S.-backed successor, General Castelo Branco, would have a devastating impact on the Brazilian population. . . The Branco regime had tens of thousands of Brazilians — many of whom supported the coup — arrested and tortured to death. . . General Augusto Pinochet, who was grateful to the US State Department for its help in making . . . (itss) coup possible. . . Security officials herded labor leaders and other troublemakers into the National Soccer Stadium and forced them to sit in the stands while military police took them down by ones and twos to the field and shot them. Pinochet dispatched Allende ally General Ramos in a helicopter “Caravan of Death” to the north, where he had tens of thousands of “leftists” rounded up and disappeared. . . (During Nicolae Ceausescu's) 23 years in power, the regime liquidated all potential political opposition at home and funneled Romania’s resources out through an elaborate network of public-private partnerships that made the Communist dictator one of the world’s richest men. . . And through it all, as Romania’s foreign debt more than tripled, the US Treasury-backed IMF was always there with an open line of credit to ensure Ceausescu never had to reform. . . the CIA-supported, anti-communist Syngman Rhee (who) ran the Republic of Korea in the south. Rhee regularly arrested and occasionally even killed those he suspected of harboring communist sympathies, even presiding over several massacres. . . Indeed, In 1950, just before the Korean War, Rhee had approximately 20,000 supposed communists imprisoned, and in June of that year ordered the execution of those who he believed posed a threat to his regime. . . Then, in 1961, South Koreans — who were at this point poorer than North Koreans — saw the rise of Park Chung-Hee, who seized leadership via a coup tacitly supported by the U.S. Upon entering office, Park declared the rule of martial law and amended the constitution to support his own authoritarianism. . . While the South Korean economy did begin its decades-long boom under Park, it came at the cost of political repression, corruption, and even violence. Park used sham elections to legitimize his rule by decree, which on the less harmful end of things, included dictating the length of men’s hair and women’s dresses. . . While all of the dictatorships mentioned so far ended long ago, Uzbekistan’s continued until very recently — a fact that Washington doesn’t seems to mind much, likely due to the nation’s geography and its erstwhile leader’s shared interest in combatting Islamic extremism. . . The Karimov regime engaged in what the United Nations has called “institutionalized, systematic and rampant” acts of torture, which Karimov directed toward the Muslim community in particular. . ."
(from For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway)
". . . So if your life trades its seventy years for seventy hours I have that value now and I am lucky enough to know it. And if there is not any such thing as a long time, nor the rest of your lives, nor from now on, but there is only now, why then now is the thing to praise and I am very happy with it. Now, ahora, maintenant, heute. Now, it has a funny sound to be a whole world and your life. Esta noche, tonight, ce soir, heute abend. . . "
