The return of the Marsh’s.
Third Lockdown
Reply
The Art Of Influencing People
Staunch leftists and ultra conservatives are similarly restless in that they desperately want to convert others to their causes. In contrast, political moderates, the few who still remain, are less concerned with remaking the world in their image. To each their own ideology.
Imagine being a staunch and restless leftist or a similarly restless ultra conservative. There is little subtly or nuance to your politics. There are correct policy positions—yours—and incorrect ones staked out by all of your political opponents. There would be a lot of different ways to convince others to think, vote, and act like you. Some much more effective than others. In your view, which way would be best? Why?
Fox News Cancels Lou Dobb’s Show
How will we fill the void?
‘A Pretzel And A Soda At The Pool’
‘I Am Blown Away’: Strangers Are Helping Strangers Get Vaccinated.
“Mr. Goldberg, 75, then came across a stranger’s post in a neighborhood Facebook group: ‘If anyone has a family member, friend or knows someone who is elderly and needs help pre-registering or registering online for the Covid-19 vaccine, I am happy to help,’ it said. The person was not asking for money and said, ‘I don’t care how long it takes.’
Mr. Goldberg wanted to contact the stranger immediately, but Ms. Goldberg was more skeptical. ‘You have to give your personal information to make appointments,’ she said. ‘A lot of people get targeted for scams when they are elderly.’
But Mr. Goldberg won the debate and reached out to the stranger, Harriet Diamantidis, a 36-year-old executive assistant who lives in nearby Merrick. Within a few hours, Ms. Diamantidis had procured appointments for the couple at Abraham Lincoln High School in Coney Island, Brooklyn. Ms. Goldberg, 73, remained skeptical until she and her husband showed up at the high school, she said. ‘But we both got our vaccine, and we even have follow-up appointments for the second dose on Feb. 27.’
The Goldbergs have stayed in touch with Ms. Diamantidis, who, it turns out, visits the same community pool they do in the summer. ‘I told her I wanted to send her something, but she wouldn’t accept it,’ Mr. Goldberg said. ‘So now I’ve decided I will buy her a pretzel and a soda at the pool.'”
Faith in humanity restored.
Amazon’s Virginia Headquarters
A “helix” building that The Verge described as “a glass poop emoji covered in trees”. My view is more generous—bold and strikingly futuristic. I would dig working in it, but somehow I was passed over for CEO.
Wednesday Required Reading
1. You try to give people the benefit of the doubt. Deep down, there’s goodness. Then this. Criminals are selling fake Covid test results as they look to profit from travel restrictions.
2. What the next generation of editors need to tell their political reporters. A complete rethinking of journalism.
3. Aswath Damodaran makes sense of GameStop.
“The difference, I think, between our views is that many of you seem to believe that hedge funds (and other Wall Streeters) have been winning the investment sweepstakes, at your expense, and I believe that they are much too incompetent to do so. In my view, many hedge funds are run by people who bring little to the investment table, other than bluster, and charge their investors obscene amounts as fees, while delivering sub-standard results, and it is the fees that make hedge fund managers rich, not their performance.”
4. Betraying Your Church—And Your Party. How Representative Adam Kinzinger, an evangelical Republican, decided to vote for impeachment—and start calling out his church. My headline would’ve been, “Don’t Lump All Republicans Together Y’all”. His nickname has to be “Zinger”.
Vermont—Maine—Hawaii
Youyang Gu reports these are the first three states to have more people vaccinated against COVID-19 than infected with it.
Not exactly population centers, but promising examples nonetheless.
Teaching Immortality
What’s it like to find out your favorite new professor has been dead for almost two years?
Is this the completely whacked conclusion of extreme cost-cutting?
Obama Drank The Blood Of A Bald Eagle To Keep The Lizard Overlords Happy
Suck It, Wall Street
The title of the best GameStop crowd-squeeze story I’ve read thus far. By Matt Taibbi. Taibbi skewers the monied class for their blatant hypocrisy, describing the week’s events as. . .
“. . . an updated and superior version of Occupy Wall Street.”
On the hypocrisy:
“The only thing ‘dangerous’ about a gang of Reddit investors blowing up hedge funds is that some of us reading about it might die of laughter. That bit about investigating this as a ‘pump and dump scheme’ to push prices away from their ‘fundamental value’ is particularly hilarious. What does the Washington Post think the entire stock market is, in the bailout age?”
Taibbi’s short and sweet tutorial on the week’s events:
“Furthermore, everybody ‘understands’ what happened with GameStop. Unlike some other Wall Street stories, this one isn’t complicated. The entire tale, in a nutshell, goes like this. One group of gamblers announced, ‘Fuck you!’ Another group announced back: ‘No, fuck YOU!’
That’s it. Or, as one market analyst put it to me this morning, ‘A bunch of guys made a bet, got killed, then doubled and tripled down and got killed even more.'”
On why Taibbi’s siding with the Redditors:
“They’ve seen first that our markets are basically fake, set up to artificially accelerate the wealth divide, and not in their favor. Secondly they see that the stock market, like the ballot box, remains one of the only places where sheer numbers still matter more than capital or connections. And they’re piling on, and it’s delicious, not so much because they’re right, but because the people running for cover are so wrong, and still can’t admit it.
Buy the ticket, take the ride, nitwits. If you earned anything, it’s this.”
Pressing Pause 